| Match Pictures | Matches: 1984 – 1985 | 1984-85 Pictures |
Trivia
- Played at Old Trafford after kind permission from Manchester United.
- Estimated 40,000 Celtic fans travel to Manchester.
- Rapid officials complain when Celtic directors refuse to shake hands with them at Glasgow Airport.
- Rapid played in all red colours to try and attract the Manchester Utd fans on to their side.
- Celtic shamed after two Rapid players are badly attacked on the field by Celtic fans.
- Man Utd play Dundee Utd at Tannadice in the UEFA cup on the same night and United fans in the crowd cheer when their team's 3-2 win is announced.
- UEFA announce that Celtic will play next home euro game behind closed doors as punishment and fine them £17,000.
- Italian trouble shooter referee Luigi Agnolin is chosen as referee by UEFA.
- Ironically Rapid reached the final in May but thankfully were beaten 3-1 by Everton in Rotterdam.
Review
A massive Celtic support turned out to support the their team on the night. Unfortunately feelings were running high and the atmosphere was absolutely poisonous.
Celtic attacked from the off and Roy Aitken blasted a great chance over the bar in 8 minutes. In 17 minutes Aitken cracked a shot off a post after a Provan corner. From that attack Rapid broke up the field and Pacult outpaced McGrain to score. Despite tremendous effort the Celts could not peg it back.
In the second half Celtic were refused a penalty and a Celtic fan ran on the pitch and kicked keeper Feurer in his goal. It took 6 policemen to lead him away. At the end another Celtic fan ran on the field and assaulted Rapid's Pacult.
This game was a horrendous experience for Celtic's management, players and fans. Rapid with their Machiavellian practices behind the scenes had prospered and UEFA had allowed them to do so.
The cheats had won.
Teams
CELTIC:
P Bonner: D McGrain, M MacLeod, R Aitken, T McAdam (Colquhoun 68), P Grant, D Provan, P McStay, F McGarvey, T Burns, B McClair.Subs: Latchford Reid McGugan Chalmers
RAPID VIENNA:
H Feurer: L Lainer, K Garger, R Weinhofer, H Weber, K Braunder, Z Kranjcar, G Willurth (sub: M Keller), H Gross, (Sub: R Rotter), P Brucic, P Pacult.
Goal: Pacult 17
Att: 51,500
Referee: L Agnolin (Italy)
Articles
Pictures
KStreet
Articles
Evening Times 13th December 1984
The Times (1984)
A night which began with crowd fervour ended with crowd violence, to provide a depressing finale to Celtic’s ill-starred European Cup Winners’ Cup second round tie with Rapid Vienna. At Old Trafford last night, Celtic swept forward on an emotional charge, fell to the classic counter-attack, a single goal giving the Austrians victory on the night, and a 4-1 win on aggregate.
That was distressing enough for Celtic, whose sense of grievance was understandable at UEFA’s order to replay their second leg, which they won, 3-0. But whatever the rights and wrongs of UEFA’s original decision, made because an Austrian player reportedly hit by a bottle, the behaviour of Celtic’s fans last night left them sadly exposed, the Rapid goalkeeper Feurer being attacked by one fan during the second half and Pacult, the goals corer, by another as he left the field.
When the venue was named, a Scottish colleague asserted that the prospect of Celtic in full cry was a sight rarely matched in football. If the team was slow to live up to the boast, the fans were another matter.
The suspicion that their passion might prove their team’s undoing, however, was quickly fostered as a series of headlong assaults left them looking exposed should Rapid mount a quick counter-attack.
For 15 minutes, all the Celtic pressure produced nothing more threatening than an Aitken drive, which flashed over the bar, and an attempt by Burns which brought Feurer rather unnecessarily to full stretch: but that was enough to keep the crowd in full voice.
The 16th and 17th minutes saw expectation suddenly displaced by despair. Provan’s third corner of the night was only half cleared, McGarvey drove the ball across goal. Burns missed as he ran in and Aitken, coming in behind him, poked the ball against the post.
