Celtic Park

Tuesday 11 August 2015

Celtic 2-0 Ross County

Aerial shot of Celtic Park (www.glasgow2014.com)

Programme - £3.00

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 9/10

Ease of getting there : 9/10

Atmosphere : 7/10

Programme : 7/10

View of Action : 8/10

Quality of the game : 5/10

The "football" feeling : 8/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 1/10

Legroom : 10/10

Surrounding area : 5/10

Overall : 69/100

"Welocme to Scotland"

Approaching Paradise

Lisbon Lions Stand

Main Stand

Jimmy Johnstone Statue

Brother Walfrid Statue - Founder of Celtic FC

Jock Stein Statue

Ross County Team Coach

Jock Stein Stand

New high rise development in the distance

North Stand

North Stand and Jock Stein Stand

PARADISE

Lisbon Lions Stand

North Stand

Main Stand

Jock Stein Stand

Main Stand

Jock Stein Stand

North Stand

G4S - Stewards marching up and down the side of the
pitch for the whole match, very over the top!

Main Stand

Jock Stein Stand

North Stand

Celtic 2-0 Ross County

Friday 31^st July 2015

Our Scottish weekend started in Leicestershire leaving at 5pm heading towards Stoke upon Trent eating at McDonalds at Meir Park. Once we had eaten our dinner, we started going northbound on the M6 up to Carlisle where we stopped off at The Queens B&B in a village called Warwick on Eden arriving at 9pm. We decided to go downstairs to the pub until we realised a quiz was taking place. Opting out, we went into the village looking for another pub until we noticed that The Queens was the only pub in the village. Quiz it was! We stayed for a pint before going to bed at around 11pm ready for our early start.

Saturday 1^st August 2015

Up early and ready to go or so we thought…

We found out that breakfast was served from 9pm which was inconvenient for us having to still drive a further 95 miles to Glasgow. After consideration, we decided to stay put to eat our breakfast and leave as soon as possible. We left Warwick on Eden at 9:30am once we eaten our Full Cumbrian Breakfasts’ (no different to a Full English Breakfast!).

The journey up the M6 and M74 was very easy with no traffic issues which saw us arrive in Glasgow at 11am. We parked about 1 ½ miles away from Celtic Park on Braidfauld Street (as we walked closer to the ground, we found that parking even closer to the ground wasn’t an issue). The walk to Celtic Park took around 30 minutes where we were greeted with a sea of green and plenty of Irish folk music from the various bars (probably even serving Guinness!).

Celtic Park has a large banner spanning the outside of the ground spelling out PARADISE which we found out was the adopted name for Celtic Park.

Taking photos outside the ground proved to be tricky with the stadium standing so tall plus one side of the stadium against a cemetery meaning we had to walk further back to get decent shots of the exterior.

When we went in, our fitness was put to the test climbing the numerous flights of stairs up to the second tier (which by the way was half taken up by a large spanning banner hiding the large number of empty seats). Pre-match music wasn’t the usual stuff you would hear at other stadiums around Britain, it was in fact Irish folk music.

Celtic Park is an all-seater stadium with a capacity of 60,411 is the largest football stadium in Scotland. The Taylor Report mandated that all major clubs should have an all-seated stadium by August 1994. Celtic was in a bad financial position in the early 1990s and no major work was carried out until Fergus McCann took control of the club in March 1994. He carried out a plan to demolish the old terraces and develop a new stadium in a phased rebuild, which was completed in August 1998.

