NINE THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
Celtic’s charge for a record 10th consecutive title is the talking point of 2020-21 in Scotland.
But back in 1997-98, it was the Bhoys who had to stop Rangers from landing that holy grail...
Words Chris Flanagan
Additional reporting Lindsay Herron
FOUR FOUR TWO - August 2020
Henrik Larsson was just 16 minutes into his Celtic career, but already it wasn’t going well.
Introduced as a second-half substitute at Hibernian, his task was simple: help Celtic win the game. Instead, he inadvertently helped them lose it.
When Larsson picked up the ball on the corner of his own penalty area, the dreadlocked Swede tried to start an attack, swivelling and aiming a pass towards team-mate Darren Jackson. However, it never got there. Chic Charnley, a 34-year-old barrel-chested journeyman also on his debut, intercepted Larsson’s pass and rifled home Hibs’ winner from 25 yards. A week later the Bhoys lost at home to Dunfermline, and sat bottom of the Scottish Premier Division on zero points.
In the space of a few short months, Celtic’s three previous star forwards – Paolo Di Canio, Pierre van Hooijdonk and Jorge Cadete – had all walked out of Parkhead in controversial circumstances. Meanwhile, their arch-rivals Rangers had won nine consecutive league crowns, equalling the record set by Celtic’s Lisbon Lions during the Jock Stein era. Now the Ibrox side were going for 10 in a row, and Celtic seemed powerless to stop them. “After two matches, I would have said we had zero chance,” Craig Burley tells FourFourTwo now.
Then came one of Scottish football’s most famous title races, as a Gers team featuring Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne and Gennaro Gattuso were reeled in against all odds. “We had a 10th title in our hands but we blew it,” says Richard Gough, the Rangers defensive legend. “It was so sad, the way it all ended.”
During a remarkable 1997-98 season, the course of history changed. Celtic avoided the humiliation of Rangers winning 10 in a row, and Larsson quickly became a Bhoys legend.
TOTAL FOOTBALL MEETS TOTAL DESPERATION
Celtic were reigning champions when they went to Ibrox in August 1988. They lost 5-1, and took nearly a decade to recover. Graeme Souness helped Rangers kick off a period of domestic dominance, and when he departed for Liverpool in 1991, successor Walter Smith ensured that it continued.
For seven straight seasons, Celtic weren’t even in the top two. In 1989-90, they finished fifth in a 10-team league, losing more games than they won. They went trophyless for five seasons and were on the verge of bankruptcy before Fergus McCann completed a takeover in 1994. A year on, they won the Scottish Cup in Tommy Burns’ first term as boss.
“Burns brought us closer to Rangers,” says Simon Donnelly, who joined Celtic in 1993. “The next season [1995-96], we only lost one game but still finished second. Rangers had some fantastic players in that period: McCoist, Laudrup, Gascoigne... For me, that was the best Rangers team of all time.
“When we played them, we always felt we were getting somewhere, then they’d break away and score. They had the Indian sign
over us – particularly Andy Goram in goal.”
Despite their progress, Celtic went without
a trophy again for two seasons. When they
lost to second-tier Falkirk in the semi-finals
of the 1996-97 Scottish Cup, Burns got the
sack. From that fateful day in August 1988,
Rangers had won 17 major prizes to Celtic’s
two. A ninth successive league title would
equal the record set by Jock Stein’s Celtic,
who reigned supreme from 1966-74 and
also lifted the 1967 European Cup in Lisbon.
In 1997, the Bhoys had other problems.
Their forward line had been spearheaded by
Van Hooijdonk, Di Canio and Cadete, but they subsequently became known as ‘The Three
Amigos’ for the manner in which they forced
their way out of the club in quick succession.
