The Lyon Roar – A Tear Stained Journey Back In Time

By The Provocative H

During the dark days of the 1990’s I was a regular buyer of Not the View, using the spare 50p from my bus fare from the southside to the town to buy a copy off the big bearded chap who sold it just outside the big bill board on London Road. I’d walk from the town to save the bus fare on the 62B bus on each occasion that I had planned that a new copy of NTV would be available (I have no actual confirmation that the bus fare from Argyle Street to Celtic Park was 50p, that was all I paid though!). Many a time I’d not see the big bearded chap standing beside the bill board though, resulting in a mad dash around the stadium to see if anyone else was selling it. Once it was established that no one was, the disappointment was compounded by the spare 50p rattling in my pocket, the knowledge of a wasted walk through the oasis of Bridgeton, and the inevitable purchase of a cold pie (thanks Terry Cassidy) to fill the void of half time. You see it was at half time that I would produce the folded hallowed photocopied pages of malcontent from my back pocket and read it. I am sure my memory is playing tricks, but the day always seemed to be thoroughly dark and miserable, much like the teams performances in those heady days from the 1990’s. With its humour, insight and commentary of the malaise surrounding Celtic in those days, it was very much essential reading and an inspiration to many paper and online fanzines that are still in circulation.

There were a few recurring articles – The Diary, They Embarrassed the Hoops, and in later years Don’t Look Back in Anger, a summary of the very days when I started attending Celtic Park to watch the team under the last days of Billy McNeil and the fledgling managerial career of Liam Brady. Looking back, Celtic did have some good players c1990-1994, (as well as some truly awful )but all too often the team stuttered and lost key games and would be far behind in the league as early as October. NTV offered commentary on the relevant issues of the day – the Board, new stadiums in Cambuslang or Robroyston, would Paul McStay leave, the double substitution of Joe Miller and when would Stewart Slater score?

Moving forward 20 years or so, some of the themes of these articles are perhaps redundant (and some, for example the policy and practice of the Board, are not). Taking some artistic licence with some of those articles, I decided to write a piece on a game that was significant to me. The game in question is that of the Champions League match between Celtic and Lyon in September 2003. Although Celtic were ultimately only a late penalty away from qualification to the last 16 in a group of Anderlecht, Bayern Munich and Lyon, it was this stirring 2-0 victory that left me thinking that Celtic were not just a Champions League team, but had the calibre of player, attitude, awareness and look of a team that deserved to be there. Nostalgia I am sure will be colouring my recollection, but that Celtic team and support simply blew an excellent Lyon team away (the roar on the hour mark from support reverberated around the stadium and still raises my neck hairs – it was still 0-0 but Celtic were turning over their much fancied opponents and the crowd saw this). For me it remains the high water mark of Celtic in Europe in the last 20 years in terms of performance and I remember leaving Celtic Park absolutely thrilled. It felt like Celtic had made a statement that night that we had genuinely arrived on the big stage for the long haul. Bear in mind that this was also post Seville.

For the record, the teams that night were:

Celtic: Hedman, McNamara, Balde, Varga, Agathe, Lennon, Sutton, Petrov, Thompson, Larsson, Hartson.

Subs: Douglas,Gray, Sylla, Petta, Maloney, Kennedy, Miller.

Lyon: Coupet, Deflandre, Edmilson, Muller, Reveillere, Govou, Diarra, Dhorasoo, Juninho, Carriere, Elber.

Subs: Vercoutre, Essien, Malouda, Luyinduala, Satre, Berthod, Viale

The referee was Snr Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez from Spain.

As an aside, Celtic received their award from UEFA for Fair Play in honour of the one billion exemplary, fun loving and bevvied fans who descended upon Seville the previous May. The feel good factor was set as the teams lined up for the Champions League theme.

The game kicked off in a flurry with a few half chances. Celtic settled pretty quickly and began to ping the ball around the grass, with Sutton and Thompson very influential early on. Some bad finishing was letting Lyon off the hook and did not give Celtic the goal that their play was deserving. After a lull in proceedings, Henrik wins a penalty a few minutes before half time but the inevitable curse of the spot kick which was with us at that time struck as Coupet saved Thompsons penalty, albeit I seem to remember that Coupet was practically standing on the penalty spot by the time Thompson struck the ball.

