Charlie Tully Day: Remembering the Celtic genius bigger than the Pope

It's a lesser celebrated date on Celtic's historical calendar. It shouldn't really be. The 21st of February, to all intents and purposes, should be lauded by every Hoops supporter. It should be known from here on in as Charlie Tully Day.

Why?

Well, Charles Patrick Tully - to give him his full name - achieved a remarkable and unbelievable feat while playing for Celtic at Brockville during a Scottish Cup tie against Falkirk on that date in 1953.

Seventy years ago Belfast-born Tully plonked the ball down to take a corner kick. The Hoops were trailing at the time. The wonderful Celtic Wiki site quotes Tom Campbell's book Charlie Tully – Celtic's Cheekie Chappie, which details the incident in question, thus:

On 53 minutes Celtic won their first corner and Tully stepped up to take it. The area around the corner flag was overwhelmed with people making it virtually impossible to take the corner and Tully in his cheekiness placed the ball outside of the arc of the corner – probably to give himself room to take the corner better, probably as a wind up to the Falkirk defenders, probably as a partial expression of the man's cheekiness.

Anyways he stepped back and sent a right-footed corner over which sailed in at the near post for a Celtic goal. Cue madness and a pitch invasion from the hordes of Celtic supporters behind the goal. Tully stood with his arms raised accepting the praises of the supporters and teammates.

However, the linesman's flag was raised and when the referee came across he explained the infringement and how the ball had not been placed right. The referee (D Gerrard of Aberdeen) immediately disallowed the goal and ordered the corner to be retaken. Tully protested. The supporters protested but eventually, the decision had to be accepted. Tully took the ball in a huff and tried to place it at the angle. Three policemen tried to clear the supporters back to give Charlie room for some kind of a run-up.

Eventually he gave up and grabbing the ball gave it to the linesman to place for him.  But eventually, he stepped back to take the kick. This time it was higher, another inswinger – and sure enough, the same result. The ball again nestled in the net and this time there was nothing either linesman or referee could do but call the goal.

Absolute pandemonium followed from the supporters behind the goal and another pitch invasion followed. Tully disappeared into the mass, and safety barriers crashed and crumpled. The Falkirk players all stood and looked dazed and shocked by the turn of events.

It sparked a revival for Celtic as they would go to win the tie 3-2 after being 2-0 down. It wasn't the first time that Tully had scored direct from a corner kick either - he had achieved the feat a year prior in an international match against England.

Scottish football's doyen, Archie Macpherson, has fond memories of watching the mercurial genius in action.

"I remember Charlie Tully well," he told The Celtic Way. "His double corner kick goal for Celtic against Falkirk was one of these strange phenomena in football. Everybody spoke about it at the time. How could he possibly have done that? You had to read the newspaper to check to see if it was actually true and that it did happen.

"Tully was a shuffler as a footballer; he seemed to shuffle with the ball. He looked a little unkempt even when he shuffled with the ball but all that was negated by what his feet could do. When the ball was at his feet he was an absolute artist. There are people who are born to be idiosyncratic and Tully's double corner goal for Celtic was a prime example of that. He just possessed tremendous ability."

The Hoops hero really was the real deal though. In his pomp and ceremony at Celtic, it was even possible to buy items such as Tully ice lollies and Tully ties.

It was Tullymania long before Beatlemania arrived on the scene in the 1960s; he was arguably one of the sport's pioneering 'celebrity footballers'.

There was even a joke doing the rounds at the time after Celtic played Lazio in Rome in 1950 and the team were granted a Papal Visit. Tully got his picture taken with the Pope which gave rise to the punchline: “Who is that fella standing beside Charlie Tully?”

Idiosyncratic, unkempt, shuffler, artist, genius. Happy Charlie Tully Day.

This piece is an extract from the latest Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out every weekday evening with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team.

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