Nineteen years ago Celtic fans were witnessing an incredible treble winning season led by a man on a mission.
The previous season, playing alongside Mark Viduka it looked like Henrik Larsson would re-write the record books but a horrific leg break away to Lyon brought his season to a halt, pictures of the incident raised fears over whether he would ever play again.
Under Martin O’Neill there was a new found purpose about Celtic with the Swede a bigger influence than any of the new signings.
Henrik Larsson excepting his Golden Boot award pic.twitter.com/zdIkTbxsg1
— Tam Sellics son (@TamsellicsonIII) March 28, 2020
Chris Sutton, Alan Thompson and Joos Valgaeren brought new spirit and steel to the club, followed soon by Neil Lennon but it was Larsson that led from the front.
He opened the scoring on Day 1 away to Dundee United with Sutton supplying the winning goal late in the second half. A partnership was born that brought out the best in both players.
By the end of the season Larsson had scored 53 goals, the 50th arriving at Ibrox with 35 goals from 37 SPL matches.
In the closing weeks of the season interest grew in the Golden Boot, awarded to the top scorer in Europe based on a weighting system. Every goal that Larsson scored was worth 1.5 points but in Italy Hernan Crespo of Lazio and AC Milan’s Andrei Shevchenko were getting 2 points per goal to reflect the greater status of Serie A.
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At the start of the following season it was Larsson that collected the Golden Boot, it was the start of a golden period in his career as fans of Celtic, Barcelona and Manchester United enjoyed the perfect striker at the very peak of his game.
