Celtic's Season Could be Massively Boosted by Six Points in Grudge Matches.

Last updated : 29 September 2009 By Clydebuilt
This has been a strange week in football. After the news that Rangers had dropped a further two points gave us the potential to go 7 points clear before the Roast is in the Oven and the fact that we could exorcise a demon that has been on our back for a quarter of a century you could be excused for looking ahead with an air of optimism.

However there is a definite fragility about our play just now that seems to have travelled forward into the new regime, and the dual threat that we could have our lead pegged back to just one point in the SPL coupled with the potential that justice may indeed not be done on Thursday night leaves a strange feeling in a week that could offer so much.

However it is with hope and trepidation that we must approach this week, which will undoubtedly have a lot to say about how our season is to pan out. In the immortal words of the new Rangers Chairman…"umm, err……err umm"

Wise words Mr Johnstone!

Anyway enough of the non-entities and back to the matter at hand. First of all Rapid Vienna. Like many other like-minded Celts who were alive and aware back in 1984 this is a dream opportunity to get revenge on the second biggest baddies since a certain Govan side took on a more sinister persona.

I can remember that night well, as it was one of my first European games. Celtic did so well to get into the game with 3 excellent well worked goals the game went into mayhem after the Vienna Keeper Feurer decided to take out a bit of retribution against Tommy Burns after the flame haired Legend robbed the big Donkey to score.

What happened next was inexcusable, yes Weinhoffer had no reason to go down like Peter Lovenkrands but more importantly the fans who decided to start launching things onto the pitch have to take a large portion of the blame for the madness that incurred afterwards.

So now everyone is getting rolled out in the gutter press to pass comment on this game. From the current Rapid Keeper Payer, who has stated that he is willing to use his martial arts skills on any fan stupid enough to try and give him a Glaswegian welcome, to many other curious persons with a vague link to the Austrian team designed to stoke up emotions in the home support. As the press do so often, they love to wind up those pliant to their bait and then sit back and pontificate from their high horses once their ruse comes to fruition.

One player who was playing that night and is in a position to contribute to our destiny on Thursday is Peter Grant. Rather than hype the match myself by quoting Grants comments in full I will leave you with the Pointer's stark appraisal of the Austrian side. "They are an excellent side," he said. "I watched them at Villa Park and they could have scored five. We will need to have all our big players playing well."


We will indeed Peter.

Yours in Celtic

Clydebuilt