Bhoy who would be King
How Henrik and the Hoops took the Scottish football crown.
In The Man Who Would Be King, Sean Connery and his pal Michael Caine embark upon an adventure into the tribal lands of barbarians in search of glory and worship. In 1997, Henrik Larsson arrived in Glasgow, to similar effect. Larsson, a 5'9 Swedish deity, would join a Celtic side that had previously been Scotland’s best club side but recently fell upon hard times. Their arch-rivals, Rangers, were enjoying their most successful period in club history after matching Celtic’s previous achievement of winning nine league titles consecutively and were going for a record breaking tenth. Celtic, meanwhile, were minutes away from bankruptcy before being saved by Scottish businessman, Fergus McCann, in 1994. McCann promised to stay only for five years as he repaired the club’s broken finances, floated the club on the London Stock Exchange as a new public limited company in order to raise much needed capital and redeveloped the club’s stadium, Celtic Park.
McCann’s final objective was to put Celtic back on top and stop Rangers from getting ten-in-a-row and eternal bragging rights. His transfer investment in foreign signings had so far failed to materialise into trophy success and his “Three Amigos” of Pierre Van Hoojidonk, Jorge Cadete and Paolo Di Canio would all leave the club in the summer of 1997. Dutch manager, Wim Jansen, was appointed that same summer with the monumental task of replacing these stars and stopping the Rangers run.
Jansen, a native of Rotterdam and former Feyenoord legend, would naturally turn to his hometown club for solutions and found the perfect one. Henrik Larsson had been a young developing forward at Feyenoord in the mid 90s but was in the middle of trying to force his way out of the Rotterdam club after a contract dispute. Jansen and Celtic would provide him with a better opportunity to display his talents on a bigger stage.
Larsson’s debut would get off to a less than auspicious start though as he came on as a substitute against Hibernian only to give the ball away for Hibs’ Chic Charnley to score the winner against Celtic in a 2–1 defeat. His European debut, against Austrian side Tirol Innsbruck, wouldn’t prove much better as he scored an own goal. Fortunately for Hoops fans, these performances would be an outlier for Larsson rather than a sign of things to come. Henrik would score 19 goals during his first Celtic campaign, in 1997/98, and assist Wim Jansen in bringing back trophies to Celtic Park and stopping the Rangers title stretch. Larsson would score against Dundee United in the final to win the 1998 Scottish League Cup and the Hoops won their first league title since their centenary double in 1988. Jansen, surprisingly, departed the club after a solitary campaign once he found himself in the middle of a club dispute over the splitting of managerial duties between head coach and general manager roles.
Czechoslovakian manager, Jozef Venglos, a managerial nomad with spells as far between as Australia in the 60s and Oman in the 90s, was the chosen successor for Jansen. Like his predecessor, Venglos would turn to his home country for recruits in the transfer market and brought Slovak international, Lubomir Moravcik, to Celtic Park. Moravcik was a controversial signing as, despite arriving for only £300,000, he was already 33 years old and in the twilight of his footballing career. He would, however, prove the doubters wrong with his ability to dribble and pass the ball with both feet and formed a telepathic partnership with Larsson.
With Larsson now playing in a more central forward role and Moravcik as the playmaker behind, Celtic were able to flourish in attack as demonstrated by both players scoring a brace in a 5–1 Old Firm derby win in November 1998. Larsson would finish as Scotland’s top goal scorer, for the first of five occasions when he did so, with 38 goals and win Player of the Year honours. However, Celtic under Venglos would lose their league title back to Rangers and suffered a Scottish Cup Final defeat against them too. In the wake of this Rangers double defeat, Venglos would be replaced with a new but familiar duo to Hoops fans.
Celtic would appoint John Barnes and Kenny Dalglish as Head Coach and General Manager respectively. Dalglish had been a legendary Celtic forward himself before leaving for English side Liverpool where he went on to be a legendary manager. Barnes had been one of Dalglish’s playing disciples at Liverpool and would be taking his first head coaching role at Celtic as Dalglish’s protégé. However, the Barnes era would prove to be a disaster marked by his inexperience as the Bhoys were knocked out early of the Scottish Cup by second-tier side Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Barnes and Dalglish weren’t helped by the absence of their Swedish star forward as Larsson suffered a double leg break in their UEFA Cup defeat to French side Lyon and would miss the rest of the season. Dalglish would take over coaching duties mid-season, but was unable to prevent Rangers from winning the league by a staggering 21 points.
