Celtic Diary Wednesday May 26: Only Some Excuses

The Celtic Trust had an idea a while ago, which involved issuing a few shares to those supporters who had backed the club with season book purchases as a kind of thank you.

Part of the  reply they received shows that the board still don’t quite grasp how much they’ve grown apart from the support.

There are radio shows that cover the games, and there are plenty of streams out there that cost a lot less than the price of a season book.

Better quality as well.

Sooner or later the line will be crossed, and supporters will quietly and without fuss, stop spending their money. There is, to coin a phrase, only so much piss you can take.

Part of the problem lies not only in the boards unwillingness to realise that money can be spent elsewhere, but also that any consumer expects something in return.

Fair enough, only the most optimistic would have expected to see a game last season, but football is about hopes and dreams, and so books were bought out of habit, and out of a belief that things would be back to normal sooner rather than later.

Of course, for a variety of reasons , that didn’t happen, and with a light appearing at the end of the tunnel now, although optimism should be cautious, perhaps they are banking on our desire to see the football as a representation that all of this is over as a selling point.

They’d probably be right, but what they have forgotten is that once the grounds are open again, their own failings will be addressed in person, rather than on the web, and they can;t ignore 55 000 people calling for their heads.

The board haven’t considered their core customer for a while, evidenced in their desire to over look the ongoing fraud on the other side of the city, which is a continuance of the policy adopted when the five way agreement more or less absolved anyone who had been at Ibrox, was at ibrox or was planning to invest in Ibrox , of any guilt or repercussions from years of cheating.

That has already cost them millions, although one could argue that a new club with no ties to the old one playing out of Ibrox..or wherever as the stadium should have been sold to pay off creditors….would not have reached a high level quicker.

Instead, the board’s quiet acceptance of the new lot has led to an awful lot of old prejudices rising to the surface, as we are seeing  with  the reaction to the George Square riots and  the video of their players doing the rounds.

So much so, in fact, that in what isn;t the first of a series of programmes about racism in football being aired last night by the BBC, featuring Mark Walters, who suffered unacceptable abuse from Celtic fans in 1988, which centred around the colour of his skin.

The documentary went on to explain that football has moved on since then, well, it would have had it not been the case that football hasn’t moved on since then.

Well, most of it has.

There isn’t a Celtic fan I know who isn’t ashamed of what happened, and I’m struggling to think of any other examples of this kind of behaviour since.

We’ve accepted our collective guilt, and dealt with it.

However, its fair to say thats a lot easier when you’re not trying to sell a club/culture /tradition that is based on hatred, and thats why the BBC won’t be producing a series that highlights the trials and tribulations of Irish catholic Neil Lennon, or the abuse of Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair, all within the last few years, and historic abuse, such as that endured by Paul Wilson and Paul Elliot is just airbrushed out.

And noticeably, there was no mention of any other racism anywhere else in Scottish football in the eighties, though I have a clear recollection of abuse from Scottish fans toward black English players at Hampden in 1984.

Two sides of the same coin…. until we tell them we’re not, in no uncertain terms, they will always sell the idea we are.

Which suits the marketing models at Ibrox and Celtic Park, and I’m sorry to say, guilt can be accrued by association as well, something our board should consider , and when it talks about added value, perhaps we should start by seeking added value for our money in their actions, starting with a public disassociation with all things Ibrox.

We are aware that Lawwell, in particular, did defend our club, but for whatever reason didn’t do it loud enough or often enough.

McKay must not make the same mistake.

And he must certainly condemn the words of Ian Maxwell, the SFA chief who suddenly discovered his voice when he said that those involved at George Square weren’t football fans, carefully avoiding the use of the word Rangers , even though they wore “rangers “tops, scarves hats and that ugly facial experession that suggests interbreeding.

If McKay wants to start as he means to go on, then the SFA need to be slapped down, and so do the media.

He is now the guardian of our club, its public face, and abive all our representative on public forums.

If he doesn’t bear that in mind, he’ll soon be wishing for those days in rugbyland where communal bathing and singing about virgins from Inverness was all he had to think about.

Reaction to the BBc programme was fairly predictable.

This guy is an MSP, and as is typical of many , many politicians, seems to have a selective memory….

Similar to the warm welcome extended to Maurice Johnston….a catholic.

Mind you, most of that was me in a Rangers top.  i still have bad skin to this day.

Walters was subsequently pictured in a loyalist flute band uniform, and filmed singing anti catholic songs.

Thats actually forgivable, even Alex Ferguson is on record as saying that he should have told a Rangers director to fuck off when they asked about his marriage to a catholic.

They got sucked into the environment, infected by the virus. It’s the environment thats the problem, those caught up are the victims.

It’s even forgivable for Walters to bring it up, in fact he should be commended. It was an abhorrent spectacle that ultimately led a lot of people to look inwards on themselves and question their behaviour.

And deal with it.

The real issue is with  organisations such as the BBC and other outlets, as well as politicians using it to deny the real problem in Scotland and exactly where it lies.

The beast  that came back when society failed to clean out its lair …..and now its being given the oxygen and food to grow and multiply.

A conspiracy theorist would think that the Empire is working on its divide and conquer policy again, with independence for Scotland back on the horizon.

And they might have a point.

But for now, the problem can only be addressed for what it is, a breakdown of law and order in difficult times that is being permitted by those who should be condemning and stopping it.