Match Report -
Celtic come from behind with a last gasp penalty
By Six Yard Sam
On a pitch that is used by two teams, during a heavy winter, the game was understandably slow moving. There was precious little football played in the first half, and the only two chances fell to Celtic, with Andy Smart's strike forcing Mike Green into an early save, and Jody Banim's lovely ball to Joe O'Neill seeing the Celtic top scorer shoot on the turn and fire wide.

A nasty collision left Andy Smart nursing a bloodied nose, and his replacement in the second half was Connor Jennings. The extra striker was needed after John Hardiker mistimed his challenge in the box, and Lee Smith scored the resulting penalty kick sending Dave Carnell the wrong way. It could have been two for Gloucester moments later when Ben Hunt got the space he needed for a shot, but Carnell kept Celtic in the hunt with a decent stop.

Celtic were behind again, and looked to be lacking ideas, the closest they came was a whistling over effort from Michael Carr, and Jim Harvey stepped in. It was an odd looking double substitution, with Barrie Keeling on for Dave Hankin and Craig Hobson on for Jody Banim. But it worked. The two big men went up front and caused no end of trouble for the Gloucester defence. Peyton's ball into the box was met by Keeling, nodded down to Joe O'Neill who left Green no chance this time and suddenly Celtic were level.

With less than ten minutes remaining, Celtic upped it a gear, suddenly believing again.

Another ball into the box, a flick by Keeling to Hobson this time, he takes it into his stride and deep into stoppage time, a penalty as Hobson is brought down with a badly timed challenge.

After missing six consecutive league penalties there was a lot of pressure on Warren Peyton as he placed the ball on the spot, and then smashed it past Green into the back of the net with no time left for Gloucester to get back into it.

1Green, Mike  
2Aldritch, Rob  > 53
3Lake, Greg  
4Richards, MarcYellow Card 
5Hamblin, Tom  
6Palmer, James  
7Smith, Lee  
8Webb, Tom  
9Hunt, Ben  
10Morford, Will  > 70
11Harris, Jack  > 53
12Symmons, Mike  < 70
14Pitcher, Jack  < 53
15Molyneaux, Lee  
16Rose, Matt  
17Mustoe, Neil  < 53