A couple of years ago, I read a piece about how Andrew Dickson, of Sky Sports and Ibrox fame, reacted, on Twitter, to the sight of a Celtic strip at Wimbledon.
The Celtic shirt stands out because it is one of the most iconic strips on the planet; from a distance a red shirt can be anything from a Wales shirt to an Aberdeen top.
A blue shirt can represent Cardiff just as easily as the NewCo.
But a Celtic shirt?
There are only a handful of clubs in world football who wear the green and white Hoops and of that handful the number of clubs whose shirts are so widely distributed as Celtic’s are is just about zero.
Spot the Hoops in a crowd and nine times out of ten you are looking at the most famous football strip of them all, ours.
Dickson’s childish spitting out of the dummy was hilariously awful, and the responses he got on Twitter were more than deserved.
Dickson’s rant was especially delicious because we’ve seen this kind of thing before.
These meltdowns are all too common amongst the folks across town; it seems that sights and sounds and certain things drive them to the most furious anger.
This week, we found out that Scott Brown was abused at Ibrox by a member of their upper crust.
When that story broke, one Ibrox site after the other tried to justify this lamentable behaviour on the grounds that Brown “winds them up.” Just like the Celtic strip. And a host of other things.
And it was then that I realised I once did an entire piece on this … and that Scott Brown was the first segment of it.
That’s why I’ve rewritten chunks of it and I’m reposting it, in honour of our captain who still retains a fantastic ability to live inside their skulls.
He is one of the many, many things about our club which drive the Peepul insane.
The more successful we were the crazier they got.
And now, even after a dreadful campaign, we’ve found that all things Celtic still have the power to do that.
So do me a favour guys, as we move out of the lockdown wear those colours with pride.
Let them see that we’re not for hiding because of one bad year.
We’ll be back, and let them know it.
In the meantime, enjoy this wee list of some of those things that drive them mad.
This is Fear and Loathing writ large.
Scott Brown
There are people, as well as things, which make the Peepul lose their minds and one of those people is Scott Brown.
Our Quadruple Treble years were vintage ones for those folk.
Brown’s very existence seems to bother them now; the abuse he was subjected to was extraordinary.
Their websites constantly fumed at him.
Their club accused him of being a provocateur.
Forget that such gamesmanship is common throughout the sport; the onus is on the person on the receiving end of it not to act like a clown.
Brown is a master at identifying those players who cannot keep their cool and exploiting that to the fullest.
Of all the bile that came out of the stands, it was the media who went after Brown hardest; their campaign against him was astonishing.
Every outlet took a swing at one point or another, but the best, by far, the favourite, by a distance, was the quite unbelievable breakdown, live on the radio, of the broadcaster Derek Johnstone.
He pitifully tried to excuse the conduct of Ibrox players at Celtic Park during that infamous day when Morelos and Halliday were red carded and Ryan Kent decked our captain off the ball, by talking as if Brown was a school bully and they were just wee boys driven beyond the point of endurance, to strike back only for the teacher to punish them for it.
It was a magnificent full-scale meltdown, up there with the Chick Young – Jim Traynor spat of yesteryear.
These are the moments that keep us smiling.
Scott didn’t have a great season; the idiot “official” of the Ibrox club who abused him as he was walking up the tunnel probably thinks he’s had the last laugh … but Brown is going to Aberdeen, the other club which the NewCo fans have a major issue with and I suspect that it’s our captain and club icon who is going to get the final say here.
The Tri-Colour
Oh how they hate the flag, the famous flag, the flag that flies proudly at Celtic Park as a mark of Irish ancestry.
The flag drives our enemies so absolutely bonkers that they once tried to close the ground because of it.
In fact, they threatened to close the club.
The Celtic Wiki has a wonderful article about this, which you can read at that link, but the upshot of it is that in 1952 the SFA told us to take down the flag. We refused. The threat of a ground closure or even the suspension of the club hung in the air.
But we never backed down, not at all.
