BBC SPORT | Scotland | Celts stuck in Scotland

Celtic wandered into the big boys' playground... and bullied them into handing over their sweeties.

The 1-0 victory over Blackburn struck a real blow for the snottery nosed weans north of the border against the Premiership, the public schoolboys who don't want the Old Firm scruff in their midst.

Actually, the truth is that the Scottish champions were outclassed in their match against Rovers and were lucky to escape with a victory.

But a win's a win and there is little point in allowing the facts to interfere with a right good excuse at sticking it to the English.

Britain was watching on the BBC as the first half of the Battle of Britain unfolded at Parkhead and I can just imagine millions south of the border writing off Celts as a band of no-hope Jocks.

Souness upbeat despite defeat

That, incidentally, is a band coached by a Northern Irishman and featuring a Belgian, a Dane, a Swede, a Bulgarian, a Guinean, two Englishmen another Northern Irishman, a chap from an island off the West coast of Africa... and two Scots.

My apologies to Didier Agathe, but I am not quite sure what you call a bloke from La Reunion.

But I digress. The point is that while the result might argue otherwise, the performance would give anyone with a southerly slant the excuse to say that if Celtic can't match Blackburn Rovers then how are they going to live with Manchester United and Arsenal?

Not for the first time those who think anything north of Watford is in the Arctic Circle are missing the point.

Cetlic are a huge club. Bigger than Blackburn will ever be, although to be fair Jack Walker did more for them in ten minutes than decades of boards with their biscuit tin mentality did for the Parkhead side in 100 years.

Henrik Larsson celebrates his goal against Rovers
Celtic are a huge club
And if they were eventually allowed to grace what the English perceive to be the most aristocratic league in the world, then with their vastly enhanced income from television and hiked gate prices their ability to perform in the transfer market would take them to a new level... alongside the aforementioned pride of Manchester and north London.

All of this applies to Rangers as well.

But it ain't going to happen, no matter what unfolds at Ewood Park next week. Celtic could win 7-0 and it still would not persuade the Premiership to open their doors to the Old Firm.

The Old Firm are rooted in Scotland as surely as Ben Nevis and they are going to have to live with it.

You can spend all night comparing Rangers and Celtic with anyone you like from Tottenham to Timbuctoo but they will be shackled to the Scottish Premier League until the end of time - or the decade, which ever comes first.

Celtic edge Blackburn

For all sorts of reason, not least of all their baggage of bigotry and small mindedness, the English just aren't interested no matter how much wooing the Old Firm are prepared to give.

Ironically all they want to do is lie back...and think of England.

For all that it won't do anyone any harm for Celtic to rack up another win in Lancashire and carve more progress through the Uefa Cup and sustain a chance of some Scottish participation in Europe BC... that's beyond Christmas.

Graeme Souness, who has consistently ribbed the Uefa Cup, missed the kick-off at Parkhead because he had to use the toilet.

Well, at least it made a change to extracting the urine from the tournament...


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