The Ten

The Ten

One of life’s ironies is that it often makes sense when you look back at it but it has to be lived going forward. 22 years ago this coming week Celtic faced up to Dundee United in the League Cup Final at Ibrox.  Celtic had stuttered in the league that November losing to Rangers and Motherwell before playing a second game with Rangers which had been postponed from earlier in the season because of the death of Princess Diana. Few of us in Celtic Park on a raucous and turbulent night could have foreseen the importance of Alan Stubbs’ last minute equaliser which salvaged a deserved point for Celtic.

New players had been arriving at the club as Wim Jansen recruited the men he felt would stop the dreaded ‘Ten’ from Rangers which would eclipse Jock Stein’s record. Men such as Larsson, Burley, Lambert, Brattbakk, Blinker and Rieper arrived at Celtic Park to stem the blue tide which had washed over the club for nine long years. Celtic supporters knew the importance of the title but with just one solitary trophy won in the previous 3000 days, they badly wanted to get their hands on the league cup. They knew they were a better team than Dundee United having beaten them 4-0 a week before the final but the ghosts of Raith Rovers and Falkirk hung heavy in the air. Celtic had faltered so often in the key games in that era and although their form was improving they had shown in the first half of season 1997-98 a nagging inconsistency which worried some of their supporters.

Often in a football season we look back and say ‘that was a turning point.’ We saw one such pivotal moment when on form Rangers marched towards a home fixture with Celtic in fine form only to be broken by Odsonne Edouard’s stunning winning goal in a 3-2 win at Ibrox. Scoring first and playing for a long period against ten men couldn’t prevent Rangers from crumbling against a bold Celtic side that had a centre back sent off and then had the courage to throw on another striker. The psychological damage done was incalculable and Rangers title challenge petered out.

That league cup final held on St Andrew’s day in 1997 was won well by Celtic with Rieper, Larsson and Burley scoring as Celtic comfortably defeated Dundee United at Ibrox. I was in the Copeland Road that day and the scenes were amazing. The Ibrox main stand was festooned in Celtic flags and banners as two thirds of the stadium roared out their songs of victory. As the Oasis hit of the era ‘Roll with it’ boomed out and the players danced around the field with the cup I remember thinking, ‘We’re back, this’ll do this team the world of good, they can push on from here.’ I threw my scarf at the players as they paraded past the Copeland Road stand and Tom Boyd picked it up. By chance I spoke to him at the Celtic Sleep-out a couple of years ago about that day and he said that winning that cup and the arrival of quality players made them think that they could win the league that year. There would be a few twists and turns along the way but in the spring of 1998 Celtic finally ended a decade of pain for their fans by stopping the Ten.

December’s League Cup final has the potential to be a very telling match. Celtic are going for their tenth domestic trophy in a row; a feat unheard of in Scottish football. For Rangers the game offers an opportunity to win the club’s first major trophy since the new club’s inception in 2012. They have invested tens of millions of pounds over the past few years to try and wrest Celtic’s supremacy from them and have so far failed miserably. As a Celtic fan I obviously want Celtic to win and win well and if both teams perform at their best I think Celtic have the players to win the match. For once the fixtures are a little kinder to Celtic as they approach the match. They have Hamilton at home on December 4 while Rangers are at Pittodrie the same night. That being said the Final is four days later and both teams will have time to recover. Perhaps Celtic will use the squad to ensure key men aren’t injured whereas Rangers will need their best team to get a result at Aberdeen as the Dons seldom give them anything other than a hard match in the north east.

Nothing lasts forever in sport; not success and not failure. The 1990s taught Celtic fans that lesson and one day this incredible trophy winning streak will end. Neil Lennon and his team will be determined to ensure that this winning sequence doesn’t end in the upcoming league cup final. Celtic are going for their own ‘Ten’ trophies in a row and pushing for another nine in a row in the championship. These are incredible times to be a Celtic fan and every last one of us should enjoy it to the full.

We know that this incredible trophy winning streak will inevitably end one day but hopefully just not yet.