The 25th Anniversary of the Super Caley Go Ballistic Debacle

The Celtic Star

·8 February 2025

The 25th Anniversary of the Super Caley Go Ballistic Debacle

The 25th Anniversary of the Super Caley Go Ballistic debacle. Whoever sore it was and still is, it opened the door for some special times…

I wrote earlier today about how special our connection with the Scottish cup was, but I also noted that we had endured some bad experiences, and a quarter of a century ago this very day we experienced one of those dark moments.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle were the visitors to Celtic Park on a Tuesday night in the Scottish cup, and it was needless to say a home win was seen by almost everyone as a forgone conclusion.

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However football doesn’t work that way, and we suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in our history as the 1st division side beat us by three goals to one, in a game they throughly deserved to win.

The Highlanders possessed something that we were seriously lacking, and that was grit and determination, a real will to win. Our side may have had the best squad on paper, but their attitude didn’t match that of Caley, summed up by the refusal of Mark Viduka to appear for the second half.

That was all down to the lack of leadership in our dressing room, and the main culprit was John Barnes. Barnes may have been a world class player, but he was out of his depth in the dugout and this would undoubtedly prove to be his last game in charge.

Barnes was a disastrous appointment by Kenny Dalglish in the summer of 1999 and despite our early hope, we all knew it was going to end in tears. Barnes was rightfully relieved of his position soon after the Caley defeat, and despite the humiliation of that night it proved to be something of a silver lining.

However sore that result was, and still is, it opened the door for some special times, as just a few months later seen the arrival of Martin O’Neill. And the rest as they say is history.