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Celtic’s board deserves media criticism. But the hypocrisy of some hacks will be difficult to stomach.

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Image for Celtic’s board deserves media criticism. But the hypocrisy of some hacks will be difficult to stomach.

There will come a time over the next couple of days when someone in the mainstream media will write something that I agree with almost entirely—about the incompetence of this board of directors, their lack of vision, their lack of respect for the manager, and their contempt for the fans. And even though I agree with every word, I’ll be pissed off at the person who wrote it for having done so.

And the reason this will annoy me is that these are the same people who have consistently praised all the so-called qualities of our board of directors, hailing them as geniuses and visionaries. They won’t be writing that negative stuff because they’ve had some epiphany. They’ll be doing it just because they want to have a dig at Celtic. They’ll be doing it because they can.

There is a particularly repellent individual who will certainly do it and his name is Hugh Keevins. The reason I bring him up today—when normally I won’t even write his name on this site—is that I just finished reading a piece by my friend Patty Sinat over at Hail Hail 67 about Keevins’ general attitude when commentating on the game against Motherwell at the weekend.

At 2-1, he was virtually on his knees praying for a Motherwell equaliser, just so he could pen another of his “Celtic season is starting to disintegrate” articles. And we all know those articles because we’ve all read them or had our attention drawn to them, which in my case is more appropriate.

I have never understood the reverence that a certain section of the Celtic fan community has for this guy.

He is not a journalist of any note. He is not a friend to our club in any way, shape, or form. He’s a purveyor of rumours. He has been caught telling lies about Celtic. He seems to take an inordinate amount of satisfaction in those times when we are in some disarray. He set himself out immediately upon Rodgers’ return as one of his biggest critics and now couldn’t be further up his back passage if he tried. His contempt for his own audience is unmistakable.

There are people in our support who seem to think that he at one time provided us some service or, rather, that he did us some great honour. I know he wrote some books about Celtic players, including one about Tommy Burns, but I can’t think of anything I would rather do less than read an entire book written by a guy whose journalism makes me want to puke my guts into the nearest receptacle. And I don’t care what the subject matter is—I don’t think my stomach could handle it.

I couldn’t care how he self-defines, and I couldn’t care how others define him. I think he is a toxic little cretin who never has a good word to say about us. He’s a malign presence in our sports media, the apex example of its dumbing down and its lack of any objective standard. His presence in a studio or a newspaper is an open, undisguised insult to Scottish football supporters because he is colossally ignorant about almost every aspect of the sport he’s paid to cover and his bosses think that’s just fine and that most people won’t even notice this.

On its own, that lack of even basic knowledge or understanding of the game would render him unfit to cover it for a school newspaper, let alone a national title. But he’s much worse than that of course; much of his work revolves around personal grievance and vendetta, and I have long wondered—and I have long marvelled—over what could have happened in his past to make him so utterly hostile to our club and so willing to use any avenue to attack it.

So, while many of the commentators out there will quite rightly take a shot at Celtic, and question the ambition level of this board, his is the last sort I’m going to tolerate. His is the last message I’m going to echo in any way, shape, or form.

Because first, I don’t believe that he sees this as anything other than an opportunity to self-aggrandise, to try to create dissent within the structures of the club, and to create the impression that we’re in some kind of chaos.

I think we’re not in a great place, but I also know that we have professionals on the pitch and a professional in the dugout.

But more than that, it will just be the utter hypocrisy of it. Because the one constant with this guy is that he lives in awe of certain people in our boardroom and certain people at our club, like so many others do.

At his heart, he is a coward and he will always bow to what he sees as superior strength. So any attack he has on them is simply him jumping on the passing bandwagon. Any article he writes criticising them is just him taking an opportunity to shoot from the shadows. And I have no problem saying that those will be fraudulent pieces written for a fraudulent purpose.

He’s a fraud. That he even self-defines as a journalist is astonishing to me. But it’s far more astonishing that someone, somewhere, has actually credentialed him to do a job that he is vastly overmatched in and wholly incapable of performing.

Photo by Craig Williamson/SNS Group via Getty Images

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5 comments

  • Dan says:

    Isn’t it our own fault for giving characters like this fuel to attack us with.

  • Brattbakk says:

    We should be relieved the window is shut, it’s the most dangerous time of the season for us. What exactly do the recruitment team do between windows? They don’t plan or identify targets. I think they just make sure whoever wants to leave gets a smooth exit. It’s done, disappointing again, but done. We move on.

  • MW says:

    You really need to get a grip yes we didn’t get a striker in but we have options not ideal but manageable. As I have said before you will never be happy with the Directors or anything they do as they don’t live up to your expectations but to write what you have is a bit much, not all supporters agree with the following about the incompetence of this board of directors, their lack of vision, their lack of respect for the manager, and their contempt for the fans.

  • Clachnacuddin and the Hoops says:

    The Scummy’s could actually do us a favour at Brendan’s next press conference…

    By asking him what does he think of his transfer window –

    But will they –

    They might if they thought it’d split The Celtic Support…

    I can’t wait to Here his answers…

    So Clyde Superscoreboard might be tuned into tonight then !

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