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.

Reviews: 

Not so much a show as a phenomenon [...] a joyful, well-crafted piece of work, weaving together at least five storylines about fans making their way to Portugal, and culminating in an epic encounter in a Lisbon boozer. - JOYCE MCMILLAN, THE GUARDIAN

About the Author:

IAN AULD was unsurpassable on a football park in his youth. In 1958 he played in a Scottish Juvenile Select against England. He could have gone to Arsenal when he was 16, but went to the Balmore Bar at Saracen Cross instead. He played outside right and learned to write inside. After taking a wrong turn as a young man, Ian went on to rebuild his life. He married Eileen, and had two daughters, Sharon and Annette, and a son, Ian. An adoring husband and father, Ian was also a creative force, an actor and songwriter who wrote poems, short stories and sketches for a number of years before he passed away on 4 November 1998. Ian was a great fan of Joe Orton, as well as his beloved Celtic. The Lions of Lisbon was his only full-length play. His memory lives on in the stories he told and the family he loved.

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.