CELTIC CHAIRMAN
JACK McGINN
AJAX PRESIDENT
M. VAN PRAAG
3
IT gives me great pleasure to welcome to Celtic
Park tonight the players and officials of Ajax of
Amsterdam, one of the great names in European
football.
Currently well placed in the race for the
Dutch League Championship, they will provide
very experienced and highly technical opposition
in this evening's match.
Games between the two clubs in the past
have been very exciting and entertaining
encounters and I am confident that the game
this evening will fall into the same category.
In the early seventies, the two European Cup
games involving the two clubs resulted in a
home win for each club but Ajax qualifying by
virtue of a greater win in Amsterdam.
When the team met again in the European
Cup in the early eighties, it was Celtic who
triumphed with a 2-1 victory in Holland after a
2-2 draw at Celtic Park.
More recently, in 1985 to be exact, we shared
a hotel in Canada, when we both took part in a
tournament in the magnificent BC Peace
Stadium in Vancouver.
I am looking forward to meeting up with our
Dutch friends tonight. It is my sincere wish
that the game proves to be a spectacle for our
fans and a part of a learning experience for a
Celtic team which is being re-shaped for the
challenges of the nineties.
Playing against a club which has won the
European Cup three times in the seventies and
the Cup Winners' Cup in 1987 will be a terrific
challenge for the Celtic players and I am
certain that they will benefit from the
experience.
WE are delighted to come to Celtic Park
tonight, for everyone throughout the
world of football knows the name of
Celtic F.C. and admire the manner in
which they play the game of football.
Our previous meetings have been
excellent attacking games of football and
the game and the fans are always the
winners when our two clubs meet.
We are proud that the name Ajax ranks
so high internationally among the football
world. But this fame also puts pressure
on the present Ajax side to live up to the
reputation the club has attained. I believe
Celtic have this concern also.
Like Celtic also, many of our great
footballers past and present were nurtured
within the club itself. The Ajax youth
training programme is still and will always
be a vocal point of club policy.
According to a familiar Dutch saying,
youth holds the key to the future. We are
pleased therefore, that the team you will
see tonight will consist almost exclusively
of young players.
We hope that in a couple of years our
current squad will propel Ajax to the level
at which it once stood, so that people will
not only talk of the old Ajax but of the
Ajax of the nineties.
Playing such fine sides as Celtic can
only enhance this ambition and we hope
that there is much good football on show
this evening from both sides.
