Celtic blow as English side decided against friendly match

CELTIC have been dealt a blow in their pre-season preparations after English non-league side Harrogate Town rejected the opportunity to play the Scottish Champions in a friendly match. Celtic have not played since a 5-0 win over St Mirren in March and are needing to get game time sorted in order to prepare for the beginning of the league season in August.

Lennon’s side contacted Harrogate to offer them a friendly but sadly they were unable to fulfil the fixture as a result of their impending League Two play-off match. As reported by the Scottish Sun, manager Simon Weaver explained their decision to reject the friendly match in Leicestershire.

“I received a great phone call from Danny Wilson just the other day, asking if we wanted to play Celtic at Loughborough, all expenses paid.

“Under any other circumstances we’d love to have played them. What an opportunity, and what a blow to have to say no.

“But it’s too big a risk for us with the size of our squad and because we only have four defenders available for the play-offs.

“We’re walking on eggshells a little bit in that respect. We’ve got to be very careful at the moment.

“I’m sure Celtic will find another of the play-off sides with a bigger squad who will be able to give them a game, but hopefully that link is forged now.”

Celtic will no doubt have offers from English teams with League One clubs likely to be preparing for their own league restart. As Wilson says, there will be a number of clubs keen to use Celtic’s generosity of expenses paid to prepare for their own play-off matches.

Neil Lennon’s team will go to France after their training camp at Loughborough where the club will play PSG, Nice and Lyon before beginning the league campaign at home to Hamilton.

About Author

Born just as Celtic were stopping the Ten, Lubo98 follows Celtic home and away and helps run his local Celtic Supporters Club. He goes to all the games and is a Law Graduate. Has a particular fondness for Tom Rogic among the current Celts and both Lubo and Henrik form his earliest Celtic memories.

Comments are closed.