HERE’S a sight from ’65 – it’s the Hoops, jumping through hoops….
Jock Stein took the fitness of his players extremely seriously and when he invited the press in to witness the players going through their paces, our reporter was impressed.
“His aim is to have the fittest-ever team ready for the start of the new season which holds such promise for the club,” he said. “It’s certainly the toughest routine I’ve ever seen…”
The players, each with a football at their feet, lapped the pitch, before embarking on pressure-training exercises “that resembled a Commando assault course”: hurdling, press-ups, diving through hoops while carrying bar-bells, and jumping to head a football dangling from a gallows. Our photographer caught Jimmy Johnstone leaping through a hoop.
READ MORE: Glasgow schoolboys on cloud nine meeting hero Danny McGrain
Stein took up his role as manager of Celtic in 1965, and his attention to detail where fitness was concerned, paid off. The following May, Celtic won the league title after an interval of 12 years and of course, everyone knows what happened in Lisbon in May 1967…
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