The Lions of Lisbon

On 25 May 1967, Celtic beat Inter Milan 2-1 to become the first British team to win the European Cup. Fifty years on, The Lions of Lisbon relives the jubilation from the fans' point of view.

Willy Maley is Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. A critic, editor, teacher and writer, he was co-founder with the late Philip Hobsbaum of the Creative Writing Masters in 1995. The Lions of Lisbon is one of seven plays Willy has written collaboratively. Others include From The Calton to Catalonia (1990), which he wrote with his brother John Maley, based on their father's experiences as a POW during the Spanish Civil War, and No Mean Fighter (1992), a Scotsman Fringe First Winner at the Edinburgh Festival. A season ticket holder in the Lisbon Lions Stand, Willy was a columnist for The Celtic View during seasons 2003-2005. He contributed a hat-trick of essays to Celtic Minded volumes 1-3, and his poem 'Perfect Passing', a tribute to the late great Tommy Burns, was published in The Celtic Opus (2010). His most recent publication, also with Luath Press, is Scotland and the Easter Rising, co-edited with Kirsty Lusk.