Celtic’s defence of the SFA Youth Cup ended at the first hurdle on Friday night as the u-18 side lost 2-1 to Montrose.
At Hampden in May the young Celts lifted the trophy in a bizarre 11 goal thriller against the Murray Park Starlets with Ange Postecoglou, Peter Lawwell and Mick Nicholson watching on at Hampden.
It isn’t known if die-hard fans Lawwell and Nicholson were at Montrose on Friday night, very little is known about the match with Celtic throwing a blanket over the entire match.
Over the last week the club’s website has managed just over one story a day, on Twitter the club’s Academy account hasn’t tweeted since October 2 with the B team account on hold since Wednesday when the retweeted the Scotland u-19 side for a friendly match.
YOUNG MO SHOCK CUP HOLDERS
In what was a thrilling encounter at Links Park this evening, our Under 18 side defeated Celtic Under 18’s 2-1 in the 3rd Round of the Scottish FA Youth Cup, knocking the holders out of the competition. https://t.co/Tnl5Y8klVp pic.twitter.com/2tU7wSf4tt
— Montrose FC (@MontroseFC) October 13, 2023
There are plenty of Celtic fans in Angus, there is a very active Supporters Club in Forfar, St Fergus, but they were probably left in the dark about a match taking place on their door-step.
Which is maybe just as well, on Friday night the Montrose website reported:
In what was a thrilling encounter at Links Park this evening, our Under 18 side defeated Celtic Under 18’s 2-1 in the 3rd Round of the Scottish FA Youth Cup, knocking the holders out of the competition, and progressing onto the 4th Round.
Jay Cochrane headed in at the back post from a corner to give Montrose the lead after 6 minutes, and that was then doubled after 18 minutes with Ben Hermiston heading home from close range following an impressive attack.
As the first half drew to a close, Celtic pulled one back, with a deflected effort, which set up a nervy second half.
Celtic applied a significant amount of pressure in the second half, but failed to create too many clear cut chances due to our young teams impressive defensive display.
Despite this, Montrose created several chances at the other end, but failed to build upon their lead.
This is a fantastic result, one that everyone associated with the Academy should be extremely proud of.
Our congratulations go to each and every one of the players who gave maximum effort, along with our Academy coaching team.
CELTIC: Aidan Rice, Cole Crawford, Andrew Kyle, Alasdair Davidson, Funlay Hale, Francis Turley (Ezekiel Molife 74), Tom Hatton (Tom Pickford 53), Robert Rachwal, Daniel Cummings (Ronan Ferns 64), Sean McArdle, Aiden Haddow
SUBS: Ryan Hamilton, Jamie Meikle, Kalvin Bennett, Aodhan Taylor
Without having all the details the bulk of the Celtic squad will have come through the St Ninian’s Project which combines coaching with education.
The alarm bells on the failings of that project should have been ringing a long time ago, clearly it is not producing players capable of making the first team squad, now it seems that they can’t match the best that Montrose can muster up.
? The #CelticFC Boys Academy hosted a successful festival of football at Barrowfield on Sunday (October 1).
The U12s tournament featured Academy sides from Scotland and England, and proved to be a fantastic day of football! ?#COYBIG?
— Celtic FC Academy (@CelticFCAcademy) October 2, 2023
??????? Magnus Mackenzie and Daniel Kelly start for #SCO19s this afternoon as they take on Ireland. Mitchel Frame is also on the bench.
Best of luck Bhoys! ?#InternationalCelts? https://t.co/tvUXMGxErD
— Celtic FC B (@CelticFCB) October 11, 2023
You have to wonder if this too is part of die hard fan Lawwells plan of managed decline .
I believe there are teams ( Brentford?) in the EPL who have minimised their youth set up , and concentrate more on scouting others , at a later age
Team was Rice, Crawford,Kyle, Davidson, Hale, Turley (Molife), Hatton (Pickford), Rachwal, Cummings(Ferns), McArdle, Haddow
Got it from SFA website but i think about half of them have played for B team.
Editor, cheers, have added that detail.
Good Journalism to dig that out indeed and Thank You…
For Fcuk’s sake – The club going down the shadowy North Korea route of ‘hiding’ things is so truly and utterly Sevco – esque…
Face the world Celtic – Even If it’s only a U18 team defeat –
Unpalatable truths over Comforting lies any day please !
Our Coaches need looking at! For example: we can’t defend corners or set-pieces! And we don’t generally score from them! Improvements in these areas just aren’t happening.