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You Know Who Else Never Gave Up Last Night? The Celtic Fans At The Game.

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My old man has forever told a story about how he saw the Celtic supporters save Neil Lennon’s job that night at Kilmarnock.

He was there that night, and he said the slagging we endured from their fans was so extreme that he and the rest of the troops decided that score notwithstanding that they would simply out-sing them all night long.

And that, he says, had a decisive impact on the performance of the team.

I’ve seen that sort of thing have an effect before, and it definitely had an effect last night.

The nonstop singing of the Celtic fans carried the team through much of the match.

When the fans started chanting you could see weary legs suddenly finding a burst of energy or speed. You could see how much the players wanted to win it for them.

That was made pretty clear at the end when the players ran to the fans instantly and were engulfed in them. Tony Ralston in particular was clearly keen to share the moment with them.

And they earned that, they deserved it. That was much more like it from our fans.

We will never know just what impact the silent protests have on them, but I agreed with James Dornan when he wrote the other day that the players need the fans to be right there with them at this moment in time, and the protests deprive them of that.

Don’t get me wrong, I get the reason for those protests and I support this cause wholeheartedly … but there is no doubt that it does have an impact on the team when the stadium is morose and silent and you can hear a pin-drop.

How could it not when last night it was the will of those thousands of fans which combined with that of the team to secure the points?

These players deserve the fans to be behind them, whatever else is going on.

And they need us and they feed off of us and they play better when they hear us.

That last few minutes last night was glorious.

The supporters urged the team to that win and the players knew it and showed their appreciation.

This is our great strength, the reason they call us the 12th man.

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  • Tony B says:

    I just hope that none of the players got infected with the Omicron variant due to coming into contact with the celebrating supporters last night.

    • Andy says:

      Good point mate, but Covid was the last thing on my mind when we scored. If it was me I’d have been ten rows in 🙂

  • Jimmy says:

    Serious question, Does singing multiple IRA songs throughout give the team the lift you claim James. I have trouble listening to it when we should be backing the team with songs of our club.

  • SSMPM says:

    Jimmy its an ongoing part of our heritage, it will take time before its no longer relevant. As a kid going to matches it was an even more overt issue for our support as no one else seemed to stand up against the murdering British troops killing our families. The signing remains as you say and it will take time before the theft of a country and murder of its people is no longer relevant to many hearts and minds.
    In an ideal world it, no doubt should have had its day, but its not and for some it remains relevant still, its partly aimed at the British institutions and partly, mostly, why the British institutions, press, media, etc, hate us. The progressive move would be to stop this chanting, for the Isle of Ireland to be whole again and, though not totally relevant to this chat, for Scotland to be independent. HH

    • Jimmy says:

      Cheers SSMPM. I am second generation Irish so I know what happened. IRA has nothing to do with our heritage. My issue is the constant singing is not on. Do you think Calum McGregor feels the backing when IRA songs are constant.

  • Mark B says:

    Our support can be magnificent. But too often now there are issues. Remember our rivals fans when under Pedro there was a pitch invasion after they won at Partick? It was laughable, embarrassing for them. Last night reminded me of that. We won at Ross County we didnt win the title or any cup, it was totally unnecessary. Singing IRA songs in my view is not something we need. Yes celebrate yes jump around hug each other shout, sing its all great. But pitch invasions and the singing of IRA songs is totally not welcome. For me it spoils the spectacle of seeing Celtic play and win. I am a supporter of a United Ireland as much as anyone, I am appalled by the British Empire in general and what it did in Ireland. But watching Celtic in the modern age should be a pleasure I can take my kids to see. Such fans behaviour gets in the way of that.

  • REBELLIOUS says:

    The fans and the team played THE CELTIC WAY ie. right to the final whistle; as we’ve always done, my father told me that and it still holds true today.
    As regards the silent protests, I’m not a fan, my immediate thought was this could prove detrimental to the teams performance; and for me that is a risk too far atm. We need EVERY single advantage applied to aid us in this title race.
    James please ask the GB to change tack coz those silent protests are not in any way helping Celtic and could do damage to the team; they surly can demonstrate their cause in other ways.
    HH;)

  • REBELLIOUS says:

    Folk moaning about the pitch invaders is wholly appropriate, however; pitch very close to fans, the last minute winner and the overall sense of keeping the pressure on ‘that lot’ MUST be taken into consideration when judging them.
    Yes ‘that lot’ did the self same thing many times and suffered NO consequences, it remains to be seen what action, if any, will be taken against our fans.

    I’m not a fan of pitch invasions, especially in the current climate(C-19) but even at my age I just might have joined them given the above mentioned circumstances.

    GLASGOW CELTIC FC – ONE CLUB OPEN TO ALL

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