As it rebounded into the penalty area, Celtic were still caught up in the excitement of the moment, three players attempting unsuccessfully to recover and turn the ball back in.
They failed: and they were left exposed as a quick break by the Austrians transferred the ball to Pacult just inside his own half. The slow McGrain, the covering defender, failed in his attempt to trip the Austrian forward, who ran wide of the advancing Bonner and clipped it into the net.
That effectively was the end for Celtic. They continued to surge forward, but their individual runs betrayed a tactical naivety.
Before the game, the Celtic manager, David Hay, had said that even more important than winning was retaining the club’s name. The tackles of McGrain and Aitken were already putting it at risk when a fan, if he can be so called, did the club irreparable damage. He came out of the crowd to launch himself at Feurer, punching the goalkeeper into the back of the net.
It took five policemen to pull him off, and although Feurer recovered to make two splendid saves as football briefly reasserted itself, the end was again violent. Pacult being kicked in the groin as he left the field, by another Celtic supporter.
CELTIC: P Bonner: D McGrain, M MacLeod, R Aitken, T McAdam (sub:J Colquhoun), P Grant, D Provan, P McStay, F McGarvey, T Burns, B McClair.
RAPID VIENNA: H Feurer: L Lainer, K Garger, R Weinhofer, H Weber, K Braunder, Z Kranjcar, G Willurth (sub: M Keller), H Gross, (Sub: R Rotter), P Brucic, P Pacult.
Referee: L Agnolin (Italy)
Celtic's Rapid Vienna reunion stirs up 25 years of rancour
Indepdent Newspaper
Oct 2009
rapid vienna -peter pacult
Rapid Vienna's scorer Peter Pacult lies on the ground at Old Trafford. Photograph: PA
Only those landing from Mars for tonight's Europa League match between Celtic and Rapid Vienna may be unaware of the historical significance of the tie. It has, indeed, been well nigh impossible to pick up a Scottish newspaper within the last month without a random Austrian chap airing his views on the infamous battle – literally – between the pair 25 years ago.
Celtic's captain, Stephen McManus, yesterday labelled the build-up to Rapid's Glasgow return as "embarrassing". Only media analysts can gauge whether he has a point; for the rest of us, this has proved an intriguing, if sometimes tedious, backdrop to an otherwise routine European fixture.
This long story is not particularly easy to cut short. Celtic had lost a bad-tempered Cup Winners' Cup first leg in Vienna 3–1, with Alan McInally sent off and Peter Grant accused of stamping on one of the Austrian players. The Parkhead side were later fined by Uefa on account of their players' behaviour; it was the start of European football's governing body's crucial influence on the tie.
A rousing night in the east end saw Celtic overturn the deficit to win 4-3 on aggregate. Their third goal, seen in the context of modern football laws, involved a clear foul by Tommy Burns on the Rapid goalkeeper, and was quite enough for the visiting players. They wanted an alternative way out.
A bottle landed on the pitch, thrown from the Celtic support. Depending on your witness, this landed either five feet or 20 metres away from Rapid's goalkeeper, Herbert Feurer, who promptly collapsed in a heap, left the field bandaged up and led those within the Austrian camp to seek, unsuccessfully, the abandonment of the game. Ten minutes of stoppage time were required following this unseemly scene.
It later transpired that the linesman on Celtic Park's former "Jungle" side had been struck by all kinds of missiles, mainly coins. Somehow aware of this, Rapid adopted a tale that Feurer had merely been struck by an object, rather than the bottle, in lodging a formal complaint to Uefa.
The rest is history: the match was ordered to be replayed at a neutral venue – Old Trafford, where a bigger crowd appeared than in Glasgow – and Rapid won 1-0. In the midst of all this, the Austrian side's goalkeeper was attacked by a Celtic fan and another fan booted Peter Pacult in the privates. Pacult, now Rapid's coach, fittingly scored the only goal in Manchester. The poor man cut a frustrated figure at his pre-match briefing last night, forced to answer question after question regarding the events of 25 years ago.
