They flew banners before kick-off branding Celtic the club for fairytales. This unbelievable, incredible, stupendous title win was something else, though.
It wasn’t so much abou]t romance and fantasy. Rather, it was a triumph of sheer, dogged, unyielding will. A tale of pushing a boulder up a hill. Featuring a 74-year-old who was on the scrapheap less than seven months ago, six years out of the game and doing stints on radio.
Make no mistake, the story of Celtic’s 56th title – and maybe their most dramatic – will forever be dominated by one central, now truly legendary, character.
O’Neill’s face took precedence on that pre-match tifo and he’ll be a key figure in many, many more over the years to come. What he has done this season, taking a broken and dysfunctional club and finding a way to somehow glue it together, patch up open wounds and force it over the line, deserves the most incredible respect.
That this day will be remembered, too, for the appalling pitch invasion after Celtic’s third goal – which forced the removal of the players from the field and the conclusion of the game – is sad and shameful.
Celtic snatched a last-gasp 3-1 victory over Hearts to win the Premiership title on the final day
The finale was marred by ugly scenes as security were forced to stop a Celtic pitch invasion
Martin O’Neill returned to Celtic and led them to the title with victory over Hearts
Those who jumped around the pitch, to be fair, were booed by the majority of the supporters in the ground, but this is one of many problems the Parkhead club really need to get their head around over the summer following the scenes that marred the last Old Firm fixture at Ibrox.
Visiting captain Lawrence Shankland had to be helped off the park after appearing to be struck by a fan. It was appalling. After Ibrox, Celtic’s interim chairman Brian Wilson appeared to defend his support for simply being overexuberant in their celebrations.
This was more than that and will have to be addressed with a rod of iron. It is to be hoped it won’t be the outstanding long-term memory of an astonishing day in Scottish football history, though.
When this campaign is discussed in years to come, it will be about the Second Coming – as well as the Third Coming – of Martin O’Neill.
When he took that call from major shareholder Dermot Desmond in October and took over from Brendan Rodgers, he helped stabilise a club at war with itself. When he returned again to pick up the pieces after Wilfried Nancy’s chaotic spell, he inherited a squad that looked like it had given up the ghost and an apopletic fanbase ready to raze Parkhead to the ground.
So many times, they have looked dead and buried. When they lost 2-0 at Dundee United in March, no one gave them a chance. With their midweek game at Motherwell going into time added on at 2-2, ahead of that controversial penalty-kick given by referee John Beaton, they were stuck behind the eight-ball.
Even in this nerve-shredding showdown against league leaders Hearts, a point ahead going into the encounter, they had just three minutes to save their season against a Tynecastle outfit that deserve so much praise too.
That’s when Daizen Maeda jumped to the fore. Like he has so often in this thrilling end to a rollercoaster campaign. Seven goals in Celtic’s last five games tells its own tale. He was supposed to be punted to Wolfsburg last summer – forced to stay because the club’s chaotic transfer policy failed to come up with a replacement – and most definitely deserves the Best Supporting Actor role in this drama behind O’Neill.
With an Arne Engels penalty having cancelled out a Shankland opener, the tension inside Celtic Park was almost unbearable when Marcelo Saracchi released fellow sub Callum Osmand out wide. His ball in was fast and low and Maeda diverted it home.
Daizen Maeda scored in the 88th-minute goal to make it 2-1 – after a review from VAR
A tense and nervy second half followed as Derek McInnes’ side eyed a first title since 1960
The offside flag went up. VAR Kevin Clancy got involved. And after an unbearable wait, referee Don Robertson, who had an impeccable game, by the way, signalled for the goal.
Osmand wrapped it up at 3-1 when breaking upfield in the eighth minute of time added-on after Hearts had poured everyone forward in search of the equaliser that would have put the championship back in their hands and all hell broke loose.
It summed up everything O’Neill stands for. Everything he has said since he first returned. It doesn’t matter how you win. Just win. Winning it what this is all about. And it is.
