Stephen Welsh
Defender Stephen Welsh became a mainstay for the Celtic Development and Reserve sides after moving up from the Under-17s in the summer of 2017.
The defender steadily progressed through the ranks at the Celtic Academy and was building up his first-team experience in a season-long loan spell at Morton during the 2019/20 campaign before being recalled in January 2020.
Stephen then went on to make his first-team debut in a 4-1 win over Hamilton Accies in February 2020 in a match when the Celts came from a goal behind, with a flurry of late goals helping them to secure three points in a vital match towards securing nine-in-a-row.
He registered his first Celtic goal when he opened the scoring after only two minutes in a 2-1 win over Motherwell in February 2021 and he also only took 3 minutes to open the scoring for Celtic’s 2022-23 league campaign, finding the net against Aberdeen on 31 July 2022 in a 2–0 home win.
Welsh really came to the fore as the midpoint of season 2020/21 approached and he played in 21 games over the course of the rest of the term.
Since then he has been part of the recent squads who have won the treble in 2022/23, and the Scottish Cup & League championship in 2023/24.
Due to injury, the centre half was restricted to a smaller number of appearances during the 2023/24 season, with one of them including him facing off against his cousin Josh Peters for Buckie Thistle in the Scottish Cup.
As a lifelong Celtic fan, the youngster admits he’s living the dream and said he’ll do everything he can, on and off the pitch, to keep himself in the manager’s plans.
COUNTRY BHOY
His consistent performances at club level have been rewarded with international recognition at various age levels for the Scotland national side.
His most recent appearance for the under-21s came in June 2022 for a UEFA European Under-21 Championship qualifying match against Denmark which finished 1-1.
