Fireworks were going off outside Celtic Park every 30 seconds before kick-off on Bonfire Night as Besiktas fans were marched in from the Merchant City and packed into the away end. The scene around Glasgow was already loud before the match had even begun, with about 30 police vans lined up outside the stadium.
Thomas Duncan, writing from Celtic Park for Sport Scotland, captured the moment as visiting supporters made a huge noise on arrival and some Besiktas fans confronted officers in Glasgow city centre last night. The police presence was not subtle either: some of the vans came from England, underlining how big the operation was around a game that had clearly been treated as high-risk from the start.
That is why the search for Celtic Vs Beşiktaş is not just about what happened on the pitch. The pre-match scene became the story because the control of the away support, the fireworks outside the ground and the sight of officers in large numbers gave the night a mood of containment rather than routine football. By about 18:30, the visiting fans were already in place, which meant the heavy lifting had been done before the teams emerged.
There was still another thread running through the coverage, and it was a strange one: Brighton were playing tonight, third in the Premier League, yet Sport Scotland was following Scottish football instead. That sense of split attention sat alongside the live report from Celtic Park, where the crowd noise and the security presence were the headline acts before the football itself had even had time to answer any questions.
The open question is the one the pre-match noise leaves behind: how Celtic handled the game itself once the fireworks stopped and the stands settled. The live update confirms the mood, the policing and the movement of supporters, but it does not yet settle the result, which is the part most readers will want next.
