I remember singing “It’s going to be 10 in a row”, but back then 10 had no significance. Neither did 9, it was like 8 in a row, another stop along the way. But when Jock Stein’s team finished their spectacular domination of the Scottish game in 1974 with nine successive titles and four European Cup semi-finals, “Nine in a row” became a phrase with extraordinary substance.
Of course, in years to come, for others, nine in a row became a target to surpass. In the late eighties Rangers changed the financial parameters of Scottish football for some time, and set their own course towards liquidation, but on the park, they swept all before them in the domestic game. By summer 1997 they had won their won nine in a row. McEwan’s lager billboard adverts featured the club with the line, “9 out of 10, could do better”. And didn’t we know it.
Celtic were in disarray having sacked Tommy Burns and with our three most cherished players, Di Canio, Cadete and van Hooijdonk on their way out the door. The new managerial appointment “the second worst thing to happen to Hiroshima”, as our mainstream media portrayed him to Celtic fans, arrived only two weeks before the start of the season.
After losing the first league game of the season at Easter Road Celtic lost 1-2 at home to Dunfermline; they were leading at half time. 10 in a row seemed inevitable but this season was the greatest example of why the prevailing currents of football are now always evident on the surface.
Have a read at this from the Independent after that defeat to Dunfermline:
“[The home supporters] cannot be fooled – even as the teams were announced it was clear they are unconvinced by the new signings. The mention of Pierre van Hooijdonk, Paolo Di Canio and Jorge Cadete before a game was enough a year ago to raise the roof in anticipation. On Saturday, Henrik Larsson and Regi Blinker hardly registered in the approval stakes.
“Larsson’s poor touch too often saw him lose possession. The blunt truth is he is not a proven goalscorer and Jock Brown, the general manager, will have to add fire power to the team.”
Don’t be too harsh on the journo who penned this, few dissented, and Jock Brown’s reputation was pretty much set by these incredibly inaccurate reviews. Although, “blunt truth” has never been used with such laxity.
The towns of the west of Scotland can be dangerous places after big football games but not 15 years ago today, when Celtic beat St Johnstone to win the league for the first time in a decade. Celtic fans of all ages poured onto the streets as the spirit of carnival took hold.
I remember hooped fans sitting on top of a set of traffic lights in Lanarkshire; green, amber, red, then rows of green and white. I walked around Hamilton town centre that night. For an evening, every pub was a Celtic pub, with rules about wearing colours suspended, and singing was celebrated.
And sing we did.
At the end of the night I could be found singing “Cheerio to 10 in a row” at a taxi rank outside a nightclub. The ‘brave’ soul standing in front of me waited until his taxi was moving away before mumbling his offenses out of the window.
Last summer I did an interview with Tony Hamilton for Celtic TV . When we drilled into what really made an impact on me as a Celtic fan I had no hesitation on placing that game against St Johnstone above Champions League victories, qualifying for a European final or beating Barcelona. We aspire to move beyond the confines of Scottish football but for 125 years this has been our home. In all that time, in domestic or European football, there have been, at most, only two more important games.
Enjoy the memories, but don’t play that George O’Boyle leap over in your mind; just in case you imagine him a few inches higher.
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shady
no I sacked him
Celtic_First
13:04 on 9 May, 2013
Can any of you genius types dig out an article that Falkirk (ahem) fan Gordon Waddell wrote for the next day’s Sunday Mail?
I mention it because anyone who thinks Celtic is just another club and Scotland just another country should have their mind changed just by watching the highlights that Whitedog posted earlier and then reading that Waddell article.
_______________________________________________________________
Celtic is Celtic.
We Love this Club So much because…..
Celtic are not about winning Everything, when we Win it is Great dinnae get me wrong, But Celtic is about Helping Others, Always.
You ken that though, I know you do.
Mort, thanks. I think it was the one that Celtic were ‘Yawn’ to a winner because Wim Jansen was so boring.
So it’s the day after Celtic win the league. After a tough start, Wim comes out of nowhere to deny the deady bears their ten in a row. Celtic are well and truly back. And the most prominent popular newspaper in the country gets “the thinking fan’s football journalist” to write a piece to say how boring it all is.
jeez_I_thought_blinker_was_pants
13:15 on
9 May, 2013
I was in that huddle!!!
Many memories from that night that could right a book!!
Best one was Mrs CRC who sat down, hands clasped, praying through the whole 90 minutes. I said to her, “…but I thought you didn’t believe in Ghod..”, and she replied ” Aye but just in case he is there!”
