On Sunday 20 March 1988 league leaders Celtic travelled across the city to play current Champions Rangers in a vital leave match. A win would go a long way to ensuring that the title would be Celtic’s in the club’s centenary season. There was a huge television audience for this match as it was shown live on STV.
The attendance at Ibrox was 43,650 and the Celtic side was Bonner; Morris, Whyte, Aitken, Ballie, Burns, Stark, McStay, McAvennue, Walker and Miller (replaced by Rogan).
Celtic won the match 2-1, a scoreline that flattered the home side. This was Celtic’s third victory of the season over the Ibrox side and extended the club’s unbeaten run which stretched back to October.
“It is a particularly satisfying result as Rangers played so well,” Billy McNeill said afterwards, adding that his players were magnificent.
Paul McStay created and finished the opener for Celtic to silence the home crowd. The Celtic support erupted with joy! With 17 minutes remaining a rebound from a Rangers free-kick reached Bertram and his shot was deflected rather fortunately for him, past Pat Bonner to level the scores.
But this was the Centenary season and this Celtic side just refused to give up. They pressed Rangers hard and after winning a number of corners one worked. Tommy Burns took it and his in-swinging cross found Anton Rogan – who was involved in McStay’s opened too. Anton nodded the ball down and Andy Walker was in the right place to assist the ball’s progress into the Rangers net.
Goal of the season contender it was not but the Celtic support didn’t care about that. Celtic were now heading towards a fairytale league win and still had the Scottish Cup to aim for too. What a Happy Birthday it would turn out to be for the Hoops.
If you have time have a look at the video below, which shows the Scotsport highlights. Notice that the Celtic support took up the Broomloan and the enclosure at that side of the ground. And STV actually had a helicopter!
