Trending
You are at:»»David Murray banned Celtic fans from Ibrox in bitter response to the arrival of Fergus McCann
Latest News

David Murray banned Celtic fans from Ibrox in bitter response to the arrival of Fergus McCann

By No Comments

This Sunday Celtic will once again head into a Glasgow Derby with a paltry allocation of tickets.

Only 800 hardy souls will head for the Bear’s Pit at Ibrox due to a decision by ‘the’ Rangers board to prioritise tickets for their own supporters. It has of course nothing to do with them being sickened at watching thousands of Celtic fans celebrating a few too many Beautiful Sundays for their liking – 4 out of 4 in fact – before the decision was made in 2018. That had no bearing of course.

Celtic have reciprocated and slashed the Ibrox club’s allocation for Celtic Park and it has to be said it’s had a knock on effect on the atmosphere. Celtic’s SLO John Paul Taylor has already claimed “one club is willing and one isn’t” when it comes to rectifying this idiocy.

I’ll let you fill in the gaps yourselves. The Celtic Star ran with that story just last week.

There was a particular occasion however when an allocation of 800 tickets would have been welcome as Celtic played out a head-to-head with Rangers.

On 30 April 1994 an injury ravaged Celtic travelled to Ibrox to face up to their greatest rivals. On this occasion the Rangers Board and David Murray in particular was hoping Celtic would be ‘walking alone’ and banned the away support in its entirety, apparently on the premise that damage had been done to Ibrox on previous occasions and Celtic should have been paying for it.

A rather lame argument when you consider Celtic Park wasn’t short of damage coming from our Ibrox visitors. With the Celtic takeover recently just completed and Fergus McCann the media’s centre of attention it seemed far more likely the Rangers chairman was trying to regain some control of the media, as it was a one-off ban and wasn’t repeated, nor was it reciprocated by Celtic.

In retaliation, Fergus McCann and indeed the whole Celtic board chose not to attend and instead joined a 10,000 strong crowd back at Celtic Park for the reserve version of the fixture.

But if Rangers were hoping it would give a clear run at an Old Firm victory they had another think coming. A wonderful goal from the sweet left foot adorned by the new Adidas Predator boots of John Collins saw Celtic take a 1-0 lead after 29 minutes. You’d expect Ibrox to be silent, but have a listen to the crowd while you watch the brilliant John Collins goal below. There’s more than a few cheers as the ball hits the net and there’s no way it’s coming from just the players and the coaching staff!

Not only were Celtic not walking alone after all. Right before the game a Celtic supporter flew a plane with a “Hail Hail! The Celts are here” banner over the stadium. A touch of class from whoever arranged that.

In the end the game finished 1-1 but the moral victory belonged to Celtic. The experiment was never repeated.

If anyone has any tales about that day, knows anyone who managed to get into Ibrox or indeed knew who flew that plane and banner. Please get in touch.

We’d love to tell your story, please email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk and tell us how you managed to attend that game.

Niall J

Support Celtic Youth Development

Help raise money for Celtic Youth Development by joining the £1 weekly lottery and you could win up to £25,000 – just click on any one of the photographs below to join. Lots of our readers have already done so and they’re now doing their bit to help fund Celtic Youth Development that can deliver the stars of tomorrow and beyond. And you might even win a few bob too! And a special thank you to all The Celtic Star readers who have already signed up and are now supporting youth development to give us the Celtic Stars of the future…

About Author

As a Bellshill Bhoy I was taken to my first Celtic game in the summer of 1987. It was Billy McNeill’s return to Celtic Park as manager and Celtic lost 5-1 to Arsenal . I thought I was a jinx, I think my Grandfather might have thought the same. It was the finest gift anyone ever gave me when he walked me through Parkhead's gates.

Related Posts

Comments are closed.