Leigh Griffiths thanks Willie Collum for not booking him

Leigh Griffiths thanked match official Willie Collum for not booking the Celtic striker as he celebrated his 40th goal of the season.

Celtic's Leigh Griffiths celebrates scoring his 40th goal of the season with his son. Picture: SNS

After netting in the champions’ 2-1 defeat at St Johnstone, Griffiths went to the crowd and pulled out his five-year-old son Rhys to join in his celebrations.

St Johnstone quickly equalised through Steven MacLean and went on to win the match as Graeme Cummins’ grabbed a late winner, taking a little of the gloss off Griffiths’ achievement in becoming the first Celtic player since Henrik Larsson in 2004 to score 40 goals in a season.

But the striker rightly savoured the moment regardless and was grateful to referee Willie Collum for ignoring the rule book.

“I don’t normally thank refs but I will thank Willie this time,” smiled Griffiths. “If you speak to a ref nicely, he will let you away with one or two. He could have booked me for taking my wee boy out onto the ash track behind the goal but said he wasn’t going to.

“Getting to 40 goals has been on my mind. I’d spoken to Rhys during the warm-up and asked him how many I’d score tonight. He said ‘two’. I said I’d settle for one and he said ‘Ok’, so I wanted to share the moment with him.

“To get mentioned in the same breath as some of the players who have scored 40 goals in a season for Celtic is something I will cherish. My name will go down in the history books now.”

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