| Match Pictures | Matches: 1999 – 2000 | 1999-2000 Pictures |
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Trivia
- The SPL came up with plans for next season with 12 teams splitting into top and bottom six to play the final 5 games of the season. Both Celtic and Rangers voted against it.
- A makeshift Celtic side travelled to Tolka Park to take on the previous season’s winner of the Irish Cup. The fixture had been agreed based on a perceived similarity between Bray Wanderers and UEFA Cup opponents Cwmbran Town.
- Bray’s Jason Byrne was Robbie Keane’s cousin.
- This was the first game for Dmitri Kharine who was sufficiently recovered from his calf strain. Mahe got a game between his two-game suspension. McKinlay and Johnson had already been deemed surplus to requirements and free to leave Celtic Park if they could find themselves clubs. Burley was returning from the knee ligament strain at the end of the previous season. Likewise McNamara was coming back after knee surgery. Stubbs return was after a testicular cancer operation. Brattbakk’s move had fallen through. Healy needed to be watched by Barnes, not having been at pre-season or played in front of the new coach before. Blinker had a chance to show his skills and McColligan was drafted in from the U-21’s.
Review
An arranged warm-up for the UEFA tie saw a makeshift team very few of which were likely to play Cwmbran Town – in fact only Bobby Petta and Craig Burley took part in both games so the tie was more in the spirit of friendship towards the Dublin side before they faced their own UEFA opponents, Grasshoppers of Zurich (Roy Hodgson the new Grasshoppers coach was in the stands for this game – Bray would lose their qualifier 8-0 on aggregate).
Teams
BRAY WANDERERS – Walsh, Treeson, Farrell, Fox (B O'Connor 77), Doohan, Keogh (O'Donoghue 73), Tierney (Lynch 56), Kenny (Power 83), O'Brien (Larkin 70), Smyth (Brien 58), Byrne (D O'Connor 77).
Non Used Subs: Connolly, Young.
CELTIC – Kharine, Healy, Mahe, McKinlay, McColligan (McNamara 46), Stubbs, Blinker (Burchill 46), Burley, Brattbakk, Johnson, Petta.
Subs: Kerr, Lambert, Moravcik, Riseth, Tebily, Wieghorst.
Goals: Johnson (7), Brattbakk (76)
Bookings: None
Referee – Hugh Byrne, Dublin
Attendance: 5,000
Articles
- Match Report
FOOTBALL : MEDAL FOR BRAY-VERY
Daily Record 04/08/1999
PAUL SINCLAIR
BRAY WANDERERS 0 CELTIC 2
ALAN STUBBS started his on-field rehabilitation last night as he led his fellow Celtic stars out of the treatment room and on to victory in Dublin.
They beat Irish Cup holders Bray Wanderers 2-0 at Tolka Park but what was more important was how Celtic's long-term injury victims lasted the pace.
All of them are on the road to recovery.
Just 36 days after undergoing surgery for cancer, Stubbs strolled through the game and did everything that was asked of him.
He was blowing hard by the end but he played the full 90 minutes and can be only a couple of games away from peak fitness.Craig Burley, returning from knee ligament damage, had a quiet match but he, too, went the distance and Jackie McNamara looked lively when he came on for the second half.
It was a stroll but at least everyone's limbs were functioning.
One man who didn't turn out was Bulgarian signing Stilian Petrov.
It had been originally expected he would play at least part of the match. But his delayed arrival in to Glasgow from Sofia on Monday night meant there was no chance of him being considered.
He will now start his new career in earnest this morning when he joins up with his new team-mates at training.
This match really was less of a contest but more of a test of players' fitness and their ability to adapt to the new system of head coach John Barnes.
It was a chance for those recently wounded to walk again and, accommodatingly, much of the match was played at just above walking pace.
As he strode out at the head of the Celtic team Stubbs looked every inch the strong, commanding figure that Celtic fans know so well.
But everything else around him must have looked unfamiliar.
His partner in central defence was Stephane Mahe and the Frenchman's desire to wander out to his more accustomed position on the left, meant that Stubbs had too much ground to cover on occasions, not that Bray ever really tested him.
Stubbs tried to bring a degree of organisation to a back-line which needed it.
Yes, the Englishman won every header he went for in the first half, but a number of corners from Maurice Farrell went unchallenged through the Celtic box. Stubbs was prepared to put himself about as of old and if there was, on occasion, a hint of reluctance in a couple of challenges, it was no more than the rest of his team-mates showed in a match they strolled through.
At least Stubbs' presence was felt – Burley, returning from his knee ligament injury, was almost anonymous.
He was another in unfamiliar territory though and was asked to play deep in the midfield holding role, which Paul Lambert has made his own.
It's not a position which uses Burley's best assets and he didn't seem to like it. There was no opportunity to use his surging pace, no chance to unleash a vicous shot.
But Barnes has made it clear that he will fit players into his system and not fit the system around his players.
One of his successes was using Colin Healy in the right wing-back role.
There aren't that many ready-made candidates for that position at Parkhead but midfielder Healy looked the part and certainly has the energy to make it up and down the right flank whenever required.
But as Barnes worked out the complexities of his system, it was the most basic of moves which gave his side the lead just seven minutes into the game.
Dmitri Kharine thumped a clearance up field which Tommy Johnson ran on to. The Geordie striker outpaced the defence and hit a right-foot shot flying past the advancing keeper and into the net.
If Johnson was trying to re-habilitate himself in the eyes of the Celtic management, he blew it with the only other significant thing he did in the half.
Three minutes from half-time, Johnson was standing barely four yards away from the dug-outs when he decided to clear the ball by blasting it into the stand.
He got power on the ball all right but – perhaps – not direction and it caught John Barnes full in the face.
The Celtic head coach needed attention from the physio as blood poured from his nose – not the way to get into the new boss's good books.
As Stubbs eased his way back and found little to trouble him in defence, he lumbered forward twice in the last 20 minutes but despite winning the ball in the air both headers went over the bar.
If he needed any tips on technique he got it from the unlikely source of Harald Brattbakk who scored Celtic's second 14 minutes from time.
Healy got the ball on the right and when he crossed, the Norwegian striker met it perfectly and headed it into the net.
- Manager Interview
Pictures
Stats
| Bray Wanderers | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 0 | 0 |
| Fouls | 5 | 8 |
| Shots on Target | 3 | 5 |
| Corners | 6 | 3 |
| Offside | 2 | 2 |