| Match Pictures | 1997 – 1998 |
!!!!!!Cheerio to Ten in a Row!!!!!!!
Trivia
- The match which saw Celtic achieve one-in-a-row to stop Rangers winning ten-in-a-row.
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Rangers won 2-1 in their game v Dundee Utd, so if Celtic had slipped up, the league would have been lost!
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Larsson scored his 19th goal in his maiden season, a wonderful start to this career.
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Celtic actually lost their first two games of the season and still won the league.
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Should have actually wrapped up the league the previous Sunday v Dunfermline, but conceded a late equaliser!
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Celtic Park was still in the middle of being re-built.
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Craig Burley was named the Scottish Football Writers Player of the Year, with Jackie McNamara second and Jonathan Gould third to give a clean sweep for Celtic.
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St Johnstone should have been up for the game as they were playing for a European place for next season.
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Irish prime Minister Bertie Ahern turned up for the game along with a party of seven from the Dail (Irish Parliament) and Irish Embassy in London.
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No one knew if Wim Jansen was staying or not in his job – or they weren’t saying so in public. At the pre-match Press conference Jock Brown said, “Wim is calling the shots in this matter. There is no change in his position and I have nothing to say about it. I have no comment to make. If Wim is to say something next week then that is up to him.”
Review
It didn’t quite work out that way for the first nine years, where from 1989-1997 Rangers won the league titles, and they were to go for the gloriously coveted ten in a row. It was supposedly written in stone that Rangers were to win it, and some Rangers fans were believing at the start that its importance was irrelevant, casting their eyes further afar (to European glory). To lose the 9-in-a-row record was going to be painful, and it was all down to one game now! One day in May 1998, the last game of the season v St Johnstone.
The season hadn’t panned out for Rangers as they believed it would (GIRU ’em), and they tripped up continuously. We may not have been great shakes ourselves, but we held together, despite off-field tantrums between the club management pair (Brown v Jansen). We could have wrapped it up against Dunfermline in the previous game, but as always we have to do things the hard way. Down to the wire, only St Johnstone stood between us and the title. Losing this would be unbearable.
Despite players of the quality of Larsson & Boyd in our line-up, this was not going to be a roll-over. Previous results against even weaker sides had shown that nothing could be taken for granted.
An early goal by Larsson set the pace for Celtic, but it was never easy, and a missed header over the bar from St Johnstone could have broken all our hearts if it had actually gone in. Harald Bratbaak, the puzzling striker, was an unexpected hero one who sealed the league title for the side – slotting in a late winner – relieving tension and lifting up hopes. Up to this point, most were still in fear of losing a hard won title that was in our grasp.
On the 93rd minute or so, the referee walked up to Tom Boyd rolled the ball back towards himself, picked it up, waved his hand round and blew his whistle for full-time to send first Tom Boyd and then the rest of the crowd into delirium as we celebrated our first league title in ten years. Rangers may have thrown the league in some ways, but we were the deserved champions (just), and as some of the crowd surged onto the pitch, there were tears and cheers all around.
A bitter-sweet moment in that we had seen our 9iar record already equalled by Rangers in the past season, but we stopped them making the 10 in a row, and that was enough for us to all celebrate (as is any time when we beat them).
Regardless of any opinions on the side, alone this league victory was a wonderful sensation. Roddy Forsyth (BBC) summed it up beautifully:
“Scarves, banners, jerseys, green and white hoops raised in triumph. It may not have been a vintage championship but believe me it will taste as sweet to these Celtic supporters as any they have ever secured because they have stopped Rangers from taking away the history book record of ten in a row… Perhaps the best tribute should be paid by simply listening to the Celtic fans singing their beloved anthem (YNWA)”.
A few days later, Wim Jansen opted to leave as Celtic manager, whilst the chairman Fergus McCann unhelpfully publicly said that if he hadn’t left he would have been sacked anyhow. Took the shine off the victory in some ways, but as the past ten years had shown, we were never ones for doing things the easy way.
Anyhow, “Cheerio, 10 in a row!”
Quotes
“It was only 1-0 and St Johnstone had a stramash in our box and we knew that Rangers were winning so it was tight.
“When Harald scored it was just such a relief. I jumped on John Clark’s back and nearly took him to the ground and thankfully we got over the line.”