The flag had been given to us by no less a man than Eamon De Valera himself, the international statesman, Irish President and hero of the Republican struggle, who had fought with (and against) Collins, and used every bit of his ingenuity and intelligence to remove the constitutional handcuffs of the Irish Free State.
The flag has irked and narked and bothered our opponents all through our history.
In 1972, Glasgow magistrates “suggested” that we remove the flag because some people found it offensive. Celtic, again, pointedly refused.
Fergus, when he was trying to rent Hampden during the redevelopment of Parkhead, was astounded when one of the conditions in the contract was that no “foriegn flag” flew above the statement. He saw that for the bigoted, small-minded attack that it was. The flag was hung in the stands instead, and when we returned to Celtic Park it was in its rightful place.
You may think things have improved, but the tri-colour still has a hold on some Peepul; only a couple of seasons back, Dundee FC had to apologise after one of their over-zealous stewards removed one from fans for no reason at all other than he just didn’t like it.
It’s a tough old world for the bigots at times.
Celebrations
The Peepul do not like it when we celebrate.
Granted we haven’t had much of it to this season, but that’ll change when a new boss moves into the Celtic Park dugout.
The thing is, the last few years have been so success that you would think that they’d have gotten used to it by now.
But no. Even the smallest acts of it have traditionally driven them nuts.
The idea that Celtic should be able to enjoy victory is alien to Peepul who have never accepted that our club should even be allowed to win things in the first place.
Whether it was moaning because we were allowed an open top bus to commemorate the Invincible campaign, to crying their eyes out because we did the same for the Double and then Treble Treble’s, their wee faces were tripping them all the way.
They even flipped out, as a club, because we celebrated a win over them at our own ground in 2019.
That one sparked an investigation into Scott Brown, which the club defended vigorously.
It wasn’t the first time they’d moaned about Celtic throwing a party for beating them either; their quite unhinged press release after Brendan’s team had skelped them 5-1 will live long in the memory.
But it was the fact that we also got to celebrate so often at Ibrox that really drove them mad.
Even media personalities ditched their alleged – haha – impartiality to beg with them to cut Celtic’s allocation lest they be subjected to it forevermore; this was the genesis of King’s decision to do so at the start of the 2019-20 campaign.
They don’t like to see us happy.
They’ve forgotten what the sight of that looks like recently, but we’ll soon remind them …
Neil Lennon
Everyone knows that nothing drives the Peepul crazier than Neil Lennon.
In fact, Lennon has a perverse effect on people all across the country, with even the media having accused him of “bringing (his shocking, racist, bigoted treatment) on himself.”
One national newspaper tried to stir up a tempest against him by asking whether he or Hector the Taxman “was the most hated person at Ibrox.”
No public figure in living memory has been subjected to such disgraceful and sustained bile from so many varied sections of Scottish society, and we have to include the SFA in that, as the late Paul McBride made abundantly clear.
Lennon was the victim of death threats.
Bombs and bullets were sent to him.
He was attacked once in a public street and on another occasion as he stood on the touchline as Celtic manager doing his job.
It doesn’t seem to matter where or who it is … Lennon has enemies, real enemies, everywhere and yet that man somehow gets on with things.
The most incredible incident of them all wasn’t even the bombs or the attack on the touchline, it was that a jury – when presented with video footage of the incident – found the assailant not proven of a religiously aggravated assault.
The whole country knew what that was about.
The whole world knew, and yet an Edinburgh jury exonerated a thug.
No wonder there are a lot of Celtic fans who campaigned vocally for Lennon to get the Celtic job, and so many stood up for him long after it became clear he wasn’t doing it well.
The Ibrox fans adopted him for a brief period of time, but they can’t do it the way we’ve adopted the likes of Craig Whyte; they hate Lennon too much to be “in his debt” for very long, and already their forums spew bile every time he’s on TV and they took great delight in passing around a video of him where he’d had a few beers.
They will always hate the guy … because hate is all they know, and it’s what they do best.
The Sign Of The Cross
The Sign of The Cross gets under their skin more than any sign or symbol ever did or ever will.
