Scottish Cup Saturday February 7th 2004

Hearts 0

Celtic 3

0:1 Petrov 3
0:2 Petrov 33
0:3 Larsson 90

Att: 15,372

MIB: Willie Young

Celtic: Douglas Agathe Varga Kennedy McNamara Pearson Lennon Petrov Thompson Larsson Sutton

Celtic's response to the Leveingate episode was to crush the Edinburgh Orcs and expose the Swynecastle hammer-throwers to some real football.

Once again, Celtic passed the Jam farts off the park and gave them a footballing lesson. The result - a comprehensive thrashing, hopefully captured for posterity on the Swynecastle CCTV system, that should keep Inspector Levein occupied for hours, mulling over frame after frame of his Cloven Hooves red carded for elbows and tackles that would have graced a WWF tag event. Perhaps he is getting his team ready for the move to Murryfield and a different shape of ball?

This was a dream and as enjoyable as a victory at the Death Star. Petrov had drilled home the first of two excellent strikes before the Maroon Balloons had even managed a kick at the outstanding Neil Lennon. The persistent targeting of Lennon by the home players and fans alike was disgusting. To his credit he kept his cool.

It was also a disgrace that it took until well into the second period to see the Orcs carded for persistent fouling. Petrov was reigning supreme and could have had four goals. His second killed off the maroon balloons, while it was a rebound from his strike that Larsson pounced on for the third. Hearts offered nothing other than a shot off target from De Vries.

Satisfying? It definitely was. So much so that I could go over it again - frame by frame. Roll on their Ibrox overlords for another trouncing.