When it comes to what remains of our campaign, we’ll presume nothing. We have a provisional date for when the league can be won, but that doesn’t mean it will be won that day. The game looks set to be in Perth, and although Celtic still has a bit of work to do before then, the likelihood of a league decider against St Johnstone is pretty clear.
As such, you would hope that the club is ahead of the curve. You would hope that Celtic has already done the necessary work, spoken to St Johnstone about the game, and is actively planning for it. St Johnstone themselves should be approaching it with a shred of realism. They are not going to fill their ground that day.
The game will be live on TV, and the sight of a major club stadium sitting half-empty—when there is high demand for away tickets—will be ridiculous.
Both clubs should be sitting down right now to work this one out. They should be planning for a full house, whatever that means and however it gets done.
Celtic fans have a right to go and watch their side if tickets are available. And if tickets are not made available, yet the ground has thousands of empty seats, that would be an embarrassment. It would also raise serious questions about the logic of those running certain clubs.
At every away game we’ve played recently, there have been empty seats—sometimes a lot of them. And for every one of those games, thousands of Celtic fans who wanted to attend have been locked out. We’ve already litigated the root causes of this issue. We all believe it started with the Ibrox club drastically cutting our allocation, which led us to reciprocate.
But in this case, we can either keep rehashing old grievances or focus on a solution—even if it’s just for this particular fixture. Because this one is different. There is a pressing need to find an arrangement that allows fans to watch their team win the championship.
We’re not asking for special treatment—just a bit of common sense. We’re not demanding a permanent massive allocation at that ground, just consideration for this one occasion. That’s not too much to ask. And if we were asking for something that would cost these clubs money, that would be one thing. But they stand to profit from this. There is no logical reason for seats to remain empty. It makes you wonder what goes through the minds of some people running these clubs if they are willing to lose money rather than compromise.
St Johnstone is one of the better clubs when it comes to giving us tickets for games, and I have to acknowledge that. That’s why I’m optimistic that a good deal can be done here—one that benefits both clubs and ensures a strong crowd at the game.
Of course, as I said, there is still work to be done.
We still have to beat the Ibrox club to set this up. And while we take nothing for granted, it makes perfect sense to start thinking about this now, to be negotiating with St Johnstone right now, and to have everything ready if we win at Celtic Park against the Ibrox club and then Hearts to go 19 points clear.
As we discussed on the podcast, there is even the possibility that the Ibrox club could throw it away before then by dropping more points. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the Hearts game at Celtic Park could be the day we win the title. Their kickoff is later than ours, they are away from home, and they have been dreadful on the road. If we set it up the week before by beating them, that could be the title-winning weekend, making St Johnstone away a mere formality.
Still, let’s assume the Ibrox side can manage to win at least one of its next two domestic league games—though it won’t be the one against us, I don’t think. If we win our next two league matches, then St Johnstone away is when it will be done. It’s great to have a target date for wrapping it up. Obviously, we would have preferred a home game, but St Johnstone away will do fine.
Celtic should be planning the party right now—starting with opening talks with St Johnstone about ticket numbers and getting that information to the fans as soon as possible. It is not presumptuous to be speaking this way.
Arrangements need to be made, and we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we weren’t making them right now.
Photo by Ewan Bootman/SNS Group via Getty Images
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There are so many permutations at play here especially with Sevco being the elephant in the room and the runt in the litter of it all so to speak…
Perhaps St.Johnstone will play ball but will want to keep it strictly private at this point –
But that won’t be easy as there are bound to be a few Sevco fans in Tayside Police and Whatever security company Saints contract their Matchday Operational Plans to…
The Sevco Hun Hoards and The Scummy Scottish Football Media will no doubt be praying that we win it sitting in the house no doubt –
Anything to fuck up our awesome Glasgow Cross / Merchant City street party !
What a rapid season, I know we’re planning on winning the league nice and early but it seems to have flown by with almost zero jeopardy and Ive thoroughly enjoyed it so far. It’ll probably be sooner than the St Johnstone game, I’ve no faith in the zombies winning any match.
I would be surprised if St Johnston played ball and did the decent and sensible thing. I’ve said it on here many times before that Celtic have no real friends in Scottish football and the large majority of them would rather do us harm than good, even if it means cutting off their nose to spit their face. Let’s see how it plays out, but I won’t be holding my breath.
spite
Sorry James – as always, one game at a time, which is Hibs on the weekend.
Totally get where you are coming from but think it’ll depend on St Johnstone and their relegation situation as they’ve clawed themselves back into it.
If a point or better from us gives them breathing space or pulls them right back into the mix, I can’t see them letting us fill their ground for a party as their fans would go nuts.
Away back in the dim and distant, when we had an Old Firm, the league set up was rejigged to give other teams two money spinning games against said Old Firm. It was to the detriment of standards up here as teams got to know each other too well, and has led, through time to the lop sided set up we currently have. I can see no point in continuing with the current situation under these circumstances. We should include more teams and play one home and one away game.
Splitting the gate money 50:50 for the first time since around 1980 (ish) would certainly level out the competition a fair old bit for sure !