“Don’t worry, be happy”? Really?
A four word answer from The Green Brigade today, to a scathing statement from Livingston. Everything about that response is moronic and childish and downplays a serious situation, a serious situation for our club, our fans and for The Green Brigade itself. These guys either just aren’t getting it or they just don’t care.
Celtic fan allocations are getting slashed across the boards, for just about every away ground in the country already. Ibrox started this, for their reasons, but a lot of the other clubs have reasons of their own and those reasons have to be respected to an extent. A lot of it is being driven by demands from their own supporters, and that was the catalyst for the Livingston statement.
It comes on the heels of one from Hibs. And one from Motherwell. Before that there was one from Hearts. You get the drift. All about one group of our fans. One. A tiny number of our vast support. That is surely not a tenable position.
Celtic already have concerns over the way they’ve behaved in and around our own stadium and the way they’ve treated our own staff. The spectre of what they might do to get us severely sanctioned in Europe hangs over the club like the Sword of Damocles.
And everyone knows it’s a matter of time.
I know a lot of people are highly resistant to the reality of this, but we’re fast coming to another crisis point here. The Green Brigade have become a serious problem for Celtic, and one that the club is going to have to deal with, and probably not in a gentle way.
They have no respect for anybody; not for the league, not for the rest of the clubs, not for our own supporters or for anyone at Celtic Park. They won’t listen. They won’t accept that the rules apply to them. They act as if they have a right to behave as they see fit.
The banners which Livingston have an issue with are only part of the problem. They’ve hinted at problems involving a security gate, and they cannot have been pleased by the pyro at all.
So this already impacts on the ordinary fan who just wants to go to games, and especially away games. Supporters’ buses are dying because the away match experience has been eroded to the point where some of them don’t bother any longer.
Part of the problem is that some of our fans are just not willing to respect the rules of the house when we visit other clubs and those clubs don’t want that in their grounds, and I can understand why.
I’ve been hypercritical of the Ibrox support in recent weeks, and for good reason, but we have problems in our own house. They are different problems, but that doesn’t mean we can simply ignore them. The Green Brigade are unlikely to commit a hate crime, but they’re already breaking the law most weeks and that needs to be acknowledged.
This isn’t going to end, not until it’s brought to a bad end, and I can only conclude, with great sadness, that as things stand the club will eventually do it, because they have no choice. They’re not being given one right now. How do you deal with people who won’t recognise limits and will ignore regulations and act as if they have a divine right?
No such right exists, and Celtic has already sanctioned them during this campaign as if to prove it. It’s a matter of time before another, and quite possibly permanent, solution is applied. I wonder at times if there’s not a certain inevitability about it.
Forza Green Brigade.
So what have they done now?
Totally inevitable that GB will get a permanent ban, it’s only a question of when…
It’s like the line in the dark knight when Michael Caine is explaining the joker to batman – yi can’t reason with him – some men just like to watch the world burn.
I wish I shared your optimism. Sadly, the club doesn’t have the balls to ban any of them permanently, no matter how much trouble they cause.
Well said it’s only a matter of time ?
Scottish football is tinpot and this is an example of it,they treat our club with total and utter contempt,and here’s is another example of it.But we’ve to roll over and have our bellys tickled.Yet we show a little passion in the stands and now we’re big bad Celtic fans again.lets just sit on our hands like the tourist league down south
I suspect if there is any Pyro at all before May then the GB season tickets won’t be available for renewal. I honestly don’t see the club locking them out for the derby though, make of that what you will vis a vis integrity.
The banners I thought were fine, and had the GB not been an issue late 2023 this wouldn’t be a problem now, but the Pyro… Always the Pyro.
These tossers have proven time and time again, that they cannot be trusted. After the incident in Perth at the weekend, where a young Dundee supporter was seriously injured by a flare, you can bet your bottom dollar, that the GB brigands will continue to smuggle contraband into various grounds across the country. The SG should enact a law making the possession of smokebombs and flares a criminal offence. For a first offence? Six months in the pokey. I reckon such a move would be widely popular among supporters who are not members of ultra groups.
