Let me applaud Andrew Smith of The Scotsman today for his outstanding article on the game yesterday, and the way he focussed a big part of it on the appalling events off the field at Ibrox.
The stuff on the pitch got most of the headlines elsewhere.
Those who did write the headlines were mainly focussed on a tiny group of Celtic fans and how they “disrupted” the minute’s silence. For the most part, they ignored, or tried to ignore, other events.
Those other events were properly explored by Smith, who deplored the vile bigotry of the Ibrox fans, with their disgusting songs and their abhorrent, 17th century hatreds on full display.
Smith, too, mentioned the idiots in our own support and I’m not going to write the rest of this before laying down, once again, my utter disgust at those amongst our fan-base who behave like the most reprehensible trash.
Who do they think they represent? Not the rest of us, nor the great mass of humanity. If you can’t be silent for dead football fans, then you’re a piece of shit. You are not a rebel. You are just a low order arsehole.
Andrew Smith nailed it, as he’s nailed it on these subjects, time and time again.
He also slammed Beaton and Collum, not only for the penalty we didn’t get but for the one that the Ibrox club did get. It seems not everyone in the media is content to play this little farce out and pretend that there’s nothing wrong here.
“Ange Postecoglou’s men were left with yet more gripes about a system that has caused them only grief in the two months since it arrived in Scottish football,” he wrote at the end of the piece.
I can only applaud him for telling it straight, in every way.
Here’s what the real story of the game is; Celtic fans were subjected to a torrid time of it yesterday.
If it wasn’t the shameful chanting from people who wanted to wade up to their knees in our blood it was the scum who rained bottles and other objects on our supporters.
Ibrox’s ticketing policy for these matches blatantly puts our people in harm’s way.
It is high time Celtic refused to take tickets for this game, and refused to offer any to their fans for Parkhead. The current system is grossly dangerous whenever we go there.
A couple of years ago, when this standoff started, I was told by someone at the centre of the operation to keep our fans safe that there was such acknowledgement that they were being put at risk that there was actually talk of netting being used to protect them. It was a ghastly idea, but I now wonder if it wasn’t also the correct one.
Something has to give. The disgusting images of our fans being treated for injuries after a barrage of missiles yesterday are terrible and frightening.
For their fans to crow over a couple of halfwits amongst us who couldn’t stand silent for 60 seconds is grotesquely hypocritical when they refuse to condemn those amongst their own number who are actually endangering lives with this vile behaviour.
It is stupid too because it is their club which will be held accountable if someone is seriously injured or, God forbid, killed at that ground.
But we should not be waiting on that.
This is not the first barrage like this which our fans have been subjected to.
As long as we are hosted in that tiny part of the ground, surrounded by hatred, this will continue. Our club has to walk the fine line between depriving our fans of the chance to watch their club and making a public stand by rejecting tickets.
I fear that something sufficiently serious is going to happen which renders that choice redundant.
Our fans are being put at risk by that club and its reactionary policy, designed only to appease a hard-core of its own fans, and they are not going to change that stance unless, or until, something breaks.
It is simply not worth it any longer, and I don’t think too many people could realistically object if we simply tell them we won’t subject our fans to that level of risk.
And of course, that will mean that their own fans are no longer welcome at Celtic Park.
In many ways, their club has made this easy to do.
When they cannot guarantee the safety of Chris Sutton, in the commentary box, then they can’t guarantee the safety of 700 supporters without a glass partition to protect them.
They are damned by their own words, as well as their inaction, and we surely cannot, much longer, allow this to carry on.
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James you must have read similar articles to myself, yet you fail to mention that Celtic FC have indeed made previous contact with the sfa and are now attending another meeting with the useless sfa concerning the use of VAR.
I think it’s important to admit when you’re wrong, it’s good for the character, so I’ve heard.
They are glad the silence was not respected it is what they are looking for that is fact. Our own fans need to realise this. I am old enough to remember the benefit game at hampden for the disaster when they chanted abuse at tommy gemmell and as a teenager along with a few mates we ended up getting chased by the scum that is a fact.
Scouse Bhoy, yes I knew that, re.that lot waiting on it; then the media can trash us for it, same old shit, same dirty old ibrox.
No my comment was that James had written that the club had done nothing, when they have been proactive BEFORE yesterdays’ game, and now they attended a meeting this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon, I could not quite ascertain exactly.
The Celts Are Here site I believe it was.
Was at Paradise v that lot and tried reporting their fans, the copper told me…
YOU SIT ON YIR ARSE OR I WILL LIFT YOU,
So I kinda know who’s p side the filth are on, sure; it’s not difficult to see.
And I’m old enough to recall charging horses on the Hampden turf… FQN MADNESS lol
Good luck tae ye Scouse Bhoy HH.
Fans of every age will have tales of that lot, in some shape or form.
I wdnt give these SCUM HUN BASTARDS a Fukin HAEPNY! Let them sing their 17th Century PISH then fight amongst themselves when the result disny go their way!! Only then will the watching world sit back & say ‘Look at these Fukin ARSEHOLES wae nae opposition fans in making a Cunt ae theirselves’ Tae be BRAIN DEED, WHIT A LAFF EH.. WIZ I WISH A KNUCKODRAGGIN HUN BASTARD LOL!!
Tell them we won’t play the 2 games at ibrox take the 6 point hit and we will still win the league. Ah if only!!!
