Post by Taxigirl on Mar 29, 2004 11:58:42 GMT
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/3577279.stm
By Chick Young
BBC Scotland football correspondent
If you thought the singing and dancing on the tower-block stands of the mighty Nou Camp soaring into the Catalan night was hectic, you should have seen the away dressing-room five minutes after the final whistle in Barcelona.
David Marshall - born in the year of our Lord 1985, which seems like 10 minutes ago to me - was last man in with the sweat of that dramatic performance still dripping from his brow.
It was the perfect arrangement that he had been ambushed by the BBC to collect the news that he had been named man of the match because it allowed his team-mates to organise the ticker-tape welcome.
I don't recall seeing a player given a standing ovation by his team-mates in the dressing-room before, but Kid Gloves was granted one. And I am sure he blushed.
If he did, it was the only emotion he displayed all night - because, when hearts were thumping all around him in the breathtaking excitement, he performed like ice was running through his veins.
He was so relaxed, he was almost horizontal.
How could Celtic have worried about him? Although, to be fair, publicly at least, Martin O'Neill denied any concern. The lad was as amazing as he was unfazed by the whole affair.
It was the second time in eight days that I was invited to hand him the man of the match champagne. Although, to be honest, in the mayhem of post-match scenes, I mislaid the bottle of bubbly meant for him in Barcelona.
In any case, if he keeps going like this, he might want to invest in a wine cellar.
Marshall was the headline-maker, but the glow of deep joy within the Celtic support was ignited by an entire team. If they win not another game this term, it will still have been an astonishing season.
I remember when Martin O'Neill arrived at Celtic Park, I interviewed him in the shadow of the portrait of Jock Stein, which hangs in one of the lounges at the ground. He declared it an impossible task to eclipse the work of the club's most legendary figure and, of course, he has a long, long way still to go.
But you do begin to wonder that, if he were to stay the course in Glasgow's East End until his dotage, whether he could yet elevate himself to the heavens of Stein's celestial plain.
It is, of course, a different era. Different demands, different pressures, different handicaps. And they have different ways.
O'Neill is a hard man to get to know. You always sense when you are talking to him that he has one eye on his next move. That you aren't quite being granted 100% of his attention.
And he only allows you so close.
But I like him and, of course, there is another side to face, image and persona he presents to the media and consequently the massive Celtic support.
He is unswerving in his belief about where Celtic deserve to be.
O'Neill once told me privately that he failed to recognise before he took the job how big a club it really is. And, even then, he thought it was huge.
And yet he frets about the mismanagement of the Scottish game away from Celtic Park and the decisions taken by its administrators.
He won't voice them publicly, but any reasonable-minded observer of the top division would share his concerns.
But there are few furrows on the Celtic-minded brow these days.
Theirs is a great big fluffy happy world where good things happen.
They have won new admiration throughout the football world and, though it might stick in the gullets of some, they have dragged the Scottish game kicking and screaming in their triumphal wake and we should thank them for it.
By Chick Young
BBC Scotland football correspondent
If you thought the singing and dancing on the tower-block stands of the mighty Nou Camp soaring into the Catalan night was hectic, you should have seen the away dressing-room five minutes after the final whistle in Barcelona.
David Marshall - born in the year of our Lord 1985, which seems like 10 minutes ago to me - was last man in with the sweat of that dramatic performance still dripping from his brow.
It was the perfect arrangement that he had been ambushed by the BBC to collect the news that he had been named man of the match because it allowed his team-mates to organise the ticker-tape welcome.
I don't recall seeing a player given a standing ovation by his team-mates in the dressing-room before, but Kid Gloves was granted one. And I am sure he blushed.
If he did, it was the only emotion he displayed all night - because, when hearts were thumping all around him in the breathtaking excitement, he performed like ice was running through his veins.
He was so relaxed, he was almost horizontal.
How could Celtic have worried about him? Although, to be fair, publicly at least, Martin O'Neill denied any concern. The lad was as amazing as he was unfazed by the whole affair.
It was the second time in eight days that I was invited to hand him the man of the match champagne. Although, to be honest, in the mayhem of post-match scenes, I mislaid the bottle of bubbly meant for him in Barcelona.
In any case, if he keeps going like this, he might want to invest in a wine cellar.
Marshall was the headline-maker, but the glow of deep joy within the Celtic support was ignited by an entire team. If they win not another game this term, it will still have been an astonishing season.
I remember when Martin O'Neill arrived at Celtic Park, I interviewed him in the shadow of the portrait of Jock Stein, which hangs in one of the lounges at the ground. He declared it an impossible task to eclipse the work of the club's most legendary figure and, of course, he has a long, long way still to go.
But you do begin to wonder that, if he were to stay the course in Glasgow's East End until his dotage, whether he could yet elevate himself to the heavens of Stein's celestial plain.
It is, of course, a different era. Different demands, different pressures, different handicaps. And they have different ways.
O'Neill is a hard man to get to know. You always sense when you are talking to him that he has one eye on his next move. That you aren't quite being granted 100% of his attention.
And he only allows you so close.
But I like him and, of course, there is another side to face, image and persona he presents to the media and consequently the massive Celtic support.
He is unswerving in his belief about where Celtic deserve to be.
O'Neill once told me privately that he failed to recognise before he took the job how big a club it really is. And, even then, he thought it was huge.
And yet he frets about the mismanagement of the Scottish game away from Celtic Park and the decisions taken by its administrators.
He won't voice them publicly, but any reasonable-minded observer of the top division would share his concerns.
But there are few furrows on the Celtic-minded brow these days.
Theirs is a great big fluffy happy world where good things happen.
They have won new admiration throughout the football world and, though it might stick in the gullets of some, they have dragged the Scottish game kicking and screaming in their triumphal wake and we should thank them for it.