Alright, maybe just mine.
We documented yesterday how our support is becoming a little too self righteous and maybe not recognising the achievements of the current side for what they really are.
Off the field we can be just as bad.
Alright, maybe just me.
But I’m fairly sure that one or two of you are guilty as well.
I’m going to cite two examples..
First, your friend and mine, Joey Barton..
We join the conversation midway through…someone asked the mercurial midfielder if he’d rejoin “rangers ”
Joey Barton Retweeted S A Y E R S Y
I’m currently banned and haven’t trained for a few months. I’d be a little ring rusty. Still be best player up there though.
I think we can safely say that reply was a little tongue in cheek.
To which he received this reply..
I see your still on the glue ya wankstain did u get the kids the new celtic tops
Then the one that caused all the fuss.
Joey Barton Retweeted Michael Johnstone
Careful with the kids and Celtic in the same sentence Michael. Don’t want folk getting the wrong idea again.
Barton was , quite ferociously, accused of making jokes about child abuse.
Now look again.
He refers to “the kids “….which is quite normal when referring to ones own.
And says he doesn’t want folk getting the wrong idea again.
Remember when he bought them Celtic tops ?
After facing a shitstorm of abuse, he tried to explain himself, but there seemed little point. The jury had made its mind up and he was a condemned man.
I don’t want my kids to get accused of supporting Celtic and your tweet is about them getting run over. Celtic fan?
I’m going to go out on a limb here.
Barton wasn’t making jokes about child abuse, but it seems a few of us wanted to see it that way.
I’m no fan of his, but i am a fan of fair play.
Which brings me to my second example, that of the Scottish Football supporters Association.
We are also be delighted to announce a partnership with our friends @TheTwoPointOne who will share much of our research findings
Twopointone are the offshoot of Scope, a failed pay per view venture which has a couple of editors who happily go along with perpetuating the same club myth.
Hence the overreaction…not least from me..
If they don’t get the basics right then it destroys any credibility in anything else they say. Disappointed.
By hitching their wagon to the Twopointone horse, it appeared at first that any credibilty built up by the SFSA in its early days had all but vanished overnight.
But had it ?
I’m fairly clear on what has happened in Scottish football over the last five or six years.
I’ve seen evidence of collusion, evidence of corruption and evidence of complete incompetence.
So have most of you.
As a result of our own certainty in what we proclaim, we can sometimes be tainted with the bampot brush, and viewed as too partisan to be taken seriously, which in itself is somewhat ironic given the agenda behind the mainstream media.
But the SFSA have to be seen as impartial in order to retain and build credibility.
That, on reflection , is why they must take in all views from all angles, in order to present the conclusions that all fans of all clubs must consider.
So, firstly, to anyone from the SFSA reading this, I’m sorry, I jumped to conclusions, and that was wrong, because it puts me in a similar mindset to those who I’ve been arguing with for the last few years, those who are so closed minded that they will not accept another point of view.
The way to clean up our game, now so toxic that only bookmakers are prepared to invest in it, bookmakers who cannot find an outlet anywhere else but Scotland due to a conflict of interest, is to be united.
To put to every supporter all the evidence, all the arguments and all the conclusions so that they can decide if we are right, if our game has been destroyed by those serving only their own interests.
Then, together, we can really move forward, happily trampling over the ashes of what had gone before.
Elsewhere, its Hallowe’en tomorrow night, and Celtic will host Bayern Munich in a game which will have the old heebie jeebies running riot to an extent that if Freddy Kreuger, Michael Myers and Terry hurlock turned up at your door it would serve only to calm you down a bit.
We’ll cover that tomorrow.
I’m off to Bradford shortly to see a man about a dog.
But first, I’d like to extend my congratulations to a man who has , well, become a man ?
College ain’t what it used to be.
Yesterday we asked for your thoughts on this image..
Caption: Lowry struggles with perspective on his ‘men on Forth Bridge’ painting.
today…