Wage disputes were the root cause. Van
Hooijdonk departed for Nottingham Forest in
March, infamously quoted as declaring that
“£7,000 is enough for a homeless person but
not for a top-class footballer” – something he
has since denied saying. That summer, both
Di Canio and Cadete refused to report back
for pre-season. Di Canio was eventually sold
to Sheffield Wednesday, while Cadete joined
Spanish side Celta Vigo.
By then, the Bhoys had made plans without
them. Efforts to lure Bobby Robson to Celtic
Park didn’t come to fruition, but on July 3
they were ready to unveil their new manager.
One newspaper confidently predicted that it
was Artur Jorge; however, the moustachioed
former Porto, Benfica and Switzerland chief
was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was
a mop-headed Dutchman by the name of
Wim Jansen. “I don’t think many of us knew
who he was,” admits Donnelly. “But that was
through ignorance – he had played in two
World Cup finals.”
A member of the Total Football generation,
Jansen had enjoyed a far less distinguished
managerial career. He had won a couple of
Dutch Cups with Feyenoord in 1991 and ’92,
but his most recent post at J.League outfit
Sanfrecce Hiroshima hadn’t gone too well;
indeed, one Scottish newspaper billed him
as “the second-worst thing to hit Hiroshima”.
But the deep-thinking boss came with a calm
demeanour and set about improving Celtic’s
squad, signing Larsson for £650,000.
“Wim knew him from his Feyenoord days,”
explains Donnelly. “Henrik had been playing
out of position there and fallen out of love
with the game a little bit – but Celtic was the
perfect platform for him.”
Although an attempt to bring in Bebeto fell
through, also snapped up were Marc Rieper,
Stephane Mahé, Darren Jackson, Jonathan
Gould and Craig Burley. Despite being a Scot,
Burley, joining from Chelsea, didn’t realise the
significance of what he was walking into. In
Celtic’s eyes, they simply had to stop Rangers
winning 10 in a row, and thereby prevent the
Lisbon Lions’ record from being obliterated.
“I was in this little bubble down south,”
Burley tells FFT. “I only became aware when
I was in talks with the general manager, Jock
Brown, and he mentioned that this was one
of the biggest seasons in the club’s history.”
Burley continues: “Very early in the season,
it became abundantly obvious what it meant
to the supporters. Once we lost our first two
matches, they wanted blood. I got, ‘F**k off
back to Chelsea’ – the lot. We all did.
“Some Celtic fans have since told me that
only winning the European Cup was more
important than what was at stake that year.”
HEADBUTTS AND HOMECOMING HEROES
The Hibernian game was a nightmare start,
for Celtic and for Larsson. “Today, I blame
that all on Darren Jackson – he didn’t want
the ball and then he ran away!” Larsson later
joked to FFT, recalling the moment when his
errant pass was intercepted. “But after the
match I said, ‘It’s my fault, I hold my hands
up’. I think I managed to turn it around.”
He certainly did, although not before Celtic
lost the first leg of a UEFA Cup qualifier at
Tirol Innsbruck and were roundly booed after
that surprise home defeat to Dunfermline.
“Had we lost at St Johnstone, it was going
to be the worst league start in Celtic history,”
says Burley. “Thankfully, we won.” Larsson
broke the deadlock that day.
Across Glasgow, Rangers had started the
season ominously well. After an audacious
bid to recruit Ronaldo from Barcelona, they
had signed a pair of Italians from Perugia:
a 19-year-old Gennaro Gattuso and striker
Marco Negri, who netted twice on his debut
against Hearts, then all five against Dundee
United. He plundered 23 goals in the first 10
league matches, including four in a 7-0 win
over Celtic’s conquerors, Dunfermline, and
another three at home to Kilmarnock. His
tally was already five more than anyone else
in the division would manage all season.
Rangers led the early table, before a pivotal
fortnight in Europe for Gers and Bhoys alike.
