When A Minutes Applause Didn’t Do Jock Stein Justice

The world of grief changed one night in a Paris tunnel. It was from that moment that anything deemed worthy, by those who measure the worthiness of these things – rightly or wrongly – of a public out-pouring gets the full works, a shrine, a  cortège being covered in roses and highly paid footballers, standing round a centre circle looking bemused at what they are applauding.

There has been a dumbing down of the grief and remembrance process. This means that some of the most worthwhile get caught up in Grief Apathy or Remembrance Fatigue when it’s their turn.

With this dumbing down and blanket remembrance policy – no matter where you are or what you are doing – it means, like what happens when most things end up being pushed by the vehicles of bampots and idiots, that the whole thing has been downgraded to now just another show that for a minute or so we are decent human beings.

Problem is with it being devalued so much that it really means very little to those who don’t really care about the person(s) being remembered.  Hence the change from silence to applause. Less chance of the remembrance being spoiled by those who think Hollyoaks is quality, hard hitting drama.

Celtic, remembered Jock Stein with a minutes applause. It made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as it reached a deafening crescendo. Though fitting, it sat uneasily. I felt Stein should be remembered and that the celebration of his life achievements happens every time Celtic take to the field.

If it wasn’t for Stein we wouldn’t be the club of today.

As the applause was happening I looked over to the Hearts support. Ok, rumours of some turning their back on the applause have been made on the net and though the majority looked like they were applauding it wasn’t enough to subside the anger I felt to them.

The applause was to ensure they looked good and didn’t have any serious questions to answer. The SFA also went down the applause route for probably the same reasons when Scotland played during the week.

On Saturday morning one of the top stories on the Glasgow Herald website was an archived report about the Jim Torbett trial. You didn’t have to check under stones to see what the pond life had been up to.

Celtic in the last few seasons have seen deliberate efforts from others to besmirch the name of our support and to entice some of the idiots, who follow our club, into a reaction that seems sane to their putty matter.

Celtic on Saturday backed down to the bigots that Jock Stein strived to and did beat.

If only those in charge had the same guts.