EIGHTEEN years and counting. I watched from Hampden’s old main stand as Ally McCoist scored a late winner in the 1988 Skol Cup final. Ever since I’ve been waiting to witness Aberdeen win in Glasgow, choosing the wrong games to go to: skirting adroitly around the rare wins, blundering straight into losses against Partick Thistle and Queen’s Park. There was no change on Saturday, but at least I had a novel experience to consider: sitting in the home end at Parkhead.
I’d messed up in my attempts to get into the Aberdeen section, forcing myself to loiter outside the ticket office before a chirpy Irishman sold me and my dad tickets. Inside, we took precautionary action by excising any suspicious Doric content in our conversation and sitting on our hands whenever Aberdeen made a foray across the half-way line.
But it was … well, quiet. There were no sectarian songs; there were no songs at all to be heard from where I was sitting. (Other than some game attempts by half a dozen tracksuited teens and a ripple of sound when Celtic got their goal). "Where’s your famous atmosphere?" sang the away end.
The reaction from the home fans, a couple of vein-popping eejits aside, was distinctly amiable. A lady behind me commended a neat passing movement from Aberdeen; a dad told his young son in measured tones about how the other team had once beaten Real Madrid; people around me glanced across to the boisterous away fans with more than a hint of admiration.
Last year I travelled from Queen Street to Bellgrove station with a throng of Celtic fans revelling, in song, about Norman Tebbit’s wife having had her legs blown off in the Brighton bombing. But on Saturday’s evidence, Celtic should have no worries about sanctions from UEFA like those imposed on Rangers last season. A song or two would have been nice, though.