When looking at former results on this day, it quickly became apparent to me that Celtic’s form on the 2nd January makes for very peculiar reading. Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a team – no matter how big, small or amateur they are – go on as long a barren run on any particular day in the Roman calendar.
Having beaten Queen’s Park 4-0 on this day in 1937, Celtic played 20 games on the 2nd of January up until their Glasgow Derby victory against theRangers in 1988. And yet somehow, in that spell, the famous green and white won just one game. 1. Against Queen’s Park, again. This included an eight-game winless run against theRangers, four combined against Hearts and Motherwell and even paltry draws to Clyde and Third Lanark, before finally putting the bad run to bed with a 2-0 win at home to Rangers on this day in 1998.
To quash the form of old, we’re going to enter the New Year with that exact win, and take you back to a season where we stopped the ten.
It had been a decade of genuine mediocrity. No league win in nine seasons, nothing but hope over the horizon, and we were chopping and changing managers like there was no tomorrow. Indeed, the manager at the time Wim Jansen, was Celtic’s sixth manager of the decade – and with all having been unsuccessful in their attempts to win a title, Jansen was the man trusted to half theRangers’ run.
At the start of proceedings, Celtic were only four points behind their Glaswegian counterparts; a win would give them a huge kickstart into disrupting their bitter rivals’ plans for history, and Jansen had just the plan. Not disclosing his team selection before the game, he kept Walter Smith guessing and named some surprise inclusions – namely Harald Brattbakk’s first start for the Hoops’.
In a rather underwhelming first half, Celtic fans knew that the game was their last chance to stop the coveted ten; had Rangers won, Jansen’s Bhoys’ would’ve been seven point behind and left with a mountain to climb.
However, that all changed in the 65th minute. Some mazy footwork from Jackie McNamara – which would’ve seen Jimmy Johnstone sit up and take notice – ended up with him setting Craig Burley through on goal, and the Ayrshire-born virtuoso finished with aplomb to send the Paradise faithful ecstatic.
A nervy twenty minutes or so followed, and both sides undeniably had chances; thick and thin, easy and difficult. It was going to take something special to wrap up the victory – something Paul Lambert make look simple.
A Henrik Larsson ball in was banded around the edge of the box for a good few moments, before a theRangers player dragged the ball to Paul Lambert on the edge. No one expected the ball to fly in as well as it did – never mind Lambert – as the Glaswegian thundered a shot straight off the crossbar past the hapless Andy Goram to hand Celtic the victory.
Could it? Could this game be the biggest turnaround in Celtic’s current history?
As you all know, it did turn out that way – with Celtic only losing one more fixture between then and the end of the season – bringing them their first league title in ten years by a two-point margin, and halting those down the round whilst doing it.
Marvellous.
2nd January 1998, Celtic 2:0 Rangers.
Burley and Lambert. @CBurleyESPN
Celtic’s first league victory over them in 10 attempts. pic.twitter.com/0zTDXOfrAS
— Li’l Ze (@LilZe_7) January 2, 2021
The Celtic team that day was: Gould, Boyd, Annoni, McNamara, Rieper, Stubbs, Larsson, Burley, Brattbakk, Lambert, Wieghorst.
