Seven goals, a decent all round performance, and a first goal for a new signing who would go on to become a Celtic legend. All in a days work for the Hoops against Berwick Rangers at Tynecastle back in 1997…

Early August 1997 saw Celtic travel to Tynecastle on League Cup duty, not to face Hearts, but third division side Berwick Rangers whose ground wasn’t deemed ‘big’ enough for a tie of this magnitude.

It was Celtic’s second trip to the capital in the space of a week and we were looking for a better outcome than the previous week which saw us suffer a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Hibernian on the opening day of the league campaign.

Although there wasn’t much chance of defeat this time around, it was still in the back of the mind as we were still very much in a transition period under Wim Jansen and confidence wasn’t all that high after that disastrous start to the season.

This game was the perfect opportunity to forget the woes of bad start in the league and put together a decent performance and scoreline to give us a much needed confidence booster. We did just that and more. We started with a zip and confidence and played some nice football and went in at half time five goals to the good.

Darren Jackson scored the opener as he gave us the lead after 16 minutes. Then a certain player opened his account for the club us as he added the second, that player went by the name of Henrik Larsson. (You might remember him!)

The man who would go on to be a Celtic legend opened his account for the club as he fired us into a 2-0 lead on the 21st minute by scoring a close range strike which would become his customary trademark for the next seven years.

Regi Blinker on his debut added the third, before Morten Weighorst and Andy Thom added further goals to highlight the gulf between the two sides.

The second half as you’d expect was pretty pedestrian with the game already won, but Simon Donnelly added a late double to give the game a scoreline it deserved and gave the players a much needed boost for the challenges ahead as Celtic’s top priority was to win the league and stop Rangers winning ten in a row.