A crowd of 25,454 was at Celtic Park on this evening in 1991 to watch Celtic attempt to overhaul a humiliating first leg UEFA Cup defeat against Swiss side Neuchatel Xamax. Celtic had lost 5-1 in the first leg of this second round tie a few weeks earlier but Liam Brady believed that his side could mount an unlikely comeback and that would require an early goal to get his side back into the tie as they pursued a 4-0 win on the night.
And what an opportunity Celtic had after only 4 minutes when Celtic were awarded a penalty kick. Step forward Charlie Nicholas, who had scored all earlier penalties that season, so the support would have been confident that Celtic would have got the goal needed to unsettle the visitors.
Nicholas though took one of the worst spot kicks many of us had ever seen, incredibly missing the crossbar by about six feet!
6th November 1991, Celtic 1:0 Neuchâtel Xamax.
Miller.
Charlie Nicholas with one of the worst penalties you will ever see. Nearly as bad as the first leg.😐 pic.twitter.com/0COuZWrgaq
— Li'l Ze (@LilZe_7) November 6, 2020
The Celtic team that night was Bonner; McNally, Wdowczyk, O’Neil, Whyte (Creaney 46), Galloway, Miller, McStay, Coyne, Nicholas, Collins.
Cascarino and Creaney came off the bench but without much benefit. Joe Miller did find the back of the net early in the second half but that was the only goal of the night with Celtic exiting the competition 5-2 on aggregate.
The Celtic Wiki gives a decent account of this match from The Guardian:
Celtic’s attempt to overcome an impossible 5-1 deficit from the first leg of this Uefa Cup second-round tie was always laudable, even bordering on the magnificent at times, but in the end was futile.
The impression that the mission could not be accomplished was formed in the fifth minute, when Charlie Nicholas made a mess of a penalty. After that deflating miss, Joe Miller’s 52nd-minute goal meant little.
The missed penalty was all the more stunning because Nicholas had scored with all three of his previous attempts this season. That the chance arrived so early only deepened the disappointment of the vociferous crowd, who had ignored driving rain and live television coverage to lend their support.
The striker himself had been pulled down by Delay as he tried to run past him on the left of the area, having been released by a precise through-pass from Coyne.Nicholas amateurishly drove the spot-kick high over the bar.
Bonner had to make a diving save when Ibrahim Hassan put in a low, awkwardly bouncing drive from 20 yards. The Irish goalkeeper did well to make the stop in the slippery conditions.
After the interval the Scots’ goalward surges became so intense that for around 15 minutes the impossible did not seem out of the question. That pressure saw Miller give them the lead seven minutes into the second half, when the winger was at the far post to meet a low, sweeping cross from Coyne, who had bolted into the penalty area.
Yet the soaring hopes were stifled within 10 minutes as Nicholas, the substitute Cascarino and Miller all spurned apparently unmissable chances. Nicholas ran clear on to a long kick from Bonner and miscued his volley with only the challenge of Delay to beat. Cascarino and Miller each drove the ball off Delay’s legs.
