There was no one else around, and the voice seemed to be coming from no particular direction.<\/p>\n
I know where it was coming from.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And I know why…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Celtic shrugged off any pretence that they were in any way any different from all the other football clubs with an announcement yesterday…<\/p>\n
CELTIC Football Club has announced that it will today make a Proposal of Application Notice to Glasgow City Council in relation to possible further development of the Celtic Park area, including the potential creation of a new hotel, retail store, ticketing facility and museum.<\/em><\/p>\n The application is part of Celtic\u2019s long-standing masterplan for the area, a vision which aims to deliver benefit to the Club and our supporters and allow further re-generation of the East End of the city, something to which we are totally committed.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n This application represents only the first stage in this process. It is important to emphasise that considerable work and investment over a number of years would be required to bring this project to fruition. There would be a number of challenges to overcome to complete a development of this scale. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Celtic aims to be a world-class football club in everything it does. We are pleased to have made significant investment in recent years to develop the stadium and public realm area for the benefit of our supporters.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Any further development of this kind would be a hugely positive step for the Club, for our supporters and for the local community.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What sets Celtic apart from all the other “world class ” football clubs \u00a0are the people who support it.<\/p>\n Within us pervades an empathy towards those who haven’t had the breaks, those who have fallen on hard times, and deep down we feel a kind of collective responsibility to do something about it.<\/p>\n We turn to the club as a symbol of all of that. Success on the field is something we all share in, something we all feel that we are a part of.<\/p>\n Success off the field is only success if those who need help are helped.<\/p>\n Thats who we are.<\/p>\n Building hotels isn’t something that sits comfortable with me. It puts the soul of the club in jeopardy, and continues along the pathway to the land already inhabited by a number of English clubs who have completely forgotten that they are English clubs.<\/p>\n Perhaps we need to look a little deeper into our own consciences to remember what we are all about, because it sure seems to me like the board have forgotten.<\/p>\n The club was created to put food on the table for children. These days, there are a multitude of foodbanks in the city, there are more heads than beds, and there are people going without light and heating because they cannot afford the fuel bills.<\/p>\n Whilst I am fully aware that the club, via the Foundation and other charities does a lot more than most to attempt to ease the burden, both on and off the record, for me the announcement of a hotel being built was akin to when I found out that at least one church uses its funds to indirectly invest in global arms companies, and despite their attempts to justify it, there remains a sour taste in the mouth.<\/p>\n When Celtic raise money for charity, most of it comes out of the pockets of the support. Not from the club itself.<\/p>\n If Celtic want to build a hotel, thats fine. After all, it is a business, and money must be made to satisfy the shareholders.<\/p>\n Although shareholders who question the clubs inaction on allegations of fraud and collusion don’t get quite the attention that they merit….though there is time to put that right.<\/p>\n On social media there was a lot of gloating, a lot of images where Celtic were seen to be flaunting their wealth, usually at the expense of another club on the other side of the city.<\/p>\n Ironically, our support was doing exactly what we used to dislike about their support.<\/p>\n What happened to us ? When did we slip off the tracks ?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Celtic FC shouldn’t be building hotels. They should be building shelters for the homeless, they should be setting up and paying for soup kitchens, maybe even towards \u00a0solar panels on tower blocks.<\/p>\n Thats why I’m a Celtic fan, because there used to be something that made you feel a little bit taller, a little bit more useful.<\/p>\n A little bit different.<\/p>\n Today, it feels like Celtic are just a club like any other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In mount St Michaels Cemetery , Dumfries late last night, an old fellow out walking his dog later told his wife that he was absolutely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/2zrzyx1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2PT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10905"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10907,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10905\/revisions\/10907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}