The Men Behind Kris Ajer

The morning after the night before. It would be easy enough to blame the excesses of the night before on a scrambled mind this morning, but in truth that happened during the 120 minutes of football and the nerve shredding penalties that followed.

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The celebratory alcohol intake did less damage to the mind than the football game that preceded it.

You know when you wash the kid’s favourite teddy and he sits in front of the washing machine cross legged like he’s watching an episode of Fireman Sam? That’s how it felt. The calmness of the water rising and a teddy looking relatively sedate was that first half, once the spin cycle starts the favoured soft toy starts being thrown around like a bicycle in a twister, your child becomes frantic for its safety. And for the next seventy-five minutes plus penalties that is how it felt, being lifted up and thrown around like garden furniture in Storm Dennis. Then the cycle stops a calmness descends and we and the child’s favoured companion are released, dishevelled but thankfully in one piece.

The season in a microcosm of one game that summed it all up. In parts breath-taking with Christie’s stunning opening goal alongside a controlled first half performance, then the inability to play for more than 45 minutes a game that has been our Achilles heel all season came back for another turn.

We almost folded entirely thereafter, we had Griffiths to thank for pulling is back from the brink but even then, we couldn’t hold out, even then we contrived to try and throw it all away.

But we held on in there and even when the penalty shoot-out looked a lost cause – Craig Gordon even saved a penalty – up stepped an unlikely hero, based on his performance up to then, in Conor Hazard.

And everything that went before released in a moment that combined joy and ultimately relief, as Kris Ajer thumped home the penalty when seconds before as the big fella’s image cut into the frame resulted in the 71st uncomfortable bowel shifting experience of that last two hours.

But when that penalty shifted the rigging and Ajer went off galloping like a wildebeest legging it from a lion, the energy from my body emptied in a way my bowel had wanted to on several occasions previously.

With that kick Celtic’s history Bhoys wrote another amazing chapter into the Celtic Story. 40 Scottish Cups, a fourth Consecutive national trophy and of course an incredible Quadruple Treble. Neil Lennon became only the fourth manager to win the treble, joining the esteemed company of Stein, O’Neill and (cough) Rodgers and Lennon himself the first to win all three a s a player and a manger. I’m sure someone once said there was a fairy-tale element to this club, I’m certain that great man was one of many looking down with a smile yesterday.

There will be plenty times for the usual post mortem but it is important to pause and enjoy and indeed revel in moments like this, they can be fleeting and should be savoured, so there is little time to be afforded to any negativity today.

Instead, we can focus on a team who despite it looking a lost cause on occasion fought with every ounce of their strength to claw themselves back into a game they possibly –as we all did- think they had won by half-time.

It’s a difficult thing in football to regain lost momentum but Celtic just about managed to do just that.

Scott Brown lifted a 12th consecutive trophy above his head and when the game looked like it was slipping it was his leadership skills that shone through; indeed, he was clearly inside of the Hearts players heads, I’m thinking Naismith and Halliday to name but two, from the moment the game began. I have had my own doubts around the captain of late but yesterday we needed him, more than I ever thought we might and my word I was glad of him.

And at the other end of the age spectrum a young man has made himself a hero. A Scottish Cup legend in only his third game. Two penalty saves under immense pressure and then the professionalism to seek out Craig Gordon to check on his own wellbeing after the game was done. A class act on and off the pitch that lad. Conor Hazard will do for me.

So, when the dust settled, the spin cycle of a football game ended, Celtic emerged with another chapter of history to be added to the record books. The course of the game forgotten, the process to the victory will soon be consigned the history books and all we will remember is a 40th Scottish Cup, a Quadruple Treble and the men who got us there.

The pictures adorning that chapter will show the faces of Neil Lennon, Scott Brown, Kris Ajer and Conor Hazard. And everyone will deserve the gaze of future generations.

Celtic certainly played with our minds yesterday but the ends justified the means. Now time for a straightener? Might need one to revisit the highlights.

Niall J

About Author

As a Bellshill Bhoy I was taken to my first Celtic game in the summer of 1987. It was Billy McNeill’s return to Celtic Park as manager and Celtic lost 5-1 to Arsenal . I thought I was a jinx, I think my Grandfather might have thought the same. It was the finest gift anyone ever gave me when he walked me through Parkhead's gates.

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