My defining Celtic moment – the Scottish Cup final of 1988

The go-ahead was eventually given, and the fixture was confirmed for Firhill but with a reduced capacity, making tickets harder to come by than usual and so, not for the last time that season, I was hanging in at the last minute looking for a ticket, which just never materialised.

A pal of mine, John Morrison, was a keen Jags fan and offered me a ticket for the home end. I decided not to take up this offer in the hope that I’d pick one up with the Celtic fans. Despite a late release of tickets for away fans, I was out of luck. I had the video recorder set up to tape the match to allow me to watch it again and again, and thankfully Celtic delivered with a 3-0 success with an early header from Andy Walker, a standout Tommy Burns left-foot volley and Billy Stark sealing the victory and passage to the semi-final at Hampden.

Semi-final time, so close to the final, but we were up against a strong Hearts team at Hampden on Saturday, 9 April 1988, and the outcome was not a certainty. Hearts had some good players at the time, including John Colquhoun, John Robertson and Gary Mackay, and had come close to success several times in the preceding years only to fail at the final hurdle (who can forget the final day of the season in 1986?!).

Fortunately, this time, the tickets were in the bag quite early and there was no fretting in the lead up to match day, although the journey to Hampden nearly cost my dad and Uncle Alex their own tickets. We travelled to Hampden on the Kirkintilloch CSC and my dad and Uncle had a few pre-match pints before we left the club for the bus journey.

We hit traffic queues close to the stadium and the line of buses seemed to grind to a halt with dad and Uncle Alex taking the opportunity to (ahem) relieve themselves behind a bush, while the traffic was static. Unfortunately for them, they were still in ‘mid-pee’ when the traffic started to move again and were frantically chasing the bus, and here was I, at the back window of said bus, laughing my head off and waving the three match tickets to them! There was no way I was missing this game, even if I had to go in by myself. Fortunately, they managed to catch up with the bus eventually and I got a clip around the ear for my cheek.