Day 59 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game is the story of the day Celtic and Rangers played a game at Maine Road as a combined Glasgow XI. That day was the great City player Billy Meredith’s testimonial.
It was played on 29 April 1925 and saw a MEREDITH XI versus RANGERS & CELTIC XI.
A series of benefit matches and events were organised for Billy Meredith following his retirement in 1924, with this match being the most significant event. Somehow Meredith had convinced Rangers and Celtic to form one side to take on a team of Lancashire based players selected by Meredith himself. The Meredith side, playing in red and white, contained City favourites Frank Roberts and Charlie Pringle, plus of course Meredith, and former City star Horace Barnes – a Preston player at the time of the match. City’s legendary trainer Jimmy Broad trained the team.
The Glasgow side, playing in blue and white, contained five Celtic players – including Jimmy McGrory – and six Rangers men. Former City full-back Johnny McMahon was one of the linesmen, while the other was an ex-United star George Wall, who incredibly smoked a pipe throughout the match.
According to the Manchester Evening Chronicle report: ‘Many old friendships were renewed at Maine Road on Wednesday night, and we all laughed at Meredith trying the old backheel to the half-back business with very little success. Incidentally the main image above is of Meredith a couple of years earlier with the Hyde Road ground in the background.
A few moments from the match, including the teams posing for photographs. The footage concentrates on Meredith pre-match, and also shows the Popular Side (later Kippax) and Platt Lane end. The camera was placed in front of the Platt Lane end, close to the goal for much of the action (Platt Lane is the stand numbered 4 & 5 in the image below, although that stand was still unroofed back in 1925).
You can view that film via this link:
https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/viewVideo.php?token=4509agw35419Hq72304ZYm1563b49
This 1971 aerial image shows the stadium as it looked in later years.
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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Gary James' Football Archive 