HH
CRC
Images from the St Johnstone game very vivid.
We were living just outside Paris at the time nod for 45 minutes watched the Dunfermline Celtic score in teletext – no tv or radio coverage. falconbridge’s goal a heartbreaker.
Went into work on Monday and called CP then Air France. in those days they reserved 200 seats for international shareholders so bought a few briefs.
Went home and told the good lady that my lad was getting a very special 10th birthday gift. A flight to Scotland to be pampered by his gran and to see the Hoops win back the title.
My wife thought I had taken leave of my senses.
To this day my son says it’ the best birthday gift he’s ever had or is ever likely to have.
I remember we were at the stadium as the players arrived. The tension then unbearable then the KOK did what he does and Harald popped in the second.
What a magical day; second in my mind only to Lisbon. Even better than the 65 final.
whitedoghunch
12:34 on 9 May, 2013
Many thanks for posting that. It was my bday that day as it is today, thanx for the present. H H :-) :-) :-)
Getting onto the podium after the players left the pitch and taking home a wee bit of turf. Special, special memories.
After Rab Ha’s I walked over to the Brazen Head for a couple. Then headed home cos I was completly physically and emotionally exhausted. Flatmates had some champers in the fridge for me as they’d heard the score.
S
Celtic_First,
please my good mhan!
We are all on a high reminiscing about that wonderful day (and night!) and you have to bring that odious creature into the proceedings!
Please dont tarnish this fine day………
;-)
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
jimmci
13:34 on 9 May, 2013
My best one too, by a country mile. :-) :-). :-)
Auldheid
Negotiating London traffic is nerve wracking at the best of times, but driving down through North London to reach Victoria, trying to keep tabs on the score on English radio, who only gave the game an occasional mention was nerve shredding.
What a relief to reach Victoryia.
>
I remember they covered the second half on 5 live I think. If you’d re-tuned it it might not have been so bad! When the commentator said ‘and Brattbak can’t miss…’ I knew he wasn’t familiar with Harald. Of course if there was one player who could miss a sitter it was Harald…but of course he didn’t.
Token
A very fair point. Apologies.
MT
https://twitter.com/WestEndTim/status/332469863731822592/photo/1
Wdh,
Yer a hard man.
Was it yourself that was handing out the bubbles or was that the owner?
S
#Celtic away top for next season? I like it! http://t.co/krHaqkT08r
Celtic_First
Here you go:
—————————————————————-
CELTS ARE YAWN A WINNER THANKS TO WIM;
The only time Wim Jansen gets worked up is in the dug-out
BYLINE: Gordon Waddell
Sitting in a room and talking to Wim Jansen is a bit like swallowing a couple of mogadon and washing it down with a hot chocolate.
Insomniac journalists have never had it so good.
He just sits there, a bit mis-shapen in his green training top. He shrugs a lot, bursts into a kind of Worzel Gummidge grin every now and then, and says “y’never know in soccer” plenty. In every sentence, in fact.
In 10 months of trying, it’s safe to say that no-one knows ANYTHING about him on a personal level.
But yesterday we found out one thing and that’s the one thing that matters – he’s a WINNER.
When all is said and done, when season 1997/98 is consigned to nothing more than a page in the history books, Wim Jansen’s name will be etched there beside the words Celtic and Champions.
It doesn’t matter what he looks like, what he says or doesn’t say, he did what a string of “real” Celtic men before him had failed to do.
And that was ignore the obsession with STOPPING Rangers and concentrate on building his own team, playing his own style, and believing they could win a title.
You could almost set your watch by Peter Grant’s “It’ll Never Be Two/Three/er Eight/Nine/Ten In A Row” features in the past.
Stopping Rangers became all-consuming. But with Wim, you got the impression that when he said it was only another three points to play for in an Old Firm game, he MEANT it. He really didn’t care.
And look what it did for him. He made it to the last day, he suffered through one of the most stressful championship races in years and came out the other end with the title as calm as he was at the start.
He didn’t suffer the torment that Tommy Burns did before him. His hair didn’t go grey or fall out because he didn’t let it get to him.
But don’t mistake being laid back for a lack of passion or commitment. Wim Jansen LOVES his football. The only time you see him enthusastic or worked up, or really at home, is when he’s in the dugout.
And if anyone still has doubts over his ability as a coach – who was Scotland’s player of the year?
