Celtic players had “tears in their eyes” at half-time revealed Jodie Bartle, before going on to beat Glasgow City 3-2 after extra-time to win the Scottish Women’s Cup.
Bartle was sent off after conceding a penalty in the first half when she collided with Priscilla Chinchilla in the box.
With the score at 2-2 and Celtic a player down, a tearful Bartle gave an impassioned speech at the break to her team-mates, who went on to lift the cup through Izzy Atkinson’s late winner.
“I felt I had to do something,” Bartle told Anyone’s Game.
“I found it very hard to hold back the tears and I just gave a bit of a speech, and the girls were in there with tears in their eyes. It just felt so unfair and I think that put a bit of bite in them as well just to take it to that final whistle.”
Glasgow City fired back twice through Jenna Clark and Lauren Davidson after Shen Mengyu and Charlie Wellings had given Fran Alonso’s side the lead.
Despite being depleted, Celtic went on to win the trophy for the first time in their history, and also complete a domestic cup double having beaten the same opponents in December's SWPL Cup final.
“I don’t even know how to put it into words to be completely honest,” said Bartle.
“It’s such a phenomenal feeling, especially because of the way the game panned out, but in all honesty I think we were the team that had the clearer chances, we created more and I think we just wanted it that bit more.
“I know it took until added extra-time but we just dug deep and got the job done.
“Fran always puts scenarios on us on a Thursday when we do 11-a-side.
“He will put eight of us against 11 players and he will be like ‘you eight need to go and score’ and every single time they go and score because they’ve got the bite and they know how hard they are going to have to work in order to do it.
“I went in at half time and I told them about that scenario and reminded them this happens week in week out and they always come out winner and that’s exactly what they did.”
'Tearful half-time team-talk spurred Celtic on to cup win'