NINE THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU
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
