It was a long way to travel on a Tuesday night to watch Celtic slip out of the Northern Premier League in a microcosm of their season: a good spell, but too short and too late.

Not to say Celtic didn’t give Marske a game. The difference between the two teams was finishing, ironically. Domaine Rouse got the first chance with a wicked bouncing low shot that Jann Yakub spilled into the path of DJ Pedro, the keeper collided into Pedro, bringing them both down, but the keeper got the ball.

It took twenty minutes for Marske to threaten, a long ball into the channel, Junior Mondal slipping it into the box into the path of Adam Boyes, Joe O’Shaughnessy coming out and Boyes coolly lobbed O’Shaughnessy on the run with the outside of his boot. The Celtic defence got wrongfooted again, eight minutes later, a similar attack, this time Sam Hodgson with the through ball and Mondal with the finish, turning the low cross in at the far post. Mondal could have made it three immediately, as Marske ran riot, but O’Shaughnessy’s stop was decent. O’Shaughnessy could do nothing about Adam Boyes’s lifted effort just past the half hour mark, but Anis Zaknoune got back to hack off the line.

Right at the end of the half, Celtic had a decent spell, but the final product lacked accuracy, Curtis Morrison fired a free kick over the bar and in stoppage time burst into the box, denied by a leg from Yakub, with the follow-up from Dagnall offside.

If Celtic could start the second half well, they were still in this. However, within ten minutes that proved too difficult, with O’Shaughnessy making two fine stops from Boyes and Harrison Clark before Boyes stole the ball, raced in on goal and beat O’Shaughnessy to make it three.

Cue the greatest comeback of all time? No. Ethan Padden and Frankie Sinfield were brought on and immediately linked up, but Padden’s header off Sinfield’s cross brushed the side netting and Pedro produced a sublime Messi-like run to dodge challenges on-route to goal. The mini-comeback ended with a cross into the box Boyes headed into the top corner.

Dagnall almost pulled one back through sheer bloody mindedness, robbing Yakub and getting tangled with the keeper, pushing the ball goalward with a trailing leg, but the ball trundled agonisingly wide. The comeback started with fifteen minutes remaining. A cross to the back post, Padden flying through the air to connect and pulling one back. With five minutes remaining, Dagnall forced Yakub into a sensational point-blank save, but Pedro on the follow up buried the ball and halved the lead going into stoppage time.

Marske looked rocked, but that was it from Celtic, dropping to their lowest division in living memory.