100 years in the making - Celtics Centenary Year

The Celtic team of 1987 / 1988 will always hold a special place in the history of the club & the fans.

Celtic had gone through a massive re-building process over the summer months of 1987, Davie Hay had been sacked as manager after his failure to secure the league title at the end of the 86 / 87 season & a host of quality players had decided to move on to clubs across Europe & the club was in need of a spark & some new faces to propel the club into its Centenary year.

Billy McNeill was brought back as Manager & given the task of wrestling the league title back from our city rivals Rangers.   He began to make signings across the team, Andy Walker from Motherwell; Billy Stark from Aberdeen & Chris Morris arrived from Sheffield Wednesday.   As the new season approached the fans hoped these players could gel & get results quickly.

A new commemorative strip was released replacing our traditional four-leaf clover badge with a Celtic cross.   Other events would be planned over the course of the season including an exhibit at the Peoples Palace & stage show at the Pavilion theatre in Glasgow

In the August of that year my Dad took me on a surprise visit to Celtic Park, I was recovering from open-heart surgery & he had arranged for me to get a personal tour of the stadium.  

Walking through the front doors of the stadium under the famous Celtic frosted glass window was a dream.   There to meet me was Stevie Chalmers, the scorer of the winning goal from the 1967 European Cup Final.    Also there was Neil Mochan, another Celtic stalwart, who also scored big goals from our history – he had scored 2 goals the day Celtic beat Rangers 7-1 in the 1957 League Cup Final.  They were telling me stories of the matches they had played in from the 50s, 60s & 70s as if they had happened yesterday & I loved every minute of it.

After a tour of boardroom & look at the trophy cabinet & seeing many of the pennants given to Celtic on the tours across the globe, I thought my tour was over.   However, as we walked through the corridors of the main stand, the first team started to arrive back from their training session.   During the course of the morning, I met most the squad & was in awe of the heroes I would normally see playing on the pitch.

After a positive start to the league campaign, spirits were high around the club.  A strike from Billy Stark gave us a 1-0 victory over Rangers in the first derby match of the season.

As the season moved into October, Frank McAvennie signed for Celtic from West Ham.   His attacking qualities gave clear intention that Celtic were out to win & score goals.

In the 2nd derby clash of the season at Ibrox Celtic drew 2 each with Rangers.   Although the biggest talking point was the 3 players sent off for their involvement in an on-field fracas.   New boy McAvennie was sent off along with 2 Rangers players Butcher & Woods.    Celtic lost a goal in the dying moments of the match in what felt like a defeat.

November saw another new arrival when Joe Miller signed from Aberdeen.   Moving into December the new players were beginning to make their mark in the team, just in time for the visit of Hearts to Celtic park.    In a pulsating match Celtic were 2 goals down late in the 2nd half. 

With less than 10 minutes remaining Andy Walker scored from a penalty to make the score 2-1 to Hearts, Celtic continued to pile on the pressure & with 4 minutes left Paul McStay fired a low volley into the bottom corner of the Hearts net.   The fans around the stadium went wild, McStay showing what it meant to him ran to the famous Jungle enclosure arms out wide & his face beaming with delight.   From certain defeat Celtic had salvaged a draw & kept their unbeaten run in the league in tact.

A late goal from Joe Miller against Dundee United at Tannadice on Boxing Day ensured Celtic would end the year in first place & looking forward to welcoming their city rivals in the traditional New Year derby match.

The weather conditions for the derby match were awful, but Celtic mastered the conditions & powered over Rangers for the majority of the match.   The opening goal was created by our midfield Maestro in Paul McStay.   Picking up the ball near the centre spot, he made room for himself & released a 40-yard pass across the ground to Chris Morris.    The pass from McStay simply ripped the Rangers defence wide open, Morris crossed for Frank McAvannie to finish the free flowing move & give Celtic a 1 nil lead at half time.

Celtics dominance continued into the 2nd half, but the fans had to wait until 8 minutes from time before McAvennie headed his & Celtic’s 2  goal.   The goal was met with a roar from the jungle & then a chorus of “Happy Birthday dear Celtic”.    The players & fans were beginning to believe this could be a big year.   With the match finished the Celtic fans could continue with the New Year celebrations.

The unbeaten run continued through January finishing the month with a poor 1-0 win against Stranraer in the Scottish Cup.  February saw more drama, with late winners coming against Dundee & Morton in the League & Hibs in the Scottish Cup.

Two huge matches in March would tighten our grip on the title.  Paul McStay again produced an outstanding performance capping his display with a stunning volley to give Celtic the lead in the 2nd half.  Rangers hit back to level, but with 11 minutes remaining Andy Walker used his chest to turn the ball into the Rangers net & send the Celtic fans in the stadium delirious.

