One of the big disadvantages of summer football (I am not a fan!) is that one’s grandchildren tend to visit when there is a game on, so it was BBC Radio Scotland between baths and bedtime stories for me.
But that is no great disadvantage, for the BBC Radio Scotland commentary of Liam McLeod, Paddy Bonner and Scott McDonald is second to none, and anchor man Richard Gordon knows as much about Scottish football as any one person is likely to know. He is calm, informative and extremely easy to listen to. Then in any case, the goals appear, obligingly, on You Tube soon after the final whistle, so who needs any dodgy foreign TV channel?
I would of course have rather been there, but Celtic will be very happy with tonight. It could have been more, indeed it should have been more, and the goal lost was just sheer carelessness, but the three goals that we scored were of absolute top quality with Odsonne Edouard proving that he is worth every penny of his transfer fee.
BBC radio commentators seem to like words ending in -esque, and the world “Larssonesque” was coined to describe the third.
He may have been a touch offside when he got that goal, but he finished superbly. And it was nice to see Scotty Sinclair playing a part in the first goal as well. It was just as well that it came when it did, however.
There is probably enough football at Celtic Park to see us through in Norway next Wednesday. It will not be easy and I suspect that Celtic will have to score, but with Edouard in the form that he is, what is the problem?
The defence was of course two down – Jozo Simunovic “tholing the assizes” (as they used to say in medieval Scotland) and then we have Dedryck Boyata on his prolonged holiday after the World Cup. If both are back next week, fair and good, but don’t expect life to be easy if they aren’t for poor Jack Henry looked completely disorientated. And Craig Gordon wouldn’t be Craig Gordon if he didn’t make the occasional hash of a clear out! We will have to dig deep next week, but I’m confident.
David Potter
(A match report from someone NOT even at the game, it will never catch on, will it?)
