The sight of the new banners going up around Celtic Park makes me smile. Are we really about to brand ourselves as Scotland’s Most Successful Club? It looks like it, although in terms of straight trophies we’re still technically tied with Ibrox.
But we have the Champions Cup and a heck of a lot more trebles, so that gives us the right, I think, to call ourselves what we like.
I hear that there is a lot of foot stamping and teeth gnashing going on over on the Ibrox forums over this. Good. I’m glad to hear it. I hope they are spewing over it. Sooner or later, they are going to have to send for a decorator to paint over that “world’s most successful club” nonsense they have up over there which has vaguely reeked of racism for years anyway, as if they don’t want to acknowledge the achievements of sides on other continents.
When you see Real Madrid collect their 15th Champions Cup, it also reeks of insanity. That has never stopped them making the ridiculous claim, and I am comforted by the thought that we’ll never take it to those particular mad extremes.
Some will say it’s a provocation. Who cares? Many of us have lived our lives as Celtic fans having to deal with the supremacist guff over there, and now that our club is in a position to ram it back down their throats, I’m not going to pretend to have any concerns or to be disappointed in us not taking some hypothetical moral high ground, which nobody ever really cares about until they can accuse us of abandoning it anyway. We know exactly what that’s worth.
Celtic is the most successful club in this country. That’s just a fact, it’s just a fact that they are going to have to deal with over there, and especially when we do take over in the trophy count, which should, if the summer goes well, be in the coming campaign. It won’t matter how much they scream and wail and bitch and whine and stamp their feet then.
The banners going up around Celtic Park reflect a new reality and reality is precisely what it is, and the club across the city is, for the first time in a while, simply going to have to suck it up and take it. They’ve told themselves this lie that they are something special, that they are exceptional in some way, for too long now … it’s time they were confronted with a few hard facts, starting with this one; Celtic is Scotland’s biggest club and has been since Fergus completed his five year trick and left us with a 60,000 stadium and stopped the ten in a row.
That we are now putting our best foot forward and finally in some way acknowledging this is not before time, and it doesn’t matter how frustrating it is for those who never acclimated themselves to this world we’re in, or accepted the implications of it. Those banners were always going up at Celtic Park at some point. It was just a matter of time.
But you know the real reason I don’t care what they think across there and that nobody else should either? Those banners actually have damn all to do with them when it’s all been said and done. This is Celtic celebrating its own achievements, and we’d be doing that whether they cared or not. This is Celtic acknowledging its own history and its own story, and that’s more important to us, and that’s a bigger motivation for us, than noising up the opposition.
I know this will strike them as an alien concept. But we’re not terribly concerned with whether it bothers them or not, or if they acknowledge it or not, or if their club issues a writ because we’ve been nasty to them or not. That we can lord it over them a bit is nothing more here than an added bonus. First and foremost, though, this is about us.
When I see those banners going up around the ground, when I see us decide to decorate our stadium with the acknowledgement that we’re the most successful club in this country what I feel is a sense of immense pride and satisfaction in what we’ve managed to do, and also in how we’ve managed to do it, in a game full of clubs still using various forms of financial doping.
We don’t get credit for it, but all this success has been built on sustainable foundations, on spending only what we earn, and that makes it even more special. This is all about who we are as a club, and that’s why I would be glad we did it regardless of how anyone feels about it elsewhere.
But to know they are raging … oh yes, that adds the cherry to the top, and I have no problem whatsoever admitting that happy fact.
Personally, I would rather we never engaged with them on any level; including silly one upmanship stunts like this. There is no “old firm”, leave outrageous claims like this to the deluded monkey, to me this only brings us to their level. Invest heavily for the new season, fully back the manager, and leave the monkey in our wake. That’s how to deal with them, leave the silly claim stuff to them.
Totally agree Seamus and I hope to god the support don’t start any going for 55 nonsense next season it’s was nothing but a made up accolade to make them appear relevant.
i’m afraid i won’t be one of those supporters , i’ll take every opportunity to wind the fuck out of the sevco knuckle draggers and going for 55 is one opportunity i won’t fail to make hay out of , this ” ates” them big time , going fer 55 56 57 ……….. the fun of it all !!!
Absolutely bang on Seamus let’s leave them in our wake although I still love the idea of getting it right round them ????
Totally agree, we should just have watched them have to quietly remove theirs….how satisfying that would be.
I get it mate, but I’m only going to say this; “No more sitting at the back of the bus.”
Take pride in our achievements, and our status. Don’t worry what they think of it, or what anyone else thinks we did it for.
