Last Saturday Celtic used the window presented by the International Break to stage as SWPL1 match at Paradise, to fulfil the pledge made to season ticket holders at renewal time last year.

The club offered free tickets to all 60,000 season ticket holders and cheap admission to non-season ticket holders and attracted a crowd of perhaps around 5000 who were situated in the bottom half of the North Stand, in the main stand and of course in the North Curve where The Green Brigade provided a tremendous atmosphere singing from the first minute to the last and then giving the players and the manager a brilliant opportunity at the end to go over and celebrate a Celtic win in front of the North Curve – in full taps-aff mode due to the warm sunshine.

Afterwards I spoke to several of the Celtic players and also to manager Fran Alonso and he was buzzing about the experience and is clearly hungry for more. He recognises the work that has been done in promoting the women’s team by fan media, notably The Celtic Star and the Cynic and also looked ahead to further matches taking place at Paradise as the club looks to take the women’s game to the next level.

What exactly does that look like? Imagine if you were a Celtic supporter in the early 1960s when the focus was on the club trying to win something – anything – to break the barren spell that started after the remarkable 7-1 League Cup Final win against Rangers at Hampden in the sun on 19 October 1957.

Someone says to you that Celtic should look to develop a name for ourselves on the European stage. Had there been social media around in those days plenty would have piled in to argue that domestic football was all that mattered and we had to focus on breaking the stronghold that Rangers had over us at that time.

Celtic did enter the European stage and within a few years many of the young players at the club in the early years of the 1960s were turned into the kings of Europe, winning the European Cup in 1967 and reaching the final in 1970 and several other semi-finals too.

European football was clearly the future and how diminished would Celtic be if the club did not embrace it fully in the 1960s?

Nothing stands still and football is developing further in the 2020s and there is a considerable grow area for big clubs in European football in the women’s game. This week Barcelona Women played Real Madrid at the Camp Nou and attached a world record attendance for a women’s match of 91,553 – that the size of crowd that Jock Stein’s Celtic side were attracting in that glorious spell when we were one of the top sides on the continent for five or six years.

Culers, the world record for attendance at a women’s football match is ours! pic.twitter.com/Hu94A9PXDO

— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) March 30, 2022

Here’s how the official Barcelona website reports on this week’s women’s match.

The crowd also make history at Camp Nou sees a world record attendance of 91,553. The response from the Barça fans means that the figure surpasses the 90,185 fans who attended the 1999 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena between the USA and China.

The first game with fans for Barça Women at Camp Nou is in line with the history that the team is making on the field and everyone who attended the quarter final second leg of the Women’s Champions League can say they were there at the game that set a new world record for attendance at a women’s football game. The 91,553 fans who behind Jonatan Giráldez’s team as they made it to the last four of the competition have also helped to write another page in the history books not just at Barça but in women’s football.

Camp Nou’s capacity, the biggest in Europe, allowed hopes of a record attendance for a women’s game to be raised. The bar was high with the previous best set at 90,185 for the 1999 World Cup final between the USA and China in the Pasadena Rose Bowl stadium in California.

The great response to the game at Camp Nou from the fans sees a whole host of further records set – beating the previous record for a club game of 60,739, set at the Wanda Metropolitano in 2019 in a game between Barça Women and Atlético Madrid in the league. Furthermore, the crowd sets a new record in the Women’s Champions League previously set at 50,212 in a game between Lyon and FFC Frankfurt in Munich in 2012.

The challenge to break the record needed the help of the members and fans who responded excellently to the Club’s call for people to come to the game. Free tickets for members were snapped up two months in advance as were the tickets priced between 9 euros and 15 euros for non-members. Despite a rainy day in Barcelona, the fans did not disappoint and turned up in great numbers to get behind a team that has made them proud and that this season could even improve on last season’s treble winning campaign.

An unforgettable experience

The fans enjoyed a festival atmosphere inside and outside the ground. The stands at Camp Nou were not only notable due to the size of the crowd but also for the varied nature of those attending with members and fans of all ages and all corners of the world mingling in the Barça stadium to be part of the record breaking evening. In the hours before kick off fans were able to take part in various activities (skate park, basketball tournaments, 3 a side futsal, photos…) Many youngsters were attending their first game at Camp Nou and will remember their part in making history for the rest of their lives.

Once inside the stadium before the game there was a giant mosaic on show from the more than 90,000 fans inside the ground. The message was one that the Club wished to send around the world – More than Empowerment – supporting women in their battle for a more equal society.

This highlights video below has been watched by over 400,000 people so far.

Fran Alonso spoke about this Barcelona v Real Madrid Champions League quarter final tie at the Nou Camp in the media room at Celtic Park on Saturday afternoon.

“I think if you compare where we are now in Scotland with five years ago, it’s totally different. We are much better than we were five years ago and with people behind the scenes pushing hard we will grow much more. The (SWPL1) league is very exciting, it’s not just one team winning every year, now it could be any of four teams fighting among themselves, they take points from each other and it’s much more exciting. That creates exposure and the little girls look towards the women’s game.

“Right now we are not where we want to be but we are in the right place to keep growing.

“Spain has done very good things, you can see at club level. Before Spanish clubs were no able to compete at the Champions League level, right now, in my opinion Barcelona are the best team in the world. They play outstanding football and physically they can match any team so they have grown and there is no reason why Scotland cannot grow at the same level.

“It may be that Scottish teams can compete at that level in the Champions League in a few years. Team’s like Glasgow City have been there for many, many years but I feel that the players that come to play in Scotland are much better than the players that used to come to Scotland and now team’s are keeping them. Before it was a case of one good year then they went.

“When asked I also say that I wish all Scottish teams will do well in Europe.”

Celtic today released information on the season ticket renewals for next season. That’s a much easier sell that last year when the women’s game was included as one of the extra bonuses given to the support. Hopefully there’s more matches to come next season and Celtic continue to develop our young women’s team with some much needed additions in the summer.

The Scotland team to play Spain as announced this week and of the four big sides only Celtic did not have a player called up. We have two goalkeepers injured, that’s true but when there are a handful of players from the big spending theRangers in now in the national side, there has to be a point when we recognise the danger of failing behind them in the women’s game.