The summer of 1967 was Scottish football's finest hour. Celtic won the
European Cup. Rangers reached the final of the European Cup Winners'
Cup. Kilmarnock got to the semis of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Scotland
defeated world champions England at Wembley. It was the best of times.
With one exception. Third Lanark Athletic Club, one of the country's
oldest and most successful football teams, a founder member of the
Scottish Football Association, and to date one of only four teams to
defeat both Rangers and Celtic in the Scottish Cup Final, played its
final game. And hardly anybody seemed to notice. Why?
Michael McEwan brings rich archival research together with interviews
with the key surviving players in the Third Lanark squad from that final
season, as well as opposition players and other relevant figures from
the era.
Over 50 years on, the demise of Third Lanark remains one of Scottish
football's darkest hours - and, by ludicrous coincidence, it occurred in
the midst of one of its brightest.