18 years have gone by since Celtic went to Ewood Park and comfortably dispatched of Blackburn Rovers in the UEFA Cup. Blackburn sat in third place in the English Premiership at the time and had gone four matches unbeaten in the league, prior to this clash, including an impressive 2-1 victory against Arsenal at Highbury a couple of weeks before.
The first leg in Glasgow had seen Larsson steal a 1-0 victory for Celtic. The Hoops didn’t play well and Graeme Souness told his players that it was “men against boys.” Those comments were made public and, in addition to his Rangers background, this made Celtic all the more determined to win the second leg.
8,000 Celtic fans packed into the away end, with a further 4,000 locked outside. The stand was overflowing with the concourse packed and more than one to each seat. It would be a night to remember.
Andy Cole, Damien Duff, Tugay, Dwight Yorke and Brad Friedel were tough opponents, but no match for Celtic.
Martin O’Neill lined his team up as follows: Douglas, Valgaeren, Balde, Laursen, Agathe (Sylla 82), Lennon, Petrov (Thompson 77), Sutton, Guppy, Larsson, Hartson (Lambert 67)
It took Celtic 15 minutes to get in front as Hartson, Sutton and Larsson combined, with the Swede chipping the keeper. Some English fans suggested that Henrik wasn’t top class because he played in Scotland, how foolish they looked as he scored yet another of his 35 European goals for Celtic that night.
Celtic had chances to make it more. The Bhoys were in total control. Then it showed in the second half as Sutton bulleted a powerful header into the roof of the net against his former club.
The match finished 2-0, Celtic had triumphed 3-0 on aggregate. It was men against Bhoys.
And how we celebrated:
