Celtic on this Day in 1998, Celtic 5-1 Rangers…Here’s what the papers said…
Following the 2-1 defeat to St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park a week prior, Dr Jo Venglos was under considerable pressure from within and outside the club having appallingly won five of his opening 14 league matches in the 1998/1999 campaign. The Scottish champions did not have a favourable record against their archrivals throughout the 1990s, therefore confidence heading into this clash was not high. A victory for Rangers would stretch the gap between themselves and Celtic to 13 points, and it was only mid-November!
Johan Mjallby
There were some notable appearances in Celtic’s 5-1 trouncing over Rangers. Firstly, Johan Mjallby who had signed for the Hoops from Swedish outfit AIK Solna for £1.5 million a day earlier, had not even unpacked before being thrown into his full league debut which was to be a lively tussle.
Tony Warner
On loan Liverpool goalkeeper Tony Warner who only ever made three appearances at Paradise was also thrown in by Venglos for his home debut. After the game, making the journey back to Liverpool from Glasgow, Warner crashed his car. He was thankfully okay and did not suffer any serious injuries. Regaling the incident a few years later, Warner said, “yeah, not even that could take the shine off the day.”
Despite the feeling of triumph from the season before vanishing following the departure of Wim Jansen, Celtic Park was rocking for this derby encounter. Rarely, this Scottish Premier League outing against Rangers was played at 3:00pm in the afternoon. Outwith cup competitions, was this the last league fixture between the two sides to have been played at the traditional slot of three o’clock on a Saturday?
Lubo Moravcik
The quality on display via Lubo and Henrik gave us a slight snippet of what was to come in later years under the reigns of Martin O’Neill. Donnelly’s cut-back which Larsson dummied for the ‘Gift of God’ who netted his first goal for Celtic along with that iconic celebration of not knowing where to look is something that will be still spoken about for generations to come.
Rangers went down to ten men after 22 minutes when Scott Wilson who had already been booked by Willie Young cleaned out Moravcik. This undoubtedly gave the crowd a boost, and more importantly injected belief into the players that there would only be one outcome at full-time.
Henrik Larsson
Celtic’s quickfire second half double, firstly through Lubo’s fine header to beat Niemi for the Slovakian’s double, and then Larsson’s cool finish two minutes later to make it 3-0 sent Paradise bouncing.
Despite Van Bronckhorst’s beauty of a free-kick pulling one back for Dick Advocaat’s side, Larsson’s header to pile on the misery for Rangers coupled with then 18 year-old Mark Burchill’s debut goal in green and white colours completed a derby day demolition.
Famously, Carnival De Paris [which was the official 1998 World Cup song]was the Celtic goal tune that night. I wonder if it will make a return one day?
Regardless of Dr Jo’s men losing the league by six points due to a horrendous start, this result seemed to be a psychological shift versus their rivals for years to come. And, it is one of our most memorable and comprehensive victories against them.
Celtic starting XI 26 years to the day: Warner, Boyd, Mahe, Stubbs, Mjallby, O’Donnell, Lambert, Moravcik, Riseth, Donnelly, Larsson.
Conor Spence
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Yes, I’ve always thought Dr Jo was a desperately under-rated Celtic manager. He brought in some great players but was facing a Rangers’ side turbo charged with unaffordable signings (look what eventually happened to them – talk about Pyrrhic victories)
We had been one of the most represented teams at the 1998 World Cup in France and had lost key players like Rieper and McNamara through injury at this tournament. His typically late appointment meant we were only really up and running by December. We had a thin squad but really only fell apart after Lubo was injured at Fir Park in a game we won by 7-1. Although we eventually lost the league by six points we actually finished with a better goal difference than Rangers – this is very unusual.
Scandalously, we discarded Dr Jo who should have been offered a senior post such as General Manager. Instead we opted for a seriously incompetent “Dream Team” before we were forced to turn to the Blessed Martin who managed to rescue us. I’m convinced Dr Jo would have saved us some unnecessary heartbreak.