Full Name: Joseph McBride
DoB: 10th June 1938
Birthplace: Govan (Glasgow)
Scotland Caps: 2!!!!
Games: 94 for Celtic
Goals for Celtic: 86 goals in 94 games for Celtic.

Joe McBride joined Celtic in June 1965 from Motherwell. McBride played for nine senior clubs in his career: Kilmarnock, Wolves, Luton Town, Partick Thistle, Motherwell, Celtic, Hibs, Dunfermline and Clyde.

He scored 43 goals in 1965/66 to help Celtic win the Scottish title for the first time in 12 years. The next season, Joe had banged in 36 goals by Christmas. However, a knee injury ruled him out for the rest of the season and he missed the European Cup Final in 1967. McBride won two caps.

Joe McBride (b.Govan, 10th June 1938) was a Scottish footballer who played for Celtic, Hibernian, Motherwell and Dunfermline Athletic. His career at Celtic was cut short due to a major injury.

A truly wise man once wrote: "McBride? He's no use - all he can do is score goals." And that is exactly what made him one of the most prolific Strikers ever. A strike rate of over 91%!

While speculation in football is essentially meaningless, it is a reasonable suggestion that if Joe's career had not been seriously interrupted by injury at such a crucial point, he might have established an unparalleled club scoring benchmark. In the glorious Season in the Sun of 66/67, he had amassed an astonishing 37 goals before Christmas and despite not kicking another ball following his breakdown at Pittodrie, he remained the country's top-scorer at the end of that season.

Sadly for Joe, by the time he had regained match fitness a year later (though it was doubtful whether he was ever fully fit again), events had overtaken him. Celtic were now a major force in Europe and Stein, a man of unwavering determination once his mind was made up, had evolved a system around a main strike force of Chalmers and Wallace. Joe McBride as perennial squad player was unthinkable and he moved on a year or so later to play out the rest of his career with relative success at Hibs and Dunfermline. In the minds of those who saw him in his peak, though, he will always be, simply, 'SuperJoe'.

McBride was rated the very best by two Celtic legends:

Jock Stein, who made Joe his first Celtic outfield signing (from Motherwell in the summer of 65') described him as the quintessential striker, a man who stuck the ball in the back of the net when he couldn't think of anything else to do with it.

Jimmy McGrory included him at centre-forward without a moment's hesitation in his all-time Celtic XI.


The courage, style and obvious relish of his performance in the 'hoops', allied to the cruel way he was robbed of his rightful destiny, won him the undying affection of a generation of Celtic supporters. For whom Joe McBride will always be an honorary Lisbon Lion.

Joe McBride made 94 appearances for Celtic scoring 86 goals. He won two caps for Scotland (don't ask why he won so few its a story for another day when it comes to Celtic and Scotland).




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Interview

Best moment with Celtic

"I had been a Celtic fan since I was a kid so just signing for them was a dream come true. I was Jock Stein's first signing when he took over as manager at Parkhead in 1965."

Best Celtic player

If you asked any of the Lisbon Lions - including Jimmy Johnstone, Tommy Gemmell, Billy McNeill or Bobby Lennox - the pick of the bunch was Bobby Murdoch.

Favourite goal

In the 1966/67 season I netted an absolute screamer against Hibs at Easter Road in a match I scored four goals in.

Most influential boss

Jock Stein by some distance.

Memorabilia

I still received a medal for Celtic's victory in the European Cup in 1967. I had scored 36 goals up until Christmas when I got injured. I netted three goals in the first two rounds.

Playing Liverpool in Cup-Winner's Cup semi-finals

"The game at Parkhead was terrific. Bobby Lennox scored the winner but I missed one from under the bar.

"Heading was a strong point of mine but I missed a certainty. The ball came across and I got under it and headed over the bar instead of under it.

"We should have won. Bobby Lennox's goal at Anfield should have stood.

"Even the referee admitted, after seeing the television, that he had made a mistake.

"The ball came through from midfield and I was furthest forward with Ron Yeats at my back and I flicked the ball beyond him.

"Bobby had started his run five yards behind me and ran past both of us to score but the referee gave offside. How he did I'll never know.

"Liverpool ran out 2-0 winners to go through. I guarantee that we would have won the Cup- Winners' Cup with the final at Hampden, which was virtually a home game for us.

"Borussia Dortmund beat Liverpool but we would have beaten them on the night."

Goal Scoring Feat 1966-67

McBride had scored 36 times by Christmas in the 1966-67 season when Celtic won the Treble and the European Cup.
But he was sidelined for the rest of the term with a knee injury.

McBride said: "Gerd Muller won the Golden Boot that season and he admitted at a function that the trophy would have gone to me but for the damage I did to my knee.

"The pain of being denied the opportunity to see what kind of goalscoring figure I could have achieved will live with me until the day I die.

"But 60 goals would have to have been a possibility.

"The doctors thought I needed a cartilage operation but the problem was caused by flaking bone behind my knee and it took a year out of my playing life."

Of McBride's goals, 33 were scored in the league and he finished top marksman despite missing the second half of the season.

He scored 86 goals in 94 games for Celtic.

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