With the Battle of Nantwich taking part in the town centre, a battle in which the Royalists were trounced by the Parliamentarians, the boys in Royal Blue took out the home side with a convincing second half performance in icy conditions.

Apart from an early effort from Adam Dawson that Greg Hall clipped past the post, the home side never really threatened in the half, with Celtic doing the running. New loan signing Djavan Pedro and Chris Dagnall both went close, while Theo Bailey-Jones curled his free kick round the wall into Thomas Booth’s hands. Booth was there again to deny Pedro’s flicked header off a corner as the debutant caused the home side all kinds of problems. As the half ran out, Bailey-Jones twice went close, but the interval remained goalless.

Moments after the restart, National Hug Day was celebrated when Pedro got his debut goal taking advantage of a blunder from Booth. An early corner, Pedro’s header looked straight at Booth’s feet, but Booth’s feet were apart and the ball went straight through them. Ten minutes later and Domaine Rouse put Dagnall through, one-on-one with Booth, Dagnall chose the cheeky option and nutmegged Booth a second time.

Booth’s blunders continued, and Celtic continued to make the most of them. His kick under pressure from Pedro landed at the feet of Bailey-Jones who fired a looping effort over the stranded keeper to put the visitors three up. Celtic were free flowing, despite the iced up pitch, Rouse attempted an overhead kick Booth had to save, before Booth flapped at a corner instead of punching through the crowd and Kyle Harrison took advantage, firing straight back in to give Celtic a four goal cushion with four minutes left on the clock.

The home side finally looked threatening as Celtic eased to the finishing line, with Greg Hall on sparkling form to deny first Dawson, and then on the follow up, Gary Taylor-Fletcher’s effort got pushed over the bar, which Thomas Scilly put well wide to give Celtic their best away result in many a year.