Scottish Cup January 9th 2005

Celtic 2

Rangers 1

1:0 Sutton 37
1:1 Rection 47
2:1 Hartson 77

Att: 58,622

MIB: Pooh Dallas

Celtic: Douglas McNamara Balde Varga Laursen Agathe Petrov Thompson McGeady Sutton Hartson
subs
Camara for McGeady 84

Rangers: Stefan Klod, Alan Mutton, Zurab Gizalafatye, Marvin Useless, Gregory Venerial, Hamed Nogoodtye, Fernando Erection, Alex Naegood, Bojan Puredick, Dildo Rso, Nacho Neddo. Subs: Thomas Buffoon, Stephen Thompson

Bouncey, bouncey, bouncey, bouncey, bouncing out of the cup! Let's hope this signals the resumption of normal service in this fixture; 2:1 going on 4 or 5:1, and still Charlie felt that they some how merited a draw. Time for Mr. Nicholas to take his tablets.

Both clubs had contract moves in the build up to the game, Rangers getting rid of some French dud whilst swooping with great effect to raid the reserves of Man U and Feyenoord. Oooh scary. Meanwhile we had finally extended the contract of Hartson which was just like signing a new player apparently.

Their central defence stole the show, conceding two goals and forcing Klod into a number of typically unlikely saves and even requiring Ricketty to clear one off the line. They had the territorial advantage early on, but Rab had a grand total of zero saves to make in the first half (he had a pretty good game). Instead it was the Hoops who gradually got control of the game.

The first goal owed everything to Sutton's anticipation and Andrews' hopeless reading of the game. Celtic went in one ahead, but it should have been more.

We all hoped that we could kill the game off quickly in the second half but instead we seemed to have been reading the Marvin Andrews guide to defending; McGeady was skinned by Hutton (WHAT?!?), which would have been fine if Petrov had followed the run of Ricketty, or Varga had read the situation, or even if Bobo hadn't decided the best way to deal with a cross is to lift his leg slightly. Calamity upon calamity.

McGeady made up for his error pretty quickly, though, by standing up to a typically 'robust' Rae challenge and managing to remove a couple of Golum's gnashers in the process. That's twice Rae has played at Celtic Park; his first visit saw him hobbled after a few minutes by Lennon and this time he left in need of some serious work at the dental hospital. Stop laughing at the back. Rae still managed to be on the correct side of refereeing decision of the day - Thompson free kick played into the box, Rae extends his right arm fully to divert the ball away from the goal. The decision? Play on boys! Couldn't make it up.

Of course since we won this blatant howler has been pretty much swept under the carpet, as it would have been if it had been, say, Petrov punching the ball. Right?

The winner came from new/old bhoy Hartson, finishing at the far post from an Agathe cross, although a special mention must go again to big Marvin whose hopeless positioning made it all possible. Truly we have an asset there, if not a fully fledged fifth columnist (see Capucho, Nuno). He is a defender who will cheerfully clatter into any kind of challenge, but his reading of the game is terrible and you always have the feeling he is one step away from calamity (c. McCarthy, Mick or Tebilly, Olivier).

Petrov could have killed the game late on, but again Klod was there (we can but hope the Wig comes in with an offer they can't refuse).

The star of our show? Would anyone have had money on Ulrik Laursen? Well he didn't put a foot wrong, so here's hoping our left back problem is over.

All together now; Bouncey, bouncey, bouncey, bouncey, bouncing out of the cup.