It has been driving them to the edge for as long as I’ve been alive and for a long time before.
One of the most famous examples, in an irony that still blows my mind, was when Judas Johnston did it after being sent off in the 1987 League Cup Final against Rangers.
That almost sparked a riot, and the media and most of Scotland went full-on nuts.
It was a provocative gesture, and there’s no doubt about that, but only in this narrow minded little cesspit of a country would it be recognised as something that could send people into paroxysm of fury and foaming at the mouth, and that’s what the media should have focussed on.
Johnson was at it, but that moment should have shone on a light on the swirling ocean of bigotry that were still all too rampant in Scotland, and which are to this day.
It came to a head anyway, of course, when Artur Boruc was actually cited by Police Scotland because he did it during a game against the Ibrox club.
When he was given a formal caution for it the furious response from the sane part of the country saw the CPS “clarify” the matter by saying yes, it had been seen, but he had been cited for “smiling” at the Ibrox fans instead.
Not a single living soul believed that cobblers either then or now.
It was a disgraceful moment for Civic Scotland, sparked because a routine expression of faith offended a bunch of Peepul who doubtless had spent the entire game calling the devoutly religious keeper all the bigoted names under the sun.
They then had the brass neck to report his actions to the police on the grounds that it had “incited” them.
I would suggest that if you walked into a police station and said you felt “incited” by the sight of your ex and her new man that you would be the one huckled downstairs to enjoy the hospitality wing for an evening, or until you calmed down a bit.
Even Alex Salmond weighed in to the Boruc controversy saying that it was the kind of decision that brought the law and the legal system into disrepute.
He called it “ludicrous.”
Has Scotland moved on?
Some of it has, but as recently as 2012, Fran Sandaza, who at the time was playing for the Ibrox NewCo, told a Spanish newspaper that people at the club had advised him not to do it before matches.
Anti-Sectarian Intiatives
Glasgow has always had a reputation for sectarianism.
You would have thought that any attempt to wean the city off of that hard drug would have been greeted with applause from every section of society. Not when Fergus introduced Bhoys Against Bigotry.
The media were against it and the Ibrox chairman David Murray scorned it and said that McCann didn’t understand how things worked.
Scandalously, one journalist took a shot at the scheme because of what he called “the provocative H.”
This was Scotland a mere few years out from the Millennium, not the 17th century.
The disgraceful reaction from certain sections of this country to a man who wanted to do something good was a shaming moment, an absolutely shaming one.
When I started this article, and I was doing my read back over the things I wanted to talk about, I was shocked to realise that I would have to write a segment on how Peepul in this country were offended by a move to eradicate sectarianism … you could not make that up, and yet it happened and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Fergus was such a smart man.
He certainly approached that campaign with heart and seriousness and the Celtic Social Charter was born from it, but he was also being ruthless.
He wanted to create a family atmosphere at the club.
He knew too that the real problem wasn’t at Celtic, but across the city, and he wanted to clear a bad element out of our ground whilst pointing a big shining light at the one across the street.
It was a brilliant move … and that’s what they hated about it.
Leigh Griffiths
Whether he stays, or whether he goes, whether he leaves this club in the summer or gets a one year extension to his deal, Celtic fans will pay tribute to the footballer who was the last to crack the 100 goals club for our side.
It is hard to believe that anyone could set the Peepul off as much as Scott Brown or Neil Lennon, but there have been some incredible reactions to Leigh Griffiths over the last few years as well, particularly as he has a somewhat unique style of dealing with them online, and has enjoyed himself mightily in our hours of triumph, even at their ground.
As I’ll talk about in the next segment, he has also turned the Celtic scarf into a potent GIRUY.
But that’s a gift Leigh himself has. He is a walking GIRUY.
Take a look at that guy’s Twitter feed sometime; the bile that gets thrown his way is absolutely beyond belief, but he never hides.
Indeed, he gives back as good as he gets.
He has had people wishing death on him.
He has – God forgive those responsible – had people wishing death on his kids.
He is called every filthy name you can imagine.