Simon Donnelly (2018)
“This is one of the very special moments in my career.
“It was a very hard game and it has been a very hard season. This has got to be one of the highlights of my career as a coach and something I will always remember.
“I made a very late start with the club in the summer and couldn’t forecast what would happen.
“It hasn’t been an easy season and it has come down to the last game. But it is over now and we are champions
“I have made up my mind what I will be doing next season, but I will not be explaining it here.
“The first person to know will be Fergus McCann. This game hasn’t affected the way I’ve been thinking about my future. The only other person to know my decision is my wife.”
Wim Jansen Post match
“Scarves, banners, jerseys, green and white hoops raised in triumph. It may not have been a vintage championship but believe me it will taste as sweet to these Celtic supporters as any they have ever secured because they have stopped Rangers from taking away the history book record of ten in a row…”
He then says “Perhaps the best tribute should be paid by simply listening to the Celtic fans singing their beloved anthem” all the while you can hear the fans singing YNWA…..
Roddy Forsyth on Radio 5 Live
“Its perfect!”
Wim Jansen
“Very disappointing!”
Richard Gough (Rangers captain)
Teams
Celtic:
Gould , Boyd , Annoni, McNamara , Rieper , Stubbs , Larsson (Blinker, 89 ), , Burley , Donnelly, Lambert (Wieghorst , 82 ), O’Donnell (Brattbakk ,60)
Scorers: Larsson (3), Brattbakk (72)
St Johnstone:
Main, McQuillan, Preston, Sekerlioglu (Griffin, 76 ), McCluskey, Whiteford, O’Halloran (McMahon, 62 ), O’Neil, Grant (Connolly, 76 ), O’Boyle, Jenkinson
Bookings: Grant, McCluskey, O’Boyle (St Johnstone)
Referee: Clark
Attendance: 50,500
Match Reports
- Match Report (see articles below)
- BBC report
Pictures
Articles
KDS
Articles
Articles
Wim and Fergus make the dreams come true
Scotland on Sunday 10/05/1998
Graham Spiers at Celtic PARK
Celtic 2 St Johnstone 0
Celtic won the Premier Division championship yesterday, a vindicating moment for the club’s owner, the club’s players, and their resolute little Dutch coach. With Wim Jansen’s future still uncertain, you wouldn’t say Parkhead is wholly free of turmoil, but immediately after this match, no one much cared. A gleaming little jug was deposited in the middle of the park.
In truth, it was a poor match, never tame, or insipid, but poor in its quality of passing and possession. There were moments in the second half when the ball was hoofed mercilessly, as Celtic, still eaten with nerves, simply couldn’t be calmed. After the long, long years, the boardroom buffoonery, the penury and then the bitter domination by Rangers, maybe it was little wonder that the redemption came in ragged fashion. No one in this ground quite held on to their marbles.
Jansen looked so subdued and dumbfounded at the finish, almost as if it were he who had known all the years of oppression. He looked worn down, possibly by all the whooping and embracing of everyone around him, as the Celtic bench went delirious at the finish. Symbolically, it was two Jansen signings, Henrik Larsson and Harald Brattbakk, who scored Celtic’s goals.
Quite where Fergus McCann was in all of this, no one really knew, though this bizarrely put-upon saviour of the club deserved to be in the spotlight. These players, their transfer fees and salaries, their coach, and this stadium in which it all unfolded, was all McCann’s work, and somehow seemed more important than his awkward coolness, which seems to annoy the media. Over the years, this club would have craved any eccentricity if it brought success.
St Johnstone, the sensitive visitors, simply disappeared from view. They frightened Celtic after Larsson’s early strike, and there was a moment in this game, especially given the score from Tannadice, when it could all have erupted, but the gods were finally benevolent to this proud old club. Children swept onto the pitch, and were chased by marshals, and there was a moment when Jansen was even tidying up scarves that were left on the turf. Everyone tried to claim it was a perfect day, in song.
Parkhead had known many a crushing atmosphere in its time but this was something else. For one thing, it was shot through with a stunning injustice, St Johnstone being granted a trifling 800 tickets for this vast bowl of an arena. Those remaining 50,000 Celtic supporters seemed to have brought entire wardrobes of colours with them, as the banks of seats were awash with banners and brewed up into a wall of sound.
