An idea came to me on Saturday driving back from Stranraer. Why not, when visiting a well known venue on a Saturday, write a short blog piece with tales from my three favourite games there.
I will make that happen, with Stair Park getting the first outing, when I head that way again, a week on Saturday. Palmerston comes before with Workington Reds involved, but in truth, despite having been there a number of times, it was always with Meadowbank or Inverness, and while it’s a super ground, none of my memories are particularly stand-out. whereas Stair Park was always a relished day trip and includes a CV of more random opposition, making the narrative worthwhile. After all, I have a soft spot for Stranraer.
Anyway, by means of a starter, tales of ICT and our cup successes versus the World Record holding “Treble” winners. Having nudged ahead of someone, I was curious why this was even a thing until I learned it was Northern Ireland’s most Rangers unit they had gazumped, Linfield. When will these factions put down their arms and walk into the 21st century? It did tickle me that post Aberdeen Cup success in May at Hampden, Celtic’s merchandising with nauseating “back to back to back” t-shirts would probably have been re-dyed and sold onto Wrexham!
I should forewarn, if my words seem cynical at times, it is justifiable countering to the dreadful arrogance and draconian nature of not only Celtic but also Rangers. If I somehow manage to squeeze out a trio matches of any description about the Ibrox mob, it will have to go all the way back to Meadowbank, as I have never seen (and never will) ICT at Ibrox. While I have never seen a league match in Parkhead or Ibrox involving either Meadowbank (there never was a chance of that), or ICT, I have only ever seen Rangers twice at Castle Greyskull, so they don’t fit the criteria!
Celtic won’t have a losing record in any Scottish competition against any other club, but they do in the Scottish Cup versus ICT, and I was at all three wins. These matches were played in three separate venues, too, over a 15-year period. The curious thing is, we have only played Rangers once in the Scottish Cup when Telford Street was deemed inappropriate, and we played them at Tannadice as a League Two side in our second season of existence. With Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne, and Ally McCoist in the line-up, losing 3-0 was no disgrace.
1- Celtic 1-3 Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Tuesday 8th February 2000- Scottish Cup 4th Round
Celtic Park, Glasgow
The game that spawned potentially the greatest football headline “Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic are atrocious”, was the night of all nights. Yet, it should have been played on the Saturday, called off very late in the day as Martin and I were stuck in traffic in some godforsaken area near Celtic Park. High winds had caused parts of the Legoland stadium to fall off. If this had happened up north, the outpouring of “hillbilly club” would have been palpable, but when the boot is on the other foot, the cozy media, so deep in the pockets of the Glasgow clubs, it’s laughed off.
Whether what unfolded a few days later would have come to pass on the Saturday, we will never know. But we weren’t going to miss this and arrived early enough to contemplate putting money on odds of 20-1 for an Inverness win! In a two horse race? Arrogance off the scale, but I do regret not making that bet, as I was all chest puffed sure we’d win! It’s a deflection tactic, I suspect.
When Barry Wilson nipped in front of a sluggish rearguard to nod us in front from a delightful Paul Sheerin cross, only 16 minutes were on the clock. Alas, no sooner had this giddy moment come, than Mark Burchill levelled. Every team in the country has probably been in this situation, and the plucky underdog would then bow down to the stronger side. However, this was a Steve Paterson side, confident, front foot weighted, and we just rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in again.
Less than ten minutes had passed when Bobby Mann headed goal ward, and while it went down as a Moravcik own goal, courtesy of a deflection, he skidded into the corner, rightly taking the adulation of the players and fans. We were in dreamland, and the team trotted off at the turn 2-1 up. The natives were restless to the point of being livid. You have to admire the fans of clubs who win everything, sic. They are faultless in their inability to have even a morsel of hubris.
The fans disgruntlement must have fed into the Parkhead dressing room, as the second half display from the hosts, was as insipid as it was hilarious. There was no fight, and the introduction of the once great Ian Wright just added comedy value. The fire drill really took off on the hour mark, when Regi Blinker brought Barry Wilson down, and Paul Sheerin put us 3-1 up. It is fair to say we enjoyed the remaining thirty minutes, played out in a near empty stadium, as a morsel of showboating kicked in. However, not taking it to excess, after all Paterson had fined Vetle Andersen, our Norwegian left back previously for playing keepie- -uppie with the ball as he went up the flank in an 8-0 win against Annan Athletic in the cup.
