A great second half goal from Joe Thomson earned Celtic’s development side a 1-1 draw away to Raith Rovers.
The match was to commemorate the renaming of the main stand as the Turnbull Hutton Stand in honour of the former Raith chairman who died earlier this year.
The match provided an excellent 90 minutes for Stevie Frail’s side as they more than held their own against an established Championship side.
Celtic started the match aggressively, full of pace and purpose but it was the home side that opened the scoring in the 13th minute.
A simple move down the Celtic right ended with a low cross into the box with Anderson losing his marker to drill a shot high into the net from 10 yards out.
Celtic were enjoying the bulk of possession but were unable to get in behind the Raith defence with only a 22 yard shot from Thomson that drifted wide of the post to show for their efforts in the first half hour.
Five minutes from the interval Thomson came much closer to equalising when his stinging shot from just outside the box was pushed over the bar for a corner by Kevin Cuthbert.
Two minutes later a speculative cross from Kieran Tierney came off the back post as Celtic pushed for a leveller.
Stevie Frail resisted making any changes at the interval but nine minutes into the second half sent on Calvin Miller to replace Rory Currie in attack with the hoops drawing level just before the hour mark.
Some trickery from Tierney ended with the ball being laid back to Thomson who sent a great curling right foot shot around Cuthbert into the far corner of the net.
The goal gave Celtic fresh confidence as the ball buzzed about in midfield with the visitors showing a level of fitness that Raith were struggling to cope with but the hoops were unable to find a winner.
Sam Wardrop, Innes Murray, Dan Higgins and Theo Archibald were introduced as Frail gave as much of his squad game time with the first development League fixture of the season two weeks away.
Both teams pushed all the way to the final whistle for a winning goal with a Miller header coming close for Celtic while Colin McCabe was forced into a couple of impressive saves.
CELTIC: McCabe: Janko (Wardrop 68), McCart, O’Connell (Higgins 85), Tierney; Breslin (Murray 82), Lindsay; Nesbitt, Thomson, Hendry (Archibald 82); Currie (Miller 54) SUBS Doohan, McIlduff, Lafferty
