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No End of a Lesson – Alloa Athletic 1 Celtic 2, next up Raith Rovers at Paradise

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Well, that wasn’t an easy watch – at least the last ten minutes weren’t, but it doesn’t really matter all that much because we are into the next round and await, for the second time this season, the arrival of Raith Rovers at Celtic Park. They too gave their fans a hard time of it for a while today, for they had a bit of a job scoring against the gallant Banks o Dee.

But to the Indodrill (I prefer to call it Recreation Park, myself), we must congratulate Alloa Athletic (no kidding, Barry!) for a good performance, although Barry did exaggerate a wee bit when he said that Celtic were “under the cosh”. Not quite, Barry! We did sweat a wee bit, though.

The good points were the two excellent goals. The bad points were the injuries (can we blame the pitch for that?) and the good chances that we missed in the second half, where at least three very good ones went a-begging. Daizen Maeda had a good game, nevertheless and Giakoumakis can be forgiven for the great goal that he did score. He also came across as a humble, decent sort of a man in the interview at the end.

There was also in the second half a certain lack of domination in the midfield, especially when Callum McGregor went off and a basic inability to slow the game down when we needed to. But then again, I never think Celtic play well on these funny pitches. However the lesson must be, as John Hartson kept saying, we have to keep piling on the goals, to save these tense, nervous headaches near the end.

And was it a red card? Possibly yes, but I loved the way that Ange said “the referee deals with that”. Not for him the feeling that the world and the referees are all against them! He prefers to concentrate on his own team! Great! He is never likely to get put up into the stand for too much mouth, is he?

We now may be facing a few problems with the injuries that we have. Fortunately we have the squad to deal with them, but we may have to dig deep. It is important now in what is left of the transfer window not to let anyone go. We may need them! For Tynecastle, we must hope that Callum is back, and that our forwards are just a little sharper than they were tonight.

But we are still on course for our 41st Scottish Cup. Oh, by the way, did I mishear that presenter at the Cup draw when she seemed to say that Rangers had won the trophy 53 times? No! 33 times! As distinct from 40 by Celtic. So before we get into the argument about when Rangers stopped being Rangers etc. it doesn’t matter! The answer is 40 and 33! Count them if you want.

Was the 53 just to cheer up that guy who was doing the draw – the poor man’s Rod Stewart? Who was he, anyway?

David Potter

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About Author

I am Celtic author and historian and write for The Celtic Star. I live in Kirkcaldy and have followed Celtic all my life, having seen them first at Dundee in March 1958. I am a retired teacher and my other interests are cricket, drama and the poetry of Robert Burns.

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