Hartson’s Blast Over The Celtic Fans Ibrox Tickets Is Welcome But Will Do No Good.

Big Bad John waded into the Ibrox ticket debate today during a radio interview, with a blast at the club across the city, and a timely reminder of whose fault this whole situation is.

The Record is already pointing out that he’s defending “his former club” but the words he speaks are nothing but the truth, although it’s clearly an inconvenient one for some people to hear.

“This is not Celtic. They only reacted to what Rangers did,” he said. “If Rangers are going to be that shallow and stop away fans, why wouldn’t Celtic follow suit? (They) started off by banning the Celtic away fans, or restricting them. And then Celtic reacted and thought ‘if you’re going to do that, we’ll do exactly the same. I think that’s the proper thing to do.”

And there it is. John Hartson is the guy who has gotten right to the heart of this.

It is the right thing to do.

For them to effectively shut our fans out of their ground, and for Celtic to have treated them in a different way would have been a gross insult to our own supporters, and Celtic knew what they had to do. Furthermore, they warned Ibrox in advance of this that they would.

Hartson wasn’t finished yet. The discussion became a debate. Someone foolishly suggested that Ibrox is waiting on us to act first.

He blasted the mere suggestion of it, as anyone from Celtic would.

“Why do they have to wait for Celtic to do it and respond? At the end of the day, I feel like Rangers have pulled the plug on the Celtic fans and Celtic have reacted. If they hadn’t have done that they’d have continued with both sets of fans in either ground.”

He also slapped back at the ludicrous suggestion that this is an issue with both clubs, as well as the equally preposterous suggestion that we should see some opportunity in this to “take the high ground.” Which we don’t need, since we didn’t start this.

“It’s not both clubs. It’s Rangers denying Celtic fans into Ibrox,” he said. “That’s not both clubs. Why would Celtic then give Rangers any advantage if Rangers are not prepared to give them an advantage of 7,500 people in the Broomloan? I would think that’s pretty normal, it’s not about being the bigger club. Rangers started this. They decided it, and Mr Robertson this afternoon had the chance to put it right. He didn’t put it right. He only wants 500 or 600 fans back in. I think it makes the game a better spectacle when there is away fans there. But it has to come from both parties and I’m fed up of people saying ‘Celtic need to step up here’.”

And that is what we have needed to hear since this situation began, someone in the public domain, and with the benefit of an audience in front of him, saying this in plain, simple language, which Big John has now done, and in the best possible way.

Notice that he tackled every one of the ridiculous arguments which have been put forward and which want to put the onus on us? He knew exactly what he was doing. If the club had briefed him on this he couldn’t have done it better.

Unfortunately, it will do no good.

That club is in thrall to its own fans, and the hard-core element is sick of celebrating in front of them, a prospect which might have seemed more distant last season than now, but which is currently in the offing again and perhaps for a long time.

If they changed their policy tomorrow and Celtic responded in kind, there would be a flicker of anger in our fan-base but surely no more than that. Theirs would be in uproar, absolutely uproar, with the lunatic fringe in full-on melt-down mode.

And they will not provoke or antagonise that element of their support.

Christ, they won’t even condemn them when everything sane and reasonable says that they should. Ibrox is an asylum run by the lunatics. It will continue to be for a long time yet.