Celtic, having rescued their tie against Tirol
with a 6-3 home victory, faced Liverpool in
the UEFA Cup’s first round proper. “We gave
them a trouncing and should have beaten
them, only for a Steve McManaman wonder
goal in injury time,” recalls Burley. “That was
when we knew we had a good team. We had
a new manager and lots of new players, and
at the start of the season we had arguments
about the way we should be playing – but
when it gelled, it was bloody good.” Donnelly
adds, “That was the first time I thought, ‘We
have a chance of doing something this year’.”
For their Old Firm rivals, league titles had
become almost run of the mill, and a strong
European campaign was a major priority. But
Walter Smith’s team had dropped into the
UEFA Cup after a 4-1 aggregate defeat to IFK
Gothenburg in Champions League qualifying.
Then, as Celtic were giving Liverpool a real
scare, Rangers slumped against Strasbourg.
Despite Smith’s domestic success, criticism
was severe. Rangers had finished bottom of
their Champions League group in the two
previous campaigns, and some had lost faith
that he could deliver in Europe. Soon, it was
revealed he would leave at the season’s end.
Even with Negri’s goals, Rangers lost 2-1 to
Dundee United, following high-scoring draws
against Aberdeen and Motherwell. After eight consecutive wins, Celtic went into the first
Old Firm clash of the season, in November,
above Rangers – although Hearts were top
having played an extra game.
But things went awry before Celtic even
got to Ibrox. Two days earlier, the headlines
were dominated by a training ground tussle
when defender Tosh McKinlay headbutted
Larsson. “Some fans had been watching over
a wall and it was splattered across the radio
before we had even finished training,” says
Burley. “It was an unpleasant incident, and
Sod’s Law that it was ahead of the Old Firm
game, but it was never an issue after that. At
Ibrox, we were just completely outplayed by
Rangers on the day.”
The hosts won 1-0, thanks to a low strike
from the returning Gough. The defender had
brought an end to 10 successful years with
the club that summer, joining Kansas City
Wizards. But replacement Lorenzo Amoruso
damaged his Achilles’ tendon shortly after
arriving, and 35-year-old Gough came back
in an attempt to fix the Gers’ defence. He did
so with a determination not to let Smith’s
exit affect their season. “A lot of people tried
to use that as a contributing factor, but it
was nothing to do with that,” he explains.
For Celtic, what Gough did at the end of
that Old Firm derby lingered longer than the
goal. “That was the game when he raised the
10 fingers,” says Donnelly. “It gave us a wee
bit of incentive to stop 10 in a row.”
Just 11 days later, the teams met again at
Celtic Park. The match was originally due to
be played on August 31, only to be called off
hours before kick-off following the death of
Diana, Princess of Wales.
Rangers were reduced to 10 men when
Gascoigne was adjudged to have lashed out
at Morten Wieghorst, but they went ahead
through Negri. Celtic had lost 2-0 at home to
Motherwell in between the two derby games.
They simply could not afford a third loss on
the spin. In stoppage time, Jackie McNamara
looped a high cross into the penalty area
and Alan Stubbs headed a crucial equaliser.
SWAPPING THE LEAD AT THE TOP
Although Celtic won the Scottish League Cup
in November, they were third in the league
at the turn of the year, with a 1-0 defeat at
St Johnstone piling on the pressure ahead of
Rangers’ return to Celtic Park on January 2.
“If we had lost that, we’d have gone seven
points behind them and it would have been
insurmountable,” says Burley.
“There was just so much pressure on that
one game. Look at Rangers’ bench that day:
Gordon Durie and Paul Gascoigne. That was
the size of the task. But Wim man-marked Brian Laudrup out of the game with Enrico
Annoni and we steamrolled them.” Burley
fired Celtic in front, to send the majority of
the 49,000 crowd wild. “The noise…” he says.
“It was an amazing feeling.”
Five minutes from the end, Paul Lambert
sealed the victory with a stunning 25-yard
half-volley. He had joined Celtic in November,
a few months after winning the Champions
League final with Borussia Dortmund. “Was
it Wonder Woman who’d go into a telephone
box, spin round and come out as somebody
else?” asks Burley. “That was Paul Lambert.