Celtic should be communicating with sevco, the police and the SFA about this. Supporter safety cannot be placed at such risk inside a stadium, this really needs to be dealt with. Urgently.
As for the eejits who disrupted the silence… It’s about boys and men who went to a game and never made it home. Hardly a tyrannical system that you’re being asked to respect. If you honestly can’t even shut up for some innocent folk dying tragically, then let it be about McGarvey, or Pope Benedict XVI to you privately and ‘rebel’ inside your head. You do yourself, the club, and the country no favours with this crap.
All this does is allow the vile “both sides as bad as each other” crap. Never mind that hurtling things at people is significantly worse, you gave them the rope with which to hang you. Our away fans generally need to start actually engaging their brains.
Too many of ou Away ‘ Fans ‘ have no brains to engage, Martin.
This is one of the best pieces I’ve read in a long time, seldom do I read something where I’m nodding at every single word.
Let’s have it right, this whole 700 pish started after 2 years of them publicly badgering their board in amongst those 5-1 hammerings that they didn’t want Celtic fans in the Broomloan Stand and wanted their own fans their instead, in short they were spitting out the dummy because of Celtics sheer dominance!
Celtic have played this right to a point by saying that we want the status quo to return but until it does we will reciprocate what you give us, this puts the onus squarely on Sevco.
After receiving nothing at all then came this 700 allocation which as you rightly say is in a completely unsafe area of the ground and therefore puts Celtics fans at risk which in every game this has proven to be the case with numerous incidents.
Celtic are doing nobody any favours taking that 700, most importantly the fans are being put in danger when all it needs is a polite statement saying in future they will refuse that allocation and will therefore reciprocate for the reverse fixture and put a caveat on this by stating we didn’t want this situation in the first place and are ready to go back to giving Sevco 7000 if they stop this policy.
I think there’s a slim chance of such a statement and action from Celtic and even less chance of Sevco returning things back to pre 5-1 humpings!
Nailed it, James. Dundee Utd, Ross County and others have had similar experiences. They will probably wait till some poor bugger gets killed. And battery thrown atBroony, Joe’s glass goalmouth etc. This wont stop unless a stooshie is created. What would the SPFL/SFA do if ALL clubs refuse to play there on safety grounds ?
They are glad the silence was not respected it is what they are looking for that is fact. Our own fans need to realise this. I am old enough to remember the benefit game at hampden for the disaster when they chanted abuse at tommy gemmell and as a teenager along with a few mates we ended up getting chased by the scum that is a fact.
The supporters who were injured and had to receive treatment should be suing the Sevco board, for failing to keep them safe.
The PONCE across the water could use his press pass privileges to contact the European governing body to call out or highlight the cheating and corruption in our game,because our club CERTAINLY ain’t going near or touching it.
As for people looking for the SFA and the police to get involved with anything that goes on at ibrox don’t make me laugh they are part of the cause for what’s going on there.
I was friendly with a doctor a year or two back a decent man ,he was a big Aberdeen fan .He had been to ibrox on a few occasions in the area celtic fans are now housed . Every time he had been at ibrox he was showered with missiles ,but the final straw was last time he attended ibrox he and other supporters were showered with cups of urine .He complained to a senior police office who told him to zip it or he would be spending the night in the Glasgow cells.
Absolutely we should refuse tickets for that midden and offer them nothing for Celtic Park. I think we can all agree that the game last February where there were no huns was one of the best atmospheres all season, dispelling the myth that we need the bigots to create that “special” atmosphere. Also I would say that 1 more incident involving a Celtic employee ( see physio getting bottled last year) and we refuse to play at the bigotdome at all citing employee safety as the reason.
Again, The Celtic Star have seen evidence that the silence was broken by Rangers fans shouting “f*ck the pope”.
I don’t like the idiot element in our support but maybe on this occasion the problem lies with the horde, and not our fellow Celts
Time for home fans only at both grounds.River Plate and Boca Juniors were forced to implement this policy in the big Buenos Aires derby,some time ago of no visiting fans.This didn’t really surprise me in South America but I never thought I would see the day we would need to implement it in Scotland.Funny how most clubs with a fascist underbelly among their fanbase can never guarantee safety of visiting fans.
Once again Celtic will do nothing
C’mon prove me wrong please
Welcome to life under Lawell pt 2
Disgraceful
At a game which commemorated the loss of life in a football ground, the safety of spectators was clearly at risk and condoned.
If it was only a couple of idiots, believe that if you like, that broke the silence why weren`t they frogmarched out of the ground and booted up and down Edmiston Road? Total scum and no better than the animals on the other side.
Time Celtic stopped being the nice guys and tell them to stick their tickets up where the source of their well-known aromas originate.
Anyone who enters that dump deserve all they get.
Castle greyskull is a breeding ground for sectarian hatred and always has been. Some off the anti Catholic and Irish songs they sing defy humanity. Yes time for celtic to bin their allocation. Nothing but a sectarian cess pit.
All Celtic should keep Thier money in Thier pockets rather go that poiseness cess pit they picked section of the ground where Celtic fans safety will ALWAYS be at risk , should be no visiting fans at either grounds as the damage done costs are way above gate money received ban all away fans in old firm league games
How are the zombie scum getting past security at turnstiles with weapons the stewards police Scotland are compliant in this corruption bigotry it’s the country you habitate do something about it or live with it