Referee spoils ICT Day at Parkhead

Last updated : 25 September 2005 By John Kelly

Almost six years have gone by and while we may savoir the memories, that plucky Highland team from a lower division, have been replaced. In their place is a team who have earned the right to believe that they can take their place amongst the top six teams in the country.

It was, pretty much, an injury ravaged squad who travelled down to Glasgow and the injury list was added to before a ball had been kicked. Club captain, Stuart Golabek, aggravated the groin injury; he picked up against Hearts last week and was replaced in the starting line up by new boy, Alan Morgan.

The first ten minutes were evenly balanced, with the only shot at goal coming from Dennis Wyness, but Celtic were just getting into their stride and the rest of the half turned into one way traffic. With only the heroics of Mark Brown keeping the scores level.

Craig Beattie, a late replacement for Polish striker Maciej Zurawski, seemed to be at the end of every Celtic attack.

First Chris Sutton looped a ball over Darren Dods, to set him up but Mark Brown parried his shot round the post. Then Paul Telfer found room on the right and his cross was met by the head of Craig Beattie only for Brown to, once again, foil the Scotland Internationalist. Then Broonie used his feet to save Bettie’s next chance and was back on those feet quickly enough to save a Sutton header.

There were more chances for Celtic, including a Stephen McManus header, which hit the underside of the bar but the score stayed at nil nil until the half time whistle.

Fate, though, sometimes lends a hand and it appeared that way as Dennis Wyness, the hero of our last victory over Celtic, took advantage of a mix up in the home side’s defence to slot home his first league goal since returning to Inverness.

Caley Thistle fans duly went ballistic and for seven glorious minutes we rejoiced as the majority of Parkhead fell into a stunned silence. The excitement became almost unbearable as Brewster was presented with a great chance to double our lead but our, usually prolific, player/manager missed, only to see Celtic burst up field and level the score, through Craig Beattie.

Ten minutes later Nakamura burst free from a stramash in midfield and sent Bettie free, one on one with the goalkeeper. This time Mark Brown stood no chance and Parkhead burst into song for almost the first time that afternoon.

A lesser team may have given up at that point but not ICT. For the next twenty minutes they fought on and Celtic were reduced to time wasting and dragging the ball to the corners in order to wind down the clock. During this time Adam Virgo handled a Ritchie Hart corner in the box but the referee waved away the legitimate claims of the Inverness players. How different it could have been, with a more observant referee but every Caley Thistle player can walk away from this game with their heads held high for a great second half performance.