Slappung David Beckham to win a bet with Neil Lennon isn’t my proudest pre-season moment. But it does make me smile when I think back to some of the capers that went on during the build-up spell ahead of the big kick-off.
Ange Postecoglou and his Celtic team are in Austria right now getting their programme really going with the re-integration of the international players as well as the new signings You can write it off as kickabouts if you want. Some of them are. But matches such as Saturday's against Rapid Vienna have a serious role and they can offer momentum.
Take the night of that Manchester United match when myself and Beckham had our exchange. For context, it was summer 2001 and Celtic were at Old Trafford to play in Ryan Giggs’ Testimonial match. Just a couple of months earlier, United had been at Celtic Park for Tom Boyd’s Testimonial and they had beaten us 2-0. Normally, these games can be a bit ‘you have it and then we’ll have it’. But this one was feisty. It was needly. Put it this way, I’d suggest it wasn’t played in normal Testimonial spirit.