He went to Dortmund as a run-of-the-mill
midfielder and came back as one of the best
holding midfielders in Europe.”
For Rangers, it was a bad day all round. Not
only was it their first defeat in 11 Old Firm
league meetings, but Gascoigne got himself
in the middle of a sectarian storm. Taunted
by Celtic fans, he responded by playing an
imaginary flute – a gesture associated with
Protestant marches. He was fined £20,000
and received death threats. “I had a letter
from the IRA,” he revealed. “It said, ‘Hi Gazza,
I’ve seen what you done. If you do it again,
I’ll kill you’.” Two months after the incident,
Gascoigne joined Middlesbrough, his powers
on the wane. By the end of 1997-98, he had
missed out on England’s World Cup squad.
Even more significant was the loss of Negri,
who suffered a detached retina while playing
squash just days after defeat at Celtic Park.
Although he returned later in the campaign,
his peripheral vision was hampered. “Marco
getting injured was massive,” admits Gough.
“He’d been sensational in the first half of the
season, but then he suffered the eye problem
and wasn’t the same player after that.”
On course for the European Golden Shoe
before his abnormal injury, Negri scored just
three more goals during the second half of
the season. He later said: “Celtic supporters
would place their palms over their eyes and
laugh when they saw me out in the street,
or feign blindness as they groped in front of
me with imaginary white sticks.”
Rangers won three of nine league games
and the Bhoys hit top spot, despite Hearts’
continuing challenge and speculation about
a deteriorating relationship between Jansen
and Jock Brown, Celtic’s general manager.
In early April the Gers hit back, defeating
Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-finals before
winning 2-0 in the final Old Firm game of the
season, at Ibrox. It edged them back to the
summit on goal difference, with four games
to play. “We should have gone on and won
it,” says Gough. “But we failed to finish it off.”
Rangers lost away at Aberdeen but rallied
to beat Hearts 3-0 at Tynecastle, while Celtic
saw off Motherwell and drew with Hibs. That
gave Jansen’s men a lead of one point going
into the penultimate weekend.
“We were playing away on the Sunday, and
I vividly remember being sat at home on the
Saturday when the Rangers result came in,”
remembers Burley. “They were at home to
Kilmarnock. I thought, ‘They’re not going to
f**king lose, with Walter Smith and all their
experience’. But then they did, 1-0. Suddenly,
we could go to Dunfermline the next day and
win the league.”
Unsurprisingly, East End Park was packed.
“It felt as if every Celtic fan was there that
day,” says Donnelly, who broke the deadlock.
“From a selfish point of view I was thinking,
‘My name is going down in history’.”
Craig Faulconbridge’s late equaliser ensured
that wouldn’t be the case. “It was like slow
motion, this header f**king looping into the
net – I can still see it now,” says Burley. “We
were like, ‘S**t’. After the game Tosh McKinlay
said, ‘Well, it was meant to be that we would
win the league at Celtic Park’. I said, ‘No, it
was f**king meant to be that we were going
to win today and go on the piss for a week!’
“That was a long week. Wim Jansen had to
stop training one day because the lads were
kicking lumps out of each other – if we’d kept
going, we would have had several injuries for
the weekend. The tension was so high. With
his experience, Wim said, ‘Stop. Everyone go
home, and we’ll come back tomorrow’.”
Celtic, expecting Rangers to win at Dundee
United, needed all three points at home to
St Johnstone. Three minutes in, Larsson cut
in from the left and curled a brilliant 25-yard
effort into the far corner. It was his 19th goal
of the season. “That was big,” says Burley.
“Henrik would score many more goals in later
years under Martin O’Neill, but he was hugely important that season. He had an incredible
all-round game.” In his seven years at Celtic,
the Swede would win four league titles as
well as the European Golden Shoe.
For 69 nervy minutes, St Johnstone denied
Celtic a second goal. Then Norway’s Harald
Brattbakk came off the bench to seal victory.
“When he scored, it was just relief,” explains
Donnelly. “It was amazing at the final whistle.
Fans came onto the pitch – great scenes.”
“We had protected a legacy,” says Burley,
who was named SFWA Footballer of the Year
after netting 13 goals from midfield.
For Gough, it was a disappointing end to his
time with Rangers. “It was a sad way for that
group to break up, but we can be so proud of
our achievements,” he reflects. “I’m lucky to
have been involved in the most unbelievably
successful period. The most important thing
for me was getting the nine. We would have
loved to make it 10, but it wasn’t to be.”
It was the end for Wim Jansen at Celtic as
well. The title-winning gaffer announced his
exit, unwilling to work with Brown any longer.
More than two decades on, it’s Celtic who
go into the 2020-21 season looking to claim
a record 10th successive title. If they hadn’t
triumphed in 1997-98, the record wouldn’t
be there to claim. “The fans still thank me for
playing a part in stopping the 10,” Donnelly
tells FFT. “It probably means more to me now
than when I played.”
Burley confesses, “I wouldn’t swap winning
nine titles at Celtic now for the one we won,
because I know what we had to go through
to get there. If Rangers had won the league
that season, they might have taken it into
territory Celtic could never get back. It could
have been 12, 13, 14 in a row – who knows?”
Now, it’s Rangers and their gaffer, Steven
Gerrard, who face that pressure. “From the
first day of the season to the last, they will
have a finger pointing into their chest,” says
Burley. “Every sentence will start with, ‘You’d
better…’ The players will have to stand up to
that pressure, but it’s a far less experienced
squad than we had – they don’t have a guy
who’s just won a Champions League final, or
a Henrik Larsson.
“It would be a heck of a feather in Gerrard’s
cap if he was able to pull it off – that would
propel his managerial career further than he
could imagine. But he’s on a knife edge – if
Celtic win it again, Rangers fans are going to
be baying for blood. It’s a big season for him,
and I’m sure he knows that. He’ll find out just
how big when the season starts.”
Celtic and Larsson found out the hard way
at the beginning of the 1997-98 season. Nine
months later, they were champions.
FFT - August 2020
• Celtic and Rangers in the 1990s: When the Old Firm felt (even) bigger (by Alex Reid)
• Helicopter Sunday: Rangers’ last-gasp title, told by the protagonists (by Lindsay Herron)
• The 100 greatest football managers of all time – featuring Stein, Smith and more
TEN IN A ROW? THAT’S NOTHING IN BOSNIA
Records for consecutive titles vary wildly, from ludicrously high to absurdly low...
LINCOLN (14)
No, not that Lincoln. The Gibraltarians (full title: Lincoln Red Imps) dominated between 2003 and 2016, equalling the men’s European record of Skonto Riga in Latvia. They also knocked Prince of Wales FC off their perch by overtaking their title haul in Gibraltar. Poor Camilla.
TAFEA (15)
The men’s world record holders hail from the tiny Pacific island of Vanuatu. Some of Tafea’s early successes took place in a rebel league, before FIFA recognition – by 2009, they had won 15 in a row, overcoming such sides as Shepherds United and Ifira Black Bird.
SFK 2000 SARAJEVO (18)
The Bosnian women’s league launched in 2001. Iskra Bugojno topped the very first table, but SFK haven’t given anyone a look-in since. The Maroon Ladies were awarded a world-record 18th straight title this season, after the coronavirus outbreak stopped the campaign early.
HUDDERSFIELD TOWN (3)
When they won the First Division title in 1926, Huddersfield became the first English team to capture three in a row. Almost unbelievably, no one has ever eclipsed that – Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United (twice) have only been able to emulate the Terriers’ feat.
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