Celtic would merge the managerial duties back into a single role as they attempted to close the gap again with their Old Firm rivals before they embarked upon another run of consecutive league titles. Northern Irishman, Martin O’Neill, had famously been a member of Nottingham Forest’s back-to-back European Cup winning sides and was considered a disciple of their legendary manager, Brian Clough. O’Neill had previously been manager of English side Leicester City where he achieved great success with limited resources. Achievements such as promotion to the English Premier League and two English League Cup triumphs. He was seen as the next up and coming managerial great and Celtic would provide the platform to prove himself further. With the return of a healthy Larsson, who was lucky to have recovered from a near career-ending injury, O’Neill would win his first Old Firm derby against 6–2, Celtic’s biggest Old Firm win since 1957, and lead Celtic to the first domestic treble in Scottish football since 1969. Henrik would score 35 goals in 38 league games and win the 2000/01 European Golden Shoe with a final goal tally of 53.
Larsson was aided in his goal scoring exploits by a new Celtic strike partnership with English forward Chris Sutton and Welsh forward John Hartson. Sutton had previously formed a lethal strike partnership with fellow Englishman, Alan Shearer, at Blackburn Rovers that resulted into an English Premier League title win. Now, like Moravcik before him, he would score a brace in his first Old Firm derby, the aforementioned 6–2 win, and link well upfront with Larsson. Hartson, a former Arsenal and West Ham striker, would arrive a year later, but found his second home as part of Celtic’s new front three. Together, under O’Neill, the three would score a combined 66 goals, in 2001/02, as they guided Celtic to their first league title defence in twenty years and, with the further assistance of Moravcik, a famous 4–3 win on Halloween against Italian giants Juventus in the Champions League.
Celtic cruised to the league title, in 2001/02, after losing only one league game and finished 18 points clear of Rangers, but domestic domination was only going to satisfy Larsson and O’Neill’s talents for so long. In 2002/03, the Bhoys would turn their full attention to Europe and that year’s edition of the UEFA Cup. “Battle of Britain” ties were setup against English sides Blackburn Rovers and Liverpool and the Scots emerged victorious from these dogfights as Sutton scored against his former side, whilst Larsson and Hartson purged some Celtic demons by knocking out the former side of Barnes and Dalglish. Spanish side, and almost namesakes, Celta Vigo were dispatched again by goals from Larsson and Hartson, despite the absence of O’Neill due to a touchline ban. Henrik would take his turn to miss out, due to a broken jaw, against German side Stuttgart as Celtic managed to cope without their talisman. Larsson would return in time to score the semi-final winner against Portuguese side Boavista to see Celtic through to their first European final in 23 years.
Their opponents were another Portuguese side, FC Porto, managed by a certain Jose Mourinho who, like O’Neill, has often been compared to Brian Clough and his personality. Unfortunately, Porto would prove to be a bridge too far for the Bhoys, despite a desperate headed brace from who else but Larsson and the amazing turnout of an estimated 80,000 Celtic fans to the host city, Seville. Porto would win 3–2 after extra time thanks to some deeply cynical time wasting tactics that would become a Mourinho trademark during their Champions League victory the following year.
Celtic’s heartbreak would be compounded that year after losing the league title to Rangers on goal difference. However, rather than seek new pastures after a trophy less season, Larsson would commit himself to being Celtic’s workhorse in the following 2003/04 campaign. In his final season at Celtic Park, Larsson would score 30 league goals, his best league tally since the treble-winning 2000/01 season, and lead the Hoops past Spanish giants Barcelona on a run to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals. Celtic would reclaim a league and Scottish Cup double that season, after Larsson scored a brace against Dunfermline Athletic in the 2004 Scottish Cup Final.
Henrik Larsson’s legacy remains as Celtic’s record goal scorer in both European and Scottish Premier League history. As for honours, Larsson would truly finish as the King of Kings with four league titles, two Scottish Cups, two League Cups, a five-time top Scottish goal scorer and a European Golden Shoe.
After a tearful farewell to the Celtic faithful, Henrik Larsson would leave for the same Barcelona side he had helped knock out of Europe the previous season. Injuries would prevent the Camp Nou from enjoying the same Larsson as Celtic Park had seen, but Henrik would get one last chance to show the world his special talent. On his Celtic debut, Larsson had come off the bench only to give the ball away for the winning goal. On his last match for Barcelona, Larsson would come off the bench and assist both winning goals in the 2006 Champions League Final.