Celtic started their defence of the Scottish Premier League trophy with a steady yet unspectacular victory over Ross County in the early opening day kick off.
After the flag unfurling of the Premier League title, Celtic were a goal up in 3 minutes .Ross County's Andrew Davies clumsily bringing down Leigh Griffiths in the penalty area after a nice Van Dijk through ball. An obvious penalty forced home, just, by Griffiths and it all looked ominous for the Highlanders.
However they may feel they were unlucky a few minutes later when Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon saw yellow and not red for a deliberate foul on their best player Jackson Irvine just outside the penalty area. McShanes free kick pushed away by the lucky Celtic goalkeeper.
Celtic though always looked the more likely to score again and shortly before the interval, Steffen Johansson fired home a second following good work by Gary Mackey-Steven.
In the second half, Ross County gambled slightly more with players prepared to make some forward runs but time after time a lack of quality in the last third proved their downfall.
The best effort was from substitute De Vita who forced an excellent save from Gordon.
Celtic were the better side though by quite a wide margin but if it wasn’t for Fox in goal for Ross County, Celtic would have scored more. Substitute Kris Commons had three efforts on goal, Armstrong shot just wide, Mackay-Steven came close.
It was never going to be an easy day for Ross County at Celtic Park; the champions are no doubt the best team in the country and should easily retain their title.
As for Ross County, a new manager and numerous new players that still need to bed in (in fact only two Ross County players were with them last year). With that in mind and the opponents it was difficult to judge how they will fare with Scotland's elite, but a sixth sense suggests they are in for a challenging season.
As for Celtic, progress in the Champions League is a must and the two players rested with this in mind were not missed.
Because Celtic are that much better than everyone else in Scotland the game wasn't particularly intense and it was noticeable that many fans started leaving around 75 minutes, obviously happy with a first win of the season but not bothered enough to stay and see if their heroes would score again. They were probably bored! It must feel like that sometimes, your team aren’t being particularly extended and you win again! Consequently I felt the atmosphere created and that includes the green brigade was a bit flat.
Nevertheless a good experience for both of us, neither had ever been to Parkhead and a first game of the 2015/16 season yielding an attendance of over 45,000.

With the weather taking a turn for the worst after the match, we were exposed to the element on our 1 ½ mile walk/run back to the car getting drenched on the way!

Once we got back to the car, we were back on the motorway on the way up to Partick Thistle’s Firhill Stadium to get a few photos. The modern stadium comprises three seated stands, with an unused area at the south end. The current capacity of the ground includes 10,102[1] seats with no standing areas available. The Main Stand was built with an original capacity of 6,000 seats, however in recent times only around 3,000 of which have been used. All home fans are now housed in the stand opposite the old stand, the Jackie Husband Stand. The stand is a large cantilever building, and was constructed in December 1994 with a capacity of 6,263 and is named after former Thistle player Jackie Husband. The newest stand is the North Stand, at one end of the ground. This stand was built in 2002 to replace the old terracing, in order to comply with SPL standards. This has a capacity of 2,014 and houses Thistle's singing section.

After our visit to Firhill Stadium, we went back down the motorway and across to Ibrox, the home of Scottish football giants Rangers. Ibrox is the third largest football stadium in Scotland, having an all-seated capacity of 50,947. It was opened as Ibrox Park in 1899, but suffered a disaster in 1902 when a wooden terrace collapsed. Vast earthen terraces were built in its place, while a main stand, which is now a listed building, was built in 1928. A British record crowd of 118,567 gathered in January 1939 for a league match with Celtic. After the Ibrox disaster of 1971, the stadium was largely rebuilt. The vast bowl-shaped terracing was removed and replaced by three rectangular, all-seated stands by 1981. After renovations were completed in 1997, the ground was renamed Ibrox Stadium. Ibrox has also hosted the Scotland national football team, particularly when the national stadium Hampden Park was redeveloped in the 1990s.

We continued going west towards Paisley which is the location of St Mirren’s St Mirren Park. The design of St Mirren Park consists of four stands with a total capacity of 8,023. The East Stand is the Main Stand. The North Stand is used by away fans. Larger away supports can also be seated in a section of the West Stand. The West Stand has the largest capacity of all the stands. Whilst the South Stand is the Family Stand.

Once we finished taking photos at St Mirren, we got back on the motorway this time going eastbound to visit Hampden Park. Adrian and I already knew that Queens Park were playing Forfar in the Scottish League Cup and we were hoping to get a few photos inside. With our timings to perfection, Queens Park and Forfar supporters were coming out of Hampden Park following the match whilst we went in to get a few snaps inside Hampden Park (you couldn’t do that at Wembley!). Hampden Park is a football stadium in the Mount Florida area of Glasgow, Scotland. The 51,866 capacity venue serves as the national stadium of football in Scotland. During the late 1970s, it became apparent that the facilities at Hampden were in need of renewal. As an amateur club, Queen's Park could not possibly fund the works, while Glasgow District Council withdrew funding and the UK Government decided not to fund it either. Queen's Park considered selling Hampden, but a public appeal and minor repair work kept Hampden open during the 1980s. The first phase of the redevelopment involved the demolition of the North Stand, the concreting of all terraces and the building a block of turnstiles around the upper section of the East Terrace.[55] This work, begun in October 1981 and completed in 1986, reduced the capacity to 74,370 and cost £3 million. A second phase had been planned to begin in 1988, but the release of the Taylor Report caused the plans to be redrawn and the proposed costs escalated to £25 million. The West Terrace was converted to seating in 1991 for only £700,000, but this left two terraces and therefore disqualified Hampden from hosting FIFA World Cup qualification matches. The last match played in front of the sloping terraces was the 1992 Scottish League Cup Final. Within a year, the east and west ends of the ground had been replaced and the partially rebuilt Hampden was re-opened for a friendly match between Scotland and Netherlands on 23 March 1994. The final stage of the renovation began in November 1997, costing £59 million. There was a cost overrun and a fraud squad investigated alleged financial irregularities. Queen's Park retained ownership of the ground but the renovation was funded by the National Lottery. The South Stand was replaced and the stadium was re-opened for the 1999 Scottish Cup Final. The ground now has a capacity of 51,866. Outside of Hampden Park sits a smaller, lesser known ground called Lesser Hampden.

