After writing 1200 words on this topic, Matt’s computer decided it would be hilarious to delete more than half of these words. Understandably frustraited, Matt said “Fine, I’m not writing this pish again.” The CliffNotes version of the missing article was Seville was responsible for the feeling that everyone must love us, and that it is odd that Celtic fans seem to be ready to party with the locals on international trips and have a siege mentality during domestic ties in Scotland and the irony of this. Matt will be back next week with hopefully a full length article if he doesn’t throw his computer out the window right now. Until them, leave him comments and debate why we feel the need to be loved all over Europe.
After two all-around solid victories, a strange sensation is starting to settle over the Tim-ernet, confidence. Things seem to be settling in. After a slow start to the match against Inverness Caley Thistle, Celtic has been in control of at least 165 minutes of football. Neil Lennon’s signings, including Efrain “El Twitter” Juarez, Joe Ledley, and Beram Kayal seem to be just what the doctor ordered. It’s admittedly quite early in the season, but after two seasons of disappointment, the Celtic universe is starting to feel a little better about things. The weekend sees St. Mirren to Celtic Park for the first SPL game at home. Week two is way too early to be as confident as much of the Celtic community is. It’s an uncomfortable position. Guess what, I’m going to complain to get rid of that feeling. After the 2-0 win at Celtic Park yesterday over Dutch foes and our obstacle to the group stages of the somewhat illustrious, ach who are we kidding, something to do on the weekdays over the fall and help Dr. John Reid point to some “accomplishments” when the team loses money on his watch, the discussion on the traveling fans Utrecht brought with them. Despite the game seemingly being played in a vacuum that allowed only a few in the East End to actually see the match live, word had spread that at least a few Utrecht fans brought in some flags of a certain group of states that consider themselves “Great”, while most Celtic fans, along with many citizens of Ireland, India, Israel, Palestine, North America, Hong Kong, and more are not big fans of. This behavior varies greatly from the usual idea that nearly every group of away fans loves us, wishes they were us, and would love to trade scarves. Heck, we somehow manage to “be friendly with” Man U and Liverpool! Imagine some Welsh team thinking they were chummy with us and Rangers (seriously News Now, problem with the word that rhymes with “Funs”?), but I digress. Why is there the idea in the Celtic support that we need to be buddies with every away team we meet? To answer my own question, it seems we’re really fearful of not being like the other side, which is, of course, something that is valid in not wanting to be. However, we can tell our opponents to stick in their Nacho Novo and not be like “them”. Truthfully, “they” have set the bar so low, that we could feasibly fill up Celtic Park with the guy that hit Snooki on the “Jersey Shore” and still be considered better then “them”.