The Goodwin Coverage Reeks Of A Contempt All Too Familiar To Celtic Fans.

This morning, I wrote of how the Aberdeen fans should take some comfort from the idea that at least now this is over, that the Goodwin disaster has crashed and burned and that new leadership will be coming into their club.

But I reckoned without one thing; the same thing Celtic fans had to put up with at first, even after it was long clear that Lennon could not possibly remain.

We ran into the arrogance of a media class which is always trying to save its pals, the ignorance of people without an original thought in their heads and the sheer egotism which lives in boardrooms round the country. None of this will last.

Yet that such walls of resistance even exist is proof positive that the bubble which envelops those at the top of the game and those who still believe they are its opinion makers and trend setters continues to be a problem, even in Scotland where for these people should see the writing is already on the wall in letters 100 feet high.

“I think Jim Goodwin and the chairman will have to have serious discussions. I don’t know if there’s enough good will from the chairman to allow Goodwin to stay,” Willie Miller said on Radio Scotland last night, and a lot of his panel agreed with him.

“There are big decisions to make at Aberdeen,” said another. The papers this morning say that their board wanted to “sleep on the decision” and that even today there are people inside their club who are minded to keep the manager in his job.

The word is that no decision will be made today. I’m flabbergasted.

Not one of these people, and very few in the media, even acknowledge that all the goodwill from the chairman doesn’t matter a damn, and the wishes of the directors don’t matter a damn and all Goodwin’s pals in the media don’t matter a damn because the most important people in this decided it the moment the full-time whistle went.

All that’s really happening, whatever some think that is, is we’re waiting for the so-called “power brokers” at Aberdeen and their media buddies to catch up to reality, and the reality is that the Aberdeen fans – the only people who matter in this – have had it with Goodwin and they want him out and whatever else others might think is irrelevant.

Yes, irrelevant, and that includes the board of directors. Who are they anyway? Do they really believe that when they attend games at Pittodrie that sitting in the function suite and having a nice lunch, and retiring to their panelled rooms for drinks with associates and partners means that they are the living embodiment of “their” club?

Celtic directors, some of whom have been in office for longer than they ever ought to, evidently hold the same view and frequently congratulate themselves, I’m sure, on being the Masters of the Universe as far as the Scottish game goes.

And they’re all wrong, of course, because they, like Cormack, no matter what he thinks, serve at the pleasure of the supporters. If they doubt it let them examine the financial statements.

This is not England, where the club chairmen can kid themselves on that the clubs are theirs because they are awash with money which didn’t originate with the fans but with vast TV companies.

Every penny which flows through the clubs up here comes from the fans, and it doesn’t matter what egotistical bastards like Desmond think after a fashion because it’s like when a manager loses a dressing room; when a manager up here loses the backing of the stands then it’s a done deal, it’s game over, and ultimately nobody can save him.

To be brutally honest, no-one should even bother trying.

On the back of a horrific run of results this is rock bottom, the proof that Goodwin was a terrible appointment and it’s an insult to all their supporters to keep him in that job one minute longer.

The fear of what to do next shouldn’t even come into this. For every second he stays in post Aberdeen becomes less credible as a football club.

The thing to do – as it was with Lennon on the night of the Ross County debacle, or even sooner – was to end it half an hour after the full time whistle and send a message about what would and would not be tolerated.

A club that wants to be taken seriously must have a line in the sand and following a 5-0 scudding by Hearts, being knocked out of the cup by a team six divisions down has to cross it or you have to wonder what does.

That result is basically un-survivable and so I don’t know what the so-called decision they are trying to make actually comes down to.

A decision like this boils down to how quickly you can get the press release out and who you send it to first, there is nothing else to be done and a club which the tiniest bit of respect for its fans would have done it immediately.