4th February – Five Memorable Celtic Moments on This Day

Five memorable Celtic moments, with a nod to the late Celtic Historian and Celtic Star legend David Potter, on this day starting in 1911…

ONE- SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY 1911 – Without the two Jimmies – Young and Quinn – Celtic struggle and today they go down to Motherwell at Fir Park, 1-2. The only goal is scored by John Hastie. It was Celtic’s first ever defeat at Fir Park.

TWO – SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY 1928 – Kynoch Park, Keith is the unlikely port-of-call for Celtic in the Scottish Cup. The result is an unsurprising 6-1 win for Celtic with a hat-trick each from Tommy McInally and Jimmy McGrory, but Tommy McInally passes the ball to a Keith man to score the consolation goal (a local draper had offered any Keith player a new suit if he scored against Celtic), and then disappears, failing to return to Glasgow with the rest of the team. The mystery remains unexplained to this day, but McInally returns eventually. More trouble with Tommy is brewing however.

THREE – SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY 1967 – On a ground where Celtic have frequently come to grief in the past, it is a fine performance by Celtic against Airdrie at Broomfield. 23,000 spectators see Jimmy Johnstone, Steve Chalmers and Bertie Auld score the goals which bring a 3-0 victory.

Airdrie do not endear themselves to Celtic fans by playing it rough, with John Hughes in particular on the left wing being subjected to a great deal of attention, to which he wisely does not retaliate.

FOUR – SATURDAY 4 FEBRUARY 1984 – The League is now slowly slipping away from Celtic with this narrow 1-0 win for Aberdeen at Pittodrie. It was a tight game, and Celtic were worth a draw, but Aberdeen are now six points ahead, and games beginning to run out.

FIVE – SUNDAY 4 FEBRUARY 2001 – With snow showers circling Tynecastle this Sunday night, Henrik Larsson scores a hat-trick as Celtic beat Hearts 3-0, one of the goals being an absolute cracker. The game kicks off at the controversial time of 6.05 pm for the benefit of SKY TV, but it does allow an awful lot of people to see what is a superb Celtic performance.