Cliftonville FC 3 Glasgow Celtic 0

No, that's not a typo. It really happened.

North Belfast part-timers Cliftonville wallopped mighty Glasgow Celtic 3-0 last night and it could actually have been easily 6.

Few things on Earth are likely to unite the loyalist denizens of Ibrox and the Irish republicans of Ardoyne. But this astonishing victory by Ireland's oldest club over the famous Glasgow Celtic just might.

Fair enough, it wasn't quite Celtic's first XI. But there were numerous players on display for the Scots whose individual alleged values far exceeds that of Cliftonville's entire team, and Solitude stadium too.

My suggestion? Celtic should ditch the lot of them, because they were terrible, and buy Cliftonville's entire squad instead.

Incidentally, Cliftonville made about six substitutions, including their keeper, and Celtic still couldn't score.

It's fair to say that by the end of the game, when Cliftonville were utterly embarrassing their guests by playing Barcelona-style one-touch possession passing around them, it was actually Cliftonville's reserves outplaying Celtic's second string.

It's a far cry from the last time Celtic came to Solitude, when the friendly was interrupted by the RUC who decided for no good reason to shoot plastic bullets into the crowd in an appalling sectarian attack by the security forces, and thankfully so.

How times have changed in the intervening quarter century. Solitude has a gleaming new stand, the team hammered their prestigious guests and no one was hospitalised by police brutality.

For those who missed out on a night when Ireland's oldest club (don't listen to the LIES of Bohemians) made yet more history, here's some highlights:



And some more!

Divided loyalties

In these days of erratic international football results either side of the border, who is a good Northern Nationalist to support?

On the one hand, we have Stan the Man's merry brigade of wasters, scraping past the mighty Wales and San Marino with all the aplomb and grace of a hippo on ice.

Nary a Northerner among them of course. Which might indeed be the problem.

On the other, there's always Lawrie Sanchez's green and white army, casually wallopping four past the oppo, stuffing teams like England and Spain for fun.

But could a good Nationalist truly consider supporting a partitionist team, even if their football association is the original one on the island, given the crazed Loyalist backing the team gets at that bastion of mutual understanding, Windsor Park?

The answer to this question is, as it is to so many of life's questions, Cliftonville FC. The oldest soccer team in Ireland, and one which despite its non-sectarian origins, claims the hearts of most Northern Nationalists, given the long-lamented departure of Belfast Celtic to the annals of history and Derry City to an even more distant and fabled location, the League of Ireland.

So in honour of the Red Army, I give you this recent team talk from before their successful County Antrim Shield victory this season. Special thanks to Missing Neighbour for smuggling the video camera into Solitude.