The captain’s able. “There’s a lot more in my tank yet so I’m not going down yet and I’ll see how many more trophies I can get,” said a jubilant Scott Brown after picking up his 16th trophy with Celtic as the Glasgow club eased to victory over Motherwell in the William Hill Scottish Cup final.
With an historic double treble now scribbled into the record books, Brown, who still has a few more prizes to capture to emulate the the haul of 22 domestic titles the great Billy McNeil hoisted aloft as a captain, will join the pantheon of decorated Celtic skippers and the 32-year-old is not about to rest on the laurels.
“I fancy two or three seasons easily, four is a big push but I’ll keep going,” he added. “A double treble? I don't think anyone would have had that on the cards when the manager first came in. But it just shows you where hard work can get you."
“We have made the Champions League [group stages] for the last two years, and we have got to do that again next year. We start again. We’ve been creating lots of history with this team and under this manager and we aim to create a lot more.”
Celtic’s conquest was aided by Callum McGregor’s sizzling strike in the 11th minute which gave the Scottish champions an early lead and the 24-year-old was well aware of the significance of his effort. “That's probably the best (goal I've scored) in terms of the magnitude of the game and what was at stake,” he said. “I knew it was going in as soon as I made contact with the ball. I felt it straight away.
You hear that word ‘legends’ and you hear all about the Lisbon Lions. People are still talking about how great an achievement that was. For guys like Kieran Tierney and myself, to grow up watching Celtic and to be part of that and be in that bracket is something really special. It will probably not sink in for a couple of weeks.”
In the deflated Motherwell camp, meanwhile, Chris Cadden conceded that the Fir Park men had given Celtic too much respect and, despite a good old fashioned “rocket” from the manager at half-time, they were left with too much of a mountain to climb in the second period.
“I thought we lost the game in the first half,” he said after Motherwell were floored by a double whammy of goals in the opening 25 minutes. “We showed them too much respect. But that’s not really our game, showing people respect. We’ve got to get into people’s faces and we didn’t do that. We did it more in the second half, but by then it was too late.
“I don’t know why we started like that. It wasn’t nerves because we’ve been here before and we know what it’s about. “He (the manager) gave us a rocket. He said ‘there are 45 minutes left of the season, you’ve got to go and leave it all on the pitch, no regrets. He told us if we end up losing, then we get lose, but run your socks off and see what happens.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel