Tonight is the night Celtic and Martin O’Neill lay all the ghosts of Helicopter Sunday to rest

When Scott McDonald hit the second of two goals against Celtic in the 90th minute at Fir Park on May 22nd 2005, Arne Engels wasn’t even 2 years old.

Callum McGregor would have been 12, so it might still linger in his memory banks, and possibly in James Forrest’s too.

But in reality, the majority of the Celtic squad who will take to the pitch tonight at Fir Park will have no memory of what happened on that bleak day back in May 2005.

Only Martin O’Neill will be acutely aware of the pain that day caused him, and his Celtic team on the day.

If the current squad weren’t aware of it before tonight, then you can be sure that by now, they are fully versed in what happened on that fateful day.

They will also have been informed that it cannot happen again.

Martin O’Neill spoke in detail about it for the first time yesterday.

And he acknowledged that were it to happen again, it could be down to fate:

If it happens, yeah, you might say it’s fate. I’ll say that if we get beaten at Motherwell, and that constitutes us losing, then I will never visit Fir Park again in my life.

I will take a detour. I’ll go to Wishaw instead. I’ll visit the Tommy Gemmell statue. It’s just ironic that it should be this. It could be all over, if we don’t get a result.

We have to win the game. That still remains a massive disappointment to me, that game back in 2005.

But it’s a different set of circumstances and this group of players wouldn’t even have heard about it.

It is indeed a different set of circumstances.

O’Neill knows it’s a must win game.

But if Hearts don’t win and Celtic don’t win tonight, it’s not the end, it goes onto Saturday.

However, winning tonight ensures that the outcome of this season’s title is decided at Celtic Park.

The players want to be in that position, and you can be damn sure the fans do too.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants to attend a dead rubber at Celtic Park on Saturday.

For it to end like that after coming this far would be soul destroying.

That’s why Martin O’Neill and the players know they must get the job done tonight.

With the players on a high after Sunday’s result, you would expect that will carry on into tonight.

But goals are the key here.

Daizen Maeda coming into form could not have come at a better time.

Martin O’Neill decried the lack of goals back in 2005:

We should have won out of the park. We missed goal after goal. Gordon Marshall was brilliant in goal for them.

I remember John Hartson headed one from about two yards and it hit him straight in the face.

And you got the feeling as the game was going on there might be some sort of foreboding there. But listen, it happened.

We should have won. We didn’t. It played on my mind for about 15 years – but after that I let it go…

Some sort of foreboding…

Celtic fans of my age still have that sense of foreboding.

As much as we’d like to ignore that day, it’s totally impossible.

Tonight’s encounter has brought it all back into focus.

It’s clear it’s done that to Martin O’Neill too, hence why he felt the need to exorcise the demons surrounding it yesterday.

We all have to talk about it.

It’s not something that can be ignored.

Just as much as it’s not something that can be repeated.

Tonight, a win may not bury the ghost of 2005 for many of the Celtic players who take to the field at Fir Park.

They know they have to make their own history.

But for me, and fans of my vintage?

It will go a long way to burying those ghosts.

I have no doubt it will do the same for Martin O’Neill.

When he walks into Fir Park tonight, all those memories will come flooding back.

He’s human, it would be impossible to shut them out, he said it they haunted him for 15 years.

He will instead use them.

He’ll use them to drive his players on to victory.

And he’ll use them to deliver a rousing pre-match speech.

O’Neill is under no illusions when it comes to what tonight means.

By the time kick off comes around, the players will know exactly what they must do.

Win.

It’s that simple.

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