Scottish Cup Saturday 10th January 2004

Celtic 2

Ross County 0

1:0 Hartson 74
2:0 Lambert 79

Att: 30,565

MIB: Iain Brines

Celtic: Douglas McNamara Sutton Varga Agathe Lambert Lennon Maloney Wallace Hartson Larsson
subs
Petrov for Maloney 66
Pearson for Agathe 80
Beattie for Wallace 80

At last we manage to overcome Highland opposition in the Scottish Cup. Well the third time is a charm.

Curious anorak point was County's sub goalie Les Fridge, who first visited Parkhead in the Scottish Cup with another Highland team, Inverness Thistle, in 1985, and was beaten thanks largely to a Paul McStay hat-trick.

No such scoring antics today, in fact we were quite lucky to get this tie over with, the way we were playing a replay was a distinct possibility. Obviously there wasn't a huge crowd, and the atmosphere was subdued further by the Liam Miller nonsense, but we had our first team out, and this game should have been won with far more ease.

The goals took their time coming, but after an outrageous push Hartson headed the first before Lambert took a shot that deflected off just about everyone before going in. Job done, on to Tynecastle.