On Tuesday, Celtic are at home for the second time in a week when we host Grantham Town. Kick off is at 7:45pm, with tickets available on-line or on the gate. Grantham are currently just outside the bottom three on 9 points, nine points and eleven places below Celtic.
Grantham narrowly avoided being bottom when they beat Witton on Saturday to get their second win of the season since the opening day when they had beaten Radcliffe. Both of their wins this season have come away from home. Their win over Witton was a great one, thumping four past the hosts, with one in reply. This off the back of two home defeats from Nantwich and Scarborough. Grantham have also been on the wrong side of a nine goal thriller this season, when Lancaster stuffed seven past them with two in reply.
Two wins is better than last season, when they did not have a single win from their eight games, whilst in the previous curtailed season, they never won away. That said, in the 19/20 season that never was, Grantham managed one win in their last ten games, beating Celtic in Grantham 2-0. With seventy-one goals conceded in that season, they conceded the most number of goals that season.
This season, Grantham have eleven different names on the score sheet, with Harvey Grice and Michael Williams both on two and nine other players on a goal apiece. As with the 19/20 season, they are leading the pack on conceded goals this season, having conceded 27 goals and not yet having a single clean sheet. Most of their goals this season have come in the second half, with only 3 of their fourteen goals scored in the first half.
We’ve only hosted Grantham three times. Grantham won the first of those, beating us 3-1 in 2018. In their last two visits, Andrew Scott gave Celtic a single goal to win in 2019 and it took Craig Hobson and Darius Osei to give us a thrilling 3-2 win in the 19/20 season. The last meeting of the two sides in Celtic’s last game before lockdown was a goalless draw in Grantham.
Grantham’s last match was the 4-1 away win over Witton. In that match, Grantham lined up as:
1. Jim Pollard
2. Sisa Tuntulawana
3. Thierry Latty-Fairweather
4. Finley Shrimpton
5. James Williamson
6. AJ Adelekan
7. Ali Ademir
8. Harvey Grice
9. Jonathan Wafula
10. Mason Lee
11. Manasse Kianga
Celtic’s last match was the solid 2-1 home win over Stafford Rangers, in which we lined up as:
1. Liam Isherwood
2. Douglas Nyaupembe
3. Ashley Smith-Brown
4. Sam Wedgbury
5. Connor O’Grady
6. Keenan Quansah
7. Jay Fitzmartin
8. Callum Harris
9. Marcus Dackers
10. Charley Doyle
11. Justin Johnson
A win on Tuesday could see Celtic enter the top five, and how long has it been since that has been the case?