Undeterred, Celtic take to the pitch for the second half and continue to play well. Lyon survive another penalty claim as Big Bad John’s shot smashes into a Lyon players arm. The fans are going mental at this point and Celtic continue to play great football in Lyon’s half. Bobo and Varga are making light work of Lyon’s counter attacks and keeping the ball in circulation for Larsson, Hartson, Sutton and Thompson to do their work.

It’s an hour gone and Celtic are giving Lyon a doing, but it’s still goalless. There is little frustration though as the fans can see that the players are giving their all and it’s surely a question of time for the breakthrough. Its’ at this time I remember the roar that started to sweep around the stadium, rolling like a crescendo around the stands. That roar was one of complete support, one green and white voice in unison shouting for the 11 gladiators on the pitch. I’m sure that whatever TV crew was responsible for the sound that night must have been glad it was not BBC Five Live’s equipment they were using (Ref: Cadete, Jorge, First Goal for Celtic).

Cue the entrance of one Liam Miller to replace Big Bad John.

At this point in the game Henrik had drifted into a wider left attacking position and was having great success in his one on ones against the left back. It was this typical unselfish play that was to have significance. Confession time though, as I was pretty unhappy that the midfielder Miller was replacing the one striker who was getting into the box, particularly as Henrik was storming down the left and not getting near the goal mouth. I wondered if at this point Martin was settling for a point.

All of which just confirmed to me that I should stick to Championship Manager. Celtic continued to press and with Sutton now more advanced, Miller was making late runs into the box. With Lyon on the back foot, Henrik continued his dance with the left back, and on the 69^th minute he made some room for a cross into the box and up popped Miller to put the ball into the net. This was the result of a magnificent passing move which saw Celtic pass, pass, pass and ultimately put the ball in the pokey. Bedlam ensues as our young new hero (if only we knew, if only we knew…..) laps up the reaction from the crowd.

One nil to Celtic.

So, let’s see what Lyon have to offer now. Have they just been in second gear because they underestimated us? As expected, Lyon offered more of an attacking threat, forcing a couple of consecutive corners. With big Magnus in goal, anything was possible.

Celtic survived a couple of scares and promptly made moves on the counter attack. One attack found Henrik on the left hand side again where he made light work of the Lyon left back and dinked the perfect ball into the box for Chris Sutton to leap and soar the ball into the back of the net. The sheer magnificence of Henriks play was all too evident and if you watch the goal again you can see Sutton race to Henrik for the celebration and mouth “what an effin ball”. Exactly, Chris, exactly.

Who knows what had inspired Henrik that night? Was it the opponent and the memory of the last time that he had played them? Was it just the Celtic Park atmosphere? Was it the realisation that he was playing in a superb team? Despite him not scoring, it remains my favourite performance from our wonderful number 7.

News of a late Bayern Munich equaliser in Belgium had filtered through which was a great result for us in terms of qualification. The players seemed to sense this and incredibly kept pressing and defending to see out the game. Finally the full time whistle and both players and supporters were united in their absolute exhaustion but unconfined joy.

Ultimately it was to be heartache again for this Celtic team as Lyon beat us on their home ground (the Stade Gerland….) in the most harrowing of circumstances which saw them progress. We learned that night that penalties were not only for deliberate handball, but also if you had your arms in an “unnatural position”. The despair after that game was the equivalent of the joy of the game at Celtic Park. There was to be no last 16, despite it being tantalisingly within our grasp. In truth, the Celtic performance in Lyon was a shadow of that at Celtic park but the unlikely 2-2 draw looked to be enough. It was testament to that team that they could play poorly but still looked to be getting the result against Champions League regulars that would seem them through. Celtic were to have some joy against a resurgent FC Barcelona in the subsequent UEFA cup run, again proving that this was a team to be reckoned with. Lyon were eliminated in the Champions League by the eventual winners, Porto under the influence of Jose Mourinho (boo..hiss) – a man that confirms that dodgy handshakes still annoy us Celtic fans.