Today, we begin a new series reliving some of my best memories of following Celtic. We start today with perhaps my favorite derby match.
The 21st of November 1998 was a truly momentous day. It was my 15th birthday.
Oh, and there was the small matter of a football match that day too. Celtic played a local team called Rangers on that chilly Saturday afternoon, remember them?
A New Era Begins
Celtic were still emerging from our mid-90s dark age at this time. True we had won the League Championship that past summer, and stopped the dreaded ten in a row, but only just.
Ultimately our solitary win over Rangers the previous season in the New Year Derby proved decisive, as we clinched the title by 2 points.
However, things were not going well from the start of the 1998-99 season. By the time this second Glasgow Derby of the season came around, Celtic were already 10 points behind Rangers in the league.
We were also very much a team in transition and struggling for form.
New Manager, New Style
New Manager Dr Jozef Venglos had a clear vision for how the game should be played, and it was very much in keeping with the Celtic way. This was, after all, a man who guided an unfancied Czechoslovakia side to the World Cup quarter finals 8 years earlier, where they lost out by just a single goal to eventual winners West Germany.
Funnily enough, a young playmaker by the name of Lubomir Moravcik was red-carded after 70 minutes of that game, but more on him in a minute.
A Team Thrown Together
Celtic had a goalkeeper making his home debut that day, by the name of Tony Warner. An emergency signing on loan from Liverpool, the Englishman would only ever play 3 games for Celtic. Yet this one game alone assured his place in Celtic folklore.
Rangers were, naturally, the heavy favorites amongst the Scottish press. Most of them thought Rangers would probably win the match too!
Dr Jo’s Master Plan
However, Dr Jo had other ideas. He had two aces up his sleeve, which neither the Ibrox side, nor their cheerleaders in the press box saw coming.
The first was our new defensive midfielder Johan Mjallby, whom we had signed less than 24 hours earlier from AIK Solna. Mjallby famously remarked that he had not even unpacked his suitcases, when he was told he was playing that day.
Mjallby already had a certain level of admiration among the Celtic support. His winning goal earned Sweden a famous 2-1 win over England just a few months earlier.
“Drago” Breaks Albertz
His stature, along with his blonde spiked hair earned him the nickname “Drago” amongst his teammates. Indeed, this tag was well-earned, as the big man showed when he smashed through Rangers German powerhouse Jorg Albertz early in the game. It was a display of strength worthy of the big Russian himself.
Ask most Celtic fans who they feared the most in that Rangers team at the time and it was probably Albertz. His ferocious shot and driving runs from midfield had been the scourge of many a Celtic defender over the previous few years.
However, once Mjallby put him in his place, Albertz was largely anonymous for the remainder of the game.
Enter: Lubo
As I said earlier, Venglos had two aces in his hand that day. The other was the aforementioned Slovakian midfielder Moravcik. Signed from Bundesliga side Duisburg for 300,000 pounds a few weeks earlier, the press couldn’t wait to write him off.
The Sunday Mail’s Hugh Keevins was especially dismissive. He said: “"I don’t know what I find more laughable – the fact that Celtic cannot find £500,000 from their biscuit tin to sign a proven talent like John Spencer, or the fact that they then spent £300,000 on one of Dr Jo’s old pals, the unknown Lubomir Moravcik."
I mean, I can understand his dismissiveness. One was a World Cup quarter finalist. The other, erm, played 14 games for Scotland??
A Tactical Masterstroke
Still, Venglos’ decision to start Moravcik up front that day, despite the advice of “experts” like Keevins, proved a tactical masterstroke.
The little Slovakian scored 2 that day. His partner up front Henrik Larsson added another brace, before young striker Mark Burchill added a fifth late on. Even a superb free kick from Giovanni Van Bronckhorst could turn the tide as Celtic absolutely battered Rangers that day. In the end, 5-1 probably flattered the visitors.
A Taste of Things to Come
Celtic would lose the league by 6 points that season. But in the end, this was a declaration of intent. For Celtic fans it was a small taste of the glorious times that were to follow. For Rangers fans, it was an early warning that the house of financially dubious house of cards on which their club was built, was soon to come crashing down.
“Don’t Mention the Score!”
Funnily enough, it was also the last time that a game between these two sides would take place at 3pm on a Saturday. It was also probably the last time I ever tried to avoid hearing the score before I could watch the highlights on TV that night. Suffice to say, when our Celtic-loving neighbour rolled up the road from the pub that night around 9pm merrily singing a song comparing Rangers to excrement, I knew my efforts were in vain!
Fast forward more than a quarter of century and the rest is history, as indeed are Rangers.