Celtic take low road with abject defeat
Celtic suffered the worst defeat in their history, losing their third-round cup tie to Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who were in the Highland League only five years ago. They did so by some margin in front of their own distraught unbelieving and angry supporters, and their manager John Barnes may find that there is no way back.
Some 5,000 had followed Thistle down for the original tie, which was called off when part of a grandstand came loose hours before the game. And half that number returned to see whether, metaphorically at least, the roof would fall in on the Premier League side. Their effort was handsomely rewarded.
Twice in the first half Thistle took the lead, and they did not need to play much more than straightforward First Division football. In that period Celtic's defence was truly dreadful, looking like men who had not struck up the barest acquaintanceship with one another. Olivier Tebily must surely have wished he was back in an Ivory Coast army camp.
Thistle were neither overawed nor did they feel obliged to do anything at all fussy. They did not need to do so to take the lead in the 17th minute. Stuart Golabek simply played the ball down the line on the left to Paul Sheerin, the busiest of their midfielders. He hit an orthodox cross into the penalty area and the striker Bobby Wilson had nobody with him as he headed strongly past Jonathan Gould.
It seemed it had been an aberration when Celtic equalised less than 60 seconds later. With Thistle still celebrating and not really believing their luck, Eyal Berkovic struck a through-ball down the middle. He gained a lucky deflection from a defender and it dropped into the stride of Mark Burchill, who clipped it past Jim Calder.
That should have been the sign for Celtic to calm down but it only increased their apprehension. Six minutes later the First Division side were back in the lead. Sheerin won a corner and tossed the ball over, Golabek was unmarked for his header and was lucky when the ball took a wicked deflection off Lubomir Moravcik to end up in the net.
Worse followed for Celtic. In the 55th minute Wilson's pace worried them, Reggie Blinker brought him down from behind and the impressive Sheerin scored from the penalty spot.