Tavernier’s Guard Of Honour Remarks Haunt Him Again As Celtic Clash Looms.

As the debate over the guard of honour issue starts to get real, a debate which I think is about as pointless as wishing the sun didn’t set, or that summer wouldn’t end, because we’re just not going to get one from the Ibrox club, a few things come into focus.

The first is that some in the media are at pains to remind us that we were the last club to refuse one. Which is true. John Kennedy said no to providing one to the Ibrox club, but his rationale for it was absolutely flawless.

The same players had been denied theirs by the same team and by a lot of the same people who made that team up.

One of them, of course, was their captain. What a lot of folk reminded him of at the time was that he has actually got previous on this subject, and his comments left no wiggle room.

For him not to want to honour Celtic in that way was twofaced at best.

Because in 2016, James Tavernier thanked Alloa for providing his club with a guard of honour after they had won the Championship. At the same time, he aimed a barb at Hibs.

“Great respect to @AlloaAthleticFC for the guard of honour today!! True sportsmanship unlike some!!” is what he said at the time.

The rank, reeking, insincerity of those words was ably demonstrated in their refusing Celtic the same respect and “sportsmanship” just two years later, and when it came to their turn to make the demand John Kennedy did not miss when asked if Celtic was willing to do them the courtesy they had singularly failed to do us.

“It’s something we’ve discussed and it’s a subject that’s been brought up enough,” he said when asked if he, as interim manager, would be willing to get the players behind the idea.

“I don’t see it as a big issue. For us, collectively, we’ve spoken about it and we won’t do it. It’s not about lacking class or anything like that because we’re a club who always show class and do what’s right. Ultimately this group of players went in as champions and didn’t get the respect at that time, if you want to call it that. They’re the same players who are being asked to stand there, so we’ve decided collectively, as a group, to park that and focus fully on the game.”

Things have changed at both clubs since then.

But Tavernier is one of the players still at Ibrox, and that’s why we’re fully entitled to press him on this and see if his comments and desire to show “sportsmanship” still hold up.

At the end of the day, you either care about this stuff or you don’t and The Mooch got some rather nice headlines when he allowed Thistle to score in the Scottish Cup after his own player had breached one of football’s unwritten rules.

This is another of those unwritten rules, and at the time of the Thistle thing he made quite the song and dance about how much dignity his club has.

“This club is built on high standards and we want the best for the game,” he said, to much media applause and praise.

A short time later he got into the first phase of his public bickering match – in which he has been righteously slapped around – with Chris Sutton because Sutton dared to suggest he wouldn’t have done it against Celtic.

Well let’s find out what these “standards” are actually worth.

These Peepul only get away with this because folk in our media allow them to.

Rather than calling them out on this they let it pass without controversy.

But you know something?

That’s what we’re here for, to keep on reminding these folk over and over again of the words that come out of their own mouths.

No, we’re not going to get a guard of honour from this lot … but what we can do is show them up for the hypocrites that they are in refusing us one.

Standards? Don’t make me laugh.