IT WAS his 29th birthday, but Billy McPhail had other reasons to celebrate on October 19, 1957 at Hampden Park.

He was the hat-trick-scoring star of a 7 – 1 triumph over Rangers in the League Cup final, which remains the record margin of victory and the Ibrox team’s worst-ever defeat in a peacetime Old Firm clash.

The Evening Times reported on the match: “Three-goal hero Billy McPhail was nursing an ankle injury ...but were there any complaints? Not on your life. Saturday was the biggest moment ever for these Celts...”

On the face of it, Celtic were the underdogs, facing league champions Rangers who had finished the season 17 points clear of their oldest rivals (in the days when you got two points for a win.)

A crowd of 82,293 packed out the stadium, which remained left-back Sean Fallon’s favourite game. Until his death in January 2013, aged 90, he kept a statue on top of the television in his living room that he had been given at an awards dinner to mark his role in what the club’s supporters had voted ‘the Greatest Ever Old Firm Derby’.