We left Glasgow and headed further east towards Coatbridge which is the location of Albion Rovers.

Cliftonhill has a capacity of 1,238. The Main Stand sits high on a rise above Main Street and was built in the same season as their only Scottish Cup Final appearance. A roof extension over the paddock (a standing area in front of the stand) was added in 1994. The Main Stand and paddock are the only parts of the stadium normally used nowadays. During the 1990s it looked likely that Albion Rovers would leave Cliftonhill to share a stadium with local rivals Airdrieonians. The floodlighting system comes from Cardiff Arms Park, when it was demolished to make way for the Millennium Stadium.

Only 2 miles down the road was Airdrieonians which was out next port of call. Airdrieonians play at the Excelsior Stadium. The Excelsior Stadium is the home of Airdrieonians of the Scottish League One. It was built in 1998 to house the original Airdrieonians club, which went into liquidation four years later. Since then the new Airdrieonians have played their home games there, between 2002 and 2013 under their original name of Airdrie United. The ground holds 10,101 supporters.

Motherwell’s Fir Park was next on our list which meant we started travelling south west of Airdrie. Fir Park has a capacity of 13,677 and was the temporary home of Gretna for the 2007–08 SPL season. Construction of a new main stand began in 1962. The £92,000 cost of this work was financed by a small quote and the selling of two players, Pat Quinn and Ian St. John. To minimise disruption to the old stand, the steel frame was built over and behind it. Construction of the main stand stopped 20 yards short of the south end, however, because a local resident successfully objected to a completed stand. The objection was made because it would have restricted light to the garden and reduced the value of the property. By the time the property owner had decided to sell, Motherwell did not have the funds or will to complete a full length main stand. The club instead bought the house and used it for their offices.

In 1977, Fir Park came within the terms of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975. Only routine work was needed to keep the ground within the legislation, but it reduced capacity from 35,000 to 22,500. This included 3,500 seats in the Main Stand and two open terraces behind each goal. The Taylor Report in 1990 mandated that all top division clubs develop all-seater stadiums. Motherwell also had to overcome the economic challenges caused by the closure of the nearby Ravenscraig steelworks. The club won the Scottish Cup in 1991, which financed the £750,000 conversion of the East Enclosure to seating.

A two tier South Stand, which cost £2.2 million, was opened in April 1993. Two years later, Motherwell opened a single tier North Stand, completing the stadium in its present format. The North Stand was dedicated to former Motherwell player Davie Cooper, who died in the year that it was opened. Both of these stands were designed by the company WH Dickie Architects, owned by the club's director Bill Dickie. The Main Stand was renamed the Phil O'Donnell Stand in January 2008, to honour the Motherwell captain who died on the Fir Park pitch. A sculptured tribute to O'Donnell was added to the north wall of the stand in 2011.

Motherwell’s local rivals Hamilton Academical would be our last stop of the day. With only the M74 dividing the two towns, it wasn’t long before we reached New Douglas Park which is strangely located behind a Morrisons Supermarket car park. New Douglas Park was completed in 2001. The pitch was converted to artificial FieldTurf in 2004. After Hamilton was promoted to the Scottish Premier League in May 2008, the artificial surface had to be replaced by grass due to league rules. In addition to the turf replacement, a temporary stand was erected in March 2008 to bring the stadium's capacity up to the league requirement of 6,000 all seater.

With our list of grounds complete for the day, we drove to nearby town Larkhall for an Indian meal at Red Chilli Diner off the main road through Larkhall before crossing the M74 to our hotel located just off the A71, the Radstone Hotel.

We checked in at 9pm and once we changed rooms due to a toilet malfunction, we went to bed ready for yet another busy day.

PART 2 - Hearts 4-3 St Johnstone...