They went out of buisness tryin tae emulate our past European success and that’s a fact. Failed completely. Now they’re faced with us totally debunkin their laughable claim of the ‘worlds most successful club’. They’re fresh out of braggin rights. Must be horrible wi nowhere left tae turn. Tho nae doubt, they’ll throw up their favourite despicable subject, for some sort of twisted ‘comfort’.
This has nothing to do with the zombies. They are small potatoes and yesterday’s men.
Celtic is Scotland’s most successful club and we are right to be highlighting that.
What anyone else thinks about it is irrelevant.
I agree with seamus it is not needed.did we not claim that title in 2012 when the first ibrox club ceased to exist ?. Is it going along with the same club lie by waiting all this time to claim it ?.
Great article James. I hope we follow up on this and have Simply the best belting out the PA when we beat them at Parkhead in the first derby, with their fans stuck in the stadium to watch us.
I thought we reached the most successful club in Scotland goal when Ange won the Scottish cup in his treble season that’s surely when we reached 116 trophies
Ragers 1872…….. 115 trophies
Sevco 2012………. 3 trophies
Celtic fc …………….118 trophies
Back in 2012 when the old club died sevco must have thought is was safe enough to BIG up the trophy count to endorse the continuity lie .
I bet they never envisioned us winning 26 trophies to their 3 by 2024
Celtic most successful club in Scotland but rangers the most successful club in the world, what kind of witchcraft is this??!!
And they are only just turned 12.
Do they count the other wee cup and league successes?
All those pre-season cups also and the unofficial ones in the war years when the Celtic boys were fighting ze germans. They will cling to anything to see themselves as the supreme beings. Making friends along the way.
But what about all those asterisk’d trophies Celic won when the rangers were RELEGATED to the lower leagues through spite and no fault of their own when the holding company were liquidated?
LMAO, rub their noses in it rinse repeat.
We’ll see that super Tesco at the big hoos one day and hopefully a tattie field where the pitch is.
I note that most of the above posters think we should leave this alone and while I respect their thinking I’m very much of a different opinion for sure…
I absolutely suffered YEARS of theirs trophy bragging before they died…
Still thereafter they continued it with The Survival lie even when I presented them with concrete evidence of their death by screenshots of the rags headlines and pictures they just denied it by saying it was their media that hates them (cough, splutter, snigger) telling lies on the one occasion that they ever told the truth…
So although we are in all our opinions 118-3 up on Sevco and ‘Rangers’ are burning in hell should we get ahead (for the first time in ma almost 54 years) then I am gonna milk it and take a fuckin brutal piss take REVENGE over them and take it fuckin BIG, BIG, BIG time !!!
I should add that I’m in a position to do these things on these shores and I realise that it’s not so easy or more importantly so safe for Hoops fans to do it around Glasgow and it’s neighbouring council areas !
In summary James it shows the “old firm” pish is long gone. Odd that its a total breakdown at director level yet we still have this desire to engage ie keep them relevant in a football sense when we should be ramming it into them
I would rather we didn’t do this, we had a go at them for doing this, and now we are going to do the same, it’s actually a tad cringey to be honest. I would rather we did something like “ Glasgows green and white”, something like that, that would be more suitable and classier in my opinion. HH
That’s a Photoshopped picture doing the rounds, mate. C’mon.
It`s not the banners that`s important, it`s what is hidden behind them. Papering over the cracks
come to mind. The banners must be a cheaper way but a few coats of protective paint
would be a lot safer in the long run. It`s years since these “covers” were first introduced
and the lack of maintenance glaringly evident then. Remember that Fergus McCann pointed
out at the time that the stadium was low cost (built cheaply) and high maintenance (short life
span), so, to me anyway, this is the thing to be shouting out about now.
As much as I would never like to see our club, descend to any of their levels, ( which we never shall,) I believe this is different, and we are fully entitled to display our current dominance, in any form that we see fit.
Our huge trophy haul has been secured fairly, in our long, successful and unbroken history. They are all aware, regardless of their reliance on delusion, lies and sycophancy, that the same cannot be said of them.
We’ve said that our recent title win is one of our most satisfying, due to all the hot air from Sevconia and their cheerleaders!
So let us all enjoy these times, and don’t let any of them mistake our delight, for arrogance !
Their past, supremacist arrogance, should always be a reminder to us all, that we never become complacent.
Let us hope that BR gets the backing, and the players, to continue our success at home, and in Europe ! That is of paramount importance!!!
Growing up I never thought I’d see the current stadium and the new decor makes my heart smile for all of my forefathers who helped make our club what it is today and their anger has always been there