Celtic captain Scott Brown joked that he left Belfast in profit last night after raking in the coins that were thrown at the Parkhead players during the 2-0 win over Linfield.

Goals from Scott Sinclair and Tom Rogic gave Celtic a comfortable lead to take into Wednesday night’s second leg of their second round Champions League qualifier, but it was the coins and bottles thrown onto the pitch that caused the biggest flashpoints.

Leigh Griffiths was pelted with missiles whenever he went to take a corner, with one incident just after the hour mark sparking ugly scenes between the Linfield support and the Belfast police. Bizarrely, Griffith was booked as he appealed to the referee as a bottle of Buckfast was thrown but Brown, though, maintained that the Celtic players were unperturbed by the flashpoints.

“I didn’t get hit but I found a pound coin - so I came away making a profit!” joked Brown. “We don’t worry about the other stuff. We just concentrate on what happens on the park.

“It’s football, these things happen. We’ve been to Ibrox and Tynecastle and it’s like that all of the time. It’s part and parcel of football.

“That was a weird booking. He was having bottles and coins thrown at him. But you have to take that stuff on the chin and deal with it. We know when we get back to Celtic Park we have a bigger pitch and our fans behind us.

“I never asked Leigh about the booking. It was a 45-yard run away and I don’t make those kind of runs.

“You need to use a bit of common-sense sometimes but maybe the referee didn’t see it. Leigh was fine at the end.”

In terms of the football itself, Brown was satisfied with a decent lead to take into the return leg next week at Celtic Park.

The Parkhead side will host Linfield on Wednesday night knowing that either Dundalk or Rosenborg await in the next round.

“We’ll be fine,” said brown. “It’s still pre-season for us and this was our first main game. We managed to come away with the win and we’ll now go back to Celtic Park. It was alright. It wasn’t too bad. I’ve seen a lot worse.

“We got the two goals and did what we needed to do. They sat very deep and tried to make it hard for us. But we got a couple of early goals and that really helped.

“Everyone is positive going back to Celtic Park. It’s our first home game of the season in front of our fans and it will be good for us.”

There were a few hundred Celtic fans in attendance last night, with Linfield announcing yesterday afternoon that they would open an area for them, despite the Parkhead club not accepting their ticket allocation for the game.

“I was delighted to see our fans here as well,” said Brown. “They were advised to stay away but they still came. It was great they did. The Celtic fans are fantastic. They follow us wherever we go and we knew they’d come here.”