Across the not so great divide

SCOUSE poet Roger McGough once expressed the dilemma of the football fan who couldn’t decide where his loyalties lay on Merseyside: “I’d be bisexual if I had time for sex/‘cos it’s Goodison one week and Anfield the next.”

I’m sure there were more than a few Irish fans who felt similarly torn on Wednesday as Glasgow Celtic and Manchester United finally came face to face in a competitive match, and proceeded to serve up the proverbial five-goal thriller in the Champions’ League at Old Trafford.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was that so many observers seemed taken aback at the visitors’ ability to make a game of it at all. In the run-up to the match there was more than a hint of condescension in the English press about Celtic’s prospects. And the Scots — people like Graeme Souness and Charlie Nicholas on Sky — weren’t far behind in fearing the worst. The consensus seemed to be that the comparatively impoverished Celts would likely receive a lesson in the realities of top-flight football from their wealthier lords and masters south of the border, the gulf between the SPL and the Premiership set to be cruelly exposed beneath the bright lights of the Theatre of Dreams.