In the midst of it all, it is hard not to feel sorry for Derek McInnes and his side. They were robbed of two penalties and a win that would have changed the landscape of this game at Motherwell last weekend. They have given everything to this season and deserved something more of it than being jostled and struck by Celtic supporters as they jumped around the park at time-up.
May they bounce back stronger because they have made this campaign an unforgettable one.
It was certainly an afternoon for bravery, for committing to decisions, taking stands. McInnes made that clear even in his team selection with a couple of real surprises.
First up, Claudio Braga, commonly recognised as the player of the season, was left on the bench in favour of the hard-running yet erratic Pierre Landry Kabore. Braga has had a niggling injury. Leaving him out for a game like this, though, was quite some call.
In defence, Frankie Kent, scorer against Falkirk in midweek, was excluded from the line-up too.
There were nerves everywhere across the field from the off. Passes failing to find their men. Scrappy passages of play.
For Hearts, the primary objective was to stay compact, take the sting out of things in front of a 60,000 home crowd in full voice, give themselves some sort of platform.
Their determination to slow the game down at throw-ins and set-pieces was clear as well. And it succeeded to a great degree.
By the midway point of the opening period, the game was becoming a war of attrition with football the main casualty. It took 32 minutes for the first shot on target to arrive.
Lawrence Shankland put Hearts in dreamland with the first goal of the game in the 43rd minute
But Celtic levelled from the spot in first-half stoppage time to restore parity at Celtic Park
The penalty came after Kieran Tierney’s cross was stopped by the arm of Alexandros Kyziridis
Seb Tounekti picked up the ball on the left and cut inside before releasing a weak, low effort easily saved by visiting goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow.
And then, just before the interval, the game exploded. Hearts had been forcing the issue. One corner led to another. And having previously played a ball out to Alexandros Kyziridis that had been circulated around the Celtic area and gone out for another flag-kick, Kingsley took a more straightforward approach.
His delivery to the back stick was deep and searching, Shankland had somehow been left untracked and his header buried itself in the back of the net.
As he completed his celebrations, the Hearts captain raised a fist towards the 752 maroon-clad punters in the away end and then pointed to his temples when addressing his team-mates.
The message was clear. Keep the heid. Keep it tight. Don’t do anything daft. Unfortunately for Shankland, his team just couldn’t make it to the break unscathed.
Two minutes into time added on, Kieran Tierney bombed up the left flank and put in a cross. Kyziridis had already gone to ground, his right arm was hanging out like the washing and referee Don Robertson pointed straight to the spot when the ball smacked off it.
It was an easy one for VAR Kevin Clancy to check and confirm. From the spot-kick, Engels fired the ball low to Schwolow’s left and, although he jumped in the right direction, the German keeper couldn’t prevent it from zipping into the net.
Kent replaced Altena for Hearts, slipping into a back five, early in the second period. Beni Baningime then picked up a knock and was replaced by Blair Spittal. Michael Steinwender, who suffered a couple of bangs early in the game, looked like he was hanging together with Sellotape.
In an attempt to increase the pressure on the visitors, O’Neill threw on Kelechi Iheanacho at the break and moved Maeda onto the wing. It didn’t stop the game descending back into a battle, though. A matter of strength and rigour over skill.
Braga came off the bench for Kabore on 68 minutes with Islam Chesnokov and Alan Forrest also entering the play as McInnes went for freshness and went for broke. Osmand and Saracchi then appeared for Celtic as bodies wilted and tired and, in an unbearably tense finale, Iheanacho smacked the face of the post with a terrific sidefooted effort and Benjamin Nygren forced a good save from Schwolow following super lead-up work from Saracchi and Engels before the total madness and mayhem that has encapsulated this season went completely over the top.
Recriminations must follow over the behaviour of the home support. That doesn’t change the fact those calls made pre-match by former captain Scott Brown to have a statue of O’Neill built out the front of the stadium will only gather momentum. As they should. What a man. What a character.
