Scottish FA Cup semi-final/ Celtic 2 Hearts 1: A bad day for Hearts was underlined after this Scottish Cup semi-final defeat when the Tynecastle chief executive Phil Anderton was moved to issue a public apology following the disruption of a minute's silence in memory of Pope John Paul II.
The referee Stuart Dougal mercifully curtailed the pre-match tribute to 24 seconds as Edinburgh fans jeered. Afterwards Anderton said: "There is no room for that sort of behaviour. The actions will have been covered live on television across the UK and beyond and did our ambitions to generate a family atmosphere no favours at all."
Hearts will write to the Scottish Football Association and Celtic with a further apology. Rival managers Martin O'Neill and John Robertson were reluctant to focus on the issue and when asked about it the Celtic manager observed: "It wasn't very clever." His counterpart added: "Football is my religion. . . It wasn't observed at the other semi. People who observed it deserve credit, others have different beliefs."
As for the game itself, Celtic resumed normal service as they exacted revenge for last weekend's Premier League defeat to ease their way through to a final meeting with Dundee United, victors over Hibernian.
Goals from Chris Sutton and Craig Bellamy at the start of each half were enough to take Celtic through. A goal on the hour from Hearts' substitute Deividas Cesnauskis made Celtic sweat a bit through the latter stages.
That finale was unnecessarily fraught for Celtic. They dictated proceedings for 60 minutes in which Sutton, back after a three-week injury absence, exerted his huge influence and never more so than after 150 seconds when he rose to head home an Alan Thompson corner.
The goal put Celtic in the driving seat and the rest of the first half was tedious aside from a comic interlude when O'Neill fell over water bottles and took a bow on the strength of it. When Bellamy struck with a deflected shot after 48 minutes it did seem as if his players could collectively follow suit. Cesnauskis thought differently after going on after the break for Robbie Neilson and his goal on the hour set up a competitive 30 minutes.
"I felt we deserved to win," declared the Celtic manager, who had to turn his attention to Bellamy, who has been linked over the weekend to Blackburn Rovers. "A lot of Premiership clubs will want him. He's been excellent and everyone would want him to stay but it's too early to say if we can keep him."
The Newcastle United striker, on loan at Parkhead, is keeping his own counsel although Bellamy did insist he would like to get another hat-trick in the final to follow the one he got against United at Tannadice recently.
Guardian Service
