Celtic's Title Triumph: The Day Martin O’Neill Stood in Goal

At 4.47pm on May 16th, a phone camera caught Martin O’Neill standing in goal at Celtic Park. Retro tracksuit, glasses on, gloves off, letting his young grandchildren roll shots past him from 10 yards. A gentle family kickabout on the same turf where, barely two hours earlier, the ground had been an explosion of noise and chaos.

The previous photograph told that story. Time stamp: 2.30pm. Same goalmouth. Same patch of grass. Callum Osmand had just driven in Celtic’s third against Hearts to clinch the Scottish Premiership title. In the frame, Osmand was nowhere to be seen, swallowed up by a mob of team-mates, staff and supporters who had poured on to the pitch, some stripped to the waist in the mayhem.

A few yards away, Hearts players knelt or stood frozen, heads buried in hands. Sixty-six years they had waited for a league title. They were three minutes away from it. Three minutes from what 2026 would christen a Mayo moment. Then Daizen Maeda changed everything.

On paper, Celtic winning a 14th championship in 15 seasons felt routine. It was anything but. Hearts had turned the campaign into a gripping title race no one had forecast. Celtic had lurched through a Rodgers-O’Neill-Nancy-O’Neill managerial shuffle. Rangers had drifted, never quite catching a rhythm. Out of that turbulence came another Celtic coronation – and in the middle of it all, O’Neill.

He stood there post-match, fielding questions about “fairytales” and the prospect of a double, with the Scottish Cup final against Dunfermline and Neil Lennon a week away, widely presumed to be his Celtic farewell. The final whistle had never actually been heard in the bedlam. Hearts players, confronted by on-pitch celebrations played out in their faces, left the stadium immediately, still in full kit. Celtic apologised formally the next day; the moment has largely faded from memory.

O’Neill, though, was allowed to soak it up. The title, he said, had given him “a reason to live”. There was talk of a statue.

The twist came later. The whistle had not gone on his Celtic career either. Twenty-six days after that afternoon, the club announced O’Neill as permanent manager on a one-year deal with an option for another. The reaction was mixed: delight, surprise, and a sharper edge of criticism at what looked like a lack of long-term planning.

Celtic, as ever, was split. The fanbase argued with itself. The boardroom was scrutinised. It was why O’Neill had hammered home the need for unity in those emotional minutes after Hearts were floored.

Thirty-seven days on, Celtic returned to Parkhead for the first time since the title party, hosting Middlesbrough in a pre-season friendly. In his programme notes, O’Neill described that previous match as “dramatic and thrilling”. The mood this time could not have been more different.

The sun still bathed the stands. O’Neill still wore the tracksuit. But only about 6,000 Celtic supporters turned up. Excuses varied – holidays, opposition, timing – yet the low turnout also spoke to a deeper unease about the club’s direction. And still, three weeks earlier, the club had been able to boast that 99.5 per cent of season ticket holders had renewed.

On the pitch, there were other absentees. Kelechi Iheanacho, whose contentious 90+9th-minute penalty at Motherwell three days before the Hearts game had tilted the season, had gone. Instead of re-signing for Celtic, he chose Bursaspor in Turkey’s second tier. Maeda was on his way to Ipswich Town.

Brendan Rodgers had heard this tune before: Kyogo Furuhashi gone, Nicolas Kühn gone, Adam Idah gone. Many Celtic fans heard the echo too. Others accepted the club’s refusal to meet Iheanacho’s wage demands. This is Glasgow, so within days a rumour surfaced that the club’s recruitment strategy had pushed O’Neill to the brink of walking away.

He stayed. Last Saturday, more than 20,000 turned up at Celtic Park to see Celtic face AC Milan in their final pre-season warm-up. And they saw something new.

Camilo Duran led the line. The Colombian striker, signed from Qarabag, had already scored against Benfica in last season’s Champions League. He had finished smartly against Middlesbrough and arrived at the Milan game with three goals in three pre-season outings. For O’Neill, it was something concrete to cling to.

A few days later, another forward arrived. Kasper Høgh signed for around €13m, close to the fee banked for Maeda. Høgh had scored twice in Bodo/Glimt’s 3-1 win over Manchester City in last season’s Champions League. If he and Duran can hit that level for Celtic, then Dundee on Monday night should not scare them. Nor should Kilmarnock, Falkirk, Aberdeen or St Mirren, the rest of Celtic’s first five league opponents. None of those sides finished in Scotland’s top five last season.

It is a kind start, a soft runway into a campaign that will quickly be defined by Europe. In the middle of next month, Celtic face a home-and-away Champions League qualifier, a hurdle that has tripped them before. Kairat Almaty last year infuriated Rodgers and scarred the support. Selling players has long underpinned Celtic’s business model, and another departure – Arne Engels is the name most heavily flagged – would not shock anyone. The calculation is simple: if those exits are matched by credible arrivals, early momentum is possible.

That cautious optimism feels a long way from last October, when majority shareholder Dermot Desmond pointed to a “toxic atmosphere” around the club. The scepticism has not vanished. It will not until this squad shows it can do more than just turn up in Europe. It has to thrive there.

The calendar matters. All of this is unfolding with a month still to run in the transfer window, which shuts on August 31st. Across the city, Rangers have been far busier, and the sense is they cannot afford another season of scattergun thinking.

The man in the opposite dugout in May, Hearts manager Derek McInnes, is now at Ibrox. Hearts’ captain and goalscorer that day, Lawrence Shankland, has followed him. So has Cammy Devlin, the tenacious midfielder and Hearts’ player of the season. A maroon core has been lifted wholesale and dropped into Govan, tasked with adding steel to a Rangers side that has gone trophyless in three of the last four seasons.

McInnes is Rangers’ sixth permanent manager in five years and their third in the last 12 months. Russell Martin and Danny Röhl never quite looked the part, smart shoes or not. McInnes, a former Rangers player, does. He feels like a fit. But he inherits expectation, not patience. The demand is immediate: he must start fast, beginning at Tannadice on Friday night.

His exit from Hearts has ushered in a new era at Tynecastle. Wouter Vrancken, the Belgian coach, has taken charge and endured a brutal introduction: two games, two defeats, both to Sturm Graz in a Champions League qualifier. Replicating last season’s surge, the raw energy that pulled so many neutrals towards Hearts, will be hard. For Vrancken as a coach, for Hearts as a club.

They pushed Celtic to the brink. They dragged the title race into late May. They made May 16th matter.

The 2027 season is scheduled to end on that date again. You suspect O’Neill’s grandchildren have already been told to circle it.