THERE were some intelligent, reasonable followers of Celtic who had begun to believe that the only way their team could collect the premier division flag again would be to break into Ibrox and make off with it.

Now the sun has risen in the east of Glasgow but the man who made it happen, Wim Jansen, looks as if he will riding off into the sunset.

For the moment, though, the Parkhead fans are entitled to enjoy the party. They have endured a lot over a long period waiting for this day. They know only too well that, when it came to false dawns, Celtic managed to break all previous records in a decade when the old family connections that had run the club for 100 years and more were discarded amid much bitterness.

Ten years ago, the second coming to Parkhead of Billy McNeill did bring hope of great things, with the collection of the championship of 1988, the club's centenary year, although they had won it under Davie Hay only two years earlier.

However, that was to be a happy but ephemeral blip on a journey that was to take the club through many storms before it entered the promised land in the magnificent setting of the new Celtic Park.

McNeill, the man who succeeded the great Jock Stein, left amid some acrimony, a circumstance that has been repeated with other departures since, even after the old board was replaced, and might be seen again before much longer.

Three years into his second stint at Parkhead the directors called enough on the most famous Celtic man of them all and brought in the first manager not to have had any previous connection with the club, one of Ireland's greatest players, Liam Brady.

In some eyes it was an inspired choice, but others wondered if it was reasonable to expect a man who had no experience as a manager and none at all of the Scottish game to revive a club in double-quick time when Rangers were at their peak.

He gave it his best shot but discovered, as so many before and since, that internal rows off the field did not make it any easier to wake the sleeping giant. Although he did get money to spend (albeit a great deal less than Rangers), Celtic were left trailing the Ibrox side once again.

Three years later Brady quit, Joe Jordan was appointed care-taker and assumed by many to be the successor. However, Joe left tout de suite after he discovered that the board had decided to appoint someone else, Lou Macari as manager. Much liked by the fans as a player, Macari left Stoke City with a reputation of being a fine manager, but for various reasons another false dawn was upon the Celtic brigade.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Lou's dispute over his dismissal - he is appealing against the verdict which went against him - there is no doubt that he, like Brady, was startled by the turmoil that overwhelmed the club. The battle for power was reaching its zenith as Macari, with little money available, attempted to produce a Celtic team that could worry the mighty machine across the city.

Lou elected to side with the old board, which was hardly surprising, as they were paying his wages. He did not last long under the new regime and, after a turbulent year and a bit in the Parkhead seat, he was dismissed.

Three managers had been used in the space of seven years but when Fergus McCann chose Tommy Burns, being fined by both the Scottish League and SFA for alleged poaching in the process, many Celtic fans were convinced the new dawn really was beckoning.

Having done well with Kilmarnock, the Celtic-mad Burns seemed the ideal choice. When the team won the Scottish Cup on May 27, 1995, hopes of resurrection seemed justified, but despite losing only one league match the following season, they were beaten to the title again by Rangers.

Burns had already experienced a few brushes with McCann and threatened to leave on the eve of that successful cup final, but by the middle of his third season it was clear he was not to be given a new contract.

The new stadium was now in place, the club had more fans with season tickets and more shareholders than any in Britain, the whole structure had been renewed and revitalised in keeping with modern football big business, and real money was made available for buying players.

McCann's promises were well ahead of schedule and his achievement in such a short space of time simply remarkable.

Enter Wim Jansen, Dutch coach with vast experience, a stoical determination, and a stubborn mind that, it is said, new general manager Jock Brown and McCann have found virtually immovable.

It was new-dawn time yet again. However, on at least three occasions, Celtic, under Jansen, still managed to falter when the race was theirs for the taking; until Saturday at a packed Parkhead when the sun rose high in the sky. For Celtic fans it was a phenomenon not seen for a decade.