In the east end of Glasgow, the tension mounted with every moment. Jansen, normally placid and sober, continued where he left off at Dunfermline last Sunday, yelping at his players with a considerably blood-red face. On more than one occasion during this fevered afternoon, Jansen had to be restrained by his assistant, Murdo MacLeod. The bug that used to smite Tommy Burns, and many other Celtic bosses before him, was evidently eating into the coach.
Even Larsson’s opener for Celtic, which was like a splash of water on a hot brow after three minutes, could not cool down the place. It was extraordinary what grip of nerves and apprehension could seize a communal gathering like this, the weeks of stuttering and stumbling by Celtic leaning heavily on the minds of supporters. What didn’t help, either, was some kind of frightening bulletin from Tannadice, indicating that Brian Laudrup had scored for Rangers.
Jansen, perhaps stung by these accusations of a feeble-hearted Celtic, put out a side that wanted to riot into attack. Tommy Boyd, ostensibly at right-back, was soon reinforcing the midfield, with Larsson, Simon Donnelly and Jackie McNamara tearing at St Johnstone in three prongs. There was something alarming about this, providing an image of a reckless, gung-ho Celtic of old, except that St Johnstone appeared incapable of causing any sort of danger. This last thought was soon dispelled, as Jonathan Gould will testify.
But Larsson’s strike, with three minutes on the clock, was glorious opportunism. The Swede picked up Paul Lambert’s pass and simply meandered inside St Johnstone’s defence. Celtic players were rushing in support and he had various options for a square-pass. Instead, given two yards of space, Larsson simply eyed a route into Alan Main’s net, and licked his shot from 20 yards, curving and looping beyond the goalkeeper. It seemed Celtic and Jansen’s dream start.
St Johnstone, however, soon discovered how to scare the wits out of Celtic. Given the tensions surrounding this match, the visitors produced two heart-stopping moments: a George O’Boyle header that flew just over Gould’s bar, and then a Leigh Jenkinson free-kick that eluded everyone before Gould appeared to make a hash of palming it wide. These two incidents, coming just before the interval, were to indicate a nervy period for Celtic, continuing right into the heart of the second half, and to the 74th minute.
When Brattbakk entered this fray after 59 minutes, a measured and compassionate Glasgow voice referred to him as “a half-wit”. Fifteen minutes later, this man sealed Celtic’s championship.
It took a Celtic veteran, Boyd, to initially inflict the damage, with the kind of surging run that used to be this player’s trademark, before the ball was released to McNamara. The Norwegian, anticipating a cross, had sprinted into the box, and met McNamara’s pass sweetly to prod it past Main.
It had been a long wait for Celtic. And it was very nearly consumed by the heat inside this stadium yesterday.
Celtic get by with a little help from their Scandinavians (BBC)
Celtic have won the Scottish football’s Premier Division with a 2-0 victory over St Johnstone at Parkhead, but there were some fraught nerves on the way. Henrik Larsson and Harold Brattbakk were the goalscorers on a day when Celtic had to win to stop Rangers clinching 10 titles in a row.
Rangers did what they had to, beating Dundee United 2-1 with goals from Brian Laudrup and Jorg Albertz, but they were always relying on St Johnstone doing them a favour and that looked unlikely from the third minute of both games. That was all the time it took for Larsson to score Celtic’s first.
Henrik Larsson set the ball rolling by scoring after 3 minutes Paul Lambert released the Swede and he raced away to drive an unstoppable shot into the corner from 20 yards. It was the 19th goal of the season from the former Feyenoord star, who cost £650,000 last summer.
At Tannadice, Laudrup scored Rangers’ first on 31 minutes and when Albertz converted a penalty on 53 there were some nervous fans tuned to radios inside Celtic Park. But the news soon got better, starting with a Lars Zetterlund goal for Dundee United to give them hope that Rangers would drop points.
Then substitute Brattbakk came on to score the goal that made sure after 72 minutes.
The £2.2m signing proved to be an unlikely hero as the Bell’s Scottish League title returned to the Bhoys for the first time since 1988. His form had dipped so much since New Year he last appeared in the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Rangers last month. Now he will go down in the club’s folklore.
After they conceded a late goal last week when given the chance to win the title, this goal gave Celtic the cushion they needed, and from then they were never seriously troubled. Until then, Celtic were nervous and hesitant as they tried to build on their opening goal.
