The greatest headline of all time is now old enough to drink in pubs

Creating a great newspaper headline is a very subtle art.

As we know, puns are the highest possible form of humour, but there are still good puns and bad puns. Especially when it comes to football.

We’ve been over some of the worst kinds before, and they mostly involve Wayne Rooney (using ‘Roo’ as the crux of the pun, or José Mourinho (as above, but with the even more crowbarred ‘Mou’).

However, when a good one comes along, it can be really good.

On 8 February, 2000 – the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that’s 18 years ago today – Celtic had one of their worst games in a long time.

Having missed out on the Scottish title to Rangers the previous season, they were already ten points behind in their quest to bounce back, meaning the Cup was likely their best chance of a trophy.

Their third-round game against second-tier Inverness Caledonian Thistle should have been a walk in the park, but Caley shocked their hosts with goals from Barry Wilson, Paul Sheerin and a Lubo Moravcik own goal.

The visitors ran riot against an under-par Celtic, and it would have been easy to just focus on the struggles of the Glasgow side with a very serious back page.

Not The Sun, though. They dreamt big… very big.

We’re not usually in the practice of praising The Sun, but for this, we have to make an exception - even if it may be a homage to an earlier Liverpool Echo headline about Ian ‘Cally’ Callaghan.

Broken down into its core components, there’s nothing to suggest the headline should work.

As you could probably have told us, the crossover between musicals and professional football isn’t exactly huge. Could you imagine a paper today referencing Les Miserables or even Hamilton (the musical, not the other Scottish football team)? No, no you couldn’t.

Were they worried about the open goal of people responding that the sound of the headline was something quite atrocious? Still no.

So, next time you read your fifth lazy ‘Mou’ or ‘Roo’ headline of the week, just remember… it doesn’t need to be this way. You deserve better.

We hope Super Caley are celebrating by heading down to the pub, where they are now legally allowed to go ballistic.

(Images: Rex)