ON THIS DAY

Women’s football finally found its place in world football with the final of the first Olympic women’s football tournament - hosts USA beat China 2-1 in front of 76,489 to take gold.

The idea of pre-season friendlies is to get everyone prepared for the competitive season ahead. Most are fairly routine affairs - but not all of them are! Arsenal visited Glasgow on 1st August 1987 to take on Celtic. For Celtic it was the start of their centenary season and the first match back at Celtic Park for the former Celtic player Billy McNeill in his second spell as manager of the club. Arsenal had Charlie Nicholas in their side - a player who had started his playing career at Celtic and who had turned down the opportunity to return to Celtic in the weeks prior to the Arsenal friendly. It was said that he received the sort of welcome back to Celtic as the Pope would have had at Ibrox! And then he scored after 4 minutes and Arsenal went on to win 5-1 in a match that most Celtic fans would have been happy to forget. Not that they all saw it to the end with most of the 26,000 fans being on their way home before the final whistle!