Celtic Diary Thursday July 20: Frustration At Supporters Grows

Celtic earned a place in the third qualifying round of the Champions League with a 4-0 win over Linfield in Glasgow last night.

Scott Sinclair grabbed a couple more, causing squeals of anguish among the visiting support not heard since Jesse Owens won the gold in the 100 metres in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

Tom Rogic and Stuart Armstrong got their names on the score sheet, Armstrong having replaced new man Ntcham on the night, but you get the feeling thats not how it will pan out in the future.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

There was a quiet satisfaction about Sinclair grabbing his second and third goals of the tie. The abhorrent displays of racism shown towards him on that Belfast bonfire have no place in football, or anywhere else for that matter, and if he  muttered a below breath “fuck you ” towards the south east corner of the stadium, then I, for one, applaud him.

Takes a lot of character to perform against that kind of hatred, and Sinclair took it all in his stride.

Top man.

The players as a whole looked anything between three and six weeks sharper than they did this time last year, and although Linfield weren;t a great side, it could be argued that a higher level of concentration and effort was required due to the sideshow of religion, race and political history between the two clubs. Or at least a percieved history between the two clubs.

On the one hand, over in Belfast, Linfield had their issues with what they consider to be their culture, and then last night we had those brave boys in the Green Brigade waving their banners.

Yet again, they decide that its appropriate to remember that Celtic were formed from IRA volunteers shortly after they arrived in Scotland , after the famine, to improve fitness and discipline in time for the 1916 rising, and the subsequent civil war.

At least, thats what they would seem to think.

And before you start whining about freedom fighters versus terrorists, or it was just a picture of a foot soldier, and we’re all in Brendans army, and all that nonsense, ask yourself this..

Rodgers, like Neil Lennon before him, were directly involved in the Troubles, they grew up with troops on the streets, with punishment beatings and car bombs.

Like everyone else over the water, they maybe don’t want to see any of it glorified.

There’s a time and a place for dignified and respectful memorials of those who fought for what they believed in.

It isn’t on a wet Wednesday in Glasgow to wind up the opposition supporters at a football match.

Which incidentally, will end up with more fines, and possibly even more severe sanctions.

There is no excuse for it.

There is no reason for it.

The press are already referring to it as a paramilitary banner…

Ah, you know what, I’m not even going to reproduce them.

Be honest, thats exactly the impression the GB were trying to make. Now the press can harp on about it for days, the authorities can condemn us, and all because some supporters wanted to wind some other supporters up whilst trivialising one of the most horrific periods in Irelands history.

So, to the Green ( as in naive, childish, immature ) Brigade, give it a rest.

Its not big and its not clever.

And frankly, I don’t give a toss what the fans of other clubs do, its what our fans do that matters, and how they do it.

We can now look forward to a tie against Rosenborg, who will provide not only a much sterner test for the players, but a difficult problem for the GB, as none of them have worked out exactly how they can depict the Viking invasions of Dublin and Wexford on a banner.

What they could have done was highlight the problems of corruption and collusion in the Scottish game, draw attention to the issues we have with our own FA on the very same day that the Spanish police shut down the Spanish Fa’s IT systems, causing a delay to the start of the La Liga season.

In fact, there are a number of things they could have done, maybe a number of things they should have done, and indeed, a number of things they will go on to do.

But last night, they made themselves look ridiculous.

Lets leave that to others, shall we ?

Brendan Rodgers took time after the game to visit the away dressing room and shake the hand of everyone in there.

Thats how things are when you’re all grown up.

Back at the ranch, the ,manager was pleased with the result and performance..

 “It was a very good win for us,”

“Some of our football at this stage of the season was very good. The fitness of players will have gained an extra notch forward in terms of this moment in pre-season as well.

“Our positioning in the first half was very good in order to get through Linfield. We had good width in the game and numbers inside their shape.

“Our only disappointment was we didn’t score more in the first half.  We were a bit wasteful, but sometimes that happens at this time of the season when the players don’t quite have their eye in.

“In the second half, we talked about having a little bit more movement without the ball, so still playing in our positions but being a bit more dynamic in our movement. We tweaked a couple of players in positional play and, really, our intensity wore them down in the end.

“I was very pleased. We tried a different shape and structure tonight and it worked very well for us.”

Olivier came in and we wanted to get him game-time as he has only been in a week-and-a-half,”

“He got his first hour at the weekend and just over an hour tonight. You can see his qualities, and once he gets up to speed and gets those relationships with the players he plays with, he’s going to be a great asset for us with his power and his passing ability.

“Young Beni is full of enthusiasm. He is bright and deliberate in his play and he wants to get forward and get in the box. It was just to give him a feel for playing at Celtic Park.

“As a team, it was nice for Stuart Armstrong to come in and finish well. Scotty (Sinclair) was back scoring again. He wasn’t happy last week his goal wasn’t maybe given to him so he wanted to get his goals tonight, and Tom Rogic’s was a fantastic finish. If it wasn’t for Roy Carroll, then the scoreline over the two legs would have been much worse.” 

Oh wait, he said Roy Carroll.

After three games in five days, the players and staff will have an hour or two to themselves now, as the next game isn’t until next Wednesday when old foes Rosenborg sail up the Clyde, a-raping and a-looting and a-pillaging just like their ancestors did.

Its not going to be easy, and theres a lot of work to be done between now and then.

But we can be confident. Or optimistic, at least until the day of the came when the bowels star to loosen as the Champions league roller coaster begins its journey for real.

Elsewhere, good luck to the SFSA, who are at Holyrood today, as the campaign to clean up scottish football cranks up another notch..

In entirely unrelated news, Peter Lawwell has decided not to stand for re election to the SPFL board…

Well done to Wisnae Me, who correctly predicted both the first and second leg scores.

We’ll be in touch about the prize money, if you could let us know your chosen charity.

And thanks to Rob for providing that prize money.

Yesterday, the replies seemed to descend a little below the standards expected of adults.

We don’t do racism, sexism, sectarianism, homophobia, threats  or paramilitaryism.

We do humour.

Sometimes we don’t get a chance to read through all the comments until a day or so later, and it would be nice if we could trust you not to regress to childhood while we’re busy earning a crust, or drinking ourselves senseless.

The caption competition yesterday..