About a week ago, the SPL announced that the first post-split games would include the Ibrox game between Celtic and the latest club to play out of that ground.
They even published a date.
It was a curious moment, but one that drew zero media attention and which passed a lot of people by.
But a number of fans have been wondering about it, and one of them asked about it on social media, and according to some I spoke to the reason given, by Gerry McCulloch of Clyde, was so odd, so unusual, so incongruous, that it’s sparked even more questions.
I was asked to ask, and so I’d like to go over some of them.
The reason he gave was that the police insisted on knowing the date early, so they could plan their shifts around it. That doesn’t stand up to even the most cursory examination, for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it doesn’t work that way. Part of their job description is having to be flexible in when they work. Do criminals plan their schedule to fit with that of the police? Do terrorists? Their job calls for being ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Besides, what does it matter? They could have waited until all the fixtures came out and planned their shifts anyway, even if it meant asking the SPL to move the game to one of the later dates. That’s not exactly unheard of.
Apart from that being a self-evident fact, I spoke to someone who is something of an authority on the subject and he said he strongly doubted this would have come from Police Scotland for the reasons stated already and one other; that scheduling decision has thrown two of these fixtures together in the space of a week.
Nobody will convince me the police wanted that.
What happens if the first game ends in heavy controversy or a major flare up?
That’s not exactly unheard of either, right?
This is, after all, a game the media portrays as the most hateful fixture in the game.
The one that can no longer be held at Hogmany because of the immense disruption it causes to all of civic Scotland.
So with that in mind it’s not difficult to imagine any number of scenarios where the game ends in something that provokes serious trouble inside and outside the ground. And then, six days later, we’re supposed to do it all again, in a week where the build-up will be absolutely noxious and the shadow will be cast right across the fixture?
Nobody at Police Scotland gave that a moment’s thought, eah?
And that scenario becomes even more unbelievable when you consider that the SPL published the details of this fixture at a time when the title hadn’t been wrapped up and there was a still a possibility –however fleeting – that the game at Ibrox might have been a league decider. Had we lost to Hearts at Tynecastle and dropped points tonight that would have been a dark possibility on the horizon. And nobody was bothered about that?
That, also, simply slipped people’s minds?
Wasn’t it the SPL’s avowed intention to keep from ever having one of those again? Had the game come later in the sequence there would have been no question of that happening at all. But this … this doesn’t sit right, it doesn’t fit the picture.
Why’s that game first? Why publish the details of it in front of all the other games? Why not wait until the top six is known, as the league has done every other year of the split? And if the police wanted it this way to plan their shifts, why weren’t “Old Firm” games handled in the same way, prior to 2012? Was there any doubt in any of those years about Celtic and Rangers being in the top six? No, there wasn’t. And they never did this.
Were the clubs part of the decision making process? Those involved in the game itself, and those who might have an interest in it, like Aberdeen? It’s not inconceivable that they could secure second spot that very day … the gap between them and Sevco makes that a tantalising possibility. Were the two clubs playing the match consulted?
Was this their idea?
Or did one of them specifically request it?
Do Sevco need one big home-match pay-day that month to make ends meet or something?
Or, and this was suggested to me last night, are there safety certificate issues which mean bringing that game forward?
I don’t know how fans of other clubs would feel if they went to Ibrox and found nets above them, but I know how Celtic fans would respond to it, and how we’d respond if that work was carried out prior to the game. Perhaps other supporters aren’t as bothered, but our websites would be in meltdown over the issue.
That’s speculative of course, but something about it clearly does not fit.
That Gerry McCulloch and, doubtless, other journalists have already got a story to present if asked tells you the SPL knew this was a curiousity that would arose interest. Hiding behind the police has become a familiar tactic of theirs, including over the ridiculous practice of booking players (but only certain players, we note) for celebrating behind the goal.
This may well have a perfectly good, a perfectly valid, explanation but I strongly suspect saying the police are behind it is an excuse.
But an excuse to cover what?
I stand by my view that Police Scotland would never have asked for this, with all the heavy possibilities for trouble.
So the question is, who did, and why?
That’s a question more than just the bloggers should be asking.