Today was another Beautiful Sunday, as yesterday was another amazing cup final.
Today was about celebrating Scott Brown’s magnificent contribution to our club, but more than that it was simple celebration of us, another chance for this Family to get together and drink in the success of the last two campaigns with one last sign-off for this season.
We are six for six under the manager.
The history has been made.
The double treble has been secured.
Those who ask “what’s next?” should know the answer; more history. A treble treble. And progress in Europe. And eight in a row. Those who wonder what Brendan still has to achieve are clearly not getting it; this is a team Hell-bent on setting new records every year.
The most important, early, moment of next season – domestically anyway – will be the League Cup Final. If we’re there and we win it, then start planning the party. Because if we go seven trophies for seven and are sitting at the top of the league we will make it eight and we will make it nine because I don’t see who will stop us from doing it.
Scott Brown deserved a day like today. He’s been the engine that’s powered the machine these last two years. His contribution to this club has been phenomenal overall, of course, as the history books will show when he hangs up his boots; yesterday was his eight SPL title with us. He will go on to win more than any captain in our history.
The city of Glasgow has been turned green and white this weekend, save for a few decrepit sections of town which were celebrating an odd wedding between two people none of these numpties has ever met or ever will.
Think about the kind of person who decks out their house in multi-coloured bunting because two famous people are getting hitched. Think, for a moment, about the mentality that celebrates being “a subject” and not a citizen. They take real pride in it. You wouldn’t think dragging along in our slipstream would bother them as much as it does.
But it does, and how it does.
One of their forums wailed about Glasgow resembling a “one team city”. I am going to write about that tomorrow, but for tonight I am smiling at the notion because yes, a visitor who had just come here would believe that’s exactly what it was. They call it Espanyolification; the phrase actually originated with Phil McGiollabhain but the word itself doesn’t come close to explaining the phenomenon which is why I want to explore it more fully.
Today is a special one. I’ve been relaxing and enjoying it and looking back on a wonderful two years under Brendan. We have come on in leaps and bounds as a club since he arrived, and his comments last night about how he intends to be here through ten in a row are music to the ears of fans everywhere, as though we doubted it for a moment.
Yes, Glasgow is Green and White. We’ve been saying so for years. But that has never been more true than it is right now. That open top bus ride through the east end yesterday was but just one facet of how far we’ve come. Do you remember the bombast from certain other people ten or so years ago? We are everything now they fantasised about being then.
Except all of this is sustainable. All of this is built on strong foundations. The slogan on that bus yesterday – Eat, Sleep, Treble, Repeat – is quite brilliant; winning has become routine to this team now and every great manager will tell you that once a team gets a taste for that they are very hard to stop. Brendan pointed out yesterday just how young this team is.
That’s important as I’ll discuss later.
They have a lot of winning still to come.