The professionals said it was Jackie McNamara. The Football Writers Association said it was Craig Burley. And you could argue a decent case for Jonathan Gould.
But the point is that there hasn’t been a truly outstanding individual for Celtic this season.
These players have won crucial points for Celtic this season.
And NONE of them has been forced to carry the team on their back. There’s no Paolo di Canio or Brian Laudrup there to rely on.
Jansen’s strength is in the TEAM he has built, not the 11 individuals he puts out every week.
Sure, they’ve had their shaky moments. The natural pessimism of Celtic fans took over last week when they were all wringing their hands and saying they had blown it.
But Wim stayed with it. On August 16, when they were bottom of the league after two games, fans would have bitten your hand off if you’d offered them the title as long as they beat St Johnstone on the last day, and he knew it.
That’s why, when it came to the crunch, Celtic went out and did what they had to do.
Now the big question is: Will he stay?
He has kept his dignity throughout while some around him lost theirs in the wake of MailSport’s revelations that he had a get-out clause in his Parkhead contract.
But he should ask himself this if Fergus McCann or Jock Brown happen to offer him the earth to stay: If they really thought he was the right man to take Celtic into the next century, why wait until NOW to review his deal?
Still, as an absolute neutral I have to thank Wim for sparing us the torture that would have been ten-in-a-row.
Not because I particularly wanted to see Celtic win. Just that I wanted to be spared a lifetime of GLOATING every time you put a fan from either side of the great bigoted divide in a room together.
Because it will NEVER happen again.
And I send out this plea to anyone even DREAMING of starting to keep count again. For God’s sake let’s just call it a draw at nine each and get on with the game.
————————
Methinks he might be wrong that it will never happen again. :-)
Mort
Boys sorry last link twitter
great post Paul, great memories
when I made it back to Edinburgh, I recall standing on a table in the International Bar leading the chorus of “Ole ole, ole ole….Harald Bratbaak!”. After that, I ended up face down in the Meadows park, was saved by a couple of my wife’s friends, went to bed and promptly woke to barf into my wife’s wardrobe.
Happy Days !
PS If Stan and Jack are set to take over the phantom football club that is Rankers, does that mean Ally is set to become Olive? Bye bye Blakey!
We done a Huddle ouside O’Learys Rutherglen, across both carraigeways of Glasgow Road.Traffic backed up to Castlemilk,we made Clyde’s Eye in the Sky urgent traffic report.
Strange article today in my opinion, and it’s always grated on me how people still brag about that day.
When talking about that title win, I NEVER refer to it as “the day we stopped the ten”. Don’t get me wrong, I celebrated it like any other title win (possibly more so given the imp-lications), but the feeling was more of relief on the day that suffering had come to an end.
That suffering was something brought on by us being not good enough (subsequently to be found out that the currants spending beyond their means had something to do with it as well). After that day and those celebrations, I had a feeling I could just get on with my life.
Paul, to say that it was the 3rd most important game in our history is an extreme stretch of it’s worth.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
15 years ago today. On the podium after the game, tuft of grass from the spot Harald shot from for his goal. A walk up the Garngad where there was a huge flag the size of a tenement building, and then onto the Dolphin where we were dancing on the tables.
Mort
Thanks. Maybe that wasn’t it, it doesn’t seem bitter enough. Anyway, well done. Plus Token is right.
shady
think I went home after the game
gallagher
Yir Bhoy did what any one of us would have done………..wis the watter cauld?
Well done son ,don’t even know you ,but still proud of you.hh
15 years ago coming home from the game on the Gourock Emerald bus with tricolours sticking out the roof hatches ……………this was a good idea until we hit the motorway…………cue 4 green white and gold bamboo torpedoes flying up the M8……..oh how we laughed
Went straight to the Welcome Inn, that day, great boozer, shame is no more
Hail hail
Whitedoghunch
Now you’ve gone and done it! From now on I won’t be able to get a table at my favourite restaurant, La Lanterna, for curious CQNers heading there in their droves.
Been going there for many years and to my mind it’s the best Italian restaurant
outside of Rome!
I even posted a review on Trip Advisor recently which was much appreciated by Chris!
Hail! Hail!
Terrymac
Soal Thank you I could not get the link to work
HH
There was an interesting cartoon in Private Eye (which I still have) published the week before the game, which I took as an omen.
The image and the joke escape me but it was along of some Picts/Romans/Hadrian’s Wall action as they were listening to the Scottish football results.
The teams had been plucked at random from all divisions and made no sense but there was one that stood out immediately…
Celtic 2 St Johnstone 0
Anybody heard any whispers about Rafa for Everton?
Also from the 10 May 1998 in the Sunday Mail was a blow by blow account from Gordon Waddell about Lord Macfarlane’s day as he was to hand over the trophy to the winners. I have put in bold a bit I found interesting.
——————————————-
All the glamour plans for a helicopter dash had been shelved during the week and that meant finding a starting point for the charge to either Ibrox or Parkhead somewhere in the heart of Glasgow.
The BBC provided the perfect spot in West End and a place where League chief Peter Donald and Lord Macfarlane had a dream view of BOTH games and the teleprinter on a bank of six TVs.
The Bells supremo arrived five minutes before the clashes kicked off, 15 seconds apart.
And he barely had time to settle into his seat before Henrik Larsson darted inside from the left and unleashed a shot that had everyone stunned.
Two minutes gone and the odds of heading East instead of over the river had plummeted.
But while he sipped tea from a polystyrene cup, the seeds of doubt that have taken this season to a nerve- shredding final day were sown again at 3.32pm as Brian Laudrup fired Rangers ahead at Tannadice.
And three minutes later the gasps and groans echoed round the Beeb offices as George O’Boyle met the ball four yards out, only to head over with Jonathan Gould stranded.
That would have turned the entire day on its head – and it ended up being the closest we got to a total U-turn.
——————————————————-
Glad the BBC have moved on!!!
Mort
Terrymac
Chris has been a friend of mine for years and always helps out with a gift when cqn needs a raffle prize or the like cqn folk know it well and use it often
you have good taste
Saint Stivs
Livingston No1. I used to go on that bus as a kid. Didn’t go regular on the bus until 1992 or 1993. Used to go through Blackburn, Whitburn and Harthill. Never Armadale though.
Crazy times on that bus.
timbhoy2
I am from Dedridge. Going to Craigshill at 20 to a scheme boozer was not wise for me and my mates at that time. I know the Dolans though. Great guys. Lived up Craigshill in latter years and drank in the Tower. It’s OK when all the Bhoys are in but not exclusively a Celtic bar.
Rab’s bar? Are you mental? I wouldn’t even get through the door. That supporters bus is nuts. They used to rampage around Deans. All changed now though.
LB
Re St Johnstone game, was in the Tavern Tollcross Rd before the game, mate wanted to swap tickets with me so he could be near his son in lisbon lion stand, I ended up with his investors seat, any way 4 of us decided to put a fiver each on Henrick to score first goal, I was trusted to put bet on 5/2 up in investors lounge, needless to say couldnt find were bets got placed , back to Tavern after the game £50 out my own pocket on the table, sore one but brilliant night
Paul67 et al
That game was one of only two, (the other was Tommy Burns’ memorial match) when, despite being travelling from London, did not get into Celtic Park. Along with quite a few thousand others it has to be said. We listened to the first half in the parking area next to the Celtic Supporters Association in London road before wandering down to the Park for the second half, with Roddy Forsyth on Radio 5. Unlike some I was absolutely confident of victory, given that, (and I have told this before) that week’s Private Eye had a cartoon set back in the day at Hadrian’s Wall with a bearded Celt looking up to the Roman Centurion and asking for the football results. “Celtic 2 St. Johnstone 0” came the reply. (Check it out) Cannot remember too much after the game ended but do remember partying like it was, well 1998!
malceye
I was in the IB on Saturday.
A decent night. Not the celtic stronghold it once was though I suspect. Met some cracking characters though including a gentleman named the Kaiser who is a massive Tim and played fitba in Germany in the 70’s.
LB
Celtic_First,
no apologies necessary!
i was being part tongue-in-cheek, part serious…….as Im sure you know though.
Was being deadly serious re my odious creature comment though!
:-)
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
Sitting in my dentists surgery with an aching back tooth, waiting for an extraction .
You ghuys are taking my mind of it a bit with some magic stories about the St Johnstone game.
For my own part , I was 29 and like all on here held our 9 as sacred.
They must not be allowed 10.
Was on the park at the end, kissed the turf and then back home to St Phils hall for a night of bevvy and partying that would not be surpassed.
Sobered up approximately a fortnight later.
Great time, what a relief!!
I was in Rhodes when Celtic played st Johnstone and found it difficult phoning home, let alone watching the game. The line was that bad I got the wrong end of the stick and thought we had lost. Was several drunken hours later I discovered the beautiful truth.