Celtic sets a new record tonight. Every game we play from now on without losing is a record setter.
This isn’t a scripted drama, where the hero accomplishes his goal and the show ends. This show goes on. Records are all around us, and we have a shot at cracking the lot of them, but for tonight we’ll settle for extending the one we’ve just set.
It won’t last forever.
Nothing ever does. Even if we accomplish a show-stopping, miracle season and go through the entire domestic campaign without losing a game – putting the treble in the bag; this has never been done, anywhere – it will come to an end. That run will extend into the season after this one as it reaches back to the last, and there will come a moment when the invincible Brendan Rodgers team stumbles and falls. How long it goes on is up to the players and to the boss. If they keep focussed there’s no reason it should end soon.
It won’t be a crisis when it does. It won’t prove that we can be caught or that a challenge is coming. It will prove something we already know, in our heads and in our hearts both; this team isn’t a machine. It’s made up of human beings, coming up against other human beings who, on the day, will have risen above themselves at the same moment our own standards have slipped a little. It might be complacency. Tiredness. One of those psychic off-days entire teams sometimes seem to have. It might be all of the above.
God willing it won’t come in a cup match, or against certain clubs.
Other than that, I don’t particularly mind.
It will happen. In some ways, if it comes when the trophies are in the bag and when we’ve made even more history, it will be a relief when it does. The kind of pressure that accrues to a long unbeaten run can really stress fans and players alike beyond the norm.
Yes, it will keep us focussed all the way to the finish line … but it is exhausting just the same.
Exhausting but enjoyable.
Because rather than think about the end – and I’ll shut up about it now! – we ought to simply love every second of it.
The window has closed, the team is intact.
Multi-million pound offers for our players were turned down, in a show of strength every bit as awesome as the way the window opened, our spending £2.5 million on a kid. Few other clubs on this island – far less here in Scotland – could have turned their backs on such wealth, the kind of money that could fuel the club into the future, that could build an entire team or fund a major infrastructure project.
It’ll still be there.
Winning games comes first.
The really important stuff is back at the forefront of everybody’s thinking at Celtic Park, right where it belongs.
Some howling at the moon types are scrambling around for something – anything – that remains and with which they can take the shine off the achievements already in the bag and those which might be in our future. They won’t.
We are driven now, with a clear sense of purpose, and with a clear-cut roadmap in mind; another title. A Scottish Cup. An unbeaten campaign. A summer of reworking the squad. Champions League qualifiers. Back into the Groups and beyond.
Followed by … followed by … followed by …
And to think some are worried about ten in a row? They should be worried about eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen … a run that goes on and on.
Leave other people to scramble for gutter-balls in the dirt.
Leave other clubs to con-job their fans and try to sell season tickets on the back of pumped up promises which mean less than the total of 0 plus 0.
That’s their problem.
We’ll be here to laugh, to comment, to point out the absurdity of it all, but from a position of contentment and peace, with our own house secure.
Years of pain and regrets and questions about our ambition are being swept away.
We have a wonderful manager in full control of the football operation.
We have a squad of hungry players, who crave the same success as the fans.
This is what we’ve waited for.
