This is the 50th anniversary of a day that Johnny Hubbard has spent all these years trying to forget. Yet Sean Fallon effortlessly recounts every moment with delight, but still with some amazement: Celtic's 7-1 League Cup final record defeat of Rangers at Hampden Park.

It remains Celtic's biggest triumph over their arch rivals and the record score between the two clubs. Now 85, but with the Sligo accent of his youth still as sharp as his wits, Fallon recalls it all clearly.

"Big John Valentine, Rangers' centre-half, had recently been signed from Queen's Park," said Fallon. "He was a good player, but the Rangers backs, Shearer and Caldow, played very square and he'd no cover - no sweepers in those days - and Billy McPhail destroyed him, scoring three goals."

Valentine was the scapegoat and never played another league match for Rangers. He'd been signed by manager Scot Symon because of a defensive crisis. George "Corky" Young, the erstwhile Scotland captain, recently had retired, and Willie Wood-burn had been suspended sine die. The clincher was probably that Celtic were said to be interested in Valentine. So Symon bought him.

"We were trying to make up for a poor season," continued Fallon. "We'd had some poor results and felt we owed it to the fans. But everything went right for us.

"We'd no form to hint at what happened. But as always in Rangers-Celtic matches - no matter how well you are playing - form does not matter. There were very good players on both sides, playing for the jersey. We'd the greatest support in Britain, and they never let us down - same as now."

It had been 2-0 at half- time, one from Sammy Wilson in 23 minutes and a classic from Neil Mochan right on half-time. He beat two defenders with a run along the goal-line before scoring from a seemingly impossible angle.

McPhail scored the first of his hat trick early in the second half before Billy Simpson lobbed Dick Beattie to make it 3-1. Then the floodgates opened. McPhail hit the crossbar and netted the rebound, then outjumped Valentine for his third. Mochan hit his second before McPhail was urged to make history.

The Celtic centre-forward always credited Willie Fernie as architect of Rangers' destruction, and when Charlie Tully urged him to take a penalty in the closing moments (because nobody had ever scored four for Celtic against Rangers) McPhail declined. The spot kick went to Fernie, so that he could cap his mesmeric dribbling performance with a goal.

Jack Mowat's final whistle triggered a hail of bottles and battles around the track.

The BBC had the TV rights to the final, but made one of the biggest blunders in broadcasting history. There were mutterings of Beeb bias and skulduggery, but the story goes that a technician simply left a cap on a lens, and the second-half goals were lost.

In recent years, amateur film footage has been unearthed, so a record of sorts exists.

Bertie Peacock and Hubbard had been designated before the match to go to the STV studios in Cowcaddens to do post-match interviews, not Hubbard's lucky day, as he tried to explain the nightmare.

In the unforgiving climate of Scottish football, the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. Hubbard's son, Raymond, an Ayrshire pe teacher, says he has never lived down the fact that his father appeared in that game, even though it was played six years before he was born.

"As a kid, I was baited by Celtic supporters, winding me up before every Old Firm game," he said. "Now, it's other teachers. I just tell them I hope Celtic score eight this time, because then they'll have someone else to pester."

Time has caught up with many of those who strutted the Hampden turf all those years ago. Roughly half of each team survives, though at least two suffer from Alzheimers.

Full-back Fallon and winger Hubbard are in good fettle.

The former played 254 times for Celtic, but now it's golf at Pollok. "I manage 18 holes no bother, and one or two birdies - well if I get a birdie, I'm telling everybody."

He says the survivors should get together for a five-a-side challenge: "Maybe we could sell tickets and make a few bob."

You get the feeling Fallon may not be joking.

Hubbard appeared 238 times for Rangers, notable for scoring 65 times from 68 penalty attempts in all games. Until a minor heart procedure recently, he was still coaching regularly at Whitletts in Ayrshire, aged 76. "I'm just a boy," he admitted.

The teams
CELTIC Beattie, Donnelly, Fallon, Fernie, Evans, Peacock, Tully, Collins, McPhail, Wilson, Mochan

RANGERS Niven, Shearer, Caldow, McColl, Valentine, Davis, Scott, Simpson, Murray, Baird, Hubbard