
What Celtic and Aberdeen plan to do for fans if they seal Scottish Cup glory on Saturday at Hampden
It could lead to some historic scenes in the Granite City in particular
PARTY TIME What Celtic and Aberdeen plan to do for fans if they seal Scottish Cup glory on Saturday at Hampden
ABERDEEN and Celtic have been busy making preparations for fans to celebrate if they win the Scottish Cup.
The two teams go head-to-head tomorrow at Hampden.
2
Aberdeen had a bus parade when they won the League Cup in 2014
Credit: Scottish News and Sport
2
Celtic had a similar bus parade after winning the 'Treble Treble' in 2019
Credit: Kenny Ramsay - The Sun Glasgow
Celtic copped flak for not organising a club-sponsored party on the day the Hoops lifted the Premiership trophy.
It led to some ugly scenes among booze-fuelled supporters in the Trongate area of Glasgow, and a huge clean-up operation had to be undertaken.
SunSport understands the club is taking proactive measures this weekend by erecting barriers at Celtic Park in the event Brendan Rodgers' men win the cup (and secure another Treble in the process).
Perimeter fencing is being put in place on the Celtic Way under the expectation that the players would return to the stadium should they emerge victorious at Hampden, and would therefore give the fans a place to congregate ahead of the celebrations.
Aberdeen have been promised an open top bus parade should they clinch the cup.
The city centre would be transformed and tens of thousands of Dons supporters would be allowed take to the streets for a party, councillors have revealed.
That's despite roadworks taking place on Union Street, which would usually be an important part of the bus route.
Labour councillor M. Tauqeer Malik said: "Usually Union Street would be ideal but it's a complete mess."
Committee convener Alex McLellan has proposed that £35,000 from the Common Good Fund to pay for the celebrations, but finer details on the route were not disclosed.
He said: "It would be tradition that if Aberdeen Football Club were successful in the Scottish Cup final that we would want to celebrate that in an appropriate way."
Celtic Title Party Aftermath: Nine arrested as street party descends into total chaos
The Pittodrie side had an open top parade when the last time they won a major trophy.
That was the League Cup back in 2014, which, ironically, held its final at Celtic Park that year.
Derek McInnes' side beat Inverness on penalties that day after a goalless 120 minutes at Parkhead.
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Glasgow Times
30 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Who's going to step up and replace Scotland's golden generation?
The youthfulness of Steve Clarke's squad for the friendly internationals against Iceland and Liechtenstein this month has, what with Connor Barron, Kieron Bowie, Tommy Conway, Josh Doig, Billy Gilmour, Max Johnston, Lennon Miller, Nathan Patterson and James Wilson all receiving call ups, certainly been heartening. The members of that nonet have an average age of just 21. Every one of them has a huge amount to offer their country at international level for many seasons to come. They have numerous qualifying campaigns left in them and hopefully a few finals too. The same is true of the injured duo Ben Doak, the Liverpool winger, and Aaron Hickey, the Brentford full-back. It was also encouraging to see the SFA roll out their Cooperation System – which will see up to three Scotland-qualified prospects under the age of 21 move freely between Premiership and Championship parent clubs and lower league outfits on loan from the 2025/26 season onwards – this week. Read more: Similar agreements already exist in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Hungary and Serbia. Hopefully the long overdue scheme will enable our best prospects, who have often been prevented from gaining much-needed competitive game time in the senior ranks simply because their presence is needed to satisfy homegrown player quotas in European competition, to make the difficult transition from the age-group ranks. That initiative was one of the main recommendations contained within the Transition Phase paper which was co-authored by Andy Gould, the SFA's chief football officer, and Chris Docherty, the governing body's head of men's elite strategy and was published last year. That report contained many worrying revelations, damning findings and stark conclusions about how poorly Scotland is doing in comparison with other countries of a similar size across Europe when it comes to producing talented young footballers who are capable of flourishing in the paid ranks. But if anybody needed reminding just how few professionals are emerging, Brown Ferguson, the former Alloa, Hamilton and Partick Thistle midfielder and the current Stenhousemuir assistant manager who is also the assistant regional performance manager at sportscotland and the high performance manager to Scottish Golf, took to X (formerly Twitter) to tell us. He posted a series of alarming statistics about the Premiership last season. Here are a few of the most startling. Just 31.46 per cent of players to start games in the top flight were Scottish. That is down from 45 per cent three years ago. On average, just 3.23 per cent of players kicking off on a Saturday are under 21, just four out of 132. No fewer than 20 team selections failed to contain a single Scot. Aberdeen and Celtic didn't start an under-21 player in the 2024/25 campaign. The SFA have identified these major problems and are endeavouring to address them. The SPFL clubs, who in the past have shown they are more concerned with self-interest than the greater good, have endorsed and embraced their plans. But is it too little too late? Our leading clubs face a raft of challenges running academies and bringing through youngsters who are capable of representing their first teams every year. The issues which Brexit and raids on their age-group squads by their wealthier