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!

Ireland 43 - England 13, Protesting Morons Nil

Fantastic to see men from all over the 32 counties taking on the English at the quintessentially English ball game and wiping the park with them.
And a wonderful park it is too, and the GAA should be rightly proud to have shown it off to such effect to the world.
The anthems issue, talked up to all sorts of heights by the media, was a non-event, and the real talking points all relate to the quality of the performance on the pitch.
A great day for Irish rugby, Irish sport in general, for the GAA, and indeed, given how the whole island united behind Irishmen of all hues in the home of Gaelic nationalist sport, it's a pretty good day for the Irish nation.
A pretty crappy day for the handful of numpties who saw fit to protest the appearance of England at Croke Park, though, as best evidenced by the idiot above, who seems oblivious to the fact that Glasgow Celtic are a British soccer club, and hence twice as 'foreign' as a 32 county Irish rugby team.