It would give me such pleasure to see Leigh Griffiths back in the team if he screws the nut.
There was nothing better than seeing him score at Ibrox and, any time he did they let him know what they thought and it was all water off a ducks back to him.
Instead it has inspired him to want to do better next time … he’ll have his chance.
The Celtic Scarf
This is a true story, okay?
About ten years ago, I was going past one of those impromptu memorials that springs up at an accident black spot, one of those spur-of-the-moment displays for someone who had died.
Amidst all the flowers and cards, someone had put a Celtic scarf, a little gesture of decency, just some guy or gal who had been passing by and decided they had to leave something to say sorry.
I stopped, for no reason other than to look and pay a moment of respect.
And as I was standing there, looking at that, I heard a guy behind me, someone walking past, say to his mate, “Another Tim dead ha ha,” and his mate laughed.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
It was one of those moments that spoke volumes about certain sections of our country and its parochial tiny mind.
Apart from anything else, there was nothing up there that indicated that the person was a Celtic fan … except that one thing, that single scarf. I realised that it was that scarf that had sparked that vile reaction.
People in Scotland have been hurt for wearing that around their necks.
There are parts of the city where you just would not wear one because to do so would be a dangerous act.
Of course, the Peepul would regard it as “provocative.”
When Leigh Griffiths tied one around the Ibrox post after a win there a couple of years back the venom was so potent it could have killed an elephant stone dead.
The Celtic scarf can still drive them mad.
It can get you killed in the wrong part of Glasgow.
The Palestinian Flag
At a match in Israel many years ago, the Ibrox “faithful” famously made Nazi salutes.
This was not in the least bit surprising, as there has long been a link between their support and the hard right, in part because of the Ulster connection and its own roots in neo-fascist ideology.
What still stuns people is that this is the same support that prides itself on support for Israel.
And there is only one reason any of them is even in the least bit bothered about what happens in that troubled corner of the world and it is this; the Palestinian flag is proudly ever on display at Celtic Park and amongst the ranks of the Celtic support.
This drives them nuts for some reason.
I mean, it’s hard to work this one out and I am being honest about this.
The plight of the Palestinian people is recognised across the world, the crimes committed against them are a fact to such august organisations as the United Nations.
There is no reason whatsoever for the Ibrox support to take offence to this flag; Celtic fans also fly the Basque flag but nobody at Ibrox ever protests about it or adopts its polar opposite.
The Star of David flies at Ibrox for one reason only, as a counterpoint to the red, black, white and green one that our fans have adopted to show our solidary with an oppressed people.
The media has done its nut over this matter as well down through the years, for reasons passing understanding.
Evem after the Celtic fans had made international headlines and drew momentous praise from around the globe for the Match The Fine For Palestine campaign, there were still some in the press corps who sneered.
Shame on them.
The Saltire
If you did not know the full background, and the full situation, with the Ibrox fans you could probably buy some of the excuses for their dislike and distaste for the Irish and Palestinian flags.
But what would blow your mind and really mess with your sense of time and place would be the moment you realised that they are just as aggravated by the sight of the saltire.
Yes, a Scottish club’s supporters do not like … the national flag of Scotland.
No joke, it has become a “provocation” all on its own, representing what the perceive to be a hybrid nationalism encapsulating both Scotland and Ireland.
The most beautiful expression of this was the Ibrox fan who was caught on camera during the Independence referendum and who expressed views on Scotland and Ireland and even England that were so pig ignorant the clip never gets old.
To this day, their forums burn with hatred of “SNP/IRA”, and expose some of the most preposterous beliefs in their whole rickety baggage.
It was their fan organisations urging “tactical voting” during the elections last week … that turned out well, eah?
The national team is scorned, hated even, and even the appointment of Alex McLeish infuriated them after he picked a team with a half dozen Celtic players and not a single one of their own squad.
Their hated of Scotland is quite incredible.
The national emblem has become a symbol of a nation that they feel like strangers in.
It may be in their colours, but it is not their flag.
And you know something?
It’s won’t be their country for much longer either.