Glasgow City Council failed the Celtic fans. We will party regardless.

So yesterday, Glasgow City Council put out a “suggestion” to Celtic fans that they shouldn’t attend the celebration for Flag Day. And I found the City Council’s request/demand/suggestion to be rather offensive, if I’m being perfectly honest. It references “disorder” in previous years which didn’t happen. It references “extensive property damage”, which actually didn’t amount to that much.

It references rubbish piling up in the streets, and although they’ve had a year to prepare for the inevitability of this event, not only did they decide to stage an Orange parade on the same day, but they provided nothing by way of extra bins or anything else so the fans could tidy up after themselves. This is a failure on their part—a failure of imagination, a failure born of a general lack of respect.

So my advice to Celtic fans is this: go and have the party. This isn’t our screw-up. This isn’t our mistake. We’re not the ones who failed—and failed utterly—to properly prepare for this event. It’s not our responsibility to prepare for this event. It’s the responsibility of those who run the city to make sure that the area is properly kitted out with what fans need to enjoy the day. Since everyone knew we would be there.

At every stage in this, these people have gone out of their way to insult us.

Take, for example, the involvement of the Ibrox club in the discussions. Why were they involved at all? It seems like pure tokenism to bring them in and to chat with them about this. It also speaks to a desire not to offend anybody. It’s typical of the political class not to realise that part of the job is having to make difficult choices, and sometimes that means pissing people off.

Give Celtic fans their due on this one. We at least want to have our party in the Merchant City, where a lot of Celtic bars are, and in the Trongate, which is all Celtic bars. We don’t feel the need to breeze into George Square and take over the whole centre of the city. This is not a statement of ownership. It’s a celebration.

When our rivals took over George Square, that was about ownership. And that’s why it should not have been allowed. George Square belongs to the whole city, not just one group.

Actually, the council have got some balls to try and pin this on us—to put this on our shoulders. Their supposed respect for the tax-paying citizens of this city is transparently false, because the last time I checked, they didn’t give a toss about the tax-paying citizens. And in the time that this particular group has run the council, services have been cut to the bone like never before.

Now I understand that this is the same choice facing municipal bodies all over the country. I understand that the pie has gotten smaller, and there’s not enough to go around, and that some hard choices have to be made. Well, let me tell you— in a council where senior executives are paying themselves fortunes, the money it’s going to cost to clean up after a few football supporters isn’t going to make a dent.

And I say again, if only they had done something as simple as putting some of those big blue bins out along the route—giving fans the option to clean up after themselves—they could have mitigated the problem. But they chose not to do that. And now they’re going to try and blame us for the result.

These events have happened three years in a row. They’re going to keep happening. And I hate to bring it up again, but if we’re going to allow Orange parades—if we’re going to allow Halloween in July every single year—it’s not too much to ask that they set aside one day for football supporters.

There was a time when something like this would have been held in Glasgow Green. The council itself would have provided a stage for some bands to entertain the fans. All of our guys could have gathered in one place and had a big party. Why didn’t they do that? Why didn’t they make provisions for that?

And I’ll go you one better. Had they put on a show like that, had they done something like that—had they provided a giant open-air area with toilets, bins, and all the rest of it, away from the streets, put out some beer stalls, they could have made it a ticketed affair and covered their own costs.

But they don’t even have the imagination for something as simple as that. And I find that absolutely pathetic. It’s a failure of imagination. It’s a failure to even care—because it’s much easier to demonise football supporters than it is to actually provide for them.

One of the great pleasures I’ve enjoyed in the last few years is being able to follow our team abroad. I have the luxury of being able to do that. My job affords me the opportunity, and it’s one of the best things about it. I’ve seen what other cities have done for our supporters. I’ve seen what they’ve laid on, what they’ve provided. I’ve seen how they treat football fans in general.

I’ve stood with thousands of other fans in the main squares of Munich, Madrid, and Rome. I saw the welcome we were given in Dortmund. And I can tell you that all those cities care more about football supporters than this one does. All of those cities provided for our supporters in a way this one does not. All of those cities welcomed us with open arms. This city treats us like dirt.

That’s why I’m not interested in the self-pitying whining of a few malcontents who, instead of giving us grief, should be leaning on their elected officials and asking them why this city can’t do more for football fans. You have to want to. You have to want to try. You have to want to make them welcome—to roll out the red carpet. And this city doesn’t. They don’t want to try.

Ask the local pubs and bars, which our fans are going to congregate in in huge numbers on that day, how they feel about us.

There’s no reason that local restaurants couldn’t stay open. There’s no reason the local businesses couldn’t thrive with our supporters all around. And yes, a handful will get rowdy, and a handful will do stupid stuff. But a little light-touch policing in the areas where you know these things are going to happen would solve those problems.

What would solve them even more? What would have been a much better option? Simply giving our fans somewhere else to go.

We’re not to be punished, and we’re not to be denied our day out just because they lack the imagination for that. If they really were worried about the cost of cleaning up the place, they’d have provided some way for fans to dispose of any rubbish they generated. And that shows you how much they care—that they didn’t even bother to do that.

So I would urge as many people as possible to go and enjoy their day. Because here’s the thing: those council services they’re banging on about? We pay for them anyway. And we get precious little for that money, and less and less with every passing year. In the end, we’re paying for the clean-up anyway. So screw it.