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Date: 27th July 1999 19:45pm

Venue: Celtic Park. Televised live on terrestrial TV (Channel 5.)

Price: £16. South East corner of the ground (above and behind the bottom right hand corner flag as you see the ground on TV. For £1.50 a thin programme of adverts also included a picture of John Barnes…

Conditions: Heatwave continues.

Kit: Home with black socks due to Celtic having the lucky white ones on. New home kit for the Celts features advertising for NTL - potential suitors for the Hall & Shepherd United shares and already owners of over 5% of NUFC shares.

Crowd: 59252 (around 3000 away supporters.) For a close-to-capacity crowd there were a good few little gaps where green seats showed through - normal season ticket holders just had to turn up with their books to gain access, so how the attendance was calculated is open to question. I reckon more like 55,000 were there - still one hell of a crowd.

Teams:

CFC: Kerr, Boyd, Mahe, Mjallby, Tebily, Riseth, Larsson, Moravcik, Viduka, Berkovic, Lambert Subs: Petta for Moravcik 46 mins, Blinker for Berkovic 73 mins, Burchill for Larsson 88mins, Subs n/u: Wieghorst, Johnson, Gould, McKinlay, Bonnes, Brattbakk.

NUFC: Ziegler, Charvet, Marcelino, Goma, Domi, Solano, Dumas, Speed, Serrant, Ketsbaia, Shearer. Subs: Robinson for Shearer 61 mins, McClen for Solano 64 mins, Maric for Serrant 64 mins, Hughes for Dumas 89 mins. Subs n/u: Perez, Barton, Kerr, Coppinger, Beharall.

Referee: R.Orr (Kilbarchan, Scotland.)

Who? For Celtic: Messrs McDermott, Barnes, Daglish - no comment needed - a trio of former United employees who made a good few quid out of us, often for the barest of efforts - of course the latter one still pursues us for his pound of flesh, sorry, unfair dismissal compensation claim. Terry Mac was granted a quick burst of "Terry Mac", Barnes was ignored and Kenneth inspired a lusty chant of "Dalglish fucked it up."

For United: on-loan goalkeeper Marc Ziegler, borrowed for a week from Stuttgart, a 23 year old rated in the 500k bracket who we may or may not sign permanently. Identified as a continental keeper straight away after appearing in a peaked cap and fisting away one cross.

Goals:
50 mins New signing Olivier Tebily (seen here with Shearer earlier in the game) atoned for his own goal boob in the previous game against Leeds by rising unchallenged in the box to head home a Berkovic corner.1-0.
62 mins. Viduka was fed by Berkovic again and advanced into the United box , the ball sitting up for him courtesy of a lucky rebound, and shot for goal from about eight yards. Another fortunate deflection off Ziegler in goal and the ball nestled in the back of the net. 2-0.

Waffle: No matter what the occasion, it is a pleasure to come to this fantastic football stadium. That statement was unfortunately not shared by a minority of the "No Surrender" brigade from Newcastle, who seemed to think it was England v Scotland, or Ireland, or possibly an Orange Walk. Thankfully the flagwaving died down after a while, although choruses of "Hullo Hullo, we are the Geordie boys" offended locals for the Hun-related tune rather than the content. Added to this were a couple of jerks in the home end with mackem shirts on, and consequently a full-on atmosphere kept things on the boil and extra police reinforcements on this toes. The 35 minute second half "Ruud Gullitt - Black and White Army" chant, complete with standing up, handclaps and shirtwaving managed to distract half of the main home stand from the game and even generated a round of applause from some home fans. What a pity none of the players or staff even bothered to cross the halfway line upon the final whistle to show their appreciation. No reports of trouble apart from some differences between Newcastle fans which resulted in at least one ejection, and the popularity of half in half Celtic/United scarves seemed evidence of less friction between the two sides than in previous times.

Nothing new say really about the team; Solano was easing himself back in, we just about held our own in the first half and created two notable scoring opportunities, while Domi showed one or two flashes of inspiration with forward gallops. Once behind, there looked little chance of a fightback, especially when Shearer was withdrawn after an hour and replaced by Robinson - had this been a proper game they would both have been on together. Overall, the same things showed through again: a disturbing lack of pace in the whole team, a defence still learning how to play together and an absence of bite and creativity in forward areas. Anyone watching this game as a neutral would have noted the lack of runs into space United players made compared to the Celts, but they turned out a first choice team and begin their league campaign on Sunday. I'm still not overly optimistic for ours, though…

PS - The new keeper looks to have potential.
PPS - Maric performed to his usual standard - out of his depth.

Biffa

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