Celtic youths power into Hampden final in front of bumper crowd

By John McGinley

March 4, 2023

Celtic U18s overcame the pressure of a 1,000-sized crowd at McDiarmid Park on Friday night to power past St Johnstone with a 5-0 thumping in the Scottish Youth Cup semi-final.

St Johnstone have had a magic run in the tournament. It’s one which caught the imagination of the Perth support. They consider this group as one of the club’s most talented youth sides in years. As a result, over 1,000 attended the Friday night kick-off, but the excellence of Celtic triumphed.

Daniel Cummings scored a double on the night with Lewis Dobbie, Caleb Goldie and Jude Bonnar all adding to the scoreline to send the young Bhoys into a Hampden final later this year, much to the delight of U18s manager Stuart McLaren.

Celtic Youths have big chance to deliver silverware

Celtic had already beaten Dundee, Deveronvale and Dunfermline Athletic to reach the latter stages of the competition.

Rangers play Hamilton Academical on March 17th at Ibrox in the other semi-final, meaning there could be a big derby final at the national stadium.

The Bhoys haven’t won the Scottish Youth Cup since 2017 when Calvin Miller, Sam Wardrop and Aidan McIlduff were all on the scoresheet to defeat the Ibrox club. Rangers are the holders, having beaten Hearts 2-1 in last season’s final.

Celtic’s last appearance in the final came in 2019, with the tournament suspended in two of the last three years due to the pandemic

Good luck to McLaren and his squad when the big day comes! We’ll have much more on all of this as the final approaches.

In other news, Celtic’s Sunday task after Saturday afternoon Scottish Premiership results.