Day Thirty Seven: Celtic (Celtic Park)

Celtic v Hamilton Academicals

Saturday 5th March

Scottish Premier League

We're off to Celtic Park today, the last of the grounds to visit in the SPL. I've never been before and I'm looking forward to seeing what the fuss is about. I'm disappointed that I won't get to witness Neil Lennon perform his touchline antics as he starts another stint in the stand.

My dad insists I arrive at his house no later than 12pm for the drive over to Glasgow, we've got to get into the car park at the ground you see. I make sure I leave the house with about forty minutes to spare and yet I'm still having to text him when I'm stuck at red light after red light. He's not to happy then when I rock up at 12.15pm and not even the bottle of HP Guiness sauce I present him with manages to put me back in the good books. There are only five games to go, I really should try and be on time for at least one of them.

We're entertained as usual by Tam & Stuart on BBC Radio. There guests this week are Justin Currie from Del Amitri and Richard Gough and amongst the topics on discussion are the mid-week old firm game and Del Amitri's World Cup song, Don't come home to soon. Tam wonders if this will be the last World Cup song we'll get to listen to, which is a cheery thought.

We arrive at the ground and I'm fortunate that there are still spaces in the parking area beside the stadium. Having never seen the stadium in the flesh I must admit it's a fair size. Today Celtic are unveiling a statue in honour of the late great Jock Stein and there are loads of people mulling around the ground already and it's only 1.20pm.

It's my turn for the pre match photo and we decide to go for it now and then come back to the car to wait till nearer kick off. Making our way over, my dad points out the new National Velodrome that is being built right opposite the ground in preparation for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Photo taken we take a wee wander in the hunt for a shop so I can buy a paper but all we find a boarded up shops, pubs with bouncers on the door plenty of burger fans and numerous sellers of scarves, flags and the like. One or two of them are selling flags with the Pope on them and the words 'Our God Reigns'. Why you'd want to buy a flag like that to take to watch a SPL match I'll never know.

We also come across a fella selling various programmes from years gone by and whilst most of them feature Celtic, he does have some others including a Third Lanark programme which will cost you £40. I'm sure my dad has a suitcase full of old programmes stored in the attic. I must have to investigate further. In the meantime I buy a programme for today's game and am surprised that it's only £2.50, most of the other programmes for the big sides have been £3 a pop.

We head back to the motor for a while before heading over to the ground about a half hour before kick off. Checking our tickets we see were in the East Stand's lower section behind one of the goals. Dad had tried to get tickets on the sidelines but was told that those seats are for season ticket holders.

Inside the ground we're greeted by mini Celtic shops and massive food stands. Not just your average scotch or steak pie's on offer here, you can chips n' curry sauce, a chicken burger, a normal burger and many other healthy options. I don't want any of that nonsense though, the good old Scotch pie will do us.

The pie still costs a whopping £2 however and it's no that gid. It's burnt. It's stuck to the container. It's a six maximum and lucky to get that according to the pie guru.

The pre match entertainment is much better. Not content with a few songs over the tannoy, cheerleaders or boys doing keepie-uppies at Parkhead. No here they wheel out The Beatles to perform a few numbers. Wait, it wasn't The Beatles, it was Them Beatles, a tribute band who happend to be playing in Glasgow at the weekend. They were pretty good, although Paul didn't look like Paul.

Sat not to far away from us are what I'm led to believe are 'the Green Brigade'. This section of fans came to prominence last year when they unfurled banners against the placing of Poppies on all football sides strips around Armistice Day. Today the banners are in support of Club manager Neil Lennon and state 'Lennon will never walk alone'. They also have two burly blokes beating on their bass drums.

The game kicks off with the ground almost full. Well apart from the away end and in fact there are so few away fans we can count them - 95 fans in total. 95! What a terrible away support - see the photo above for evidence of the meagre Hamilton following. Fair enough the seats for away fans are pretty poor and there must be seats where you can't actually see the whole pitch.

Celtic could have taken the lead in the first minute. A cross into the Hamilton box is sliced wildly on to his own post by Simon Mensing and out for a corner. The corner comes to nothing.

The brigade beside us start with a burst of 'There's only one Neil Lennon' before breaking into 'Stand up if you hate Rangers' - thousands stand for this.

For all the talent on the park for Celtic and all their possession they don't really have any cutting edge up front as Stokes has to come deep to collect the ball and Samaras offering little.