Celtic have seemingly backed down on their marketing stance in recent days. They had billed Rapid's visit, unapologetically, as "25 Years On" in an obvious attempt to sell tickets. Yet the club are perfectly aware that disorder, triggered by fans who still harbour a wild grudge, would be seriously bad for their reputation.
Celtic's chief executive, Peter Lawwell, has now issued what is tantamount to a plea for calm. "Much has been said about the events of 1984," he said. "But, as a club in 2009, all we are focusing on is what happens on the pitch on Thursday evening."
Even Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the Scottish FA, got in on the act, saying: "I think we have to call for calm. It's moved on 25 years, it's different people at the clubs, different players. It's not like it happened 18 months ago. There should be an element of friendship in the game regardless of what happened in the past, and hopefully both clubs will play this in normal circumstances and have a good match played in a sporting fashion."
It must be noted that tonight's game has hardly caught the imagination of punters; 40,000 are expected at Celtic Park, 20,000 less than capacity. Hopefully the lunatics do not take over. Rapid's followers, after all, did not have the look of shrinking violets at Aston Villa. They are unlikely to turn up in Glasgow and accept abuse.
Former players, it must be recognised, have played a big part in stirring up matters. Frank McGarvey has been the most vocal, a string of explosions regarding his hatred – no, really – for Rapid emerging recently. Public relations companies have been queueing up to get McGarvey anywhere near the Rapid party in Scotland over the past 24 hours. Pacult was prompted into admitting he had never heard of McGarvey until recently, but that will not stop the Rapid coach pinning some of his words on a dressing-room wall.
The former striker's rantings have been unnecessary. McGarvey even claimed that Uefa should somehow intervene because Rapid will be wearing a red strip, à la Old Trafford, tonight. Under this theory Rapid, presumably looking to win this game and maintain their impressive start to the Europa League, would deliberately seek to antagonise and fire up the opposition. Hardly likely, Frank.
Davie Provan is another who has made it perfectly plain he will "raise a glass" in the event Celtic defeat the Austrians. Provan, around the time of the last Rapid debacle, embellished a "challenge" from the Hearts winger Willie Johnston at Parkhead so much that the Edinburgh side's chairman, Wallace Mercer, was prompted into threatening comments regarding lawyers and court cases.
Grant, now a part of the Celtic coaching team, is unwilling to let sleeping dogs lie. The Rapid players, as already stated, would hardly regard him as an innocent party either. Grant's theory, along with that of many others who should probably know better, is that Celtic were denied a Cup Winners' Cup final against Everton. In fact they would have had two further rounds to overcome that season and nothing the club did in European competition over virtually the next two decades in Europe endorses the idea that a final berth was theirs for the taking.
The basic premise for the match in Manchester was ridiculous; the replay should never have been ordered. It is entirely correct that those around at the time recall Weinhofer's behaviour in a negative light. Nonetheless, those who seek to use tonight's match as some form of potential retribution for Celtic must recall that their players and supporters were far from the put-upon, innocent party, notwithstanding the fact football took place in a distinctly more volatile environment off the field than now. If said bottle had not been thrown on to the pitch, Manchester would never have happened. And maybe, just maybe, there have been times in Celtic's history when their team have used dubious on-field tactics to their own ends.
Thankfully the Celtic manager, Tony Mowbray, is unwilling to use events of 1984 as a motivating factor today. Mowbray, in fact, seems rather bemused by the furore. His players, judging by McManus's comments, are utterly uninterested in anything more than kick-starting their European campaign.
Let's hope those who have attempted to build matters up do not trigger the kind of scenes which should be left in the past. The chances are they won't; what price this evening's game being an utterly damb squib?