A 1 nil win a Pittodrie all but confirmed Celtic as Scottish champions, fans stayed in the stadium long after the final whistle refusing to leave until the Celtic team came back out to join their celebrations.

Hearts ended our 31 match unbeaten run with a 2-1 victory in a league match at Tyncastle on 16th April.   However, 7 days earlier in the Scottish Cup Semi-Final Celtic had defeated Hearts 2-1 thanks to two very late goals.    Hearts had taken the lead after an hour of the match.  Celtic struck an equaliser on the 88th minute & then took the lead in the final minute of the match in one of the most dramatic finishes witnessed at Hampden park. 

The teams ability to pull out late goals to secure victory was astonishing, matches that seemed lost were turned on their heads in the dying minutes, a fighting spirit & never say die attitude that enthralled the fans up & down the country.

Celtic were crowned champions of Scotland on the 23rd April after a 3-0 vicory over Dundee at Celtic Park.   I travelled to the stadium early that day with my sister Helen & brother Stephen, but the crowds around the stadium meant it was difficult to get to our usual place in the Celtic end.   We made our way to the opposite end where it was a little quitter at the time.

The match kicked off at 3pm & Celtic had the lead within 2 minutes thanks to a goal from Chris Morris, the roar around the stadium was incredible.   Fans still streamed into the ground & spilled over onto the running track to watch the match.   Two more goals in the 2nd from Andy Walker ensured the title.   The Celtic fans sang you'll never walk alone in one of the most amazing sights I've seen at a football stadium.   The celebrations went on long after the final whistle blew. 

Celtic were presented with the championship trophy 2 weeks later in 1-0 win over Dunfermline.   The stage was now set for the Scottish Cup Final against Dundee United at Hampden as we looked to secure the League & Cup double in our centenary season.

On a beautiful sunny day on 14th May fans made their way to Hampden stadium hoping to see the club secure their first double since 1977.   74,000 fans watched on as the 1st half passed off without any goals.   Dundee United then took the lead early in the 2nd half.

Celtic pushed to find a goal to get them back into the match & looked to be running out of time & ideas when Anton Rogan crossed the ball to Frank McAvennie to head in the equaliser on the 76th Minute. 

With the match heading towards 90 minutes, Celtic made one final push towards the united goal.     A low driven corner from Joe Miller was met by Billy Stark who shot towards goal, the ball bounced off a Dundee united defender to the feet of Frank McAvennie who hit the ball into the united net.    The scenes around Hampden were incredible.

With almost the last kick of the match in the last match of the season, McAvennie had won Celtic the Scottish Cup & sparked wild celebrations amongst Celtic fans in the stadium & in pubs, clubs & homes all over the country.

I met Frank McAvennie earlier this year & we spoke about that season & how after all these years the centenary year of 1987/1988 will always be remembered as one of the great times to be Celtic fan.

Here We Are Now. Entertain Us

I suppose I can thank my older sister Therese for tuning my ear towards Nirvana & their Nevermind album released in 1991.    I was lucky in that respect, being the youngest I would benefit from the varied music tastes from the rest of my family.

After my sister received a CD player as birthday gift in 1990, my musical influences could only be extended.  Since starting high school my personal cassette player had always been playing songs from albums by Guns & Roses or Metallica & my hair was starting the show the mark of these influences.

From the opening song on the Nevermind album, you knew you were listening to something different.  Smells like teen spirit blasted out the speakers & you couldn’t help but feel every crash of the drums & strum of the guitar strings.   Here were a band ready to entertain us.

Slowly Nevermind started to play more on my cassette player.  In Bloom, Breed & Lithium all brought an energy that made the journey to school a lot easier.   Polly & Come as you are gave you breathing space & time to reflect before blasting out the rest of the album.

Surrounded by other disgruntled youth in my friends in & out of school, the Nevermind album became the poet’s choice & lyrical influence for many of us. 

As we waited for a new album, I found the 1989 Bleach release & the Incesticide album from 1992 neither hit the heights of Nivermind, but Been a Son, Aneurysm, Love Buzz, Negative Creep & About a Girl could always grab my attention.

Other bands started to speak to me too Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden helped fill the void between Nevermind & the In Utero release in September 1993.  

The In Utero album grew on me, for me it was lot darker & moodier than Nevermind, but with tracks like Serve the Servants, Heart Shaped Box, Dumb, All Apologies & Radio Friendly Unit Shifter it soon became a staple on my stereo.  With the new album released, obviously there had to be a tour too, I hoped.

