The Media’s Ibrox Love-In Plumbs New Depths With Its “Santa Trolling Celtic” Guff.

Last night, Santa took the field at Ibrox at half time. He gets around, that guy. Cause he took the field at quite a few grounds these past couple of days. Those reindeer put in a power of work getting him around on that sled. In short, it was a fairly routine event.

There’s literally nothing there. Santa comes onto team pitch during festive period. Big deal. Postman delivers Christmas cards is about on the same level. This is not normally the sort of thing you see making headlines. Except it did last night all over the mainstream press.

And the story was virtually identical in all of them;

“(Sevco) troll Celtic Santa boos as Father Christmas parades Viaplay Cup at Ibrox” was the headline in Football Scotland.

The Evening Times went with this; “Celtic Santa booing trolled by (Ibrox club) in half-time League Cup party.”

And this is the Daily Record version, which I absolutely love more than the others put together. “(Sevco) troll Celtic as ‘happier’ Santa arrives for victory parade in brutal response to Parkhead boo boys”.

Happier Santa? They do know that wasn’t the same guy, right?

They do realise we’re talking about a fictional character here, yeah? Mind you, fictional club greets fictional character … I suppose if you can believe in one of them you can believe in the other.

But I’ll tell you what I find hard to believe; that these allegedly separate outlets, and these different writers, put precisely the same spin on what a complete non-story.

It’s because the Ibrox announcer decided to greet his arrival on the pitch with the words “You’re welcome here”, and because the Ibrox media department made sure the hard-of-thinking hacks got the point.

Take a minute and think about the mentality that betrays.

On a night when they can close the gap to two points, and still have a game in hand, and when they have a domestic trophy to parade on the pitch – a rarity for them, and a big deal you might think as a result – this is the kind of puerile stuff they are indulging in. Not so much bringing Santa onto the pitch, but spinning it to their press pals that this mundane act is a dig at us.

And The Record thinks this is “brutal”. Which it is, just not in the way that its desperados on the sports desk seem to think. The Ibrox club really is small-minded and petty and our hacks are no better that they think this is some blow struck against us.

It makes all involved wretched. It finds new levels of dumbing down. Simple pleasures for simple minds is what came to mind reading that last night.

Honest to God, and people wonder why I hate the media with a passion.

I’ll respect these people when they are worthy of it. This is just contemptible. When they start taking the job seriously, I might start treating them the same way.