Today’s photo of the day sticks with the theme of European away matches. It dates back to 3 March 2004, and shows a section of the Celtic support in Teplice.
The Hoops lost the match 1-0, but prevailed in the tie courtesy of a 3-0 victory in the home leg.
The image has provoked a lot of nostalgic discussion on social media. The common themes are that it was absolutely freezing, the area outside the stadium was like an ice rink, and that the town had little to offer except extremely cheap beer which was favourable with the majority of the Celtic faithful! There was even memories of a power cut inside the stadium, which delayed kick off by ten minutes. (You can enjoy the comments in the thread beneath the embedded tweet below)
Teplice away 2004 pic.twitter.com/jBAOp50Gmw
— Liam Kelly (@cfcliamk96) January 2, 2022
Martin O’Neill said of the support: “If anything proved that we have some real die-hard supporters, that game in Teplice did it for me. We had more than 4,000 people turn up for it and that’s quite extraordinary.”
Teplice away was one of the best away trips for me. Getting to spend 3 nights in the magnificent city of Prague the bar in the hotel had pints for 25p
and we managed to hire a bus to take us out to the picturesque town Teplice was like walking through time some of it was that old with very few amenities but a wonderful warm welcome was given to the travelling Celtic fans and even though it was freezing and we lost it was still a fantastic experience.