After an anything but hectic week of no football for Glasgow’s green and white, the day has finally come for Celtic to avenge last week’s Glasgow Derby loss as they take on Hibernian under the treasured Paradise floodlights tonight.
To get you into the mood, we’re taking you back to 1997, and across the M8 to Edinburgh; albeit to Hibs’ rivals, Heart of Midlothian – where a certain Jorge Cadete stole the show at Tynecastle…
It had been an exciting yet ultimately underwhelming season for Celtic up to this point. Off the pitch, Celtic Park was being transformed into an arena topped only in capacity by Wembley at the time. Owning the biggest stadium in British club football was quite a feat it must be said. Furthermore, the additions of Alan Stubbs and Paulo di Canio gave Celtic fans reason to be hopeful – if anything to stop theRangers’ pursuit of the ten.
However on the pitch, Tommy Burns’ men were already absent from the business end of the Scottish League Cup following a 1-0 loss in Gorgie – courtesy of a John Robertson strike – and similarly had been dumped out of the UEFA Cup 4-0 by Hamburg. To make things worse, they’d already lost three Glasgow Derbies by the time the Hearts game had arrived, meaning victory was imperative as the Hoops’ were now eight points behind in the title race. Something had to give, surely?
Over 15,000 packed into Tynecastle that day, and despite the foul-mouthed drivel that the Hearts support were trying to muster up, it ultimately failed as Jorge Cadete silenced the Edinburghers with a brace. Cadete, who had signed in controversial circumstances which led to Jim Farry’s rightful sacking, , was only at Celtic for a season – yet he has been declared an icon for his memorable moments, none more so than this.
Having put Celtic 1-0 up just shy of the half-hour mark, Hearts equalised straight away through a youthful Jim Hamilton – the well travelled journeyman who played for thirteen (yes, thirteen) different Scottish clubs.
However, despite the substitution of Di Canio – who alongside Cadete and van Hooijdonk made up the ‘Three Amigos’ – Cadete was on hand to put Celtic back into the league with little under a quarter of the game remaining. It marked a well-deserved brace, and in a season where he scored 38 goals in just 47 games, it paid testament to the Portuguese’s talents.
It wasn’t to end well for Celtic; theRangers won the league, and Celtic were knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Falkirk in a semi-final replay, but next season’s title-winning season under Wim Jansen would embellish Tommy Burns’ failures.
The Celtic team that day was: Kerr, Boyd, Gray, McNamara, Mackay, O’Donnell, Di Canio (Donnelly, 22), McStay, Van Hooijdonk (Wieghorst, 88), Hannah, Cadete.
