The Referre's a highlighter.

Match began with a terrific ovation for big Jock on the 20th anniversary of his death in Cardiff, after he had masterminded Scotland's passage through to a World Cup playoff with Australia, courteous of a Davie Cooper penalty.

The majority of the Lisbon Lions joined both teams on the centre circle with the European cup, a fitting testimony to memory of the Celtic giant.

The Celtic and Aberdeen fans all rose and applauded with the players and officials for a minute for the Big Man, after which followed an emotional rendition of you will never walk alone by the hoops faithful.

Celtic started the match in a 4-4-2 formation, with Alan Thompson and our captain Neil Lennon returning to the midfield.  A tired Nakamura lined up on the right with AT presumably playing on the left on a centre pairing of Petrov and Lennon. Much to the frustration to those of us in the Jock Stein stand AT played very central and left Camara faced with 2 attackers on more than 1 occasion.

Celtic played some neat football in the opening period, with Magic and Nakamura showing some lovely touches. Magic seems to be combining well with Big Bad John and it was such a combo that led to a glorious finish from the Pole on 13 minutes for the opening goal. BBJ and Magic exchanged passes around centre midfield before Magic burst forward and let rip a vicious right foot shot into the roof of the net for his 3rd goal in 2 games for the hoops, sandwiched in between 2 goals for Poland in their 2 recent international matches.

http://media.putfile.com/magicvdons

After this the game was pretty flat, as was the atmosphere, interrupted by a couple of shots from Neil Lennon and a nice video tribute of Jocks time at Celtic Park.

There was another touch of magic from the aptly named Zurawski shortly after the break where he swiveled on the ball in the penalty area to set up Petrov for a low drive from 10 yards to make it 2-0. A goal Petrov deserved for a fine second half.

http://media.putfile.com/stanpetrov

With 70 minutes gone WGS took on Beattie and Maloney for Nakamura and Hartson, with Shaun moving out wide on the right and Craig going up top. These 2 injected much life into a tired looking team for the last 20 minutes, and were a joy to watch, with some lovely footwork from Maloney and runs from Beattie. One such run should have resulted in a penalty when Beattie was bundled over in the penalty area, the ref was right on the spot but to the astonishment of the 59,607 spectators waved play on. This led to much derision and booing from the stands and the howl from a wee 7 yr old boy of "The referee's a highlighter" a fashion statement on the luminous yellow attire of the match official as opposed to the standard of his refereeing.

Neil Lennon teased us all with another effort from outside the area to which the fans responded with "One Neil Lennon", fitting I thought for another fine performance from the Lurgan man.

Then news filtered through from Brockville of Dan McBreen's equalizer and the stand erupted once more. Hard place to come away with all 3 points Brockville!!!

Teams:
Celtic Boruc, Telfer, Balde, McManus, Camara, Petrov, Lennon, Thompson (Pearson 90), Nakamura (Maloney 70), Hartson (Beattie 70), Zurawski.
Subs Not Used: Marshall, McGeady, Wallace, Virgo.
Goals: Zurawski 13, Petrov 61.
Aberdeen Esson, McNaughton (Considine 56), Diamond, Anderson, Byrne (Muirhead 65), Smith, Nicholson, Severin, Clark, Crawford, Lovell (Stewart 69).
Subs Not Used: Kelly, Winter, Dempsey, Foster.
Booked: Diamond.
Att: 59,607
Ref: C Richmond (Scotland).