Allan Brown

This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were 1-0 up on the best team in
Scotland and had a penalty to make it 2-0. It was Roy Keane’s debut, however the expected procession hadn’t materialised and his team were being overrun by a group of lads earning, in a year, what Keane earned in two days. 

In the previous 35 mins we had seen two perfectly good Clyde goals disallowed before Craig Bryson’s header had put Clyde in front on 33 mins. Now, after a foul on Brighton, we now had a penalty. The resultant spot kick from O’Donnell went low to Boruc’s right and somehow he got a hand on it to turn it round the post for a corner. I thought that was it, our chance had gone: I was gutted. Little did I know what was about to unfold. 

From the corner the hapless Celtic debutant Du Wei glanced a header to Eddie Malone 12 yards out who struck a left foot volley so powerful it would still be travelling today if it wasn’t for the net. From the depths of despair to such joy in the space of a minute. Shortly after it was half-time. I was mindful of the fact that Celtic had come from 2-0 down to beat Hearts 3-2 the week before. 

To my surprise we continued to outplay Celtic throughout most of the second half and should have been out of sight, however with 83 mins on the clock Zurawski pulled a goal back. The thought that then briefly crossed many Clyde fans minds (including mine) was whether Celtic scoring again wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Even a half-full Parkhead would have given us a handsome payday and some financial stability. No way, I thought, we had come this far, I wanted a win. The clock which had ticked so slowly in that second half was even slower in the dying minutes.

Finally the ref blew for time and both myself and the Clyde support went ballistic. What a result! Many people will remember the 2006 Scottish Cup as being the one that Gretna reached the final of, however I believe the real fairytale of that tournament happened on January 8th at Broadwood Stadium.