The day French Eddie broke them – Seventh Anniversary of Beautiful Sunday

The Celtic Star

·11 March 2025

The day French Eddie broke them – Seventh Anniversary of Beautiful Sunday

Seven years ago today we put theRangers firmly in their place. “Whit’s the goalie Daein’ Tom?”…

Odsonne Edouard celebrates scoring to give Celtic a 3-2 lead. theRangers v Celtic, Scottish Premiership, Ibrox – 11 March 2018. Photo by Stuart Wallace Shutterstock

Seven years ago today we headed to Ibrox in the Glasgow derby looking for a victory that would all but secure us the league title. We arrived in Govan six points clear at the top of the table with a game in hand, but a win for the Ibrox side under the caretaker leadership of Graeme Murty would have them dreaming of a first title win or the club Charles Green founded..

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They had already started to think ahead and believed themselves to be much better than they were (shock, horror) and were shouting from the rooftops about how they were going to put us firmly in our place after six years of living in our shadow.

It was the pretenders in blue backed by the overwhelming majority of their hordes in the stands against the real deal in the green and white, and with that the stage was set for an explosive Derby clash.

Things got off to the worst possible start for Celtic when a blunder by Dedryck Boyata allowed Josh Windass to fire the home side in front in the first two minutes. Ibrox was aroar with belief and it was now up to us to show our true strength and character.

That we did just that not long after when Tom Rogic silenced the home crowd and sent the Celtic supporters ecstatic when he curled home a superb goal to level the game once more.

The Ibrox side went back in the lead through Daniel Candeias just before the half hour mark to rejuvenate the home crowd, and the onus once again was all back on Celtic/.

With half time rapidly approaching we levelled with a goal for the ages. Scott Brown launched a superb ball upfield only to be clattered by Daniel Candeias much to the amusement of the home crowd who cheered as loudly as they’d cheered their sides two goals.

That cheering was hilariously soon evaporated and replaced by cheers of celebration from the Broomloan Road stand as Moussa Dembele latched on to Broony’s through ball brushing off his markers and lobbing the ball over the hesitant Wes Foderingham in theRangers goal, giving birth to the now famous The Rangers TV quip “whits the goalie Daein’ Tom”

Celtic went in at the break rejuvenated and started the second half in search of the winner. Although we received a crushing blow when Jozo Simunovic was ordered off just before the hour mark for a what was deemed a reckless elbow in the face of Alfredo Morelos, mainly due to the quite vocal interference of linesman Douglas Ross.

But Celtic were made of tough stuff though, and instead of holding on to a point which would benefit us more than the home side, we went in search for a winner. Which was clearly illustrated by Brendan Rodgers giving us an extra attacking option by introducing Odsonne Edouard to proceedings.

It was that man Edouard who had the final say as he struck home the winner in the 69th minute and it was a beauty too. A curler which nestled in the left hand corner of the goal to send the packed free Broomloan stand into a frenzy, which incidentally would be the last time we would enjoy such a generous allocation in this ground.

We held on to record a victory that all but clinched us the league title, and put the pretenders from the south side firmly in their place. A great day for all. The first one we called Beautiful Sunday.

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