A world tour was announced & Nirvana would be visiting Glasgow on 28th March 1994. Thankfully, I knew somebody that knew somebody who could guarantee me tickets for this once in a life time event.   No need to queue all night outside the record shop in Union Street Glasgow.  

With tickets in hand for my friends & I, we just had to tick off the days to the show.

Nirvana played an MTV unplugged set in New York, which my brother in law recorded for me.  This gave a very different picture of Nirvana, not the crashing drums or distorted guitar, but slow sincere delivery a band at the very top of their powers.

As we moved towards the European dates of the World tour rumours started to spread about Kurt Cobain & his reliance on drugs & painkillers to see him through each day.  

After a short break in the tour in early March, Cobain flew to Italy for treatment for bronchitis.   One morning his wife found him on his hotel room floor after an overdoes of drink & drugs.   The tour was put on hold & the band went home to sort out the problems they were now facing.    

The date for the re-arranged Glasgow show was pushed out to 15th April.

Patience was now the game for the fans in Glasgow & at the other venues across the globe.

On 8th April I remember my dad shouting me to come to the phone. My brother George had called the house & wanted to ask me something.   The conversation went something like this

George “What’s that guys name, you know from the band your going to see, the one from Nirvana?”

Me “Kurt Cobain - Why?”

George “ I just heard on the radio that he’s been found dead”

Me “ eh, what....................let me check the news”

I hung up the phone, checked teletext, phoned my friend to see if he had heard anything.  I waited to see the TV news before the story was confirmed.    Kurt Cobain was dead.

Over the next few days more stories came out about his drug addiction.  Nirvana fans held vigils in cities across the globe.   All concerts were cancelled & refunds were offered for the un-used tickets.   Most of my friends returned theirs, I kept mine, not really sure why – a wee memory of what might have been.

Even after all these years have passed, I still class that concert as the one that got away.

So much of what Nirvana released in their short career was timeless.

My daughter played a selection of songs in the car the other day & Aneurysm came on.   It sounded as good in the car as it did when I first heard it back in the early 90s.

My teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored & old!

Guess who’ll cry come 9th of May

There were 365 days between the 9th May 1997 & the 9th May 1998, but the contrasting feelings & emotions in my family, friends & I couldn't have been more different.  To give this story the proper context I will need to go a wee bit further back in time to explain.

For anybody that doesn’t know me, I am big Celtic fan who grew up in the 1980’s getting to some matches,  but mainly listening to match commentary on the radio & watching highlights from the matches on the TV.

I was born in 1978 with a serious heart condition & had gone through 4 major heart operations before I was 10 years old.  My family would feed me with tales of the 9 in-a-row champions of Scotland & how the Lisbon Lions were the 1st non-Latin team to win the European Cup in 1967. 

I celebrated the Celtic team of 1988 securing the league & cup double in their centenary year, but from 1990 through to 1997 Celtic had gone through a very difficult period & had only won one trophy in 1995 during this spell.

Our biggest rivals on the other hand were winning all competitions in front of them, winning 8 championships in a row & were on course to equal the record set by Celtic between 1966 & 1974

As the 1996-1997 Scottish Football season progressed, it became clear that Celtic would struggle to remove our rivals from the top slot.   I had been to countless matches during the season, balancing life as a student, part time worker & Celtic fan as best as I could.

As the season drew to a close, we began to fall out the race for the Scottish title, but we still had the chance to win the Scottish Cup.    A semi-final replay against Falkirk at Ibrox stadium on Wednesday 23rd April 1997 would be our last chance to try to secure a token of success for the season.

On a night when the weather conditions were awful Celtic lost 1-0 to Falkirk & pretty much ended our season.   I sat near the front of the Govan Road stand at Ibrox with my future wife Linda that night & we were both soaked through in the incessant rain.  When I got home I went to sleep & hoped to waken up thinking the disappointment was a bad dream.   However, this would be the start of a 6-week period that would change my life.  

I became un-well overnight with flu like symptoms & I deteriorated over the next few days.   I was admitted to Glasgow Royal infirmary on Saturday 26th April with a suspected stroke, but after multiple tests, scans & examinations the doctors discovered that I had contracted Bacterial Endocarditis & this was stopping my heart from functioning properly.

For the next 2 weeks, I would drift in & out of consciousness & was given intravenous antibiotics to fight the infection but it was clear that the drugs were not going to be enough to help me fight the infection.   During this period I received a visit from 2 Celtic players when Malky McKay & Tommy Johnson came to the hospital to see me, but I was so unwell the visit very much passed me by.  

