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My Favourite Shirt - Part Eighteen

Part Eighteen of My Favourite Shirt has Katie McGuinness answering questions about her 1987/88-1988/89 Celtic Home Shirt as well as other questions about The Bhoys.

Pictures of Katie's 1987/88-1988/89 Celtic Home Shirt

Why is this your favourite shirt? This is the shirt Celtic wore from 1987-1989. The club's centenary year was celebrated in 1987/88 and the badge was changed from the usual four leafed clover to the Celtic Cross which had featured on the original jerseys in 1888. I like it because it’s a reminder of an important part of Celtic's history and also because it was the first football top I owned. I asked for it for Christmas but at that time my parents didn’t think girls should wear football strips. Santa brought the full kit for my brother instead, along with the tracksuit and training gear (which he still likes to remind me about). I wanted it so much I had to buy it myself from Wishaw market. It's 32 years old and I still wear it now.
 
Are there any happy or bad memories that come back to you when you see or think about this shirt? It's all happy memories. The fact it was the Centenary season makes it memorable. Celtic were renowned for coming back from a goal down to win matches very late on that year on their way to winning the League and Scottish Cup double. My favourite game that season was the cup final which sealed the double when we came back from a goal down to win 2-1 with the winning goal coming in the 90th minute. Made even more special as it was the first time my dad took me to a game. After weeks of me asking, he produced tickets on the morning of the game.

Who was the best player to wear this shirt? Paul McStay – my first hero and all-time favourite player. He went on to captain Celtic but didn’t win many honours as the club went through a troublesome spell in the early to mid 90's.

And the worst? I can't pick a worst player from that time. Being such a significant time in Celtic's history, and when squads were much smaller, everyone played an important part.
 
How do you rate the shirts of today compared to years gone by? I much prefer the jerseys of the 80's and 90's to today's. The quality is far better and the simple designs were much nicer too. I love the old umbro classics.

Why do you support Celtic? Although most of my family on both my mum and dad's side were Celtic fans, I was never encouraged to support any team but I guess it was always in my blood. I remember watching the Scottish Cup Final in 1985 on TV with my Grandad (who had been in Lisbon for the European final in 1967) and deciding that I was a Celtic fan. My other Grandad took me to my first home game and when I started going with my friends when I was about 14, I had to pretend to my parents that I was at a friend's house. They didn’t like me going to games and thought football was just a “phase”. Ironically, there were a few seasons in the mid 2000's when my mum, my dad, my son and I all had season tickets and went to games together.
 
What was the first game you went to and what was the score? I can't actually remember. I know it was away to Motherwell (my “local” team) in the mid 80's and that Celtic won but I can't remember the details. My first game in Paradise was a 1-1 draw with Dundee Utd a year or so later.
 
How do you feel Celtic will do this season? Having won 3 domestic trebles in a row, we couldn’t really do any better. A fourth would be amazing but I think every fan would agree that they’d sacrifice a cup for a 9th and 10th league title in a row.

Obviously we didn’t qualify for the Champions League but we’ve started the Europa League well and I’m confident we’ll get to the knock out stages again. That said, I’d also sacrifice a EL run for the 9th title.

I’ve had a season ticket for 26 years but paid at the gate for years before that. I watched Celtic every week during the period in which we lost 9 titles in a row so I’m loving how dominant we are now.
 
Your best Celtic 1-11 in your time supporting the club?

  1. Fraser Forster

  2. Danny McGrain

  3. Tom Boyd

  4. Johan Mjällby

  5. Virgil van Dijk

  6. James Forrest

  7. Henrik Larsson

  8. Paul McStay

  9. Odsonne Édouard

  10. Ľubomír Moravčík

  11. Shunsuke Nakamura

Click here to see the Celtic items for sale on the website.

Click here to read the other My Favourite Shirts Q&A's.

Interested in telling the world about your favourite shirt? Email topcornershirts@outlook.com and you will be sent the questions and asked to upload an image of you wearing or holding the shirt in your reply. You don't have that shirt? Not to worry! A pictutre of the shirt will suffice.

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