Why do celtic hate rapid vienna

Sean had has a notoriously weak bladder and on the way up to Manchester, after a couple of cans of cola, his toilet needs caused the coach to stop just 15 minutes into the journey. Anyway me and Sean, who would have been 12 at the time, were down the front of the stand and not long after Rapid scored he starts moaning again about needing to go to the toilet. So he manages to grab the attention of a trackside policeman. About five minutes later I see him sprinting along the touchline back to the gate and the copper lets him back in.

He had been sent to a copper in front of the dugout area and allowed to use toilets in the tunnel area where he had walked right past Davie Hay and the Celtic subs. He insists to this day that the Rapid bench thought he was a hooligan and tried to get him arrested. I was pretty jealous of Sean getting so close to the action and at the Scottish Cup final later that season I tried the same tactic. I had this vision of me waving at Davie Hay and the Bhoys as I jogged past the dugout on my way to the Hampden loo.

What do you remember about the attack on the goalkeeper? I think he came on from the section of the Stretford End close to the main stand side corner flag. There was this initial roar as he got to the keeper and I remember the shoving and swaying as those around us jostled for a view of the incident. The Celtic fan seemed to swing his legs at the keeper — who was holding him off at arms length. Two policeman then got there and they were joined by a third a few seconds later.

They were in the back of the goals, the nets were pretty shallow, trying to pull this idiot off the keeper. The three coppers — wearing these big long black coats and your traditional bobbies helmet — then dragged the guy away. In reality it was probably seconds. My Dad was a few rows back from us and up to that point had been happy for us to be within viewing distance of him but after the attack on the keeper he came down and took us to the back of the terracing, close to the exit.

I guess he feared what might happen next and if there was to be serious trouble the last place you wanted to be was down the front and against the fence. What do you remember about the rest of the match? The result was now a total irrelevance. Thanks to the action of that nutter there was no way we would be in the next round — irrespective of the score.

The Celtic players knew this and the game petered out. In fairness though even before the attack on the keeper we never did look like scoring and Rapid were comfortable winners. Us younger ones were still caught up in the drama of the attack. The implications of what had happened went over our heads. We just joked about kicking the cheats in the balls. My dad was talking to a couple of old boys at the back of the stand and they were all disgusted.

They seemed pretty distraught by the whole thing, all three of them standing their shaking their heads. Unlike me they knew the harm this had done to Celtic. What do you remember about that incident? As soon as the final whistle had went we headed out of the ground. Nobody on the coach could be bothered with the radio so the first we knew of the attack in the tunnel was the following morning. If I remember rightly both of those arrested for the attacks were English — or at least were living in England.

What was the journey home like? The only noteworthy incident was an attack on this Ice Cream Van outside the ground. There was an argument between the guy in the van and someone accusing him of short-changing him. The next thing there is about 10 people around the van, rocking it violently. The guy inside is being thrown all over the place and he tries to stop the rocking by throwing out ice lollies and cans of pop.

It was a crazy scene. The coach journey was very quiet thanks to a mixture of post-booze fatigue and the events of the night. There was no radio, no singing, nothing. There were a couple of stragglers who almost missed the bus but we came across them by accident at a set of traffic lights. Once everyone was on board they just seemed to get their heads down. It was all pretty sombre. I think by then even I had realised that this was a very bad night for Celtic.

What are your feelings when you look back on that night now? I think it was a very sad moment in our history. The behind closed doors game seemed quite light all things considered although I guess you have to balance that with the fact that at that time trouble on a much larger scale was all too common on the terraces.

Depending on your witness, this landed either five feet or 20 metres away from Rapid's goalkeeper, Herbert Feurer, who promptly collapsed in a heap, left the field bandaged up and led those within the Austrian camp to seek, unsuccessfully, the abandonment of the game. Ten minutes of stoppage time were required following this unseemly scene. It later transpired that the linesman on Celtic Park's former "Jungle" side had been struck by all kinds of missiles, mainly coins.

Somehow aware of this, Rapid adopted a tale that Feurer had merely been struck by an object, rather than the bottle, in lodging a formal complaint to Uefa. The rest is history: the match was ordered to be replayed at a neutral venue — Old Trafford, where a bigger crowd appeared than in Glasgow — and Rapid won In the midst of all this, the Austrian side's goalkeeper was attacked by a Celtic fan and another fan booted Peter Pacult in the privates.

Pacult, now Rapid's coach, fittingly scored the only goal in Manchester. The poor man cut a frustrated figure at his pre-match briefing last night, forced to answer question after question regarding the events of 25 years ago.

Celtic have seemingly backed down on their marketing stance in recent days. They had billed Rapid's visit, unapologetically, as "25 Years On" in an obvious attempt to sell tickets. Yet the club are perfectly aware that disorder, triggered by fans who still harbour a wild grudge, would be seriously bad for their reputation.

Celtic's chief executive, Peter Lawwell, has now issued what is tantamount to a plea for calm. Even Gordon Smith, the chief executive of the Scottish FA, got in on the act, saying: "I think we have to call for calm.

It's moved on 25 years, it's different people at the clubs, different players. It's not like it happened 18 months ago. There should be an element of friendship in the game regardless of what happened in the past, and hopefully both clubs will play this in normal circumstances and have a good match played in a sporting fashion.

It must be noted that tonight's game has hardly caught the imagination of punters; 40, are expected at Celtic Park, 20, less than capacity. Hopefully the lunatics do not take over. Rapid's followers, after all, did not have the look of shrinking violets at Aston Villa. World Cup Points Table. Michail Antonio gave West Ham a 22nd-minute lead in the Croatian capital when he rounded goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic and rolled the ball into an empty net after intercepting a poor back pass by Kevin Theophile-Catherine.

Declan Rice sealed the win with a fine individual effort in the 50th as he raced clear of his marker down the left from the halfway line and drilled the ball home through Livakovic's legs from eight metres. A bundled goal by Albian Ajeti and a Josip Juranovic penalty gave Celtic a lead at Betis inside the opening 27 minutes but their joy was short-lived as the home side were level eight minutes later through Juan Miranda and Juanmi.

Betis rocked the visitors with another two quickfire goals shortly after the break, nosing ahead through Borja Iglesias in the 50th minute before Juanmi netted his second two minutes later after a slick move. Anthony Ralston set up a tense finish when he pulled one back for Celtic in the 87th minute but Betis held on to come out on top in the seven-goal thriller.