| Match Pictures | Matches: 1997 – 1998 | 1997-1998 Pictures |
Trivia
- Second league game of the season, and disastrous start continues with two defeats in a row.
- Celtic's efforts to stop Ranger's march to ten in a row look to be over before it even got going.
- Bottom of the league.
- Despite signing Jonathon Gould it still appeared that a known keeper was wanted. Efforts were made to sign Richard Golz of Hamburg. Things were moving fast as the latest UEFA transfer deadline was 18/8/97. However, despite frenetic activity no new moves transpired before the Dunfermiline game.
- Jansen wanted the team to show patience for the game. He said that progress WAS happening and that the team were beginning to play the kind of football he wanted and that they should not be put off by the impatience of the supporters.
- On outward moves, the press were linking Gordon Marshall with moves to either Ipswich or Watford. This hardly seemed likely with Gould the only first team keeper fancied by the club, and Andy McCondichie very much a youth team keeper, though there were reports that Marshall had handed in a transfer request (denied by Marshall in The View).
- This was a somewhat depleted team with Stubbs (knee), Wieghorst (?), Annoni (?), Johnson (stomach muscle tear) and Mahe (ribs) all out injured. Peter Grant was hastily drafted onto the bench.
Review
I remember this one well. Two defeats in the league and a defeat away in Europe – everybody was starting to think that maybe we’d got the wrong guy and that the emperor was possibly wearing nae claes!!!! The loss put us bottom of the league with 2 games played. It wasn’t a very happy day.
Teams
Celtic (4-4-2):
Gould; Boyd, McKinlay (O'Donnell ,71 ), McNamara, MacKay, Hannah, Larsson, Burley, Jackson, Thom, (Donnelly,70 ), Blinker .
Subs not used: Grant
Scorer: Thom (40, penalty)
Bookings: Blinker ,Mackay (Celtic)
Dunfermline (4-4-2):
Westwater, Shields, Miller, Tod, Barnett, Curran, Moore, Bingham (Den Bieman ,60 ), Smith (Fraser ,83 ), French, Petrie (Fleming ,71)
Scorers: Bingham (46), French (76, penalty)
Bookings: Curran ,French ,Moore ,Petrie ,Smith (Dunfermline)
Referee: M Clark (Edinburgh)
Attendance: 46,206
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Stats
| Celtic | Dunfermiline | |
| Bookings | 2 | 5 |
| Fouls | 14 | 14 |
| Shots on Target | 8 | 4 |
| Corners | 11 | 3 |
| Offside | 5 | 3 |
Celtic's no-Wim situation
Scotland on Sunday 17/08/1997
Celtic 1 Dunfermline Ath 2
DUNFERMLINE took away the breath, not to say the voice, of an initially exuberant Parkhead, with the kind of performance that was nothing if not boundless with energy and imagination. This must rank alongside some of old Bert Paton's finest accomplishments in football, pitting his jobbers and journeymen against Celtic's expensive devils and coming up with a result like this.
The crowd of 46,206 inside the ground slowly evolved from a fanfare to a requiem and then to the predictable vitriol as the clock ticked on towards the home side's dismal failing. And that is what it was. As Celtic quite disintegrated in a fraught second half, Dunfermline went rampaging forward and missed a clutch of clean chances.
That little rascal, Allan Moore, might have mischievously won them the game, tempting the referee to award a penalty following the sort of dive you might even have spotted from the cheap seats at the Bolshoi, but Dunfermline still deserved the points they claimed here. Before that 76th minute penalty, Stewart Petrie had shot wide, David Bingham had struck a post, and Petrie, as surely as only Petrie can, somehow managed to hoof the ball over from five yards. When that miss was squandered, poor Paton and his equally-tortured assistant, Dick Campbell, were on the track writhing in agony.
Dunfermline seemed to have a military might, as well as composed passing, with which they structured this win, and in Andy Smith, as Paton had predicted, they had a striker of such ears, elbows and feet that you wouldn't know how to muzzle him or where to put him.
Celtic have their problems. They were denied Alan Stubbs, Morten Wieghorst and Stephane Mahe due to injury, but it was the wan effect of their new players that would most concern their followers. Henrik Larsson, in particular, was a lightweight force here, and Darren Jackson horsed around, but not with any great significance.
These early season afternoons of blazing sunshine at Parkhead just aren't the same without Tommy Burns. It had been about this point for the past few years when, with the ground swollen with optimism, the old Divine-fearing Celtic boss would trot upon the turf with Fergus McCann, the dreaded microphone being brandished between them. McCann would duly get off something about his hopes and expectations. Then, as we clasped our fingers to our eyes, it would be Tommy's turn. "Ah just want youse to know," he would say, "ah love Celtic, and ah love ma wife."
His more earnest moments or not, Burns transmitted a passion around this ground that you can't see the curly-topped Wim Jansen continuing. The new coach seems to have a bit of the old Dutch Reformed dourness about him that is almost, but not quite, a European replica of the equally oddly-coiffeured Mr McLean of the Tannadice chairmanship. After all the years of glorious failure that you associate with the side, maybe this is precisely what Celtic need.
Jansen certainly gives an impression of being slightly bemused by it all. Here was a vintage Parkhead afternoon, with the sun raging down, and the ground swollen to capacity, and it wasn't long before these old Celtic hymns were wafting up beyond the rafters. This was the sort of scene that used to get Burns all misty-eyed. Jansen, on the contrary, seems quite oblivious to the performance.
As for Paton, the old drill-sergeant who is normally strutting back and forth like a cockerel, he turned up here with a pen and notepad. Dunfermline's long-limbed and long-legged mayhem has never quite seemed the stuff of dissertations, but perhaps Paton, now minus that daft baseball cap, is in the business of a make-over. His team were certainly clued-up and caused Celtic some fearful jitters.
Even before Celtic scored in the 39th minute it seemed Dunfermline were denied a blatant penalty. Jonathan Gould rushed from his line to intercept a Petrie pass and in the process almost clean knocked off Bingham's head with his clenched fist. The referee, Martin Clark, merely granted a corner at this.
That injustice perpetrated against the visitors, as we expected, resulted in a Celtic goal two minutes later. Regi Blinker's little pass put Larsson on his way before Hamish French slammed in to bundle the Swedish striker over. With nice aplomb, Andreas Thom struck the ball past Ian Westwater.
But the second half belonged to Dunfermline. And they were level within a minute of the re-start. Moore once more scorched down Celtic's left flank and his cut-back was beautifully controlled and struck on the turn by Bingham past Gould. But even when that equaliser went in, we weren't aware of the havoc Dunfermline were to wreak.
They clean missed three or four marvellous opportunities. But the one they grasped, and won the match with, was French's penalty following Moore's tussle with Malky Mackay in the box.
- Manager Interview
Wim Jansen, post match:
“I was very disappointed with the result as we could have been two or three up going in at half time. But we came out of the dressing room and it was 1-1 right away and a lack of communication hampered us after that.
“Because of that we lost our shape and just as in our previous game against FC Tirol, that became our biggest problem.
“And we have only ourselves to blame for losing the two goals as we gave the ball away for each of them.”