Dundee 2
Celtic 3
League (Premier Division)

Match Report

Newspaper extract from Tommy Gallagher | The Courier.

Dundee's run of wins in the Premier League came to an end at Dens Park on Saturday when they lost 3-2 to Celtic in a game that produced loads of excitement and controversy from first to last.

Referee Hugh Alexander, of Kilmarnock, has to take the credit for most of the controversy, awarding three penalties, two to Celtic and one to Dundee, all of them as weak as water, in my opinion.

He also allowed a Tommy Burns goal to stand nine minutes from the end when it was clear to all of the near 14,000 crowd that the red-headed midfield man had hauled George McGeachie off the ball before scoring what proved to be the winner.

Five goals, three penalties, and four bookings helped create the excitement in a match in which Dundee failed to reach the high standard of teamwork they demonstrated in games against Dundee United, St Mirren and Hearts.

Yet, despite this, they should still have taken something from the game.

Celtic were the better team in the first half. They were awarded two penalties early in the game, Mark Reid missing one and Peter Grant scoring the other to give his team the lead they were after.

Three minutes later John. Colquhoun, probably the visitors' most effective player throughout, put his side two up from a McGarvey cross.

Left foot shot

Brian McClair should have "sewn up" the game just after- wards but was thwarted by one of the many very good saves made by Tom Carson in Dundee goal.

John McCormack brought Dundee back into the game four minutes from half time with a goal he will cherish for many a long day. A left foot shot from 30 yards caught Pat Bonner off his line and helpless.

Fifteen minutes after the interval Ray Stephen beat the Celtic offside trap to level the game at 2-2 and it was then anybody's game.

John Brown should have put Dundee in front for the first time when they were awarded a penalty (again a cheap one, when Lex Richardson was brought down).

But Bonner made amends for his mistake at the first goal, saving Brown's spot kick at the right-hand post-although it was glaringly obvious the Irish- man must have first moved to get to the shot.

The Burns winner, as I have said, should never have been allowed to stand. But it sent Celtic away still unbeaten in the league and happy with two points from what Davie Hay described as a very difficult game.

The Parkhead outfit are off to Seamill tomorrow morning to make the final preparations for their second-leg Cup Winners Cup tie against Ghent with no fresh injuries from Saturday.

Dundee are left to ponder on a defeat that could have been avoided and which disappointed manager Archie Knox.

"I would not have minded if we had been outplayed and lost," he said afterwards, "but it was a case of anything but that.

"At 2-2 we had the chance to go on and win the game.

"But we didn't really play at all. Too many of my players just went through the motions and it isn't good enough."

Dundee keeper Tom Carson spent Saturday afternoon conceding three goals and making a considerable number of good saves in the match against Celtic.

But the big fellow hadn't an earthly of saving the damage to his car after the game when a few misguided Celtic supporters recognised him as he approached the vehicle and he could not do a thing about the brick which went through a window.