Articles

Ibrox’s Anti-Celtic Ticket Policy Screwed Their Own Fans In Ways They Never Intended.

|
Image for Ibrox’s Anti-Celtic Ticket Policy Screwed Their Own Fans In Ways They Never Intended.

In 1958, the Chinese Government under Mao Zedong decided that it would eliminate “four pests” which had plagued various parts of the country. If ever you wanted to highlight an example of mind-bending stupidity, something ill-thought out and reckless, this would be close to the top of the list.

No thought whatsoever was given to what might happen.

The “pest” which proved easiest to deal with was the sparrow.

According to data, each sparrow in the country ate four pounds of grain per year.

Eliminating them was supposed to improve the nation’s agricultural output and help feed the people. People were encouraged to shoot them, trap them, stomp them and chomp them by whatever means necessary.

Many millions of Chinese citizens did just that. And plenty of sparrows died.

But the sparrows formed a critical part of the agricultural chain.

They ate locusts.

When the sparrow numbers had declined enough, there was a tipping point and the locusts thrived. Swarms of them destroyed entire crops. Between these destructive insects and a series of storms, China was plunged into a famine which killed 45 million people.

Oops. This is the Law Of Unintended Consequences measured in blood, an awe inspiring example of folly.

It’s what happens when people follow through on an idea without thinking about the aftershocks. And in human endeavour this happens all the time. There is a classic example of that kind of stupidity right across the city, in this ticket affair.

Do you know how long clubs, every club in the league in fact outside Glasgow, had to listen to its own supporters asking them to cut the allocations for ourselves and the teams across town?

It was a talking point for years.

Nobody ever took it seriously.

Clubs were not prepared to do without the money.

Clubs didn’t want to be seen to be pandering to the fans in that way.

And then Ibrox cut Celtic’s tickets to 10% of what they had been.

There were one or two clubs who had flirted with doing this, and Kilmarnock even tried it before they realised it was costing a fortune, but it was a limited phenomenon with little actual traction.

Since they did that to us this problem has multiplied exponentially. Whatever “understandings” there were are now gone, over with, and away fans from our clubs are severely restricted almost everywhere.

Some think changes like this were coming; I never saw any sign that it was going to be a widespread problem.

They broke the dam with their decision about our fans, and the thinking in the boardrooms became “well if they do that to each other then nobody’s going to care if we give them only a stand each.”

It’s been like that after since, and this is the way it’s going to be.

People have to reconcile themselves to the idea that we might not be going back, not to anything like the way that it used to be.

Ibrox opened the floodgates and their own fans have paid an enormous price as a consequence … and it is high time some of them opened their eyes to the scale of what their club has done, not just in terms of their ability to visit Celtic Park but in helping to create the conditions under which other clubs have treated them the same way.

They normalised it.

They legitimised the views of all those fan groups who had been screaming for this at other clubs. Still they continue to blame Celtic, still they continue to act as if the two things are entirely unconnected.

You know how Mao tried to solve the enormous crisis he had engineered?

He imported 200,000 sparrows from the Soviet Union. Talk about too little too late.

But you know what? At least he recognised both the problem and the role he had played in creating it.

This crisis is only just starting, and in case anyone hasn’t noticed this it’s getting worse.

Ibrox isn’t even attempting to mitigate it.

They are prolonging and escalating it instead.

Share this article

0 comments

  • Stjude67 says:

    Brilliant article and as you say some people just can’t see the wood for the trees.

    When this first happened I was gutted that my two party days across the city were gone but now got to the point where I would just close the gates to them from now on.

  • John A says:

    They are spoilt brats that have to get their own way, they were fed up us partying at the crumbledome so they took the ball as much as they could. Feck them, keep them out of paradise.

  • Johnny Green says:

    I just popped out there and done in a couple of sparrows, for those greedy little bastards are the reason we’re not getting enough tickets for away games any more. 🙂

  • Scud Missile says:

    Should at sometime in the future sevco decide they want us back in and the 7000 tickets are offered again,we should tell them to stick them up their arse as we have got by without them so we don’t need them anymore,as this would be sevco thinking we have to dance to their,so they can F**K OFF.

    • Johnny Green says:

      I’m sure most SENSIBLE people would want things to return to normal and make this game a great occasion once again. There is no point being petty about it, even though they kicked off that particular process.

  • Johnny Green says:

    I was just thinking about the 4 pests in Scotland I would want shot of.

    1. Orangemen
    2. Huns
    3. Masons
    4. Referees….almost the same as 1, 2 and 3 combined.

    Sorry Scud, you only made number 5. 🙂

  • John Copeland says:

    Those good ol’ boys who are running the Rangers into the ground ,have been screwing their own fans for 11years ! The problem being is that those same fans continually want to be royally shafted and blame everyone else in wee Scotland for the privilege

  • Johnno says:

    This whole away ticket nonsense started with the scum not being able to handle the celts celebrations within there shithole with very quiet and empty stands, while we destroyed them out on the pitch.
    Now we can’t remain blameless either in the whole fiasco either.
    The main reason imo, is the songbook used by both sets of supporters.
    Even as a huge fan of the Irish rebel tunes and still very much of our Irish culture, I am also not a huge fan of them being sung during our matches especially when we have so many of our celtic songs to choose from.
    As for the scum, the DOBs will do what they do without ever changing either, so makes our rebel songbook OK then as many would see it.
    So therefore I don’t see a sensible solution and very much in favour of keeping the DOBs out of Celtic Park as we don’t want or need that shower of shit for nothing and will never be half of anything to do with such scum either

  • Bob (original) says:

    As ever, it comes back to our incompetent, useless, spineless, conflicted SFA.

    The governing body is supposed to get ‘the big picture’ and clubs should not

    have free rein to make unilateral decisions… which could generate the

    unintended consequences for other clubs, if not themselves.

    The SFA continues to be a hindrance to the Scottish game!

Comments are closed.