Celtic Diary Tuesday May 25: On Simpler And Happier Times

As the Beatles sang…sort of …

“It was fifty four years ago today 

  Stein showed the world how to play 

 It had been going out of style for years 

 Now its guaranteed to raise the cheers ”   

Back then, football was a simple game. Barely even an industry. Some lads from Glasgow and Saltcoats got together under an astute manager and changed the way football was played. The dutch picked up on it, and called it total football.

Then money fucked it all up.

to the extent today where the pinnacle of club football, the Big Cup, is stretched out over hundreds of games and divvied up between thousands of sponsors , shown on incalculable tv channels and for what ?

So that an oil tycoon can play another oil tycoon in the final of whats more or less one of those computer games where you fix it so you’ve got unlimited transfer fees.

At least, I think the two clubs are linked to oil. I can’t be arsed checking.

So pardon me if I wallow for a moment in the innocence of 67, when football was worth writing songs about. When players were idoloised for their skill with a ball and dedication to their craft, and of course, a measure of loyalty to the shirt.

(Fuck me, I wish this miserable bastard had stayed asleep -Ed )

Thats a reference to my little break from work, a few days of sitting around with my own thoughts, interrupted only by the occasional nap and a game of football with the dogs.

And there is a lot to think about.

In the fair city of glasgow, scribes are hell bent on making sure the world is aware that it’s sectarianism thats causing all the hullaballoo.

After all, had Celtic clinched ten in a row, it would have been a tarrierfest on George Square with terrorist anthems filling the air as supporters chucked blue bins, attacked the police and their blue uniforms and wrecked fruit shops galore in their pursuit of oranges to desecrate.

We’re just two cheeks of the same arse, you see. The ugly sisters of Scottish football. If we were to see ourselves as ithers see us, in the words of the less talented Burns.

That seems to be the accepted argument, the one that is thrown out every time it’s pointed out that it is only “rangers ” fans who cause the bother, who seem incapable of celebration but excel at destruction.

Try that in court next time you’re up for speeding or something…your honour, i was only doing what everyone else would have done under the circumstances.

Then watch your fine double….

Curiously , one or two, including the minister for Justice, Humza Yousaf, who risked unpopularity among peepil who weren’t going to vote for him anyway when he mentioned that “strict liability ” for clubs whose fans misbehaved, or indulged in racist behaviour, as its now finally being recognised as, was “on the table “.

Strcit liability has long been the basis for punishment of these sort of crimes with UEFA , and that has resulted in stand closures for the Ibrox club a couple of times, and it takes no great leap of intuition to work out why they don’t want to go down that route.

UEFA have identified the offensive tunes….

…though of course, the SFA beg to differ…..

Yousaf had also upset the hordes when he said that “if ”

With no sponsor in place for the league season, and tv deals that would be wirth more to clubs if they paid someone to stream them on their phones, again, it doesn’t take a great leap to work out why.

The behaviour of the hordes, often played down by the media in Scotland, reached a wider audience the other weekend, and that means that even in a game where corruption and racism is rife, attention has been turned toward Glasgow.

The police have been remarkably , if not unexpectedly , slow in making arrests and issuing charge sheets to the perpetrators, even if anonymous sources have given them a few pointers as to where to find the culprits…

Then again, at least one member of her majesties finest has already been charged as an offender, and presumably the police presence wasn’t as effective as it could have been due to a large number of them either booking the day off or phoning in sick.

Yet they won’t admit any sort of fault, and subsequently tweeted that most were happy with them…

It would be unfair not to mention one or two articles in the media that have called it what it is…anti Irish racism, and the authors deserve praise for belatedly noting that.

However, the fightback continues, and tonight there’s a documentary about Mark Walters, who was the victim of racism when at the original Rangers a few decades back.

Presumably the ones about Paul Wilson before him, and Scott Sinclair after him, are still in production.

Don’t get me wrong, all racism , all bigotry and any other form of discriminiation is wrong.

But so is using it as a leveller to excuse the behaviour of a not insignificant section of society.

Perhaps even more so, and as we move into a new season, is it too much to hope for a new beginning, a new way of thinking and a new way of actually eliminating this problem, or has the cancer gained too much of a foothold to be cut out ?

Or is the problem that the surgeons reckon its worth more money to them to just keep treating it every so often ?

On a lighter note, this week should see Eddie Howe and his crew take up the reins at Celtic…..though until the club specifically amnd publicly cut the cord from their ugly sister you have to wonder why.

Scottish football is at exactly the same defining moment as Celtic, and both of them know exactly what they have to do to move forward.

But the pull of the past is still strong, and unfortunately there’s money in nostalgia.

And not thise simpler , happier times when football was about footballers, and not people making money on the back of a hatred that should have been consigned to the past in the way ultra defensive football was banished one night fifty four years ago….