When Celtic takes the field tomorrow we’ll do so knowing that we are now just two wins from the SPL title. Win that match and we can clinch it the week after next. The prospect fills the SPL and the SFA with abject horror. With a Scottish Cup semi final coming up one week and a potential Celtic title party coming up the next, they are determined to avoid what for them is a nightmare scenario; that Celtic might beat the Ibrox club two weeks in a row.
Back in 2012, we were told that the country needed an Ibrox club; that we needed them, too.
We’ve been hearing ever since that we need them for the challenge. Which this season has been laugh out loud funny on more than one occasion. We are told that this is the biggest derby in the world (it’s not) and the fiercest (it’s not) and ignites global interest in our game (it doesn’t). Yet in the aftermath of the game tomorrow we’ll be told why there’s no prospect of a head to head with them to secure the seventh title in a row.
These people cannot have it all their own way.
If the gutless wonders want to drive interest in Scottish football, and if their protestations about how big this game are come down to more than talk, then a title clincher between the clubs should be a ratings bonanza. Even as I write this, Manchester City are locked in a thriller with their local rivals in a match that, should they win, will secure the EPL crown. And it’s box office, although the outcome of the title race has been known for weeks, and if we’re being honest for months.
The EPL title race has become a one-sided procession.
It is a huge boost for them that they could market a local derby as the clinching game. Our own league body is not reluctant to do this as much as they are petrified to. They will hide behind “police advice” and all sorts of other bullshit, but the truth is that they just don’t want the spectacle.
And the spectacle I refer to is not that of a Celtic – Sevco league decider as much as it is Celtic winning one. Not a week after they knock the club out of the cup. It would be two humiliations too many, in a season that has been full of them. And for that Scottish football will miss out on a pay-day and an end to the season that does draw a bigger TV audience than a match against the likes of Hibs or Aberdeen would. That is a scandal.
If these people believe all the nonsense they’ve talked about this fixture over the years then it is their responsibility to see that the league decider is at Celtic Park between these two clubs. Market the shit out of it. It will not make it the biggest derby on Earth or the most fierce and it will not draw the global TV audience that the game in Manchester will … but it will not be ignored. It will not be a non-event except for the two clubs involved.
Have the bottle to give us the game we want. Screw the hard feelings of the Sevconuts if they have to watch Scott Brown do a lap of honour with the trophy. In any other football country the chance to pick the two teams who will play on the title deciding day … do you think any of them would willingly turn down an opportunity like it?
Only in Scotland.
We’re the only ones with something as ridiculous as the SPL split.
We’re the only country that wouldn’t take full advantage of the only opportunity it affords us.
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