CELTIC´S recent victories over Spartak Moscow and Arbroath have guaranteed that Neil Lennon and his squad are set to make a little piece of history when the new year dawns. This will be the first season in over 40 years that the Hoops have gone beyond Christmas and still been involved in all four major competitions that they entered at the start of the season. In fact, you have to go back to the heady days of Jock Stein and season 1968/69 to register a campaign when this actually occurred. Naturally, the Celts were actively engaged in a tussle at the top of the league and by the end of 1968, they led the table from Dundee United by two points. The Scottish Cup ´Road to Hampden´ would get underway on January 25 and Stein´s men had a quarter-final tie in the European Cup against AC Milan to look forward to in February, courtesy of a 6-2 aggregate victory over Red Star Belgrade. What made this season unique at the time was the issue with the Scottish League Cup. Celtic had reached the final and were due to play Hibernian in a game that was always booked in for an Autumn date, but a fire at Hampden in October that completely destroyed the offices and one of the dressing rooms forced a postponement until the Spring. It meant that the Bhoys literally had everything to play for at the start of 1969. Many historians will point to season 2002/03 as a time when Martin O´Neill´s Celtic were still involved in the League, Scottish Cup, League Cup and the UEFA Cup, but the crucial difference is that Celtic had not entered the latter tournament at the outset of the season. O´Neill´s men were ultimately Seville-bound because they had failed to get past FC Basel in the UEFA Champions League qualifier in August. For the record, the Celts lost out narrowly to AC Milan in 1969 but went on to complete a domestic treble, a feat that would not be repeated by any Celtic side until Martin O´Neill´s first season of 2000/01. http://celticfc.net/newsstory?item=3475
I am so glad that Celtic have created a record, even if it is an internal record of just over 40 years. This little matter of remaining in all four competitions until after the New Year is small fry compared to all the massive world records broken by the new boys, Sevco, Charlie must be so proud of himself with all these announcements of World Records he has made up.
It's a funny record , it's the first time the Scottish cup 3rd round has been played before Christmas , and the league cup used to be finished in October / November and then there was those 23 unlucky years in a row we went out early in Europe .
