Celtic Park plunged into DARKNESS during St Mirren clash as live broadcast cuts out and fans left baffled
CELTIC PARK was plunged into darkness DURING the Hoops’ Premiership clash with St Mirren.
And it led to chaos with the lights going out, broadcasts being CUT and problems with VAR.
Celtic led 2-0 at half-time thanks to strikes from Nicolas Kuhn and Auston Trusty.
But after a somewhat uneventful start to the second half, chaos arrived.
An eyewitness at Celtic Park told SunSport that power went out inside the stadium for around about 10 seconds.
Everything went totally DARK, before a few floodlights flickered back on and then all came back on.
The scoreboards inside Celtic Park also went down.
While the outage didn’t necessarily affect what was going on on the pitch, there were plenty of issues afterwards.
Referee Grant Irvine spoke to both managers, Brendan Rodgers and Stephen Robinson, with the power outage causing problems with communicating with VAR back at Clydesdale House.
On BBC Radio Scotland, commentator Alistair Lamont had no idea if he was even still on air!
After the lights went out, he told listeners: “Wow. Power cut momentarily at Celtic Park. actually no idea if you’re still with us.
“I’ll keep talking just in case – every single light at Celtic Park went out there! I’m not sure if we’re still on air, I’ve never witnessed anything like this! It is a big power cut!”
BBC reporter Andy Burke added: “For a few seconds Celtic Park is plunged into almost complete darkness as the floodlights cut out!
“A few gasps from the crowd followed by an ironic cheer as the lights come back to life a few seconds later.”
The incident also saw Celtic TV plunged into darkness.
The club’s channel was showing live coverage of the match for UK viewers via PPV, as well as its usual coverage for overseas viewers.
But fans trying to watch were met, for around ten minutes, with a green screen or nothing at all.
St Mirren TV was showing a test card during the chaos.
Fans watching on at home were left confused and totally unaware what was going on at the stadium.
One posted: “Celtic TV? Did you pull a plug out?”
A second said: “Anyone’s Celtic TV playing up?”
A third posted: “Celtic TV down. Nobody seeing anything.”
A fourth said: “Celtic TV PPV only a green screen. Get it sorted!”
Other fans, within the stadium, rushed to clarify what was going on.
One said: “If your Celtic TV went down, they had a power cut at Parkhead.”
When the pictures came back, they weren’t of great quality with punters still struggling to actually make out what was going on.
The pictures eventually resumed their full, intended quality after a period of time.
VAR, too, returned and was operational for the last 20 minutes of the game.
The BBC radio commentary briefly cut out with Sportsound Extra forced to switch to their Open All Mics feed but this too was quickly sorted after a matter of seconds.
The power cut appeared to affect wider areas of Glasgow’s East End, with the Celtic stadium announcer warning fans leaving the stadium of poor street lighting in the area.
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