Celtic was never getting a guard of honour from a club which has none.

I had to laugh last night when I read the suggestion—tongue-in-cheek from most, I suspect—that we should win at Tannadice and then head straight to Ibrox to demand our guard of honour. The alternative idea, that we get out the champagne and spray some of it in the direction of their supporters, I also found pretty amusing.

But Alastair Johnston had it right on this subject; it’s immaterial anyway. What counts is the winning, not the strutting afterwards. Winners know this. The losers are the ones who cling to the irrelevant rubbish.

There’s an historical analogy I like to drag out at certain times; that of Caesar returning from one of his early wars and demanding a triumph from the Senate, at the same time as he was running for Consul. His opponents surmised that as long as they denied him his triumph that he would stay outside the city and wait until they relented, as other generals before him had, on the grounds that the moment he crossed the sacred boundaries he would lose “imperium” – his military rank – and therefore any rights that he had to that honour.

The calculation they made was that in doing so he would be unable to run for political office, as he was not present in Rome and still technically held a commission.

Caesar did the opposite. He entered the city, took his seat in the chamber and ultimately won his election. He knew the difference between the symbolic achievement and the one that really mattered.

Still, the guard of honour would have been a nice gesture. In almost every footballing country, the idea that the champions would receive a guard of honour in the very next game would be taken as a matter of routine. The guard of honour is a time-honoured tradition, a mark of respect for worthy champions. It has even transcended rivalries. Just not this one. Just not here, in this parochial hellhole that is Scotland.

Until I read about it last night, the idea of an Ibrox guard of honour hadn’t even occurred to me. It would have, had we been playing any other club. I’d have been moved to speculate whether the opposition would lay one on for us—and probably, any other opposition would have.

But I never expected it from Ibrox. I’d never have sought it from them. I don’t want it from them. So this year, I’m not going to make any kind of song and dance about it. It won’t happen and ultimately I’m not interested anyway.

The reason it won’t happen isn’t simply down to the Ibrox coaching staff—but it’s them who make it unimaginable, because they’re never going to agree to it. Their motivations are as warped and as poisonous as it’s possible to get. They believe that to succeed at that club, you have to hate our club and everyone in it. And that attitude has produced an ever more toxic football environment over there.

We can talk about how very little has changed on the pitch for them—except I actually think they’ve gotten slightly worse—but off the pitch, we can’t deny there’s been a noticeable cultural shift.

You can see it. You can sense it. It’s in the atmosphere that permeates the press conferences and everything else they do.

You saw it in their behaviour at the end of the Aberdeen game, and especially in their behaviour at the end of the Celtic game. That club is now in the hands of the clown car crew—yes. But also in the hands of Trumpian nutcases who believe in their own innate supremacy over everyone else.

That’s why there will never be a guard of honour from these people. They don’t believe anyone else deserves to be honoured. And if you listen to the words of their songs, they certainly don’t believe we do.

They’ve always thought of us as less than they are anyway.

And that’s why I don’t want a guard of honour from them. I don’t want a guard of honour from the Barry Ferguson version of that club. I’d rather not. I’d rather they wear their emotions clearly instead of putting us through some charade with mock solemnity and in mock respect.
I’d rather have their contempt. I’d rather have the honesty of their hatred and disgust for us. I’d rather have their jealousy and their rage written all over their faces. I’d rather see them wallow in the despair of the loser than rise up and try to be better.

The guard of honour is about respect. They don’t respect anyone. It’s about a recognition that someone else has excelled—and they couldn’t care less about anyone but themselves. It’s about good sportsmanship. They don’t subscribe to the theory of good sportsmanship. They never have. Ferguson was like that when he was a player too. A bad loser and a terrible winner. When they lost, they’d grump and moan and bitch and make excuses. When they won, they’d try to rub your face in it.

When I hear people ask whether it will ever get boring—winning title after title, cup after cup—I only have to look across the city at their raging little faces. I only have to think about all the times when we had to eat their shit. And you know what? It’s never going to get old. It’s never going to become boring. I’m never going to stop savouring our victories—not only for their own sake, which is the primary thing, but also for what they do to them.

It will mean a lot to go there as champions. Nothing will drive them crazier than having to host us at the start of our Going for 56 campaign.

I know that campaign won’t start in earnest until next season, but we all know it really begins at Ibrox. We all know that if we go there and win, we drive a stake through their heart. We remind them why we’re champions. And if they want to take our title away from us, they’re going to have to rip it out of our fingers.

If we take the field and win there, they can keep their guard of honour and everything else. The only people our players will require validation from and who will need to stand and applaud will be the 2,000 of our fans, protected by nets.

They’ll applaud our team off the field.

That’s the only response—the only respect—that matters to Brendan and his players. And if the players step up and deliver, then they’ll get that respect and that honour, and that will more than make up for any respect they don’t get elsewhere.