Details
Topic: Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland’s national rugby stadium
Ref: Interim home for Celtic matches during Commonwealth Games (2014)
Date: July/Aug 2014, and then 2018
Background
2014 Matches
Celtic Park played host to the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow in 2014.
One headache was that due to those Commonwealth Games, Celtic were forced to play their home matches outwith of Glasgow, so Celtic games were to be held in Murrayfield Stadium (Edinburgh).
As it’s a rugby stadium, it’s not ideally suited to football as rugby pitches (including the try area) are most often larger than football pitches, and so there can be sizeables gaps between the supporters in the stands and the pitch. It was only an interim move anyhow, and Murrayfield was at the time the only sizeable stadium option in Scotland.
The first match was an easy early round 4-0 victory over Icelandic team KR Reykjavik.
The second match turned out to be quite contentious. The result was voided, and reversed towards Celtic for a 3-0 default win after Legia Warsaw were found to have played an ineligible player for 5 minutes at the end of the game. 4-4 on aggregate; Celtic through on away goals. So you could argue Celtic only really played one game at Murrayfield, the previous 4-0 victory.
Anyhow, on paper Celtic played two matches at Murrayfield and ‘scored’ seven goals to the good and left undefeated.
Further Matches
2018 Match
In 2018, following a furore over two league cup semi-finals to be played on one day at Hampden, a Celtic v Hearts match was rearranged to Murrayfield, which Celtic won 3-0. This match played at Murrayfield, became the biggest crowd at a football game in Scotland since 1989.
The background to this was that due to both Sevco & Celtic playing in UEFA Cup on Thursday, the original plan of one game Sat & Sun was not practical. So SPFL decided to have both games on Sunday at Hampden (Sevco v Aberdeen 12pm, Celtic v Hearts, 7.45pm). The Police Federation general secretary remarked on the original Hampden double-header that it was “idiotic”. After a furore, the games were rearranged with Celtic’s game to be played at Murrayfield. Celtic very unhappy over all this, but still won the match convincingly.
Matches played by Celtic at Murrayfield
- 2014-07-22: Celtic 4-0 KR Reykjavik, European Cup 2nd Qualifying Round
- 2014-08-06: Celtic 0-2 Legia Warsaw, Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round
(N.B. Result reversed, and Celtic made 3-0 victors)
- 2018-10-28 Celtic 3-0 Hearts