My consultants visited me around the 6th May to confirm that I would need emergency life saving surgery.

On the 9th May I made my way to theatre for open-heart surgery, a pulmonary valve replacement procedure.  I spent the vast majority of the day in surgery as the surgeons tried to repair the damage done to my heart.  

The following day my condition worsened & I went into cardiac arrest, I would need to go through further emergency surgery that day to save my life.   My family and my girlfriend Linda were given the news that the next few hours would be crucial.

I would spend another 10 days in intensive care as my condition slowly improved.   I was moved back to a ward in the hospital 2 weeks after surgery & began my post operation rehab, it was then that I found out Rangers had equalled our 9-in-a-row record & that our coach Tommy Burns had been sacked from his job at Celtic park.  

My mum would later joke I was suffering from a broken heart after we lost to Falkirk.

I was discharged from hospital in early June to continue with my recovery; thankfully I had a big family & supportive girlfriend to see me through those early months. 

On the 3rd July the sports writers started to make some noise on the radio suggesting a new manager was on his way to Celtic Park, I took a trip to the stadium with my brother Benny to see what was going on.

Plenty of players came & went over the course of the next few months, Paolo Di Canio left for Sheffield Wednesday, & we made some new signings like Craig Burley & Darren Jackson.   However, it was the arrival of a forward from Feyenoord that would get some people talking – Henrik Larsson joined Celtic that summer & after a slow start he certainly cemented his place in the clubs history.

Celtic started the league badly, failing to win the first two games.  If we were going to make in impact this season we’d need to make a move soon.  A battle of Britain UEFA cup-tie against Liverpool seemed to lift the players & the club but it wasn’t enough as we lost the tie on away goals.  

The month of November saw two matches against Rangers in just over 10 days.   Celtic lost the 1st match at Ibrox & drew the 2nd at Celtic Park thanks to a last minute header from Alan Stubs.   How valuable would that result be at the end of season? 

The month ended with a League Cup Final visit to Ibrox, the scene of our defeat to Falkirk earlier in the year & where my serious illness seamed to start.

My brother George managed to secure me a ticket for the match & I watched on as Celtic beat Dundee Utd 3-0 to win the League Cup for the 1st time in 15 years.   It was great to see a trophy coming back to Celtic Park, but our main aim must be to stop Rangers reaching 10-in-a-row.

The big matches kept coming as we moved towards the traditional New Years day derby with Rangers at Celtic Park.  We had signed Harald Brattbakk in December to help us score more goals.

My brother-in-law gave me his ticket for the match that day.   We won 2-0, the first coming from Burley & the 2nd was a wonder strike from the right boot of Paul Lambert in the dying minutes of the match.   Celtic had won their first new-years day derby since 1988 & were back in the race for the title.

Both teams stuttered through the remainder of the season as the pressure of winning & losing 10-in-a row seemed to make the players freeze.   In April Celtic lost to Rangers twice in a week, first the Scottish Cup Semi Final at Celtic Park & then at Ibrox.

As the league season came to an end, the pressure on both teams was beginning to tell.  On the 2nd last weekend of the season Rangers lost to Kilmarnock at Ibrox, a result that gave Celtic the chance to win the title with a win the following day against Dunfermline.  The tension got to the players & we could only earn a draw loosing a goal in the last few minutes to finish the match 1-1.  The League title would be decided one week later on Saturday 9th May.

I didn’t have a ticket for the match against St Johnstone & in the age before wall-to-wall TV coverage, my dad & I were left listening to the radio for updates on how the match was progressing.   All Celtic had to do was to win the match at home & we would be Scottish champions for the first time in 10 years.

Within 3 minutes of the match starting my dad & I were jumping around the kitchen celebrating the news of a goal for Celtic through Henrik Larsson.  However nerves on the pitch meant that we struggled to add a 2nd goal that would give us some breathing space.

News came through from Tannadice that Rangers were winning against Dundee Utd.   If Celtic slipped up the league would be lost to our biggest rivals.

I couldn’t listen anymore & went to my room & hoped for the best, I was switching the radio on & off checking for the score & I turned on the radio in time to hear the commentator describe Harald Brattbakk scoring the 2nd goal for Celtic & secure our first championship in 10 years.

I went downstairs to see my dad crying with delight & we cheered & sang our way through the final 20 minutes of the match.   When the final whistle blew a huge cheer was heard across the east end of Glasgow as Celtic fans celebrated winning the Scottish title.

The 9th May will be etched in my memory forever.  In the space of 365 days the tears of anguish & fear were replaced with tears of joy & relief.