Match Pictures | Matches: 1986 - 1987 | 1986-87 Pictures | Friendlies - Away

Trivia

• The League flag for 1985/86 season was raised before the game by chairman Tom Devlin and Roy Aitken was presented with the League championship trophy.
• This was the first game in which Celtic fans stood in the newly renovated Celtic end of the ground, the west terracing.
  

Review

Testimonial for David O'Leary, an Irish born Arsenal & Rep of Ireland great. His brother Pierce was a player for Celtic.

Note: David O'Leary became quite a disliked character in time, becoming the manager of Leeds in what became a tumultuous time for that club but that's for another forum to discuss.

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Articles

• Match Report (see end of page below)
  

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Articles

Arsenal 0-2 Celtic

Football: Arsenal so wasterful
Times, The (London, England)
August 6, 1986
Estimated printed pages: 1


Arsenal .............0 Celtic ..............2

Billed as a testimonial to Arsenal's David O'Leary, last night's game at Highbury was for 80 minutes a testimony to the fact that football on both sides of the border is poverty-stricken of old fashioned forwards with the ability to put the ball in the back of the net.

Arsenal were the most to blame, albeit because especially in the first half, they had the lion's share of the proceedings. Nicholas, playing against his former club, set up enough first half opportunities to have won the game four times over. After 20 minutes he set up Robson with a clear opportunity only for Pierce O'Leary to block the shot on the line, surely an uncharitable act when your brother is having a testimonial for the other side. In ritualistic fashion Celtic supporters who made up a third of the 29,634 crowd, burnt a British flag before the start. In the 80th minute they erupted into a display of green to rival a St Patrick's parade in New York.

McStay pumped the ball to Atkins and Johnson beat the helpless goalkeeper Lukic from the cross. Four minutes later McInally muscled down the right and blasted the ball into the far corner.