IT was a moment so surreal and disorientating that even Salvador Dali may have felt it needed toned down a touch.
Celtic were losing on a plastic pitch in Gibraltar, which appeared stapled to the ground, to the Lincoln Red Imps, a team which with the best will in the world would do well to take on a mid-table Junior side who had been on the bevvy the previous night.
As Brendan Rodgers looked on wondering why he'd given up golf to manage a side which couldn’t beat players who had finished a shift, the ball bounced kindly for Leigh Griffiths inside the penalty box and all he had to do was find the net from a few yards and everyone could breathe out.
But Griffiths didn’t score. Instead, his shot took a deflection and at the very moment the ball sailed over the crossbar, no more than 100 yards behind the goal, an EasyJet plane touched down on a runway which you had to walk across to reach the stadium.
It was at this point I turned to a colleague and enquired: “Is this really happening?” I was assured it was and that my pre-match drink had not been spiked with some particularly strong acid.
Some said it was Celtic’s worst ever result. It wasn’t, simply because they were always going to get through. However, it might have been the club’s most embarrassing moment since a confused looking Jack McGinn was pictured in the Celtic View standing on waste ground behind the Hoover factory in Cambuslang holding, ahem, plans for the new stadium.
One bright idea was a bowling alley would bring in such a profit that it was only a matter of time before AC Milan were quaking in their immaculate boots.
I wrote that Rodgers might one day look back on his first match in charge of Celtic and laugh. He’s probably not quite there yet but come Wednesday night, if his team could beat Borussia Monchengladbach, the Irishman will surely allow himself a contented smile.
If his team beat the Germans at Parkhead, and there is literally no team on earth who cannot be defeated under those floodlights on a European night, the Scottish champions would go to four points with Borussia stuck at the bottom with nothing.
Should this scenario play out then I would have Celtic at 70/30 to get through in third place, which was always the aim.
If Barcelona beat Manchester City in the Nou Camp – Lionel Messi is fit again and scored at the weekend – then Celtic would be on the same number of points as English football’s richest team albeit some way behind on goal-difference.
Of course, it could all go belly up. The Germans have more than enough about them to win and will hardly be scared about facing a team from Scotland
However, if Rodgers and Celtic can put themselves in a position whereby they travel to Manchester for the final group game still in with a chance of playing European football after Christmas, and by that I mean the Europa League, it would be an incredible achievement. Surreal, even.
The key for Celtic on Wednesday is not conceding because they are bound score. Kolo Toure, perhaps the most relaxed man to ever play football, will come back in and it’s going to be interesting to see whether Jozo Simunovic gets a start having done so well since his move to Torino fell down.
Celtic were always going to win the Premiership this season and most likely at least one of the domestic cups. Anyone who said otherwise was seriously deluded. The only unknown was whether they could do so with any style and, so far, Rodgers’s team has been great to watch.
Europe was always going to be a different test and had Celtic not held on against Hapoel Be’er Sheva, the popular Rodgers would have been given a pass.
As it is, he has surpassed all expectations and with a Rangers semi-final coming up on Sunday, four days after Champions League matchday No3, this could be one of those weeks he will look back at years from now and say ‘that’s when everything clicked into place.’
Maybe then he'll laugh or even go as far as a full guffaw. Whatever happens, Celtic Park will be some place to be.
And another thing…..
A press officer getting uppity at a journalist asking a question is, for me at least, hardly newsworthy.
It happens often enough, the difference being the argument last week at Rangers was filmed and quickly did the rounds on social media.
My take it on is if a journalist has never received an angry call from a press officer or been shouted at in person by some club employee then you can’t be much good at your job.
I have been banned from three football clubs in my time. Once by Ross County in 1995 after I gave them a gentle ribbing on my first trip there. We have since kissed and made up.
Newcastle United banned an entire newspaper group for something I wrote and, while that was funny, the incident which still fills me with immense pride is when Giovanni de Stefano, then director of Dundee and now languishing in jail for fraud, stopped me from crossing the threshold at Dens Park.
Last week was nothing. I once sat in on a press conference at Sunderland when Paolo di Canio was asked repeatedly; “Are you a fascist?” The thing is, he refused to answer the question.
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