Cappielow memories and the much delayed debut of Mark Viduka

Tonight’s Scottish Cup tie at Morton brings a new generation of supporters and squad of players the joys of Greenock.

It’s fair to say that the words Greenock, Cappielow and Morton weren’t used in the sales pitch when the current Celtic squad was negotiating their transfers to Celtic.

Traditionally a visit to Morton was described as a trip to ‘the tail of the bank’, which was a reference to Greenock’s position at the end of the River Clyde, with predictions of wind and rain alongside a tight park painting an intimidating picture of Cappielow.

A strangely build ground featuring a traditional ‘cowshed’ an old fashioned stand along each side is ‘complimented’ by a tiny mishaped terrace behind one goal and one of those strange benched ‘stands’ behind the other goal which is uncovered.

The last time that Celtic played competitively at Morton was in March 1999 when Mark Viduka started his first game for Celtic and marked it with a ninth minute goal.

Mentioning Viduka brings back all sorts of memories, the lasting impression that he made was telling David O’Leary that he had only needed to play at 80% in the SPL.

Viduka’s arrival at Celtic was almost as memorable as his wife/partner Ivana who attracted almost as much attention and headlines as the new striker.

The internet was barely up and running during the ultimate will he/won’t be signing saga that saw the Australian/Croat return home to Oz shortly after signing for Celtic, and without having played a game, suffering from mental burnout or something similar.

Meltdown would have been the order of the day in the forum network as that drama was played out.

Fergus McCann wasn’t best pleased at the attitude of a £3m investment, the signing saga involved agent Bernie Mandic in various publicity stunts with Viduka trying to board a flight with the Celtic squad heading to Spain for the winter break in January 99.

As well as Viduka’s scoring debut Johan Mjallby picked up a red card in that match with Morton managed by Billy Stark. Cappielow holds mainly good memories- at the time of typing- as a Celtic supporter with the Centenary season of 1987/88 especially memorable.

A week after a 5-1 hammering at home from Arsenal Billy McNeill’s side kicked off the serious action with a 4-0 win away to Morton with Stark amongst the goals alongside a double from Andy Walker and a strike from Mark McGhee on August 8.

Four months later Frank McAvennie scored all four goals in a 4-0 win as the team found form spearheaded by a front three of McAvennie, Walker and Joe Miller.

Another game that sticks out was in the first month of Liam Brady’s reign when another free flowing side won 4-2 in the League Cup with doubles coming from Gerry Creaney and Charlie Nicholas, Alex Mathie scored for Morton who were wearing a less than flattering tartan strip at the time.

Without knowing too much about James Grady’s side tonight’s match should be a straightforward win for Celtic. It’s about winning tonight with a minimum of fuss rather than developing pretty patterns, players expressing themselves and putting on a show.

Getting a few goals in front, and retaining that advantage, should give the team some much needed confidence.

Despite the tight park the pace of Niall McGinn should be used to the full, with Ki Sung Yueng injured McGinn appears the natural choice to come into the side with Aiden McGeady or Zheng Zhi moving inside to partner Marc Crosas.

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