The early nineties wasn’t a great time to be a Celtic supporter, on and off the pitch. Major honours were hard to come by. A Tony Cascarino goal was more common and we’d take anything just to sample that winning feeling again. The Tennents sixes win in 1992 was the best thing we had to shout about in the early years of that decade. Yes it really was that tragic!
May 1994 offered us the chance to scoop another honour, the prestigious Hamilton Cup held in the Canadian city of Yes you guessed it, Hamilton. Oh the thrill of being a Celtic supporter in that period.
A four team tournament featuring ourselves, fellow Scottish sides Hearts and Aberdeen and local side Montreal Impact. Presented by Guinness and promoted as a ‘Scottish festival’ all games were played at the Ivor Wynne Stadium on astroturf in searing temperatures touching 100 degrees.
Celtic drew the first game 1-1 with Hearts with Paul Byrne grabbing Celtic’s goal. The game was decided on penalties and Carl Muggleton was the hero saving two penalties as the hoops progressed to the final.
The final was played a week later and Aberdeen who had seen off Montreal Impact were the opposition. The game was played in front of 6000 supporters mostly Celtic supporters who witnessed the hoops beat the Dons 1-0 thanks to another Paul Byrne strike.
Mark McNally lifted the trophy as skipper and we could add another honour alongside that Tennents Sixes trophy. Yes not the most prestigious of trophy’s but a real one, no bragging cups were available to be won in this era.
Fergus McCann had not long taken over the club and happier days were a coming, thankfully.
Those of us who lived through the dark days of the early nineties sure appreciate the success we enjoy today. Yip, the Tennents Sixes and the Hamilton Cup to a measly five trebles in seven years, it’s certainly quite a leap.
JustAnOrdinaryBhoy – follow on Twitter @ordinarybhoy
As you may know I made my debut at a Celtic fan media conference yesterday and my question to new Celtic signing Marco Tilio about Ange Postecoglou seems to have made the headlines….here’s what happened!
ANSWER – The Celtic player in that photo is Chris Hay.
Even in that period of the early
to mid 90s we would take about 7000 away to European away games which i know we do that now but in those days was lucky if there were more than 15 000 going to most home games especially leading up to the boycott game and the end of the old board
Was at that game,that’s Bobby Craig on the extreme left of the front row.He played for Celtic for a brief period in the early 60’s.I was at his first game for the Bhoys and later played with him for Toronto Celtic in the early 1970’s.He moved to Canada after leaving Celtic and played briefly with Toronto City in the old Eastern Canadian Professional League.