A Lament For The Wee Sensitive Souls Of Sevconia.

For seven years now, I’ve been writing this blog.

Prior to that, I ran a website called On Fields Of Green.

Both sites had the same basic function; to write about Scottish football from the perspective of Celtic supporters.

This is why, unlike some sites – and fair play to them – we have covered a vast number of other subjects including football governance and the media.

One of the subjects we return to, repeatedly, is life at Ibrox.

This is not something for which we will ever apologise or offer any further explanation.

Anyone who thinks that it’s none of our concern what goes on over there, or that there’s not some advantage, however modest, to be had in constantly chipping away at them will, by now, never ever get it.

I am through arguing with folk on this, those who think that combating the lies that surround our game, or confronting the realities we deal with is some sort of embarrassment; go away and hide under the bed.

Read something more soothing or in line with your thinking.

This blog has a job to do, and we’re going to continue to do it.

Today I want to focus on the wailing brood of Sevconia, who for reasons which are clear (madness, insanity, childishness) are pretty steamed up about last night’s piece about us parking our tanks in front of Ibrox.

Man, are they squealing about it.

In the main, or at least the way they are putting it, they object to their club being compared to Nazi Germany … not that I actually did that. I simply used an historic analogy.

The piece was about how Celtic is now in a war of attrition with Ibrox, and although their position looks strong it is, in fact, deceptively weak and this forces them to make bad decisions.

The real point is that in a war of attrition the side with the deepest pool of resources will always win … and that is us.

That is unequivocally Celtic.

And the best example of it that I could think of – and it came to me in part because I’m reading Frank McDonough’s two amazing books about The Hitler Years – was the Nazi leader’s great gamble in launching Barbarossa.

At the point where he did it, he was the lord of all Europe.

But Hitler was also at war with Britain and the allies, who were trying to woo the Soviets to their side and the United States was looming as a major strategic threat in the future.

Hitler had started a war he could not win.

Early triumphs had made him seem invincible, but the obstacles in his way were still daunting, and the most important thing was that, as his generals knew well, he had no over-arching strategic plan for victory.

He had put himself and his country in a terrible position where he needed to keep moving forward.

Standing still would have been disastrous because the Germany economy was in dire trouble. In fact, at the time of the invasion Germany was actually receiving regular supplies of raw materials from the Soviet Union in direct trade.

The trains delivering some of it famously passed those which were filled with German troops on the way to the front for the invasion.

And my point was that Ibrox’s position is similarly shaky.

They are a club that has never posted a profit.

They are uniquely vulnerable to the twisting winds of fate.

They operate at a significant disadvantage against Celtic because we are better run with a bigger stadium.

They may seem to be in a commanding position but they’re not.

Most crucially, the resources gap has been made especially clear in this window; we are gearing up for a major offensive whilst they are basically stuck in the mud.

I think it’s a pretty good comparative.

Their self-pitying wailing over it is tiresome and, actually, quite offensive.

Their victimhood act is so sharp now that I sometimes wonder if it’s real and not simply put on.

But it’s also boring and even wearying.

Regular readers know I enjoy using historical (and even fictional) analogy; had some of these muppets who are complaining so bitterly bothered to check the piece I linked to in the article they’d have seen that, in that, I used one which had us as Sauron’s Mordor and another which had us as the Inner Party of Orwell’s 1984.

No Celtic fan took umbrage.

I am a computer wargamer in my spare time; one of my favourite games is called Hearts of Iron IV, where the objective is to run one of the countries which took part in World War II, starting in 1936.

You know who I frequently go? Germany. Because their strategic position is the most interesting, and I enjoy playing out the various scenarios and “what if’s” that it throws up.

No-one would call me a Nazi for that … because most people understand reality.

These Peepul are a real prize, I have to say it.

Remember when they sung “no-one likes us, we don’t care?”

Now they are offended by everything.

Their poor wee hearts break at the merest hint of an insult.

They are the most put upon Peepul on Earth.

If there was something gentler than a snowflake that’s what we’d have to call them.

Except that every perceived slight simply feeds the bottomless pit of their limitless hatred.

It gives them an excuse to indulge themselves in an outpouring of bile.

If they want to think I called them Nazis, then so be it; perhaps they are worried because the indictment hits the mark in some ways. Their behaviour frequently mimics so much of what those who study fascism would recognise.

Theirs is the club that bans journalists.

Their online hate mob attacks any viewpoint they don’t like.

They have a supporter’s organisation which marches in fascist garb.

They have several fan groups which openly embrace the politics of the far-right.

Their club frequently engages in Trumpian practices; they’ve built their entire structure on a “stab in the back” lie which the media continues to indulge to a shocking degree.

They are intolerant of the least criticism and seek to do as much harm to those who subject them to it as they can get away with.

They have hounded people out of jobs.

They have forced others to grovel for “offending” their delicate sensibilities and are power mad with it and regularly target anyone they dislike.

They are the fans who tolerate a segment of their support which makes Nazi salutes; oh they call it something else, but who are these guys paying their tribute to? Charlie Chaplin?

I didn’t know he had been an Ibrox fan.

It wasn’t Celtic Park which flew the Swastika either.

For the record, let me repeat; I didn’t compare their club to the Nazis and if they believe that I did then it might be the shame whispering to them, the shame at the various ways in which they’ve allowed certain ideologies to flourish within their own ranks.

Today’s been an interesting day, with all the messages I’ve been sent over this, some of them absolutely hysterical, ranting and raving like inmates from an asylum.

Others have just been so smeared in scum that I feel like showering.

None of it changes the central point; what really annoyed them about that article had nothing to do with the Nazis or the idea that I made that comparison.

What bothers them is that it told the plain truth about the positon they are in this season and beyond.

It told the truth about their “global fan base”.

It told the truth about their finances.

And it told the truth about their situation relative to Celtic.

We are the bigger club.

It is that, more than any other thing in that piece, which has them howling at the moon.