The Ibrox Fan Sites Can Sneer At Celtic’s AGM All They Like. Their Support Has Been Neutered.

I see there’s a lot of sneering and sniggering over the Celtic AGM yesterday, and some of the questions that were asked.

Even more about some of the answers that were given. But our board was, by and large, held to account. Even some of the people who made points I didn’t agree with – like The Celtic Trust – were there to voice their displeasure and seek answers.

There was no kissing up to the board yesterday, no blind acceptance of what people were being told. Indeed, there was aggressive questioning and demands for answers.

There are a lot of people who don’t believe that the Celtic fan media reflect the views of the wider support; I think that’s nonsensical, especially as there are so many of us now and coming from so many different backgrounds and traditions. Some sites are political. Some are not. Some write news and steer clear of opinions. Some are opinion based.

And the breadth of those opinions is amazing.

Some support the board over finances but disagree over The Green Brigade. Some support the club over The Green Brigade but disagree over finances. Some of them agree that we’re a well-run club but lament the length of time certain people have been in charge. Some are glad they are, and were happy with the statement from Desmond’s son yesterday wherein he said that the family intends to hang onto its shares for years to come. Others are aghast.

But all of these sites see their primary function as informing the Celtic support about what is going on at the club. What is actually going on, as opposed to what the media and others suggest is. They all see their role as, in part, defending the club from its enemies.

Yet when this club gets things wrong though, boy oh boy.

The sites do not hold back, not a single one of them.

Even those which don’t normally publish opinion pieces do so and they blaze away. And because there are so many of us, there are always a handful on any given day, on any given issue, who perfectly capture what the average Celtic fan is thinking.

So yeah, we do reflect the mood of the fan-base, and this is vital to understanding what has happened to the Ibrox fan sites. They are neutered, many of them because their editors and writers have a too-cosy relationship with the club. Others want to keep their heads down and do not want to get involved in anything that stirs controversy and risks turning their fellow supporters against them. This is not an illegitimate concern over there.

The section of their support which is intolerant towards opposing viewpoints is majorly more intolerant than ours is. I would go so far as to say that if you were an Ibrox fan writer going against the grain you would be risking more than a readership drop.

I’ve had personal criticism from fellow Celtic fans which goes to the edges of what’s reasonable. But I also regularly take a peek at the Ibrox forums and those who break with the orthodoxy over there are treated to far worse than anything I’ve read written about me.

They are subjected to such appalling comments and such retrograde behaviour that its little wonder some of them just want to keep their heads down. I’ve long believed that there is a section of their support which would love to be rid of its bad element … but they don’t see a path towards making their case. I feel for those people. I wish they felt able to stand tall.

Their own AGM a few months back was a tepid affair although it had promised fireworks. And if they think our board is good at throwing red meat to the crowd, their own is little better. But then their board don’t have to do that much, because they get a free ride.

The Ibrox fan groups have long since fallen into line.

Their main shareholder organisation has allowed itself to be royally grafted; its holdings have been diluting by “equity confetti” time and again.

I read its fan sites. They verge between denial and delusion.

One yesterday attempted to suggest we are almost apoplectic with rage at who is officiating their game with Aberdeen at the weekend; I didn’t know until I read it there and having read it there I couldn’t care less. Aberdeen fans should care but if they don’t why would we bother to?

I only mention it at all because one of those officials is Andrew Dallas, and their site had a rather unusual take on why Celtic fans might not like him;

“As for Dallas, you have to go slightly further back and to his old man Hugh who, for years, was targeted verbally and physically by Celtic fans because of the decisions that they felt went against them and in towards us – he also had his house attacked.”

First, Hugh Dallas was the subject of a single thrown coin.

Nobody knows who attacked his house or what the motivation behind that was. But the suggestion that Dallas was hated by Celtic fans “because of … decision” is contemptible garbage.

The reason Dallas was, and is, hated by Celtic fans is that he is a sectarian bigot who passed anti-Catholic jokes around from his official SFA email account, the action for which he was fired from his role.

I don’t mind them re-writing their own pathetic short history, they aren’t getting away with rewriting ours. Celtic fan sites may peek across the garden fence from time to time, when our own house is secure and things in good working order. We don’t lean over it every day of the week whilst the kids fight in the background and the dog attacks the postman on the front lawn.

The day one of their sites does a proper deep dive into their own accounts is the day Hell will freeze over. The day one of their sites takes a lead in examining the record of one of its own managers without caveating that with “but he will spend money in the next window and so everything should be alright” will be the day ice skaters glide freely around the Styx. The Palace of Pandemonium will crown a Pope before that lot hold their club to proper account.

They can sneer at us and our AGM as much as it suits them. Yesterday the Celtic fans at least tried to hold their club accountable, they gathered in front of its directors and they demanded answers to big questions regarding our future, our present and our past.

So what if t he comedian-in-chief cracked a few jokes about their club and got a laugh out of the assorted gathering? The fans there took the affair seriously even if he didn’t, and that’s the point, that’s the idea behind an AGM. No wonder they don’t recognise it.