08/06/2023
Top Scottish football club Celtic are to play Highland League Fraserburgh in a Fund Raiser for the Lifeboat at the Bellslea Park on Saturday, the 1st of July 2023.
We were all delighted at Fraserburgh Lifeboat to hear the news that Scottish Treble winning football team Celtic are to play local Highland League team Fraserburgh FC, nicknamed “the Broch”, in a pre season friendly which will raise funds for Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station.
Fraserburgh FC chairman Finlay Noble told Coxswain Vic Sutherland the good news and set up a meeting with “the Broch” committee and we had a very good discussion about the details of the match.
Tickets for the match will be on sale at the Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station on Monday 12th June from 10 to 5 and Tuesday 13th June from 4 until 7
Priced £10 and £5 Concession
There is no facility for card payment, so ticket sales will be cash only, apologies for any inconvenience
Celtic who won the Scottish Premiership, Scottish Cup, and Scottish League Cup in the season just past will travel North to play the game on the 1st of July in a match which recalls a previous Fraserburgh v Celtic match played 53 years ago in 1970.
That was the year of the 1970 Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster when five out of the six crew of Fraserburgh Lifeboat drowned when the lifeboat capsized 40 miles out to sea while they were on a rescue mission to a Danish fishing vessel.
The manager of Celtic at the time was Jock Stein and he took his multiple trophy winning Celtic team up North to play “the Broch” in a benefit match for the 1970 Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster Fund.
The fund was set up to help the dependants, five widows and 15 children, of the crewmen who were lost when the lifeboat capsized.
The Fraserburgh Lifeboat the Duchess of Kent had gone out on the 21st of January 1970 to the aid of a Danish fishing boat, the “Opal” with six local men on board.
40 miles North of Fraserburgh the lifeboat capsized with the loss of five crew, Coxswain John Stephen, Mechanic Fred Kirkness, crew members William Hadden, James Buchan and James RS Buchan after being struck by a 30 ft wave.
There was only one survivor, John “Jackson” Buchan, who had been flung clear when the wave struck.
The community was shocked and the nation mourned.
This had been the second Fraserburgh Lifeboat disaster in 17 years and the third in 51 years. In 1953 the John and Charles Kennedy capsized within sight of the harbour with the loss of six of seven of the crew, and in 1919 the Lady Rothes had capsized with the loss of the coxswain and his deputy.
Over 10,000 attended the mile long funeral cortège of the victims of the 1970 Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster in what was a poignant show of respect for their courage and sacrifice and sympathy and support for their families.
There were those who wondered how the community could recover.
Three months after the disaster it was announced that Glasgow Celtic would play Fraserburgh in a benefit game for the Lifeboat dependants and there was general excitement in the town.
The Scottish Football season had ended but Celtic had still to play in the European Cup Final. They had become the first British team to win the trophy in 1967 and they’d reached the final again to be played on the 6 May 1970 against Feyenord in the San Siro Stadium in Milan, Italy.
To keep his players active and grounded in the interim between the end of the season and the final Jock Stein arranged a couple of friendlies and the match with Fraserburgh was arranged at short notice.
The announcement that mighty Celtic were coming to play Fraserburgh came as a complete and utter surprise and had an amazing uplifting affect on the whole of the community.
Everyone wanted to be there at the match which was to be played on the 28th of April 1970, only eight days before the European Cup Final, to see Celtic’s superstars and legends of Scottish Football, play their home town team of builders, plumbers, engineers, tool workers, carpet fitters and so on, and they all had to work on the day of the game.
It was no surprise when Celtic won the game 7-0 but the result was irrelevant.
The match was watched by 6,500 crammed into the small and picturesque Bellslea Park, home of Fraserburgh Football Club and raised £2,000 for the dependants of the lifeboat victims.
A civic reception attended by both clubs was held in the nearby Royal Hotel after the match in which Celtic’s record of reaching their second European Cup Final in three years was saluted, and as a way of thanking the Glasgow club for taking the time to come North and supporting the community in what had been a dark time.
It was a gesture which the people of Fraserburgh have never forgotten and often talk about to this day, it went beyond football.
“We’re all looking forward to the Celtic match and hope that everyone enjoys themselves, it should be a great occasion” said full time Fraserburgh Lifeboat Coxswain/Mechanic Vic Sutherland. “It will of course rekindle memories of how Jock Stein’s great Celtic team played “the Broch” back in 1970 and boosted the Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster Fund by £2000, we’ll always be grateful for that. There has been a lot of enquiries already and the tickets will go quickly, All the money raised at the match goes to help us to save lives at sea”
