In a game of firsts, Charlie Doyle scored his first goal for the club, but Clitheroe beat us for the first time at their ground.

Despite an early scare from Harry Scarborough shooting across the face, Celtic had the better of the first half. Ellis Horan had a tame effort saved, while Obua Mujgalula’s rocket needed a leg from Bradley Ditch to divert it for a corner, which Jack Byrne fired over the bar. Moments after Horan had fired wide, Celtic’s move of the match set a high bar for the remainder of the match. Jack Irlam winning a ball in the final third, putting it across to Andy Scarisbrick. A first time pass split the Clitheroe defence in half, and Charlie Doyle carried it through, blazing his shot past Liam Isherwood to open the scoring, and getting on the scoresheet for the first time for Celtic in sixty-three appearances. The goal appeared to incence the home side, who proceeded to pick up three yellow cards for quite horrific challenges. From one Horan got his angles all wrong and fired over, leaving Celtic with just the one goal at half time.

Again, Clitheroe broke early, and again fired across the face without worrying Charlie Monks, this time Danny Wilkins the culprit. Had Horan scored at his second try of a free kick, the game might have panned out differently, but everything fell apart on the hour when Nathan Sandison’s low cross came in, and Byrne tried to cut it out, but instead slid it into his own net. Sandison then forced a decent stop from Monks, before Clitheroe should have taken the lead, when Wilkins cut inside Liam Tongue and curled an effort over Monks, hitting the crossbar. The ball fell nicely for Scarborough and with an empty net to aim at, proceeded to miss. It spurred Celtic into action, but only for a few minutes, during which time Tongue fired agonisingly wide, and Isherwood’s flying save denied Benni Smales-Braithwaite with a fingertip. And that was it, before Clitheroe sealed the deal when a long ball was nodded on by Sandison into the path of Josh Rhami. Monks closed him down, but Rhami lobbed him, the ball coming down in the net.

With minutes on the clock, Tongue tried his luck from distance, and wasn’t that far away, but it took bravery from the Celtic custodian to deny Sandison, taking the ball at the Clitheroe winger’s feet. All in all, a solid first half performance was undone when Celtic’s heads went down in the second after the own goal.