While the headline went viral, and many a publication tried to shower Inverness with praise, invariably it all became about Celtic, and apparently their inability to knock us out stemmed from Mark Viduka refusing to play in the second half. It was the beginning of the end for John Barnes and Kenny Dalglish as the managerial duo, an extremely odd set up in the first place looking back.
2- Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1-0 Celtic
Sunday 23rd March 2003- Scottish Cup Quarter-Final
Caledonian Park, Inverness
There is a lovely progression along the rounds of the Scottish Cup in these stories. If Super Caley was essentially the last 16, here we were three years on playing Celtic again, this time on our own patch in the quarter-final. We were still a second tier side, but we were growing into a potential top flight unit. Steve Paterson and his obvious drunken ways had left for Aberdeen in 2002, with John Robertson, together with Donald Park, tasked with taking us yet higher.
Poor Steve, so obviously drunk and tucked away at the back of the dugout on occasions. It was something he could get away with at Inverness, but the Dons was a step too high for him, bundled unceremoniously out of Pittodrie in the boot of car would be his nadir. He sought out help after that, and in coming to terms with his addictions, he wrote one of the most eye-opening, warts and all autobiographies I have ever read. That said, he will always be a hero at Inverness, and I know he spoke well this year at the 30th anniversary dinner for ex-players and businesses only sadly. I made sure I shook his hand at an Elgin v Annan game in May, where I was just utterly compelled to thank him for all the great memories when he was our boss. He is looking well.
Let’s put this into context, Celtic had just beaten Liverpool in the UEFA Cup, and so sure of their progression against ICT, Martin O’Neil made 8 changes to his line-up. In 2000, Henrik Larsson had missed the 1-3 debacle, as they would have seen it, through injury. He retained his place for this one, and let’s face it, Celtic’s bench should still have had enough in their armoury to beat a Championship side.
However, under the Sky cameras on a Sunday with a bizarre tea-time kick off, Inverness stood firm. We had a very settled squad in those days, something I would like to see us get back to now we are clear of administration. These lads knew each other inside and out, with many still on our books, and playing from the success three years earlier.
Mark Brown needed to be at his best, with the defence responding too, by being compact and always putting their bodies on the line, in and around the edge of the box. Even when Brown was beaten, a head, a chest would be on the line to clear. Ross Tokely memorably doing it as full time neared, in just one incident amid a bizarre sequence of close squeaks within seconds of each other. Once the ball eventually flew over the bar, the relief, the roar. It wasn’t full-time, but ICT had pretty much seen it through.
The only goal of the game had come just ahead of half-time when we broke down the left, Richie Hart got his cross in, and Dennis Wyness did the rest. Another lead at the break, allowing much finger pointing doubtlessly in the visiting dressing room. Unlike 2000, Celtic played it at a ferocious tempo throughout, but our organisation and belief frustrated them.
When the final whistle went, the joy was unrestrained. I sadly witnessed the bad sportsmanship of the Celtic boss who stormed down the tunnel, refusing to shake the hands of Robbo or Donald Park. He forever became known as Martin O’Dear for me after that! Such was the delight, it took me a while to realise that we were going to Hampden for a semi-final. We would lose to Dundee, but the cup side we were becoming would see us back at that stage the year after. This time, after a draw at Hampden, saw a replay at Aberdeen, with Dunfermline edging us out on that occasion. However that old adage, third time lucky was about to come true, and having lost to the Dees and the Pars, who would have thought it would be our nemesis Celtic that would give us that chance to break the glass ceiling!
3- Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3-2 Celtic
Sunday 19th April 2015- Scottish Cup Semi-Final
Hampden Park, Glasgow
The third time and under the third different boss. There had been a lengthy gap since 2003, a passage of time when we had been in the top flight, holding our own, until relegated in bizarre circumstances, where we fell from 7th to relegated in the space of the post split 6 matches. John Hughes and his Falkirk Bairns rose off bottom place with a 1-0 win at the Caledonian Stadium on the last day to send us down for the first ever time in our history. His side had knocked us out of both cup competitions that season too. The name John Hughes wasn’t very popular in Inverness by virtue, but fate brought Yogi to the club once Terry Butcher’s star began to falter.
