Celtic’s New Documentary Will Be Thrilling. It’ll Take Us In Close … But Not Too Close For Comfort.

A couple of years ago, I watched, with the same bated breath as many of you, a stunning football documentary called Sunderland ‘Til I Die. It’s one of the best things ever put on television and is still on Netflix for those who haven’t seen it. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I wrote a review of Sunderland ‘Til I Die for the website, and it turned into a meditation on the idea of Celtic doing something similar—an all-access, behind-the-scenes look at an entire campaign.

Part of me would love it, but another part would dread it.

I knew watching that show that there are things going on at our club that I, as a fan, wouldn’t want to see or know about. The writer in me chafes at that. But I know it’s true.

That Sunderland documentary was genuinely disturbing at times, especially if you were a Sunderland fan. It would have driven you to fury—at your club, at some of your heroes, and at the blindness and egotism of certain people. It highlighted the tension between fans and their clubs in a way that could damage that relationship permanently. It’s like reading your significant other’s diary and discovering what they really think of all your little habits.

I remember the first time I read The Secret Footballer books, which are astonishing for their revelations about what goes on in dressing rooms and football clubs. One particular bugbear was the general disregard that many football players have for their own supporters. While I appreciated the honesty in those books, there are things in them I wish I’d never read.

Two nights ago, Stephanie Grisham, who once worked for Donald Trump, made a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Tim Miller of the Bulwark podcast, someone I’ve mentioned often on the site, said that Grisham was the real deal—a MAGA Republican through and through.#

She also loved Trump from a distance, and after joining the campaign said she felt like part of the family.

But then she got to know Donald Trump properly, and her speech was one of the most devastating denunciations of him that I’ve ever heard. She described him as a soulless individual with no regard for others, telling a story about him visiting an ICU where people were dying. He was angry that the cameras weren’t focused on him. It was brutal.

Miller, who lost friends and colleagues—and his career—when he left the Republican Party over Trump and Trumpism, had a lot of sympathy for Grisham. He offered an interesting insight that I’ve heard in political circles and elsewhere before, and I’m sure many of you have as well: you should never meet your heroes. I’ve met some of mine. It wasn’t always pleasant. Stephanie Grisham’s reversal must have been on a whole other level.

The reason I bring this up is the same reason I mentioned the Sunderland documentary and The Secret Footballer books. I’m looking forward to watching the Celtic documentary, Inside The Huddle, when it airs on CelticTV, about last season and that incredible campaign, especially its stunning ending.

I’m keen to see the mood inside the club during the mid-season slump and how the players and the manager bonded together to get us through it.

I think it will be absolutely riveting viewing.

But there are two things I can’t quite shake. First, in some ways, it might have been better if it hadn’t been made by Celtic’s in-house team. We’re going to get a very sanitized, myth-making version rather than something raw and real. And, you know, I’m okay with that because that run did have a mythical quality to it—a fairy tale element. We put together that late surge and, after a disappointing season, managed to take both big prizes at the end.

But it would be incredible to watch the tension, the fallouts, the anger, and the frustration—and how the manager transformed from the guy who, at the start of the season, looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, into the Brendan we all know and love. The warrior and conqueror, the guy who fights the club’s corner, believes in himself and his players, and makes them believe as well. Watching that transformation would have been myth-making in its own right.

However, there’s a part of me that would have dreaded it more than anything else. I wouldn’t want to meet my heroes in that much detail. I wouldn’t want to know who blamed the fans, who got into it with their teammates, who wasn’t fully behind the plan, or which members of the Celtic operation considered walking away. I wouldn’t want to know what Liel Abada really thought about some of our supporters, or what some of his teammates thought about the whole situation.

And if the club didn’t have control, didn’t have the final say, and didn’t have the ability to put its own mark on this documentary, we might learn a lot more than we’d be comfortable with.

Yes, it would be intriguing to know what the hell happened with Mark Lawwell, and whether Brendan really did have a showdown with people over the summer transfer window, vetoing all the January targets until he got the guys he wanted.

But what I realized watching Sunderland ‘Til I Die is that there are some things we don’t need to know and it’s probably better that we don’t.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the club’s version of that story. I know how torturous it would be to see the other version.

Part of the thrill of watching Sunderland ‘Til I Die—a thrill that wasn’t present in the Amazon Prime series about Man City, Spurs, and other clubs—was watching an unfolding disaster and thinking, “Well, that isn’t us.”

This is exactly why the Ibrox club would never allow a camera crew to track a campaign at their club, no matter how much money was on offer. It would be the best television any of us had ever seen—and for their fans, it would be next-level horror.

But just because last season ended in triumph doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be elements of it that would be hard to watch. I have no doubt there would be, and I think there’s a good chance it would ruin some of our heroes for us because it would make us see them in a different light. But, as it stands, I strongly suspect we will get the most positive version of events.

When I wrote about Sunderland ‘Til I Die, I ended with a plea to Celtic to never, ever agree to something like that. I very much doubt we ever would—letting a camera crew from outside the club do a fly-on-the-wall type of thing with unlimited access and no editorial control.

But I’m very glad we’ve done this. I’m glad we’re going to get some kind of insight, if not the full picture. This is the kind of thing the club should be doing.

So, I’ll watch it without fear, knowing I won’t have to avert my eyes or cover my ears, or see and hear things I wish I hadn’t. I know I’m watching an incomplete version of events, and normally that would drive me nuts. If I watch a great documentary but feel it’s one-sided, I’ll usually rush to the computer, download some books, read some news articles, and dig deep into the story to find out what actually happened. I really don’t like a one-sided narrative.

But in this case, I’m more than happy to live with it, although there’s a part of me that hopes we get to see some of the bad with the good—enough to understand how people felt during the mid-season slump, to understand the emotions and pressure that everyone was under during those weeks when we seemed on the brink of throwing away the title and handing Ibrox its most unexpected victory.

Because that has significance and historical importance that goes beyond just titillating viewers or giving us a weird voyeuristic thrill.

Last season was one of the sweetest victories I can remember as a Celtic supporter. The nature of that victory—the unexpectedness, the football we played towards the end, the effortless way we handled unbelievable pressures—was stunning. But it was also historic, and it’s important to find out how it was done.

So, please, Celtic, go deep.

Let us see some of the real and raw. Let us experience the tension and pressure and show us how they overcame it to end the season in that form and deliver on what was promised when Brendan stood in front of the crowd outside Celtic Park and said, “See you in May.”

But not too deep. Give us just enough to get the picture, but nothing that’s going to give us nightmares.