BIG INTERVIEW ExclusIVE
NEWSPAPER reports from 18 years ago record that Darren Jackson was the firstever Celtic player to score in a Champions League play-off.
The Scotland striker pounced on a rebound from a Craig Burley effort to net, and give the Hoops a 1-0 win in their first leg against Croatia Zagreb.
But while there were brilliant photographs of him celebrating with long-term pal, Simon Donnelly, there is not a word of post-match reaction from his lips to be seen.
Not from Jackson, Donnelly, nor any of the Celtic stars, in fact.
They refused en masse to comment as part of the fall-out of a bitter bonus dispute with club saviour, Fergus McCann, which had ended with the squad giving their £280,000 player pool to Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital for Sick Children.
“It was one of those things,” recalled Jackson, now assistant to Gary Locke at Raith Rovers.
“The Champions League had just been re-launched, and for the first time there was a real pot of gold available to the clubs who qualified for the group stages.
“Listen, I don’t hold anything against Fergus at all. History has shown that he was a great servant to Celtic Football Club.
“They would not have Brendan Rodgers as their manager today, and his side would not be playing at a 60,000-capacity Celtic Park were it not for his intervention.
“And while he was a big character, he was upfront and did exactly what he said he was going to. He definitely delivered.
“Jock Brown (the Hoops’ general manager of the time) is still my lawyer to this day, so I think that tells its own story.
“And, of course, despite my goal, the bottom line is we didn’t make it through.” Quite. Narrow winners in Glasgow, Celtic were overwhelmed in the return in Zagreb, going down 3-0 to a side that contained six members of the Croatia national squad which had just finished third in the 1998 World Cup in France.
“They were way too good for us,” Jackson recalled.
“They had Robert Prosinecki in midfield and Mark Viduka up front, and we couldn’t get a grip of either of them.
“There was a lot of talk back then about Prosinecki smoking a pack of fags a day, but he could have had one during the game he was that comfortable.
“He had been one of the big stars in the World Cup, but it is only when you play against someone like that close up that you realise just how good they really are.
“The best players are always the ones who look to have lots of time on the ball – and he had loads and loads of it.
“Then again, we are talking about a guy who starred for both Barcelona and Real Madrid, so I suppose it