In Spite Of Its Defenders It Was Good To See Anti-Football Destroyed By Celtic’s Brilliance

Yesterday, before the game kicked off, Keevins latest piece laid out a sterling defence for anti-football, framed around the idea that if it succeeded that afternoon that Celtic fans should simply suck it up.

Was Keevins predicting a draw?

Almost, and I don’t care whether he took that to its natural conclusion on the radio or not.

He defended anti-football.

That’s enough reason to treat his views with contempt.

He also proved, again, his colossal lack of football history and knowledge when he quoted Bobby Williamson as having once said “If you want entertainment go to the cinema.”

I daresay he did, but the sentiment comes from England, and the 1980/81 season when Alan Durbin, of Stoke, famously said after a match against Arsenal, when quizzed on his stifling football “If you want entertainment, go and watch a bunch of clowns.”

Keevins didn’t know that, so he can’t be expected to know, either, how that particular game turned out. Durbin’s team lost 2-0. Which was the result they richly deserved.

His brand of anti-football didn’t work, because ultimately no brand of anti-football does.

Keevins and others believe it is justified because it occasionally gets results.

The only thing is, the word that really matters there is “occasionally” such as once in a blue moon, such as hardly ever.

Teams that sit back and play for an entire game with every player behind the ball are a disgrace in the modern sport and deserve no credit or praise.

Because only rarely does that strategy ever win as much as a point.

If these teams actually tried to play football and go at opposing sides they might have a chance of exposing some weakness and making a game of it.

Against a side like ours, they are playing Russian roulette with five rounds in the chamber.

A perfect defensive game is possible, sure, but one mistake and it’s over.

Yesterday, it was crystal clear that there was no Plan B once we got the opening goal.

Teams which deploy those tactics are freely advertising that fact before a ball is even kicked.

They don’t know what to do once the plan breaks down.

What bothers me most about the comments from Keevins and others, defending this kind of thing, is that it pays no heed to what fans – not our fans but the Kilmarnock fans – have to watch.

How happy do you think they were yesterday with what their side produced?

“My job was to send the Stoke supporters home happy, not entertain the bloody Arsenal fans,” Durbin said, years after that famous game.

It didn’t work too well, did it?

Stoke fans weren’t the ones who went home happy, that was the Arsenal supporters who got to see their team win.

Yesterday our fans bounced out of the ground where we gave McInnes and his team a hiding.

So yeah, I was thrilled not just with the win but about what it said about the beautiful game.

That sexy football still overcomes those ugly tactics nine times out of ten, that they are self-defeating and nonsensical, that time and again it is proved they don’t work.

Keevins and others might want to make a virtue out of sides which play like that, but ultimately there is no virtue to be had in it.

Those teams invariably get what they deserve.

Yesterday we simply turned that up to nine.

I am glad that we did, for more than just the three points.