English rivals have presented in recent years have been well documented in these pages. Far fewer footballers who are good enough are emerging. These are pretty exciting times in Scottish football with Brighton owner Tony Bloom buying a major stake in Hearts and a consortium comprising American billionaire Andrew Cavenagh and the San Francisco 49ers taking over Rangers. With Hibernian a far more formidable force than they were and Aberdeen lifted by their epic Scottish Cup triumph, next season promises to be a belter. Read more: But the focus in recent weeks has very much been on how much money every club will spend and who will be brought in this summer. The new powerbrokers seem unconcerned about doing their bit to help our national game by rearing homegrown heroes. Sure, wanting to promote youth has been mentioned in passing. It appears, though, fairly far down their list of priorities. Such is the money mad modern game. There is, with Barron, Bowie, Conway, Doig, Gilmour, Johnston, Miller, Patterson and Wilson as well as Lewis Ferguson, Jack Hendry, George Hirst, Andy Irving, Scott McKenna, Scott McTominay and John Souttar all in the current Scotland squad, no reason for Tartan Army footsoldiers to panic. (Image: Craig Williamson - SNS Group) Yet, the World Cup qualifying campaign which will get underway with away games against Denmark and Belarus in September may well prove to be the last that Che Adams, Stuart Armstrong, Ryan Christie, Lyndon Dykes, Craig Gordon, Grant Hanley, John McGinn, Kenny McLean, Andy Robertson, Lawrence Shankland and Kieran Tierney are involved in. Some will retire after it, others will stay on. But we are witnessing the last hurrah of a golden generation. Will those who come after that aforementioned group grace, as many of their predecessors did, the Premier League and the Champions League? The majority of them still have some way to go to scale the same heights as their compatriots. A few will manage it, but many won't. Clarke lamented how few goalkeepers he had to choose from when he announced his squad last month. He, or his successor, may be left bemoaning the lack of centre-backs, full-backs, holding midfielders, playmakers, wingers and strikers going forward. There must be a concerted collective effort from club owners and managers or qualification for the finals of major tournaments will be a thing of the past.


BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Scottish gossip: Kygo, Maeda, Coady, Diomande, Turgeman, Johnston, lovu, Robertson
Kyogo Furuhashi could return to Celtic six months after a £10m transfer to Rennes that has turned sour, with the Scottish champions and the Japan forward both keen on the move, but Bournemouth could make an offer for the 30-year-old in the coming weeks. (Transferfeed via Foot 7), external Celtic have told Fenerbahce they want £21m for Daizen Maeda as negotiations begin over the Japan forward, while Tottenham Hotspur are also interested in the 27-year-old. (Sozcu), external Rangers have opened talks with Maccabi Tel Aviv over the signing of 21-year-old Israel forward Dor Turgeman, who also has Italian and Spanish interest and could cost around £4m. (Daily Record), external Rangers were one of several clubs who approached Maccabi Tel Aviv about a mid-season transfer for striker Dor Turgeman. (Sport 5 via Scottish Sun), external New Rangers head coach Russell Martin is weighing up a move for defender Conor Coady, with the 32-year-old's future with Leicester City uncertain after relegation from the Premier League and despite having a year left of his contract. (Daily Record), external Head coach Russell Martin wants to build his new-look Rangers team around Mohamed Diomande and will reject any approach from Everton for the 23-year-old midfielder. (Football Insider), external Sunderland have their eyes on Sturm Graz right-back Max Johnston, but only if Trai Hume seals a transfer to Wolverhampton Wanderers, while Lens and Nice are also closely watching the 21-year-old Scotland defender. (Ekrem Konur on X), external


The Herald Scotland
an hour ago
- The Herald Scotland
Malky Mackay on Hibs' £5m shot, training centre plan and Black Knights
Made up of the 15 mantras which turned the New Zealand rugby team into the most ruthless winning machine in winning sport, a yellow post-it note marks out a chapter entitled: 'No D***heads.' It's a rule of thumb Mackay has tried to apply to one of Scotland's biggest football clubs. The key to forging the culture which secured European football for the men, women's and under-18 teams at the end of a roller-coaster season. 'The final 10 days of the season were an incredible 10 days for the football club,' said Mackay. 'We were balancing the men's team going for third in the Premiership with the women's team going for the SWPL title and the under-18 team going for their league as well. 'All of it was balanced on a knife-edge. Were the men's team going to finish third or fourth or fifth? 'Were the women going to win the tightest title race ever or come second? 'And then the kids had three games in a week and that was always going to determine whether they were going to win the league or not. 'So now we have the three teams in Europe and I think Celtic and Rangers are the only other clubs who've achieved that in Scotland.' The loss of £5 million for automatic qualification to the group stages of the Europa Conference League should have cast a pall over Hibernian's season. When Aberdeen unexpectedly beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final, they secured a prize expected to fall into the laps of the Easter Road club when they stormed from the bottom of the Premiership to secure a third-place finish. If Mackay has his way it still will. 'That £5m is still there for us,' he says. 'The outcome of the Aberdeen Celtic game changed things in terms of which team went straight into the group stages. But that wasn't something we could affect. 'All we could do was finish as high in the league as we possibly could. 