Cliftonville coach prepares for a happy return

Monday, June 24 is unlikely to be a date that Gerry Lyttle will forget in a hurry.

As first team coach at Cliftonville the former Celtic midfielder was looking forward to the Champions League coming to Solitude- a return trip to Celtic Park seemed too much to wish for.

In anticipation of the draw he hooked up his i-pad just after 11am but was unable to connect to uefa.com to see the draw unfold.

Twenty minutes of frustration later the first of many text messages started to arrive as the world and Rod Stewart celebrated the Champions League draw pairing Cliftonville with Celtic.

“You were the first person to text me,” Gerry told your me when I caught up with him on the phone later in the day.

“I couldn’t get on the UEFA website then got your text saying ‘See you soon’. That’s how I found out and it’s been chaotic since then, my phone hasn’t stopped, the reaction has been unreal.

“Everyone is looking for tickets for both matches, the lead up to the first match is going to be unreal. The best memories of my life are of supporting Celtic as a young boy then getting the opportunity to sign for them full-time straight from school.

“Although I never got further than the reserves there are plenty of memories. In the youth side we beat Rangers 5-0 in a semi-final, with the reserves we drew 1-1 with Rangers at Ibrox in front of 30,000 even though I got sent off!

“Tommy Burns signed me and I worked with Willie McStay. I had four eventful years there during Fergus McCann’s time, when I left I thought that the only way I’d be back at Parkhead would be watching them as a fan.

“Now I’ve got the opportunity to go back to prepare a team to play Celtic in a Champions League qualifier, it’s scary just to talk about that! It doesn’t seem real. The draw brings back lots of memories, I’ve heard from a lot of people and going back to Celtic will be something special.”

Turning to the pitch Lyttle and manager Tommy Breslin don’t need to look too far back to find inspiration on how the favourites can be turned over in the Champions League.

Teenage Celtic striker Tony Watt became a household name across Europe last November when he came off the substitute bench to score against Barcelona with Cliftonville looking to do a Barcelona on their Glasgow opponents.

“As a Celtic supporter I didn’t expect them to take anything from Barcelona,” Lyttle added. “We have to take that approach going into these games and give it our best shot.

“We’re not going into the matches thinking that we’ll get hammered. We’ll prepare right, give it a good go and hope for the best. We’re not saying we’re going to slaughter Celtic but we’re league champions with a good young team that has a lot to prove.

“After we lost the cup final our thoughts turned to the Champions League, we all joked about getting Celtic. As soon as we started pre-season training the talk was all about who we’d get in the draw for the Champions League.

“As coaches it’ll be easy dealing with the players over the next few weeks- anyone complaining won’t be involved in the Celtic games.

“The draw has got everyone talking which is great for the club. We took 5,000 to the cup final against Glentoran last season and I think we’ll take a similar number of supporters over to Celtic Park.

“When Cliftonville are doing well and being successful we have a good support. There’s so many people that support both teams it’s bound to be two fantastic matches.

“My dad and my son Bradley will definitely be going over to Glasgow and so will my wife Kellie and a good few others friends.

“Our job as coaches is to concentrate on the football side of things but there’s no getting away from the fact that this draw is fantastic for our club and for football fans throughout Ireland.”

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