Focus now on Paradise double header against Hearts and Slovan Bratislava…
That’s the dreary international break over and done with and it’s time to turn our attention back to watching Celtic putting on a show starting this weekend with Hearts the visitors to Celtic Park on Saturday afternoon for a rare 3pm kick-off.
Celtic are of course joint top of the league with Aberdeen, with both sides having a 100% record so far with four straight victories. Celtic are top on goal difference and will be looking at maintaining the fine start to the league campaign with another victory over Steven Naismith’s side.
Hearts picked up a rare point on the opening day against theRangers at Tynecastle then went on to suffer three straight defeats. They care currently joint bottom alongside Kilmarnock on one point from four games with the pressure mounting on the former Rangers and Hearts striker.
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Celtic meanwhile come into the game on the back of the emphatic Glasgow Derby victory over theRangers and will look to get the job done as quickly as possible with an eye to the Champions League campaign getting underway next midweek with Slovan Bratislava the visitors to Paradise.
The Scottish FA this morning announced the match officials who will be handling the Celtic v Hearts Scottish Premiership match this Saturday. Colin Steven will be the man with the whistle and he will be assisted by Frank Connor and Calum Spence. Alan Muir will be running the VAR operation and Graham McNeillie will be assisting.
Incidentally while at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon for the Luke McCowan media conference, I noticed work taking place on above the main stand. Anyone know whether these are VAR related, TV cameras of part of the disco lights? They run right across the Main stand from one corner flag to the other. One of the groundsmen had a plastic box labelled VAR lite spares but that might be unrelated.
Here’s the Luke McCowan fan media media conference the new signing giving The Celtic Star an insight into what actually happened on deadline day and when he eventually found out that he was heading to Celtic…
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It would help if the questions being asked in the Luke Cowan interview were audible.
Celtic do the recording, John
Just a general comment about crowd behaviour. I was 13 when I attended my first final at Hampden, the league cup final in 1964 against Rangers. I can recall that most of the adult supporters were respectably dressed , with collar and tie, cloth caps and gabardine coats. I was in the North enclosure with a few other lads, some a bit older. The Referee did Celtic no favours that day, one particular decision created anger amongst our support when Jinky appeared to have scored but Billy Ritchie, the Rangers keeper pulled the ball back and the Ref said it hadn’t crossed the line (newspaper photos would later show that to be a highly controversial decision. One of the lads in our group made his feelings plain to the ref and used every available cuss word in the Anglo Saxon thesaurus. A man in his 40s gripped the swearing lad by the shoulder and told him that he understood his annoyance but his language was not something he wanted his young lad, who was standing next to him, to hear. The swearing lad apologized and stopped. Fast forward to highlights from the charity match at Old Traffird last week. The chanting by a large section of the Celtic support was nothing short of disgraceful and disgusting.They do no credit to themselves or the club, I was watching it with my American wife and to be honest was embarrassed. Maybe I am an old fogey now but I’m nostalgic for the manners and standards of 1964.
When I was at the Derby last Sunday, I noticed that one of the 4 ‘globe style’ lights that run across the main stand was malfunctioning.
It was the one on the far left that you have pictured here. This could be them fixing it? 🤷
Guessing those are the 16m cameras specified in regulation E.2.3.
Champions League requires a lot more cameras than are typically used in SPFL league matches, and they’re all specified in the Champions League Regulations.
https://documents.uefa.com/r/Regulations-of-the-UEFA-Champions-League-2024/25-Online