'We did that by finishing third and I'm not certain what more we could do. 'Congratulations to Aberdeen, fair play to them for winning the cup. That's life. 'All you can do in this business is look after yourself. And we put an awful lot into what we achieved in the end.' Technical director of the Scottish FA for four years, Mackay now works tirelessly in pursuit of marginal gains at the Hibs Training Centre in Tranent. Plans for a new full-size indoor training dome and a new facility for the title-winning women's team are well down the tracks after a land swap deal at East Mains. Trailed at the club's AGM, the 20-year-old facility has become cramped and an 11-a-side indoor facility – a long-held goal of the late owner Ron Gordon – is planned with the financial assistance of SFA Pitching Up facility funds. 'There is a situation now our men and women's teams are sharing a building which is 20 years old and it has become too small,' Mackay admits. 'So we have sat down and developed plans for a potential redevelopment. Obviously we have to speak to East Lothian Council and put it all down properly, but we are hoping for a revamp of the area. 'We have the possibility of another building, extra pitches and the potential for an indoor full-size 11-a-side facility as well. 'We are high up altitude wise in Tranent and the wind does create issues here. Hibs manager David Gray (Image: Ross MacDonald - SNS Group) 'The difference it would make to the academy and community to be able to take players inside to a protected indoor-full size dome can't be overstated.' As a club Hibs are in a better place than anyone thought possible when David Gray's team couldn't win a game for love or money in the dark days of autumn. Bottom of the SPFL Premiership after one win in 12 games, the fourth managerial appointment in three years was fighting for his job. Chairman Ian Gordon was invited to Las Vegas for clear-the-air talks with multi-club investor Bill Foley and his Black Knight Football Club lieutenants Ryan Caswell and Tim Bezbatchenko following complaints that their input into key decisions was being ignored. 'I remember thinking, 'This has to calm',' admits Mackay now. 'My role was to make the place a stable ship and ensure that every message coming out of here is normal. What people expect. We had to become the club that we should be. 'There was a perception around the club where that wasn't necessarily the case.' An improbable 96th-minute equaliser from Rocky Bushiri in a 3-3 draw with Aberdeen in November proved a sliding-doors moment. After defeats to St Mirren and Dundee, when everything felt dysfunctional and chaotic, Hibernian rallied. They lost just one of the their next 14 games. 'People outside were seeing what was happening on the pitch,' Mackay says. 'I was seeing what was actually happened behind the scenes. 'We had a pretty imbalanced and bloated squad and we lost six games in the last five minutes. 'There were huge individual errors happening, we had four red cards in 12 games and we missed three penalties. 'No excuses but everyone could see that anything that could go wrong was going wrong.' The current average shelf life of a manager in the Scottish Premiership is 12.75 months. While five clubs will start the new season with a new head coach, Hibernian held their nerve and stuck with the one they had. While few knew how much stress Gray came under during the dark winter days of November, Mackay had been there himself. 'I've stood in those shoes. And the pressure in the role is incredible,' he notes. 'You are judged every Saturday on 90 minutes and until you stand in those shoes and see the pressure that comes from players, staff, owners, press and the public, you don't know how that feels. 'Back in the day when I was a young manager you got two or three years to do your job. 'These days you are lucky to get 12 months. The situation is getting worse.' The relationship with the Black Knights Group is now healthy, the two sides 'closer than they've ever been'. Read more: William Hill chief executive on why SPFL is undervalued in sponsor market Stephen McGowan: Is Dermot Desmond absentee landlord or Celtic mastermind? Black Knights president Bazbatchenko is a regular visitor to Edinburgh. Mackay has travelled to Bournemouth for meetings and Cherries performance director Jay Melette performed an audit of the Hibernian set-up. The Easter Road side will spend four days training with their English Premier League step cousins before playing a pre-season bounce game. The Black Knight representatives were as blown away as everyone else, meanwhile, by heartfelt renditions of 'Sunshine on Leith' after the wins over Hearts and Celtic. 'It's the 150th anniversary of the club's creation this year,' ponders Mackay. 'It all stemmed from the docks and the disadvantaged area of Leith and there is a great history attached to this club. 'The Gordon family have embraced that massively, ploughing something like £24 million into the club since the day they took over in terms of infrastructure and backing managers and training facilities to make sure everything is as good as it can be. They stuck at it through really tough times. 'So when I see the last few weeks of the season and the happiness around the club I think to back to some of the abuse they took during the hard times and think to myself, 'My god, they could easily have thrown the keys in'. 'That's why it's so satisfying to see fans singing 'Sunshine on Leith' or coming up to Ian [Gordon] and his mother Kit and thanking them for giving them memories to embrace. 'Over a period of time, Hibs is probably a club which hasn't won as many things as we could have. 'Because of the size of the fan base, the stadium, the facilities, the capital city aspect, people want us to light the touch-paper and catch fire. 'And I want Hibs to be a badge people are proud of instead of a club where they're looking in and saying, 'What's happening in there now?''