Some fans spilled onto the pitch at the end of the match and were roundly booed by the majority of the other supporters. Jansen’s future uncertain Celtic will now have a chance of qualifying for next year’s Champions’ league but whether their successful manager will be with them is unclear.
Wim Jansen refused to be drawn on the question. Jansen has a get-out clause in his contract enabling him to leave in the summer after just one season as head coach at Parkhead. He is expected to make a decision next week about his future and will have talks with managing director Fergus McCann.
Jansen revealed: “I have made a decision in my own mind about what I want to do.
“However I don’t want to comment any more as there are other people I need to speak to first on that matter.” The signals coming out of the buoyant club suggest that Jansen will pursue his career elsewhere in August. For the moment, however, he is basking in the adulation that comes with ending Rangers’ domination of the Scottish soccer scene.
Skipper Tom Boyd was presented with the championship trophy and Jansen could hardly be heard at his news conference because of all the celebrations going on in the background. He said: “It was a very hard game and it has been a very hard season. This has got to be one of the highlights of my career as a coach and something I will always remember.
“I made a very late start with the club in the summer and couldn’t forecast what would happen. “It hasn’t been an easy season and it has come down to the last game. But it is over now and we are champions and that is something we can be proud of.”
Celtic, in fact, lost their first two league games and local radio stations were bombarded with calls, saying Jansen should go.
Now the former coach of Japanese league side Sanfrecce has claimed the biggest prize in Scottish football. Boyd led the players onto the podium for the presentation and they remained on the pitch after a lap of honour for 35 minutes.
Boyd took the microphone and told the fans: “I would just like to thank you all for your support.
We are going to celebrate in style tonight.” The fans had already made it clear what they thought. “Cheerio, 10 in a row,” 50,000 voices cried in unison after Brattbakk’s shot found the net.
Sporting Life
Harald Brattbakk sent Parkhead into raptures today after ending 10 years of heartache and under achievement for Celtic.
The £2.2million signing proved to be an unlikely hero as the Bell’s Scottish League title returned to the Bhoys for the first time since 1988.
Brattbakk added the crucial second goal with 15 minutes to go after Henrik Larsson had opened the scoring in the third minute
So it was that the Norwegian and a Swede delivered the title to Celtic head coach Wim Jansen.
All three men are in their first season at the club and expect a night of celebrations in Glasgow’s east end
Some fans spilled onto the pitch at the end of the match and were roundly booed by the majority of the other supporters.
Rangers domination of the Scottish scene is over and the fans revelled in the demise of their old firm rivals.
“Cheerio, 10 in a row” 50,000 voices cried in unison after Brattbakk’s shot found the net.
Brattbakk was brought off the bench after an hour replacing Simon Donnelly.
His form had dipped so much since New Year he last appeared in the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Rangers last month.
Brattbakk was on the bench last Sunday against Dunfermline but now takes his place in Celtic’s folklore.
But until his second goal, Celtic were nervous and hesitant as they tried to build on their opening goal from Larsson and the roads leading to the ground were blocked two hours before kick-off.
For the fans were in buoyant mood just before the start and gave an emotional rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Celtic got off to a dream start when Paul Lambert released Larsson. He raced away to drive an unstoppable shot into the corner from 20 yards. It was the 19th goal of the season from the former Feyenoord star, who cost £650,000 last summer.
Larsson should have added a second when Donnelly then sent him clear. St Johnstone keeper Alan Main came racing off his line but Larsson lifted his shot over the bar.
Keeper Main again did superbly well to turn the wingers shot from Donnelly after Burley had released him.
But Celtic had a couple of scares just before the break. Keeper Jonathan Gould flapped at a cross from John McQuillan leaving George O’Boyle clear. But he was so surprised at the opportunity he succeeded only in heading the ball over the top.
Then a free-kick from Lee Jenkinson trickled through the defensive wall and Gould was forced to scramble it away. mfl
St Johnstone keeper Main was forced into another superb save 15 minutes into the second half when he got down low to a shot from Donnelly after Andy Whiteford had carelessly lost possession.
But the nerves of the players as well as the fans were becoming frayed as news of Rangers progress filtered through from Dundee United.
Celtic coach Jansen was looking at his watch with 18 minutes to go and three minutes later Brattbakk got a vital second goal.
Celtic players celebrated long and hard, knowing they had won the League by two points from their old firm rivals Rangers who also chalked up a victory at Tannadice.
Celtic’s players returned to the dressing-room but only for a brief spell and reappeared on the stroke of 5pm for the presentation.
Skipper Tom Boyd went forward onto the podium to receive the trophy from Lord Bearsten, vice-president of Scottish League sponsors Bell’s.
The players then went on a lap of honour in front of an ecstatic crowd, who had waited 10 long years for this day to come.
Teams
Celtic: Gould, Boyd, Annoni, McNamara, Rieper, Stubbs, Larsson (Blinker 89), Burley, Donnelly, Lambert (Wieghorst 82), O’Donnell (Brattbakk 60).
Goals: Larsson 3, Brattbakk 72.
St Johnstone: Main, McQuillan, Preston, Sekerlioglu (Griffin 76), McCluskey, Whiteford, O’Halloran (McMahon 62), O’Neil, Grant (Connolly 76), O’Boyle, Jenkinson.
Booked: McCluskey, Grant, O’Boyle.
Att: 50,500
Ref: K Clark (Paisley).
Bhoy, was it nervy at Parkhead
(21 May 2008)
MARC RIEPER reckons the Celtic players will never experience a dose of the football jitters more extreme than the ones which could turn them into nervous wrecks at Tannadice tomorrow night.
The Danish defender was part of the Hoops team which won the league crown in 1998 on the final day – and stopped Rangers grabbing 10-in-a-row.
Celtic and Rangers went into the final day of fixtures knowing both sides had a chance of glory with the odds in favour of Wim Jansen’s Bhoys.
Rangers needed to win at Tannadice to have any hope, while Celtic knew that a victory at home against St Johnstone would give them the prize.
In the end, both Old Firm giants won their games and Celtic clinched the title by two points, yet Rieper has revealed that he was too drained to party and instead could barely muster a trot on the lap of honour.
The former Hoops stopper said: “That afternoon against St Johnstone was one of the most tense I’ve experienced in football.
“We were at home and expected to win. Nine times out of 10 we would win without too much trouble, but that was no ordinary day.
“The previous Sunday we should have wrapped it all up by beating Dunfermline at East End Park, but they equalised in the last few minutes, which meant everything was on hold until the final fixture.
“Henrik Larsson got us off to a flier with an early goal, but it didn’t really settle our nerves.
“In fact, it wasn’t until Harald Brattbakk scored late in the game to make it 2-0 that we could relax a bit.
“Not only were we trying to win the title, we were conscious of stopping Rangers winning 10-in-a-row and that was on our minds.
“The feeling on the final whistle was simply relief and a little bit of joy.
“Of course we got the trophy on the pitch and celebrated, but I remember being mentally shattered and it took a good few days to recover.” He added: “Celtic – like us in 1998 – control their own destiny and that brings a huge pressure.
The hype in the Scottish press is always massive and you have to try to hold your nerve.
“The team which does that best this week will win through.”
© 2008 Express Newspapers
May 9 – the day we ‘stopped the 10’
By: Joe Sullivan on 09 May, 2012 11:59
Celticfc.net
THE late 1960s and early ‘70s were truly memorable and, indeed, werethe golden years of Celtic Football Club.
The nine championships in a row bear witness to that fact but those years were also about so much more than claiming the title at the end of every season.
There was the small matter of winning the European Cup in 1967 and reaching the final again three years later as well as another couple of semi-final appearances thrown in for good measure.
Not that the other silverware up for grabs in the shape of the Scottish and League Cups were being neglected as domestic final after domestic final were reached.
Indeed, season 1967/68 when the Celts suffered an early exit from the Scottish Cup to Dunfermline was the ONLY season during that period when the Celts weren’t on the verge of claiming the Treble – in all other nine seasons they won the title and reached both domestic finals.
The lynchpin of the whole triumphant period, though, was winning nine-in-a-row. That was the axis around which everything else revolved and created the greatest team in Celtic’s history.
It was a source of great pride at the time and as much as we wanted to do the nice round double figure thing and make it 10-in-a-row, it wasn’t to be.
The nine-in-a-row run had bridged two generations of Celtic players and now this tired mixture of old and new was coming to the end of its existence.
