Photo Special – Celtic FC Women, Champions of Scotland

In partnership with

The Celtic Star

·20 May 2024

Photo Special – Celtic FC Women, Champions of Scotland

The Celtic FC Women players and staff will have woken up this morning as CHAMPIONS OF SCOTLAND!

Well done to each and every one of the players and staff who have brought this title to its new home at Paradise, and it’s the first time that the trophy has ever been inside the Celtic trophy cabinet, so if you are doing the Celtic Park Tour over the summer make sure that you get a photo.

Fran Alonso build the squad on a shoestring in comparison to the huge sums spend across the city. His team scored goals for fun in the early part of the season before he left at the end of the year to take a job in the States at Houston Dash.

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Elena Sadiku came in, coming from the Everton Academy coaching staff, and promptly lost her first two matches to theRangers in the Sky Sports Cup and Glasgow City in the SWPL1. It was looking bleak at that stage but this bad results served us well as the Swedish manager – now Celtic’s Queen of Queens – had had her eyes opened. Working with what she had, with the one addition of Tash Flint returning on loan from Liverpool, Elena started picking up results and regained the momentum that was temporarily lost by the change of manager.

We got to the split, where it’s the top six playing each other home and away, and the start couldn’t have been tougher. Then current champions Glasgow City and the then league leaders and treble favourites theRangers. Both were well beaten and it was title charge on time for Celtic.

When Hearts beat theRangers Celtic got ourselves in poll position and we also had the goal difference advantage. We dropped our first points of the split in a 2-2 draw against Glasgow City, which narrowed the gap to just goal difference – Celtic had scored 30 goals in August losing just one in the first four games of the season – and that was keeping us top ahead of an away game against theRangers at Broadwood.

Tash Flint had two or three chances to win it, but in the end the goalless draw suited Celtic better than theRangers with three games remaining and the two title challengers level on points.

Celtic went into that game having lost their grip on the Women’s Scottish Cup after a well below par performance at Hampden, losing 2-0 to theRangers in the semi-final as the ungracious Jo Potter eyed a treble, just like Philippe Clement.

But in the SWPL Sadiku’s record of two draws and one victory in her three matches against theRangers was the significant factor in sending Celtic into the final three games having to match theRangers results to be Champions.

Partick Thistle at Airdrie, Hearts away and Hibs at Celtic Park. Nine points from glory. Thistle were taken care of without any dramas and having lost to Hearts in Edinburgh themselves theRangers hopes were primarily pinned on Hearts taking something from Celtic on the same night that Brendan Rodgers was leading his side to the title at Kilmarnock.

By the time that game at Rugby Park kicked off the Ghirls were in the changing room at the break, three goals to the good and with the job done. So it was to Paradise for the second time that weekend, with a league trophy to lift if the Ghirls could beat Hibs.

Patsy Gallacher

If David Potter was still alive I know that this morning he would be writing about the comparisons of the Patsy Gallacher goal in the 1925 Scottish Cup Final and comparing it to his great grand-daughter’s sensational winner for Celtic in the 90th minute which created a head in hands moment on theRangers bench at Broadwood. Delicious! Amy Gallacher yesterday wrote her name into the story of Celtic legends and she’ll be talked about for generations to come for that goal yesterday.

The Celtic Star has been there every step of the with from Fran Alonso arriving at the club to his departure in December and Elena arriving to finish the job and win us the league. We have so many photos from yesterday that we want to share over a few articles.

Patsy Gallacher

We’ll start with the Ghirls arriving at Paradise, going out onto the pitch, the warm-up, the Huddle and match day photos of the players on the day that they made history. Next we’ll cover the title winning goal, the title winning celebrations and the Celtic supporters who were there when history was made!

Here we go, The Celtic Star’s tribute to Celtic FC Women, the Champions of Scotland for the first time ever!

COYGIG!

The Ghirls Arrive at Paradise…

Straight out onto pitch

The Warm up

Celtic Team Photo before kick-off

The Huddle

The Match – Player by player, starting with Shen Mengyu

Shen Mengyu

Natalie Ross

Chloe Craig

Kelsey Daugherty

Kelly Clark

Lucy Ashworth-Clifford

Ceyla Barclais

Tash Flint

Caitlin Hayes

Amy Gallacher

Murphy Agnew

Colette Cavanagh

Kit Loferski

Next up on The Celtic Star, the Celtic site that has backed the Celtic FC Women team all of the way over the past four seasons, is the goal, the manager and coaching staff, the celebrations, lifting the trophy and celebrating with the 7624 Celtic supporters who were there at Paradise to witness history being made.