{"id":452202,"date":"2026-05-16T16:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452202\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T16:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:43:09","slug":"dejected-hearts-leave-celtic-park-in-their-playing-kits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452202\/","title":{"rendered":"Dejected Hearts leave Celtic Park in their playing kits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hearts made a hasty exit from Celtic Park after their Scottish Premiership dream ended in acrimonious fashion.<\/p>\n

The players had to be escorted off the pitch as thousands of Celtic fans spilled on to the playing area immediately after Callum Osmand made it 3-1 deep into stoppage time of their title decider.<\/p>\n

Some confronted the crestfallen Jambos, who were called down the tunnel by club officials concerned for their safety. The match, which was approaching the end of the indicated eight minutes of added time, did not restart.<\/p>\n

With Celtic\u2019s players and supporters still inside the ground waiting to lift the trophy, the Hearts team bus left Parkhead with players still in their match kits within 20 minutes of the full-time whistle and did not carry out their post-match media duties.<\/p>\n

\"HEARTBREAK:HEARTBREAK: Heart of Midlothian fans sit dejected outside a bar in Edinburgh showing the Scottish Premier League championship decider against Celtic. Pic: Jane Barlow\/PA Wire.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Celtic captain Callum McGregor praised the mentality of everyone at the club after beating Hearts 3-1 to retain their Premiership title.<\/p>\n

Hearts \u2013 having been top all the way since late September \u2013 arrived at a partisan Celtic Park knowing they only needed a draw to claim the top-flight title for the first time since 1960.<\/p>\n

Celtic, though, came from behind through late goals by Daizen Maeda and substitute Callum Osmand to shatter Hearts\u2019 own dreams and deliver a fifth successive championship, which earlier in the campaign had looked well out of reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time ever, I am speechless,\u201d McGregor said on Sky Sports. \u201cYou can see what this means to everyone, to the group of players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow, what a season. (We were) down and out, everyone wrote us off.<\/p>\n

\"PITCHPITCH PERFECT: Celtic fans celebrate their side’s victory over Heart of Midlothian following the William Hill Premiership match at Celtic Park, Glasgow. Pic:\u00a0Andrew Milligan\/PA Wire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only because of what is inside this building that you can go and make special things happen and that is what we have done.\u201d McGregor added: \u201cWe knew we would get a chance for sure, this is the way this group is, they just keep going and going.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a special, special group of people \u2013 magical.\u201d Celtic boss Martin O\u2019Neill \u2013 who had been brought back for another interim spell in charge after the Wilfried Nancy\u2019s forgettable tenure \u2013 admitted he had been taken aback by the club\u2019s turnaround.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever in my wildest dreams did I think that I could experience those lads up there (lifting the trophy)\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players, the coaching staff have given me a reason to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most special place on earth. When there is absolute unison in this stadium, it is a sight to behold.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearts made a hasty exit from Celtic Park after their Scottish Premiership dream ended in acrimonious fashion. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1113,42,2539,5782,43,5783,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-452202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fai","tag-headlines","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-local-soccer","tag-news","tag-premiership","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}