There wasn’t the same verve and, some said to stop Celtic’s monopoly at the top of the tree, the Premier Division was introduced to replace the old Division One and Celtic’s golden years faded.
One aspect that didn’t fade, though, was the pride of all Celtic supporters in the achievement and, like the 7-1 game and the Lisbon final, even those who weren’t around at the time to witness and enjoy the proceedings lapped up all the reminiscing pouring form the pages of the history books.
Come the 1990s, history was being rewritten, though, and this wasn’t making for a rattling good read either – the other side of Glasgow’s footballing divide were starting to rack up the titles in a spend, spend, spend policy.
In fact, they had started to stockpile the championship wins immediately after Celtic’s wonderful Centenary Year of ‘87/88 when we all thought we had gained a foothold to mount a challenge on Rangers’ new spending and import policies.
The club didn’t build on the success of the 100-year milestone, though, and slowly but surely, a couple of titles for Rangers turned to four, then six then….
You get the picture, a succession of Celtic managers tried and failed to stop the end-of-season parties along Edminston Drive and there seemed no end in sight – Rangers had reached nine and, horror of horrors, were homing in on the dreaded 10 in season 1997/98.
In a last toss of the dice, Dutchman Wim Jansen was drafted in to pull his finger out of the dam that was harnessing all the championship silverware on the south side of Glasgow.
The Celts rallied and showed they were at least able to put up some fight when they lifted the League Cup in November of that season, but would that instil enough belief to wrench the title from the hands of Rangers?
To say it was tight would be an understatement but the Ibrox side had the upper hand in the big derby meetings that season with two wins to Celtic’s one, with the other game being drawn.
That final Rangers win was clocked up with four games to go for each team, both teams were on 66 points and the Ibrox side were ahead by one goal in the GD column.
The following Saturday, Celtic saw off Motherwell by 4-1 while, 24 hours later, Rangers fell 1-0 to Aberdeen at Pittodrie thanks to a Stephen Glass goal – the Celts were three points ahead and three goals better off – the atmosphere was heating up.
The following Saturday both teams were in action but the day didn’t go exactly the way Celtic wanted it as they could only muster a 0-0 draw with Hibernian while Rangers rocked Hearts 3-0 – Celtic were one point ahead and goal difference was equal with two games to go – the atmosphere was reaching boiling point.
On the coming Saturday, Rangers were at home to Kilmarnock while Celtic would visit Dunfermline the following day so the Ibrox side had the opportunity to move two points ahead of the Celts and put pressure on the challengers.
However, the game at Ibrox was frittering to a 0-0 draw which would at least put Rangers level with Celtic but there was a twist in the tale.
In the 95th minute, Killie’s Ally Mitchell scored to stun Ibrox into silence and send thousands of Celtic fans with their ears glued to radios into realms of ecstasy – the title could be won at East End Park the following day and the mercury went off the top off the scale.
All the Celts had to do was win on a gloriously sunny day in Dunfermline and not only would the title be theirs – but the dreaded 10 would be stopped.
Everything was going to plan when Simon Donnelly fired Celtic in front in the 35th minute and it looked like the 10 was finally put to rest.
Just seven minutes from time, though, tragedy struck when a looping header from Craig Faulconbridge unbelievably managed to end up in the back of the net – Celtic were still two points and a goal ahead but the spectre of the 10 was back on and the mercury dropped like a stone.
The following Saturday was May 9, 14 years ago today, and Scottish football came to a virtual standstill as all eyes focused on Celtic Park where the Bhoys entertained St Johnstone and Tannadice where Dundee United took on Rangers.
Thousands more packed Ibrox where their game was beamed to a big screen and a helicopter was booked to fly their team back to Glasgow to celebrate 10-in-a-row!
That all depended on Celtic slipping up, but Henrik Larsson fired the Celts into the lead right at the start of the game and that settled the nerves – NOT!
We needed another goal to cement the title and stop the 10 as news was coming through from Tayside that Rangers were leading and still we hadn’t scored that elusive goal.
Our hearts were in our mouths when George O’Boyle went perilously close for St Johnstone but with the clock approaching 4.28pm, Harald Brattbakk scooped home the goal that stopped the 10.
Nerves were shattered and frayed but nigh on a decade of misery was all but wiped out when the final whistle went and Celtic’s nine-in-a-row accomplishment, thankfully, wasn’t bettered or beaten.