It's twenty minutes before we see further action. A Carrington drive went just wide with Forster beaten. Elebert then headed a Paixao corner just over.

You'd thing the home fans would become restless and perhaps they were but all we could hear was the constant banging off the drums and singing from brigade to our right. Honestly they just don't stop singing.

Celtic forced their passing play back into the game and the left back Izaguirre was finding loads of space to bomb up and down the wing. One of the many balls he played into the box was only narrowly missed by Samaras and another was only partially cleared and Mulgrew chipped it to the back post where Stokes tried a volley from an impossible angle that went well wide.

Off the ball Samaras and Elebert have a wee handbags moment between themselves which is quickly broken up by referee Steve O'Reily.

It must be pointed out that in the programme Celtic officials have stated that all fans must sit down during the game at all times. It's strange then that not once has a steward approached the mass of fans to our right to ask them to sit. They should hire the stewards from Motherwell, they'd get stuck in straight away.

Ki Sung Yueng should have done better than shot wide when Stokes found him with a brilliant through ball.

It's a full forty two minutes before Celtic manage a shot on target but my god it was worth waiting for. A Celtic corner right in front of us broke to Scott Brown on the edge of the box and he took a touch or two before teeing up Kris Commons. From the moment it left his foot it was swerving away from the keeper and it nestled in the top corner.

For me that is one of the best goals I've seen this season, almost as good as Jamie Stevenson's for East Stirling v Elgin way back in August last year.

The Celtic fans celebrate with their own version of Depeche Mode's 'Just can't get enough'. The words change slighty to 'When I'm with you Celtic, I got out my head, I just can't get enough, just can't get enough'.

Hamilton almost find themselves two down moments before the end of the first half when Cerny makes a great save from a Samaras header.

Half time.

Out of nowhere about a dozen blokes descend on the pitch with pitchforks to replace the divots and tend to the pitch. Nowhere on our travels have we seen such dedication to the playing surface, it's just a shame the players on show haven't down it justice so far.

Five minutes into the break I decide to nip down for a quick pee. In the Gents every third person is smoking and you have to fight your way through the smog to find the way out.

I'm tempted to go buy us both another pie in the off chance the first efforts were just a bad pair but the size of the queue puts my off and I put my crampons on before tackling the descent back to my seat.

Both sides made substitutions at the start of the second half. Rogne replaces Majstrorovic for Celtic whilst Hopkirk replaces Hasselbaink for Hamilton.

Celtic midfielder went close a few minutes after the break but his fierce shot was straight at the keeper. Commons was denied his second goal by a brilliant sliding tackle just as he went to shot.

Commons did get his goal seven minutes in to the second half and it was a gift from Hamilton. Elebert played a shocking ball across his own goal and Commons ran on to it to curl the ball in to the corner and out of the reach of the keeper. He took the goal well but he should never have been given the opportunity in the first place.

Hamilton have showed very little going forward and will have to pull something spectacular out the bag to turn this around.

Either way I'm hoping this second goal will bring the tempo of the game up and we get some more excitement.

All we got was a spat between Kayal and McDonald but even that failed to materilise beyond a push or two.

I was disappointed when with ten minutes to go hoards of home fans started to leave the ground and by the time the full whistle went about a third of the fifty odd thousand at the game had left.

I was disappointed by the game, I expected more from Celtic, more flair, more action and more goals. Having seen Hamilton before I wasn't expecting much from them and as harsh as it may sound I think the SPL is too much for them.

By the time we make it back to the car the traffic is already grid locked in the car park and the fact it takes almost forty minutes to get back on to the M8 I can see why so many fans left early.

Well that's all the SPL grounds down and a stough as it is for me to say it the Old Firm stadium are by far the most impressive but then I guess they should be given the size of the fan base and the amount of money they both scam of the rest of us. For me though the best game was the New Years Day derby between Hearts and Hibernian. I'll check with my dad and give you a run down of his favourites shortly.

The Statistics

Ticket: Adult: £25. Concession £16

Programme: £2.50

Attendance: 51,811

Pie: £2

Pie Marks: 6/10

Mileage: 83 miles

Final Score: Celtic 2 v Hamilton Academicals 0

Man of the Match: Dad - Kris Commons (Celtic), Me - Ki Sung-Yeung (Celtic)

Fascinating Fact of the Day: First British side to win the European Cup.

Next Game: Central Park (Cowdenbeath)