Hail Hail.
Nail on head, James. They don’t listen or care. They never will. Get them to fk.
These children are dragging the club into disrepute. They agreed to follow the rules earlier this season and now we’re back to square one. The only option now is the ultimate sanction, ban them. It’s obvious you can’t negotiate with kids who think they can do what they want with no consequences.
Now is the time for Celtic to take final, decisive, action against these immature so-called supporters. They continue to be an absolute embarrassment to the Club and wider support. They will NEVER stick to any rules imposed by Celtic or other Clubs. If there is a season ticket waiting list, now is the time to act. What are the Board waiting for?
Agree 100%. Was their suspension earlier in the season not suspended?
Like you I feel it is becoming inevitable that these morons are almost like the mob from G51 feeling Entitled.
I would bar them SIN DIE right now, what they give to the team is nowhere near what they take back in bad publicity, UEFA fines and General anti Celtic ethos.
Yes you are totally right with your thoughts on the Green Brigade, but i worry! if they are banned for good, because when they were banned last time the atmosphere was terrible home and away and i think had a bearing on some of our poorer results.
I’ve not seen what’s been complained about, but surely the simple solution is to refuse them tickets to away games. They’ve done it before, so it’s easy for the club to do. If there’s evidence that its th GB who are responsible for issues being complained about then I’d def refuse to give them tickets.
I agree that the Green Bridge need to cut out the pyros and behave in a more orderly fashion.
However, according to STV news, Martindale stated that they smuggled it in!!!! Did you see the size of it? Where was Livingstons security and Scotland’s finest officers while this was displayed?
I think Livingston statement is made because it is Celtic and Celtic fans they are critising. I don’t think it would have been an issue with any other club.
Manufactured grivence by Livingston and designed to cause a split within the Celtic supporters which you and I presume others are buying into and promoting their propaganda against our club and support and ignoring the part Livingston played in allowing it into the ground in the first instance and allowing it to be displayed if they had any issues on the day it would not have been allowed to be displayed.
Michael, I consider both the PLC and the GB to be the enemy within. The PLC are a bunch of Huns. The GB behave like Huns. Look at the away ticket racket that has operated for years, on Blue Peter’s watch. The GB can always count on their best pal, Big Peter.
Hail Hail.
No they are not, Celtic is a business and has to be run as such, we can all have opinions how the club is run but that doesn’t justify despicable behaviour by a section of our support, most of us are fed up hearing the hardcore rebel songs especially at away grounds as it is embarrassing,the green brigade do a lot of great work and they do add to the atmosphere but just wish they would leave some of the stuff outside,as for Lawwell taking so much out of the club,I think that’s called his salary and Dermot is the man who sanctions it and obviously thinks he’s worth it and tbat’s all that matters.
We are asked not to buy newspapers, we respond, we then read articles like this and haven`t a
clue what it is all about. I`m away now to buy a paper to find out.
If it’s a Scummy Scottish Paper that your buying Effarr, then I guarantee that you will be lied to from start to finish especially in The Scottish Football Section…
I honestly think I’d rather play skiffies at the seaside with ma 50p piece rather than subsidise any of these Scummy Bast@rds For even one penny…
That said they probably charge more than 50p these days in fact they do as when I was up visiting ma old mama mia last week I think I had to charge her £1.05 for whatever rag she wanted…
But the Chicken Mousse in Gravy Succulent cubes for Seamus the cat was free from me as was his honey flavoured cooked ham…
But not The Scummy Scottish Paper…
No way – Not then, Not now, Not ever ever !!!
I have been saying for a long long time that this section of so called supporters have no respect for the club and the majority of our vast supporters. If you ask the the fans i 100% guarantee the vast majority would want the green brigade sanctioned.
Should have banned the lot of them years ago. Bunch of entitled spoiled brats
Warning signs have been there for sometime.
Arrogant group of people, seriously think they are beyond reproach, time to ban them permanently.