GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - FEBRUARY 15: Celtic's Jeffrey Schlupp (L) and Reo Hatate during a William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Dundee United at Celtic Park, on February 15, 2025, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images)
You know things were bad at Ibrox and good at Celtic Park when, if you cock your ear at just the right angle, you can literally hear the bottom of the barrel being scraped by those desperate for an anti-Celtic news story.
And the one that the Daily Record’s Mark Pirie decided to publish last night was absolutely pathetic—even by his abysmal standards.
In fairness to Pirie—let’s be honest, I’m not going to be too fair on him—he was really just quoting another miserable so-and-so in the Scottish mainstream press. Another guy who can’t wait to have a dig at us over something, anything, or nothing at all.
This time, it was Pat Nevin, one of the BBC’s resident Celtic-baiters, wondering why, in injury time of a game we were winning 3-0, so many fans had already left or were in the process of leaving.
Eah, the answer is surely contained in the question.
Maybe it’s the 16-point lead in the league. Maybe it’s the 30-plus goal difference we have over our closest challenger. Maybe it was the comfortable nature of the victory. Maybe it was the fact that it was freezing bloody cold. Or maybe, just maybe, people had other things to do on a Saturday night. I mean, it’s pathetic to be digging up garbage like this and trying to spin it into an anti-Celtic story.
As I said in my match report yesterday, that was about as comfortable a day at the office as you could ever hope for. So some fans took the decision to leave a little early—big deal. The guy sitting beside me yesterday has to leave games early because otherwise, he’d never get out of the Celtic Park bubble and home before the eight o’clock news.
It amazes me, the nonsense that some people in our media choose to focus on. Then again, Nevin is a poisonous little horror of a human being, who another Celtic site highlighted yesterday for stone stupid remarks about Schmeichel being “lazy” so it doesn’t surprise me.
But Pirie trying to turn that into a news story and claiming it’s some kind of payback for Ibrox fans when we slag them about the Subway Loyal? What the hell does one thing have to do with the other?
For the record, that Subway Loyal stuff comes from Ibrox’s own fans—it has nothing at all to do with us. But if people want to get into a discussion about empty seats, that discussion really should start with how many of them there are at the start of games at Ibrox rather than at the end.
Because there are plenty. And based on what I was hearing today, if you go on the Ibrox ticket exchange website, you’ll see that there are going to be plenty more for their next home tie against St Mirren. That will be a news story. That will be a real news story. That will be a big news story. I just wonder if Pirie will cover it. I just wonder if Nevin will mention it. I just wonder if anyone in the media will care.
We surely don’t need to spell out what the implications are if Ibrox can no longer sell all its tickets. We don’t need to consider what it would mean if their manager is still in post at the start of next season after a summer in which the club is trying to shift season tickets to supporters who don’t want to watch any team he’s in charge of.
There are actual news stories happening all over Scottish football at the moment. There are big things happening every day. And this is what some of them choose to talk about? Fans leaving early at Celtic Park in a game where we’re cruising to victory? Earlier in the week they couldn’t wait to publish the Liam McGrandles story. I’m not saying it wasn’t newsworthy, but it wasn’t as newsworthy as the story of an Ibrox fan entertainer who had to go on social media and complain because instead of offering him money for a gig they offered him some comp tickets for his own event.
Odd, then, that I didn’t see that splattered all over the news in the way that the Liam McGrandles story was. Both of them came in the same week. One was about a group of fans having a pop at someone online. The other was about the second biggest club in the country screwing a fan out of recompense after it hired him to do a job. You tell me which one of those should have rung out the loudest.
Nevin hasn’t been a friend of the Celtic support for a long, long time. He’s said some pretty outrageous things about us over the years, which is why most people just ignore him. Pirie is one of the worst journalists in this country—an absolute clickbait and rumour merchant who writes nothing but gossip.
The idea that he’s ever broken a major news story, or ever will, is laughable.
But as I said at the start, you always know we’re in good shape when this is the kind of rubbish the media is throwing at us. You know things at Celtic Park are going really well when this is the best they can come up with. You know all is smooth, cool, and calm at our club when they’re dredging up this nonsense and firing it at us.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. These people have no shame—if they did, they wouldn’t write crap like this.
Photo by Craig Foy/SNS Group via Getty Images
One other thing that Pretentious Pat, the footballing philosopher, should have taken into consideration is the traffic congestion around Parkhead on match days. The appalling lack of public transport to cater for the supporters of the country’s biggest club is quite appalling.
@ JT. That’s exactly what he is. A pretentious wee arse.
Absolutely freezing and a formality over a poor Utd performance. Big gap at the top, If the huns weren’t playing their Lite brethren today I’d say we’d be easily holding at least a 15 pt lead after today,
Said it before Football in Scotland would thrive if it were not a winter sport.
And the diddy, riddy team from across the City just want a takeover, simple as that, as long as it brings in folk with endless amounts of money to appease the greed of the fans. Simple Huns maths money brings success, well maybe so if it was limitless and sqandering cash and talent was the MO.
Could have done with a piri piri to heat me up yesterday. It was baw cauld. If this insignificant comment was what he wrote about then god knows what the story he had prior to that was going to be. Sad little hun
Pirie and some of the others at the DR are not journalists. They are shameless click bait writers. And they can’t even get through a single day without making a plethora of grammar and typing errors. It’s such a car crash reading their stuff. I’m not even going to call it an article or work. ‘Stuff’ is the nicest thing I can call what they produce.
We know what the DR ‘loyal’ are all about. Nae surprises there. None for nevin either. The irony of him, bringin up ANYBODY walkin away. Remember him gushin about walkin tae belvedere train station with the all the other Celtic support, after we beat that lot tae win the league in 79. Now he’s a hibs fan. Maybe thinks he’s too much of an 80’s ‘intellectual’ tae be connected with our support. Snivellin wee pain in the arse.
Two Celtic Supporters on ma street are DR Loyal or if not then some other Scummy Loyal as well…
Spoke to them about purchasing Celtic HATERS and they said ‘Ach it’s something to do’ –
Pat Nevin – Him that played for Chelsea when the likes of Rotherham, Stockport, Huddersfield, Bradford and Sheffield Wednesday were skelping them…
He knows the square root of FUCK ALL about football…
The poor Hi-Bees are welcome to the twisted wee fuck wit –
Give me a year stuck on a desert island with Boyd, McCann, Fergushun et all rather than that cunt any day !
Hypocritical little Muppet Nevin didn’t want associated with our fans citing our songbook but happy to sit in a support who sing about child abuse
Getting home from CP, as we all know, is brutal, whether by train, car or bus !
So if some fans choose to leave early, in order to alleviate transport issues, then so be it !
We pay our money to support our team in all weathers, ( and Saturday was Baltic) so we don’t need any pretentious twats in the media, trying to twist a negative story on it !
It’s a complete non story! HH