Fan Group’s Display Of Juvenilia Only Strengthens The Hand Of The Celtic Board.

If someone ever decided to write a sequel to Dale Carnegie’s masterwork, but with a list of Don’ts instead of Do’s in it, they might call it How To Lose Friends And Alienate People. There was a naff film of that name, but I doubt that any writer would get sued.

The Green Brigade have been protesting against the proposed appointment of an ex-cop to some role or another at Celtic Park.

Most fans, to be honest, don’t understand the issue and don’t particularly care to learn about it, and this is not just apathy.

Their way of thinking is “is the guy qualified?” and if he is then they don’t have any objection to it on principle.

The guy was involved in criminalising supporters when the Offensive Behaviour At Football Act was on the statute books. Which is the central issue.

But he was a cop, and their job is to enforce the law, so the way many see it, all he did was the work to which he was assigned.

Cops can no more decide which laws they enforce than people can decide which ones they obey; this is the logic by which we attacked both police and Ibrox fans when they rioted in George Square, and we were right to.

It’s also been made clear that he didn’t single Celtic fans out, but enforced the law across the board, criminalising fans of other clubs too, so to the best of my knowledge nobody is alleging that he was some foaming anti-Celtic bigot either.

It’s no wonder this issue is not so much divisive as it’s one where those who do care are seriously pissed off and most others really have no interest in it.

I’m with the guys who care.

Because there are a lot of people who could do the job and if the board picks this guy then you wonder if decisions inside the walls are increasingly being made to wind people up. This was never going to be anything other than a petrol on the flames sort of choice, and it seems needless for the board to be provoking a battle.

But with this issue not exactly uniting the support in disgust, the best weapon the Green Brigade had was that the blogs and the podcasts were onside and the fan-base was getting behind them. The Celtic Park thirty minutes’ silence was a superb way of raising awareness and giving people something to think about.

It’s the kind of action everyone can respect.

Another silence today was added opportunity to show maturity and class.

Instead it was disrupted, and in the aftermath they threw tennis balls onto the pitch.

Don’t even get me started on the whole subject of Remembrance Day; I am beyond fed up with it, and the enforced nature of it reeks of the kind of fascism that had allegedly been defeated.

I think the whole thing has become an embarrassment, a kind of national disgrace.

The whole occasion has become shamelessly militaristic, all about British exceptionalism … if you’ll excuse me for saying so, the old Brexit spirit encapsulated. This country has gotten itself into some mess with all this garbage, fetishizing, in particular, the Second World War.

In a multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-ethnic game those ugly red splotches do not belong on any football strip far less the Celtic one.

That fight, at least, has been won.

You’d think that those who lobbied for its removal would be satisfied with that.

But the disruption of a minute’s silence is just plain wrong.

If you have no respect for the occasion at least have respect for the dead.

If you have no respect for the dead because you have a simplistic view on the morality of war – way too complicated a subject for this article and definitely for the armchair revolutionaries – then observe it for world peace.

Observe it for those already caught up in the climate crisis, or more importantly those who soon will be.

Check your phone and pretend to be emailing your mum.

Take the minute to make sure your pre-match bets are on.

Stick your headphones on and play some music.

Just keep your gob shut. It’s not too much to ask.

If you don’t respect anything else, respect your fellow fans, some of whom served and who have a somewhat different appreciation of the issue than you do.

Who are you trying to impress by doing otherwise?

Only yourself.

If you’re worried that some of your “friends” might judge you for finding something in those 60 seconds to focus on then I suggest you need some new friends because the current ones are morons.

The thing is, the tennis balls was a good idea.

But combined with the failure to observe the silence it comes across as a piece of juvenilia which will do precisely the opposite of what it was supposed to and I am incredibly frustrated about that, because these guys have been exceptional lately.

Fans who would have been onside will be walking the other way now.

The point of the tennis balls is now lost amidst a cocophany of noise over who agrees with their politics and who doesn’t.

The media will talk about what a disgrace the shouting was and many people will agree.

Mostly it will simply strengthen the hand of the board.

The wide coalition which was forming against this decision will fray on the back of this, and already I see Celtic fans on social media say that they support the appointment if it will “sort these guys out” and that, ultimately, is what this has done.

It has allowed the Green Brigade’s critics to paint them as a problem that must be “dealt with” instead of guys to be lent support.

What a disappointment that is, because until today they were winning this one and it’s an important one to win.

This is one step forward and two steps back.

If some writer does want to do that Carnegie follow-up, this could be a case study for the text.