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1998-05-09: Celtic 2-0 St. Johnstone, Premier Division
It was a gloriously hot day and everything seemed right for a party – but the nerves and the nagging doubts were never far from the mind. We should have won it the Sunday before when the gers lost to a very late Ally Mitchell goal against Kilmarnock the previous day, leaving us needing just a “simple” victory at East End Park in a live televised match.
We all know what happened – Brattbakk (more on him to come) missed the goal from 2 yards out and Falconbridge scored the equaliser for Dunfermline Athletic to leave us here on the last day of the season just needing to beat St Johnstone at home, while The Others were up at Tannadice (scene of their 9-in-a-row) and any dropped points at Paradise meant the title would going back across the river with a victory for them.
Wim the Tim had assembled a half-decent outfit having taken over from the now dearly departed Tommy Burns, although a certain Number 7 still had his detractors having not made the best of starts to his Celtic career (his first touch was a pass to Chic Charnley for a Hibs winner at Easter Road on his debut).
Alan Stubbs looked much better with the arrival of Marc Rieper from West Ham (to date still the best centre-half I’ve seen in a hoops shirt) and sorted the midfield with the combative Craig Burley from Chelsea signed when Paul McStay retired and the artistic Paul Lambert from Borussia Dortmund. The only problem seemed to be the strikers – Brattbakk couldn’t hit a barn door from 2 feet inside it and Larsson’s form that season was stuttering at best.
So into the Royal Oak before the game and the strains of “Cheerio, 10 in a row” were echoing all around but I couldn’t join in, nerves getting the better of me as they tend to do on occasions like this. Had a few jars then headed across to Paradise in time for the teams coming out.
This was the first of what now appears to be a tradition with a helicopter on standby to transport the Premier League trophy to Glasgow or Dundee. The atmosphere inside the ground was strangely quiet at kick off – this was still in the days when the tranny radio was all-important, no mobiles with PDA in those days. That all changed after 2 minutes. Larsson picked up the ball on the left of the St Johnstone box, cut inside to give himself a better angle and unleashed a curling right-foot effort into the top corner. As you can imagine, bedlam erupted. My own seat that day was three rows from the front of the North Stand and after that goal went in I was somehow 10 rows further back!
I must be honest most of the rest of the game passed by in a blur until one moment in the second half when St Johnstone had their best chance of the game. Rangers had gone up at Tannadice and the ball was played out wide at the edge of the Celtic penalty area. An inch-perfect cross fell onto the head of the Saints’ reasonably prolific striker George O’Boyle – a staunch Rangers fan and the man they were calling all week “The Pride of the Shankhill” – with only Johnathan Gould to beat. 40-odd thousand hearts were in mouths, but, thankfully he managed to get under the ball and put it over the bar.
Harald Brattbakk then scored the second for Celtic – thus becoming “The Man Who Stopped 10 in a row” – and the party really started in earnest. After the final whistle the inevitable pitch invasion held up procedings to some degree, but we would have stayed until midnight that night to see that trophy getting presented to our hooped heroes. 10 long years of suffering were over at last. The Sack The Board pickets, the humiliating defeats at Ibrox and Celtic Park in the Old Firm games, the near-fatal brinkmanship which brought Fergus to Parkhead – all of it seemed worth it.
The party then spilled onto the Gallowgate where I saw Chic Charnley being carried piggy bank and greeting his eyes out like a wean. Sods of turf were in hand, it seems, by all and sundry (except me – the closest to the pitch of anyone on the 2 coaches our club ran that day – I wasn’t for arguing with the huge Polis in front of me who was literally picking people up by the beltstrap and throwing them back over the wall).
In my case, it was off to Edinburgh to start work on the biggest hangover of my 20 years to that point. Sore-headed, hoarse and more than a little bumped and bruised from the celebrations, I woke up the next afternoon with the consolation that at least I wouldn’t have to listen to THEM going on for the next 50 years about doing the 10.
Little did we know what was waiting in the wings the following day with the news of Wim’s little “disagreements” with the board, namely Fergus McCann, leading to him resigning less than a week after winning the Championship – but that’s another story altogether.
(StringerBell of KDS forum)
My abiding memory of the day will always be the fact my dad gave away his season ticket to his pals son so he could enjoy the day. I was 15 at the time, and my dad drove the two of us to the game and hung about outisde during it. He managed to sneak in for the celebrations right enough when they opened the disabled access doors.
Having not won the league since 1988, when I was only 5, it was the first time I had properly seen us winning it. People of my generation will know only too well what it was like growing up, going to school during Rangers 9IAR. It was almost impossible to imagine Celtic being champions, given the supremacy Rangers had had for the previous decade.
I remember the weeks before, we lost at Ibrox, drew at home to Hibs and obviously drew the week before against Dunfermline. We really stuttered over the line. What a day it was though. The feeling of relief when Larsson scored early on was only surpassed by the realisation we had done it when Brattbakk finally came good and clinched it.
Obviously the following day the papers were filled with the news Jansen was leaving; but for 24 hours it’s as high as I had ever felt as a Celtic supporter. We were deserved champions! Wim Jansen didn’t always have us playing the most entertaining football, but we were efficient and had an excellent spine to the team; and of course he brought us Henrik.
A wonderful day, and although we stuttered for a couple of seasons after that, it certainly heralded a new era and reminded people what it felt like to be winners.