Playing two goal catchup was a big ask for Celtic, but losing Javid Swaby-Neavin made their remarkable comeback moot with a late goal from the home side.

The opening five minutes saw Celtic look disorganised at the back, especially when Jordan had the space to cross, and Jawad Jebrin had been allowed the freedom of the box to waltz in and tap home unimpeded. Almost as if Celtic didn’t bother with a defence, a minute later and they were two behind thanks to more calamitous defending when Nick Rushton’s cross was found by Kevin Ellison on a breakaway from a Celtic corner, unmarked and virtually the whole goal to aim at. But Celtic did get back into the game, and for the next forty minutes looked the more likely to score, with Max Leonard’s cheeky free kick from an acute angle not far from the top corner before handful Prince Anuniru wriggled into the box, only to be roundly knocked over by Ben Duffy-Kelly. A soft penalty, but a spot kick never the less, which Liam Tongue calmy converted. To finish off the comeback just before the whistle, Ash Leather’s burst of pace got him to the byline to cut a ball across the face of goal, missed by everybody but Leonard arriving at the back post to equalise.

A betting man would have put money on Celtic going on to win. Tongue went close from distance, and Jack Irlam tried to twist his body to deflect in Kyle Brownhill’s rocket through a crowd in the box, but couldn’t wrap far enough around to divert the ball in. Brownhill finished off a move he’d started in his own half, heading towards goal only for Jack Atkinson to pull off the save. When Dom Hop grasped Swaby-Neavin’s ankle after a foul, he shook his foot loose, but that’s not how the official saw it, and dismissed Swaby-Neavin with a straight red. Even so, Celtic still looked more likely to win. Leather’s cross-cum-shot glanced off the crossbar, and Jack Tinning’s headed off the corner thumped back off the bar. Sean Tse got two attempts, the second requiring an acrobatic tip over from Atkinson.

With only minutes remaining, against the run of play, Vauxhall got their only corner of the match. Half cleared, it came back to Jordan Wynn who lifted it over the defence for Paddy Kay to head a looping header over Charlie Monks and give the hosts the winner. With their nose in front, Vauxhall ran the clock down any way they could and took the three points.