Stan's The Man

Stiliyan Petrov was one of the stars of the first years of the Millennium for Celtic and here we revisit one of his early interviews with the Celtic View

AT the end of July, 1999, Celtic, with John Barnes and Kenny Dalglish recently taking over the reins, signed a midfielder from Bulgarian side CSKA Sofia.

He came in as a big-money signing, but having just turned 20-years-old earlier that month, he was still young enough to play for the youth side in that season’s Glasgow Cup.

The youngster, who had already lifted the Bulgarian championship once and their national cup twice as a teenager, as well as making his international debut, was clearly destined for greater things than the much-vaunted youth trophy.

Stiliyan Petrov, was clearly signed as a first-team player and, although his progress was initially hampered, he went on to become a mainstay of Martin O’Neill’s vision for Celtic as the club truly came out of the shadow to wrest the ascendancy from the other side of the city.

By the time he moved down south to Aston Villa seven years later in 2006, Petrov had scored 65 goals in 309 appearances for the Hoops and played his part in four titles, three Scottish Cups and three League Cups, as well as the march to Seville.

In 2012, though, Stiliyan Petrov faced the battle of his life when he was diagnosed with leukaemia – it was a battle he won handsomely.

A crowd of 60,000 packed Paradise on September 8, 2013 for the #19 Legends’ Charity Match as a Celtic XI took on a Stiliyan XI to raise money for leukaemia sufferers, and a much fitter Stliliyan returned on the same date in 2018 for the A Match For Cancer charity game when a Stan Petrov XI took on a James Milner XI.

Here we take a look back at an interview from February 2001, when Stan was still quite happy for his name to be spelled ‘Stilian’ and when Paulina, his now wife and mother of his two children, was just his girlfriend who would come over and visit sometimes.