Today the first vaccine to put us on the road to normality received regulatory approval for distribution and use inside the UK.
This brings our lives one step closer to being back to where we’d like them.
It’s not impossible that most of us have can be out again in the pubs and restaurants and planning our holidays before the year’s anniversary of the lockdown.
For months now, the Celtic board has been leading in a way we haven’t done in years.
The campaign we’ve taken control of is the one to get fans back inside the grounds.
It would be, wouldn’t it?
We never bothered with SFA reform, but this one affects the bottom line, the bank balance, the bonus structure, so it’s our top priority.
This blog has been pretty vocal against rushing that return. Things are bad enough without adding football crowds to the growing list of places where this thing has to be stomped. Better that at least one government takes this seriously and acts accordingly.
But the roll-out of the vaccine offers the tantalising possibility that crowds will be back before this season is over; indeed, depending on whether the second US vaccine gets regulatory approval, and the one from Oxford passes its own quality control, after a rocky week or two, we might be much closer to a return of large crowds than we thought.
And you know something?
I’m moved to wonder if that’s really something the Celtic board would want right now.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’d welcome the uptick in the income … but these people have managed to insulate themselves from fan anger up until the weekend just past and they found it decidedly uncomfortable.
Had there been fans inside Parkhead they’d have been left in no uncertainty about the depth of feeling against them, and the manager, and things might already have come to a head. If I were in that boardroom right now, I would be in no hurry for the return of the fans; indeed, I’d want this to go on a little longer, and avoid them completely this season.
I don’t think the members of our board have yet developed an appropriate appreciation for how serious this situation is.
That shocking statement from Lawwell yesterday didn’t move the needle one millimetre in the direction they wanted it, and that should tell them something right away.
Today will be characterised by the number of refund requests they get for last season’s tickets … that, too, should tell them a few things about how their “leadership” is being perceived.
But fans in the grounds would let them know it, alright.
It would be decidedly warm to sit in those stands if there were supporters in there with them.
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