On this day 22 years ago, it was ‘men against boys’ at Ewood Park as Celtic defeated Blackburn Rovers 2-0 in the UEFA Cup second round…
Martin O’Neill’s side headed down to Lancashire with a 1-0 lead following Henrik Larsson’s close-range strike two weeks prior. It was an underwhelming first leg to say the least with the Celtic boss saying, “in the first half, there is no doubt that Blackburn gave us a lesson in passing and movement.” Admittedly, Celtic could play much better than the showing they produced in Glasgow’s East End.
It was a full-house at Ewood Park for the second leg as 8,000 raucous Celtic supporters made the journey from Glasgow. Graeme Souness, who was in the Blackburn dugout, had shot his mouth off following the conclusion of the first leg tie.
Blackburn captain Gary Flicroft told press post-match at Celtic Park that, “the gaffer said it was men against boys out there.”
Meanwhile, Souness own arrogance himself approaching the return leg in England was off the scale. He had foolishly claimed, “if Celtic score one then we can score three. Hopefully by 10pm tonight people will be saying ‘bloody hell, that Blackburn are a good side’.”
Unfortunately for Graeme, people were saying the opposite. Before Italian referee Cosimo Bolognino could call a halt to proceedings, Celtic fans in the packed out away end were chanting ‘easy’ and ‘ole’ every time a Hoops player made a pass. The look on Souness’ face was a sight to behold.
As Henrik Larsson capitalised on both Hartson and Short slipping, he cooly dinked the ball over Brad Friedel subsequently making it 1-0 on the night and 2-0 on aggregate. The tie would be sealed in the second half when Petrov’s exquisite delivery was met by Chris Sutton whose 11th goal of the 2002/2003 campaign came against his former and boyhood club.
For O’Neill’s men, Celta Vigo in the third round was next in the famous run to Seville. Who would have though that Stuttgart, Liverpool, Boavista and then Porto would come thereafter?
The King of Kings had his say post-match at Ewood Park on the rubbish spouted from Souness and Blackburn players prior to the second leg, “Yeah, I’d say we played (Craigy Whyte) in the first game up at Parkhead. We wanted to show today that we were a better side than a lot of the comments we heard from different Blackburn players. It should learn them a lesson, never talk until the game is finished.”
“Souness, what’s the score? Souness, Souness, what’s the score?”
O’Neill’s Celtic starting XI on 14 November 2002; Douglas, Valgaeren, Balde, Laursen, Agathe, Lennon, Petrov, Sutton, Guppy, Larsson, Hartson.
Conor Spence
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