Cancelling Celtic Fan Tickets For A Women’s Game Shows Ibrox’s Pettiness And Spite.

The news this morning that the Ibrox club has cancelled Celtic’s tickets for the women’s game at Ibrox is not even surprising far less shocking. This is a small-minded, trivial and spiteful club we’re dealing with here, and at a time when relations between us are at rock bottom. They are obsessed with vendetta, with the settling of scores and having the last word.

Has there ever been a more chickenshit board in Scottish football history? Remember what I’ve said about that word; its origins are in military-speak.

Paul Fussell’s book Wartime describes it as “petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant ‘paying off of old scores’; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of the ordinances … Chickenshit is so called—instead of horse—or bull—or elephant shit—because it is small-minded and ignoble and takes the trivial seriously.”

That is the Ibrox board to a T. Their behaviour in this case is shameful. Their statement outlines a faux justification which is absurd; they wanted Celtic to cancel the block of tickets bought by the Green Brigade, a logistical impossibility in the first place and which certainly has nothing to do with security. They wanted an excuse to cancel, and were searching for any pretext they could find, and particularly one that could paint our fans as a problem.

They also knew that if Celtic had done as they’d asked that they could provoke another fall-out between the fan group and the club.

It is low order behaviour. It is further proof that they will not behave in good faith towards us. They will continue to act like children throwing a tantrum, and if I were responsible for negotiating with these people on the issue of tickets, I would be cancelling all future meetings because I don’t think there’s anything left to discuss.

Their actions are shameful. To cancel tickets the day before the game? It’s an act of utter selfishness and arrogance and it cannot, it must not, go unanswered.

And let me tell you something; this is the club we’re propping up. This is the club we refuse to use our vast advantages in power and resources to put to the sword, and I remain baffled and angry about that. Because the need for it is obvious. We should be seeking not just to stay one step in front of them but to demonstrate in clear terms how much stronger we are and condemn those fans of theirs to a generation (at least) in our shadow.

Quite why we refuse to is incomprehensible to me, because this is who they are, this is who we’re dealing with, and it’s almost a moral responsibility to slap them hard … and we haven’t.

When you project as weak people like this will try to take advantage and that’s how we come off at times. But this can’t stand, this can’t go on. We need to put these people away.