Back in the top flight, Terry might never have claimed a Celtic cup scalp, but on May 4th 2011, he did oversee an extraordinary 3-2 ICT win against Celtic. It remains to this day, the only occasion a bottom six club played a top six side, post split. Shane Sutherland’s winner that day would hand the advantage to Celtic’s rivals Rangers, as they went on to claim that league championship gong.
One day, just maybe one day, someone else will win the league title in my lifetime again. It has just become tedious in the extreme. The fallout and bad blood that became a thing after our Semi-Final win versus Celtic would be the catalyst for my uncomfortable association with watching either Glasgow giant to crystallise and end. I essentially walked away from watching them, with the one caveat, should we play either in a Cup Final, which, of course, was tested in 2023.
Butcher had been sacked, but this was still largely his team, and John’s apparent reverence to any of his old clubs hadn’t quite become a thing. On this particular Sunday, his tactics were spot on. History was about to be made, but without a classic headline, it probably isn’t as well remembered outside the ICT following. Instead of “Super Caley”, “We were robbed” and “treble thorn,” screamed the scandalous headlines the following day. It was an indication just how far the press had completely lost plot and shamefully sold out beyond a romantic storyline.
It all seemed to be desperately routine, Virgil Van Dijk had put Celtic ahead from a well struck free-kick. What happened next is not our fault, and in these hideous days, the ref, or the officials must be in the pocket of one of the gruesome twosome. It won’t take a rocket scientist to deduce which side these officials were tarred after missing, well let’s just say it, a blatant handball that stopped Leigh Griffiths scoring the second.
I recently was reading John Robertson’s autobiography, where a theme running throughout his narrative is a litany of “incredible” or “unusual” decisions when his side was playing the Glasgow duo. He never qualifies it in any fashion or alludes to conspiracy. That is the realm we leave to those who support the Old Scum.
We got away with one, Josh Meekings would have been off had these officials not being sleeping at the wheel. But then, even with VAR, as witnessed at Salernitana last night, technology doesn’t guarantee a fair outcome. Celtic could just have dusted themselves down and kept going.
As it was, they led at half-time. The first occasion in this trio of games they can say that! Early in the second half, Marley Watkins was clean through. He was wiped out by Craig Gordon, who had to walk the plank and conceded a penalty. Gregg Tansey tucked it away with Zaluska in between the sticks. Now the referee had cocked up in the first half, but when the Celtic substitute goalkeeper did exactly the same to Edward Ofere, the ref reverted to type and waved play on, when Celtic might have lost a second keeper and been down to nine men!
Even with ten, Celtic were a nuisance, but the game went to extra-time. Ofere, who had largely been kept quiet, latched onto a knock down and put the Caley Thistle faithful into dreamland early in the first period of fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, the teams would turn around level again, following Ryan Easson (in for Dean Brill), who had been in sensational form during the game, misjudging a Guidetti free-kick to make it 2-2.
Celtic kept coming forward, they had a treble on the line (when didn’t they!). However with three minutes left, Nicky Ross who is maybe still haunted by a miss he had in this encounter, threaded the ball through to captain Graeme Shinnie, and he fired the ball across the face of the goal, with David Raven, the most unlikely of scorers, powering his way forward to finish with aplomb. Bedlam ensued.
The rest is history. We would go on to win the Cup and finish 3rd in the league. I had stayed away from Dens Park, where we clinched third just so I could associate the Cup Final with my 500th ICT game. It was as good as it ever got and possibly as good as it will ever be as an ICT fan. The old band started to break up, and the inferior replacements saw Yogi leave in the hope of getting another gig while his star was still high.
The post Semi-Final fall-out and anger, as displayed by the headlines, just inflamed the unbelievable bile against my team. It left me both hurt and stunned by the ferocity. As if Celtic haven’t benefited from a dodgy officials’ decision!
A trio of wins, no one can ever take away from us, and as my optimism for the future of my club returns, just maybe we can get back to being a real nuisance in Cup competitions. Hope springs eternal as the motto of Guatemala says, something we should adopt!
Football Adventures with James Rendall 