Celtic Diary Saturday January 9: The Alternative Reality

With the coronavirus making a major comeback throughout the land, largely because it felt a bit miffed that people were ignoring it, there is now a realistic chance that football could once again be stopped, the season called, and “rnagers ” will win their first ever trophy, without actually completing the tournament, which was something that they said shouldn;t be allowed when Celtic won their ninth successive title.

Call it a hullaballoo, a palaver or even the third tier crisis, a “to do ” , but its looking more and more likely as the days pass by.

Since the late summer, I’ve noticed that there has been an increase in ambulance traffic going past my window, largely because Charley the dog howls in unison with the siren, but now she’s taken to running up to me and pointing her paw at the much more infrequent passing of a regular car.

Of course, those who deny Covid , and reality, will explain that its simply the same ambulance going round the block to justify overtime payments and create panic among 5G users who point out on Facebook that someone is watching them…

Nicola Sturgeon has already had a bit of a moan at Celtic, and football , when she wondered aloud why football players could go on a jolly while she, and millions of others, were stuck at home , forced to watch Mrs Browns boys and Michael McIntyres Big Wheel, which sadly wasn’t on a truck and didn’t run over him.

However, the BBC should be aware that a reality TV show where the “comedian ” is chased by a truck, remotely controlled by a lucky viewer, would be a ratings winner.

And no one would complain if it was repeated every night.

The grossly misjudged jaunt to Dubai has drawn attention to the fact that in their little bubble of socially and reality, footballers are beginning to look like, for want of a better phrase, they are taking the piss.

And Sturgeon, who hates football and football fans, is poised to strike.

That would mean either a suspension of the season, which is how it started last time round, or a complete cessation. Which is how it ended up last time.

We’re halfway through the season, although Celtic haven’t played half of their games yet, because they stubbornly refused to pay the train fare for last weeks opponents to join them in Dubai, so there probably are grounds for the club to argue that the title shouldn’t be awarded to their Ibrox chums, but because it would mean standing up for themselves, they won’t.

Company policy is to bend over and allow oneself to be violated .

A precedent of a kind was set last season, but there was only about an hour of football left to play, and Celtic were far enough ahead by then that “rangers ” required two snookers and a major insolvency event to overtake their business partners, which weren’t going to happen.

This time around, despite the piss poor form of both management and players at Celtic, there is still too much football to be played to conclude that “rangers ” are worthy champions, and no agreement, somewhat shortsightedly, was put in place between clubs and the authorities about what to do when the plague put a stop to society again.

So, if the season is stopped, a plan will be needed that suits Celtic and “rangers “. As we know, the authorities don’t give a toss about the other clubs, and the other clubs chairmen don’t give a toss about anything as long as they can get the green pound and the blue pound. Just to clarify, the green pound is money via Celtic, the blue pound is money via “rangers”.

Thats not the same as the orange pound, which is what “rangers ” get from their own support.

The New Old Firm care only about supporting each other through this terrible time, and whist pretending not to like each other, they stoke the “rivalry ” between the new club and Celtic exactly the same way they did with the old one.

Hatred sells, and what better way to keep all that going by allowing “rangers ” to enrage Celtic fans by claiming 54 titles from their old club and adding it to one awarded -in the same way Celtic got their second nine in a row- to the new club and claiming it’s 55….?

Lets face it, given the value for money a season book this year presented, they really will need something special to shift the seats at Celtic Park next time round, whenever that may be.

And thats where the solution lies.

Last season and this season must be declared unofficial tournaments…taken from the record books.

Teams can keep the trophies and the prize monies, and even qualify for Europe on the basis of current league positions, as long as they meet all the financial fair play rules, and arent under investigation for say, purchasing a stadium fraudulently for way, way below it’s value, when as one of the assets it should have been sold for its true value and the money given to creditors.

May 24, I believe, that one is in the courtroom.

That would leave Celtic on eight in a row, and needing the next league title to secure nine.

Which would then become the final piece of a quadruple treble, as cups can’t really be given back, they were won on the pitch and so on. and it would create a fixture nightmare if they had to be replayed, but a league season can be started when its safe for crowds to come back.

In the meantime, clubs will just have to find other ways to keep the lights on.

There are signs that Celtic, certainly, are aware of this. The only serious move in a transfer window that has been open for a week is to consider the return, on loan, of Filip Donkeyvic, in an attempt to make previous loannee Shane Duffy look quite good.

In fact, Lennon has even been to Leicester, undercover and whipped the centre back from their training ground….

Still, there is some reassuring news re the plague…..

Meanwhile, it’s time for the return of an old friend, the Etims

Knob of the Week 

This week, we saw Donald Trump finally reveal his true colours when he ordered the Proud Boys to storm the Whitehouse, preferable while he was out.

This week, we saw Sadiq Khan declare a major incident in London, as the plague spiralled out of control, whilst forgetting it was he who demanded London remained in tier 2 restrictions so they could all carry on as normal as possible for Christmas.

This week, we saw Boris Johnson fuck up yet another national emergency with his world beating incompetence.

All serious stuff, but this is Knob of the Week, and thise people are callous bastards.

This guy is a knob.

He wants to help football clubs, but was strangely less interested in helping to feed hungry children during a major global crisis, abstaining from that vote because…

“I wasn’t in Westminster on Wednesday as I had long-standing commitments in Scotland to fulfil so did not vote on this. But this was a vote that applied to England only. 

Perhaps the Standards Commission at Westminster would care to examine his clear conflict of interests as a well paid football official… if not actually a very good one.

The Diary may well return more regularly as work patterns have changed, so hopefully at least one vestige of normality will return to my life.

So lets start a new caption competition…. I took this photo myself the other week when i had an uneasy feeling of being watched when I was sorting some parcels out in the van…