If The Green Brigade’s “Day Of Action” Involves Supporting The Team That’s More Like It.

So today is the day. The Day Of Action. And whatever action The Green Brigade intends, their first phase will be to greet the team on arrival at Celtic Park.

All I can say is that’s more like it. If they had stuck to this kind of thing, supporting the team and leaving some of their other nonsense for the pub or the political rally then we might not have ended up here.

Right from the start of this thing, one thing has been obvious; there are people in our support who have forgotten who the real show is about.

They have forgotten that it’s the guys on the pitch who are supposed to be at the centre of the attention. This club does not revolve around a supporter’s group who have grown over-mighty and over-estimated their own importance, it revolves around the guys who go play in those green and white jerseys.

If the Day Of Action amounts to no more than turning up and giving the team voice, then that’s the sort of action that might bring a possible resolution to this a bit closer to coming about.

Because that’s what it’s all about, or at least that’s what it should be all about; everyone coming to Celtic Park to get behind the team, to put the club first, to leave ego at the door.

It amazes me that the very people who accuse our board of acting out of self-interest can be so set on doing the exact same thing. But it’s all about the team.

They’re the reason we turn up every week, they’re the reason I do what it is that I do. And the team is always changing, and always evolving, but as long as we can put eleven players out on the park then they are the stars of the show, they are the people who matter most.

Brendan Rodgers said it all yesterday when he sat before the media and reminded people that this is a club which has values. Celtic fans are not supposed to behave like self-entitled brats or thugs. Every one of us is supposed to be an ambassador, a representative of something bigger than ourselves.

The Celtic these people believe in, and the Celtic that I believe in, aren’t separated by a whole lot of ground and I like to think that our reputation matters to these people. I want to believe that they are willing to stop the more outrageous behaviour and accept that the club has the right to impose conditions on them prior to any planned return.

A return isn’t impossible. They can make it impossible by continuing to act as if they are war with the club instead of supporting it. There is a path back, but as I said in a previous article that path back will be navigated on bended knees; the club has no choice but to do that to them because to do otherwise only encourages the next outbreak of disorder.

But it’s easy to do. The mindset has to be right. They needn’t see this as a defeat, not if it ends with them saying that they realise that their behaviour has sometimes fallen below the standards Rodgers talked about, and that they intend to focus on supporting the team first and foremost.

Then it seems less like a reversal and more like a revelation, something mature and honest. Humility isn’t the worst thing in the world, and in this case, it will pull this back from the brink.

So, we should all welcome their decision to put the team first today.

I think it’s brilliant. Even if they won’t be in the ground, they can show up and remind the players that the team comes first, that they’re putting egotism and personal animosities aside and elevating the team above their own grievances. That is a superb act, one to be applauded.

If they continue on that road, the way back might not be so long and hard as some expect.