Phil O’Donnell Tribute Match/Player of the year?

By: Matt | May 25th, 2008

Banners at the POD Tribute Match Today legends of both Celtic and Motherwell met at Celtic Park to play a tribute match in honor the late Phil O’Donnell. The Celtic legends defeated the Motherwell Legends 5-1, but the story today hardly relates to the score. The obvious focus of the match was honoring Phil and his memory, but there was also the back story of legends returning to Celtic Park. Most notably of these legends was of course “the magnificent #7″, Henrik Larsson. King Henrik even marked the occasion by notching a goal in the 24th minute. Perhaps the most touching moment of the game came when Phil’s nephew and current Motherwell forward David Clarkson got onto the score sheet. The scene at Celtic Park today was a great one with banners and tributes to Phil O’Donnell all over and a good sized crowd from both Celtic and Motherwell there to honor Phil’s memory and legacy.

CELTIC LEGENDS… 5
(Weighorst 10, Larsson 24, Brattbakk 30, 36, Jackson 91)
MOTHERWELL LEGENDS… 1
(Clarkson 72)

CELTIC LEGENDS (4-4-2) Gould (Kerr 41, Marshall 62); Boyd (McNamara 62), Reiper (MacKay 36), Annoni (Reiper 51, McLaughlin 56), Johnson (McKinlay 46); McNamara (Donnelly 36, Brattbakk 75), Burley, Lambert (McKenna 67, Johnson 82)), Weighorst; Larsson (McKenna 7), Brattbakk (Jackson 36).
MOTHERWELL LEGENDS (4-4-2) Woods (Dijkstra 30); Griffin (Wishart 10, O’Neill 62, Boyd 70), McCart (Martin 3), McKinnon (Angus 84); Clarkson (Leitch 46), Angus (Dolan 38), Patterson (Philliben 15, Patterson 25), Nijholt (Balmer 56, O’Donnell 67, Ferguson 82), McFadden (O’Donnell 6, Kirk 28); Arnott (Coyne 30, Clarkson 67, Kirk 82), Ferguson (McGrillen 34, Arnott 73).

When looking at the recently completed season, it is almost like there were three different seasons within one season. Early in the season was a back and forth affair with Rangers and Celtic bobbing in and out of first place. The December dull drums and consequent race to catch up, as well as the struggles in March and the eventual overtaking on the last day all seem like unique and separate, unrelated incidents. This phenomenon makes it difficult for me to really decide who is the player of the year for Celtic. Over, the tim-ernet there are a couple of different schools of thought. One of these is giving the honor to SPA Player of the Year Aiden McGeady. For all of the year, McGeady was a driving force behind the team and is responsible for a majority of the offense for Celtic.

Another camp feels that it should go to Artur Boruc. Boruc once again proved why he was the “Holy Goalie”. Often times keeping Celtic in games and earing points by himself, especially at times when the back line was less than par. It also seemed that the Holy Goalie saved his best performances for Champions League Nights, and some would even claim that once again he is the reason Celtic made it as far as they did in the Champions League.

Yet others feel that one of the striker paring of Scott McDonald and his 27 goals or Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and his quiet 15 goals deserve the honor. And the last belief is that new addition Barry Robson is worthy of the title. When placed in the middle, something seemed to click for Celtic. Robson held the ball, stopped counters, and brought a calming presence in the middle of the park, as well as scoring the important penalty against Rangers. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that when Robson got in the starting XI that the season seemed to turn around for Celtic.

So what do you think? Who should earn the title of Player of the year for this magical championship season?