A bare recital of facts. That’s all this is going to be. I’ll cover the rest of it later.
Tomorrow will be reserved for the inquest, and there has to be an inquest.
But for tonight I’m doing the bare recital of facts, because I’m too emotional to write anything else.
We have made history. The Quadruple Treble has been secured. It took penalty kicks.
Connor Hazard saved two to secure himself a place in immortality. Leigh Griffiths probably thought he had won the game with his goal in extra time. Doubtless Edouard thought he had done so with his penalty kick to put us 2-0 up with less than 25 minutes gone.
That lead was squandered.
So was the one Griffiths edged us into.
So penalties it was and we survived a scare there too when Ryan Christie’s was saved by Craig Gordon.
The script could have been written perfectly for him, but a kid who wasn’t even fourth choice when Craig Gordon was last at Celtic Park was to have the final say.
This is a bookend to a great and glorious era at our club.
It doesn’t feel like a continuation and it doesn’t feel like a new beginning. It is an end.
This is the closing chapter on a story of success which will not be equalled in the history of football at domestic level.
I am quite confident in saying that.
What this team has achieved was inconcievable when this run began.
I cannot imagine anyone ever equalling it far less besting it.
Everyone involved with it will pass into folklore just for being there today.
That’s the historical fact.
The books and documentaries and DVD’s and all the rest of it to come will record the stats and the roll of honour, and they won’t care who gambled with it or how we stumbled across the finish line like a punch drunk boxer who had gone a round too many but found enough to win on points.
All that counts for the historians is getting there.
In the moment, it’s all that counts for all of us too.
That’s why this is a night for the basic recital of facts.
We did what should have been impossible.
The achievement will stand the test of time.
It is a night for celebrations and for reflecting on something none of us ever thought we would see in our lifetimes.
Right now, that’s all I care about.
I’ll do one more piece tonight on certain individuals who took part in the match, and the rest will have to wait for tomorrow.
I guess regular readers will understand well when I say that although the over-riding emotions are joy and relief that there are others but they’ll keep because, honestly, I don’t want to dwell on them or the people at the centre of them.
To all of you, my brothers and sisters in this awesome extended family, this one belongs to us.
Enjoy it my friends.
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