Exactly the kind of forward thinking, creative ideas and clever marketing that we thought we were about to see at Celtic under Dom McKay, based on his excellent record of doing all of that and more at Scottish Rugby, was on display last night in Scottish football and it should leave Celtic somewhat embarrassed.
It was a midweek Edinburgh derby in the SWPL as Hibs welcomed city rivals Hearts with the match being moved from Penicuik – where they played Celtic last season – to Easter Road. Hibs decided to offer supporters FREE tickets for the match in the hope that they can not only build up interest in the Hibs Women team but also allow news supporters, many of them youngsters, to get their first taste of a big match atmosphere at Easter Road.
The result was 3-0 to Hibs – who Celtic did well to beat 2-1 on Sunday in front of a few hundred spectators. However a result bigger than the scoreline was the attendance of 5512 which set a new record for a women’s match in Scotland. The BBC covered this on the Scottish news last night, noting that the previous record was also held by Hibs when they attracted just under 3000 fans to Champions League game against Bayern Munich in 2016.
Afterwards the Hibs head coach Dean Gibson told BBC Scotland: “It was a brilliant night all round. To have more than 5,000 at a women’s game was amazing, they showed a real appreciation of the quality that was on the pitch and I think a couple will have gone home with a different opinion of the women’s game and it will hopefully get them turning up at our other games.”
Meanwhile Celtic were playing Motherwell away from home at the Penny Cars Stadium in Airdrie. Having been to a few of the women’s games there is easy to believe that there would be an incredible atmosphere in there if Celtic follow the example of trailblazers Hibs. Now last night was actually an away game for Celtic, rather confusingly, so nothing could have been down anyway.
Celtic has almost 60,000 season ticket holders and a waiting list that wasn’t exhausted at the end of last season as some fan didn’t renew allowing others to take their chance. So there must be plenty of fans out there who perhaps would like to watch Celtic but can’t get a ticket. This is a great way to introduce the Celtic match day experience to a new generation of Celtic Supporters. Hibs get that, why don’t Celtic?
The final score in the Celtic game last night was Motherwell 0 Celtic 4, which takes Fran Alonso exciting Celtic team to the top of the SWPL. And take it from me Fran Alonso’s side are a joy to watch!
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