Thought For Today

In the first of an infrequent series, Pensionerbhoy offers us his meanderings on the current issue of competition-or lack of it. If you have any thoughts on any other current issues, feel free to put them into words and send them to us at the usual address.

DO CELTIC NEED A LOWER DIVISION TEAM FOR COMPETITION?

I read recently that the Daily Toilet Roll did a survey to see if Celtic fans wanted a team THEY call “Rangers” – they obviously forgotten to put in a prefix or suffix – to provide better competition. I am not sure what the outcome is or was as I did not want shit all over my fingers by going anywhere near the arse cleaning material and the crap that is always on it. I started to get anal rashes from this paper many, many years ago and for the sake of my health and sanity replaced it with Andrex Soft Wipe. She is so delicate and gentle you would hardly know she is touching you.

Anyway, toilet humour aside – well I was pissing myself when I read it. I was intrigued that anyone would even think of such a survey given there are teams already in the Scottish Premiership that actually have long histories and decent players who are capable of providing much better competition and more entertaining football as proven by some of our results this season. And one hardly needs mention the League Cup final contested by two teams well outside Glasgow. Most fans travelled from the furthest points in the SPFL map and yet, 50 plus thousand turned up. All right, the game might not have been the greatest display of technical prowess but the excitement and atmosphere resembled, if not compared to, some of the best experienced at Celtic Park. Part of the problem with baby teams, or made-up teams more like, especially in the lower divisions, is they either have no well groomed grown ups to play for them or they overspend on rejects needing crutches or or endowed with extended elbows. In addition, they are usually managed by an animal lover, perfectly happy to be in any cage looking out rather than on the outside looking in. That way he can be overfed for doing nothing, receive undue attention from onlookers and the media and accumulate a fortune from the penny shares thrown at him by his unscrupulous superiors and from the meaty provisions of duped zoo lovers. Why any team worth its salt would prefer that challenge to some honest competition is beyond me.

Furthermore, why would a club that has been cheated of significant financial rewards and trophies wish to compete against a scrapheap club run by the same kind of people who had defrauded it? Why would a club welcome any kind of connection to another club that holds the same attitudes as one that suffocated itself in a suicidal attempt at destroying it? It would be like Iraq rebuilding Baghdad then inviting Al-Qaeda to set up a base there – oh, I may be a bit behind on this one. Well, you know what I mean. Being shot in the foot by a fake football club with the assistance of football law-men is bad enough but to shoot your own foot on the say-so of sports hacks and numskulls, would be simply crazy. No, the baddies are out of our league now and their pinched and refurbished guns are firing blanks in the wilderness. We should never, under any guise, allow them the opportunity to challenge us again. In fact our energies should be focussed on the opposite.

Then there are the follow followers. They would love to renew the old acquaintances of violence and sectarianism. It is a measure of the divide when that behaviour sets the standards for “the greatest derby on earth”. It was never anything of the sort. For the most part the football was second rate and the supporters, on both sides it must be said, intent on hate filled antagonism and sometimes much worse, rather than enjoying a football match. If ever an event was the opposite of its image, it was the so called “Glasgow Derby”. Media hyped, sectarian fuelled and violence orientated, it was the greatest “sham” on earth that only avoided world condemnation because it satiated mankind’s lust for decadence and self destruction. No, there is no way Celtic supporters should return to the hate filled tensions of the past against any club. Those games were not enjoyment. They were rather a form of Sadomasochism. They were not tense rivalries. They were bigoted battles. A gulf has been created between one set of fans and another. Who would want to fill it in and allow the wandering beasts of the wastelands to roam untethered once again – for that they assuredly would – among the domesticated breeds of the prairies. No thank you. I have had enough of approaching and leaving football grounds with my eyes more on my back than the road ahead.

If Celtic really need competition, and only the media, some infected ex-players and fans appear to think it is so, then we have enough in the current set up to provide it. Cup results and a few in the league have proven we are far from invincible. The way I see it, as time goes on other clubs will be more determined than ever to take a share of the annual spoils and, if the trend to lose our best players on a seasonal basis continues, will become more threatening season on season. For the most part, these are long established and financially honourable, if not totally sound, clubs and, while all supporters can go overboard, theirs are rivals determined to compete rather than sworn enemies driven by a blood lust for domination. I remember when many of these clubs offered Celtic far greater competition than any club across town. I remember when some of them booted us into touch on a pretty regular basis. Yet, I do not remember any of these clubs being so antagonistic and indeed uncontrollably bitter against Celtic, they would cheat their way to beating them far less try to destroy them in the process. That is behaviour so despicable I would never want the remotest hint of it again. So, when I ask myself do Celtic need a club in the lower divisions of the S.P.F.L. for competition, my answer is a resounding NO!

Discuss….