Hibs and Glasgow learn Women's Champions League opponents
Scottish champions Hibernian will face Danish title winners Fortuna Hjorring in the second round of Women's Champions League qualifying, while Glasgow City take on Austria Vienna.Hibs, who were the shock title winners after a dramatic final day, will face the winner of Apollon Ladies, champions of Cyprus, or Swiss title holders Young Boys should they overcome Fortuna.City, who finished as runners-up, three points behind Hibs, will take on Austria Vienna for the right to take on Minsk for a place in the third qualifying round.The format involves the sides grouped together playing a 'mini-tournament' at the same venue, which is yet to be determined.Semi-finals and a final are played with the winners progressing through to the last qualifying round before the new 18-team league phase, similar to the men's competition.The runners-up and third-place sides drop into qualifying for the new Europa Cup.The semi-finals are to be played on 27 August, with finals and third-place play-offs to follow three days later.
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May 25, 1967 is a date etched in Scottish footballing history as the day Celtic beat Inter Milan, the much-fancied Italian giants, by two goals to one at the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon to become the first British club to lift the European Cup. John 'the Brush' Clark, renowned for his unassuming but dependable performance as sweeper, was one of the 'Lisbon Lions', all born within a 30-mile radius of Glasgow, who roared for Celtic that night. Yet hours after captain Billy McNeill (obituary, April 23, 2019), known as Caesar, lifted the trophy, the Celtic pride were herded into a pokey hotel room and invited to collect their medals from the equivalent of a shoebox perched on a grubby table. 'It felt a bit demeaning,' Clark recalled. 'We had just become the champions of Europe, the first British club to do so, and the best they could do was honour us like this. It felt a bit low key.' • Celtic legend and Lisbon Lion John Clark dies aged 84 Between 1965 and 1971 Clark was not only a member of the Celtic team that triumphed in Europe but also picked up four league championships, three Scottish Cups and four League Cups. He made 316 appearances in the green-and-white hoops, including an unbroken run of 140 consecutive matches between April 1965 and September 1967 that included friendlies, a North American tour and a head-to-head with Manchester United. A quiet, mild-mannered defender known as Wee Luggy after acquiring a cauliflower ear from an accidental collision with McNeill in training, Clark hit the net for Celtic on three occasions. 'I always say that I scored the best goal ever,' he told Celtic View magazine. 'It was in a replay at Easter Road against Hibs and I beat a defender at the byline, cut in and poked the ball through Ronnie Simpson's legs and said to him, 'You couldn't get any better than that, could you?'' John Clark was born in Chapelhall, Lanarkshire, in 1941, the eldest child of John Clark, a railwayman who moved south to England for work, and his wife, Lilly. Young John was ten when one morning a letter arrived to say that his father had found a house for the family and that they would all be joining him, but on the day the letter arrived his father was killed by a train. 'He'd been working on the tracks and a signal was supposed to operate, but it never did. The train appeared from nowhere and killed him instantly,' Clark told The Herald. 'It left my mother a widow, with two young kids, and six months pregnant with another. I'll never forget that day.' The family remained in Scotland with John taking on a series of 'wee jobs' to support his mother. 'A local farmer let me sell his eggs and potatoes. I did all sorts to help bring a few bob into the house,' he told The Scotsman. He grew up supporting Celtic. 'The first major game I saw was Celtic against Clyde at Hampden in the Scottish Cup final in 1955, and Celtic lost the replay,' he told the club's website. 'When I left school, the first game I can remember was Celtic against Manchester United at Celtic Park. It took place in the afternoon because it was in our pre-floodlight days. I had just got a job, it was my first day at work and I asked if I could get away early.' By 16 he was playing for Larkhall Thistle, attracting the attention of scouts. 'Birmingham [City] asked me down for a trial and then asked me to sign,' he told The Celtic Star. 'But there was some argument between Birmingham and Larkhall about the fee. I never really got to the bottom of it but all I know is that I was not allowed to go.' Instead, he played a few games with Celtic's reserves coached by Jock Stein. By 1958 he was a fully fledged Celtic player, making his first-team match debut in a 5-0 win at Arbroath in October the next year. 'Signing for Celtic was like winning the pools,' he said, adding on another occasion that the club 'was always a way of life for me'. Having started his career at left-half he switched to sweeper beside McNeill when Stein became manager in 1965. He recalled Stein as a stickler for timekeeping. 'I remember Billy and I arriving early at St Enoch Square for the one o'clock bus to a game at Dumbarton so we took a wee stroll along Argyle Street. When we got back Jock was raging, 'What the hell time do you call this?' It was only a minute after one but we were never late for anything ever again,' he told The Scotsman. Clark also appeared for the national team on four occasions, his debut being at Hampden Park against Brazil in their 1966 World Cup warm-up game, which ended in 1-1 draw. Afterwards he was singled out for praise by Pelé, having by all accounts marked him out of the game. Many years later they had ran into each other in a lift in New York. Pelé chatted about the game, recalling how his old foe wore No 6, but after the Brazilian stepped out, Clark turned to Davie Provan, his Celtic colleague, and asked: 'Who the hell was that?' In the early 1960s he married Eileen. She survives him with their daughter Marie, whose birth was announced over the public address system at Celtic Park and who trained as a teacher, and their son Martin, also a professional footballer who played with Partick Thistle. Clark's final game for Celtic was on May 1, 1971, when Stein brought the Lisbon Lions together for a final bow in a 6-1 win against Clyde. He then moved to Morton, where on one occasion he scored an own goal, ironically in a match against Celtic in his team's 3-1 defeat. Two years later he retired from playing and returned to Celtic as reserve team coach. He went on to have various coaching and managerial roles, including at Aberdeen, Cowdenbeath, Stranraer and Clyde, but was regularly drawn back to his old club, where he was widely known as 'Mr Celtic'. Despite his unblemished record on the pitch, in 1980 he was given a two-year ban by Uefa for 'extremely grave insults to the referee' after a match against Politehnica Timisoara of Romania in the European Cup Winners' Cup. By 1997 Clark was Celtic's kit man, a position he held for more than 20 years. He could be seen by airport luggage carousels, lifting the players' bags on to carts as they stood around chatting on their phones, many of them unfamiliar with his status as a Lisbon Lion. 'I don't go about telling them,' he said in 2014. 'But the players spread the word. They will come up and ask if it's true. If they are down in my room I just show them the photograph of us with the European Cup. I'll say to them, 'There have been big changes since then but take a look at that. The thing in the middle with the big handles is the thing you'll always want to win. I won it.'' John Clark, footballer, was born on March 13, 1941. He died on June 23, 2025, aged 84
