The other day, Paulina did a good piece on the pre-season fixtures, and we have a lot of them to come. This might be one of the busiest pre-season fixture lists I’ve seen at Celtic in a while. It’s a lot of games to try to fit in before the season kicks off on 4 August, but that’s no bad thing because I know we all miss football.
I know we all miss watching Celtic. All of us are desperate to see the team play again. But one of those fixtures paints an interesting picture of how the Celtic fans feel at the moment about certain things they’re being asked to do.
Newcastle United are a team on the rise.
They’ve just won their first major honour in a long time. They’re owned by the Saudi oil state. They’re well-funded. Their manager is a guy who, in another timeline, could have been sitting in the Celtic dugout.
They’re a top Premier League side with top Premier League players. They will give us a very sore test—the kind we need, the kind that could make a big difference in preparing us for Champions League matches.
I mean, there are other games in the pre-season list that are equally interesting. Sporting Lisbon and Ajax come to mind—about as good opposition as you could want as preparation for a new campaign.
But the Newcastle game is different. Because that one is at home. And it’s exactly the kind of game that, under normal circumstances, I would have expected to fill the house. No question. That it hasn’t—and almost certainly won’t—is telling.
We’ve given Newcastle a bunch of extra tickets. Tickets are still on sale. Tickets will remain on sale right up until the match.
It may be that if Celtic makes a couple of big-name signings before then, there will be more enthusiasm for the fixture. But right now, the mood amongst fans is very clear. The question being asked is: why should we pay to go and watch this?
And I happen to agree—100%.
In the current financial climate, it’s a scandal for this club to be asking supporters to put their hands in their pockets to attend that match. That game should have been included as part of the season ticket. You used to get pre-season friendlies for free. You used to get one cup tie for free. There was even a time when you got your first European match for free—all the better to make sure the ground was full.
Little by little, all of that has been stripped away. Even as prices have continued to rise.
Now, I do know the club needs to make money.
I don’t have a problem with the increase in season ticket prices because—as I’ve said before—the bills this club has to pay for fuel, for security, for everything else, are higher than they’ve ever been.
Celtic isn’t run on sugar-daddy wealth. We pay for everything ourselves. And we were always going to bear that cost. But if you’re going to ask us for more, then the least the club can do is give us more in return. And they haven’t.
A lot of people think this transfer window has been very underwhelming so far. A lot of people don’t like the direction of travel. They don’t like that we’ve got a Japanese centre-back flying into Lennoxtown who cost us £300,000 when what we needed was an experienced, European-based player to step in and inspire confidence that we were taking the Champions League seriously.
There’s a lot up in the air right now. No new contract for Maeda yet. No new contract for Rodgers yet. We’re dealing with a lot of uncertainty—and it’s the supporters who bear the burden of that. People inside the club don’t seem as if they care all that much. Or if they do care, they’re certainly not saying anything to us to ease those concerns. The silence from Celtic Park continues to be deafening.
And I know there are people inside Celtic Park who think that silence represents professionalism. Other people think it represents contempt.
And I happen to agree with them.
If fans don’t want to go to that game—if fans don’t want to put their hard-earned money on the table not long after shelling out for season tickets, not long after being bombarded with club emails trying to sell them merchandise—I completely understand.
On Monday, the football financial year came to an end. Once again, we sent a couple of million quid HMRC’s way. That money could also have been used to give something back to the fans—in the form of a free game or two. But we seem to prefer giving it to the government. A government that has spent this past week trying to cut spending. A bit like our board, sometimes.
The thing the people at our club need to consider is this: is the low turnout for this game just about this game? Or is it a wider issue?
Could this be a sort of general referendum on certain aspects of how Celtic is being run? Because it’s not impossible that that’s exactly what’s going on. In fact, it’s very possible. There’s a growing sense that many of our fans are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens by their own club.
Fans are not going to give up season tickets. Fans are not going to boycott major European games. But a pre-season friendly at Celtic Park—one that seems designed purely to grab cash out of our pockets?
Yeah. I can understand why people might draw the line there.
So in some ways, I think this might be a sort of mini-referendum on the people running the club. I imagine that by the time the game comes around, we’ll shift a few more tickets. I imagine they’ll try to find a way to make it look glitzy and glamorous, a bit more box office. Just so long as they don’t invite Rod Stewart onto the pitch to read out the teams—although knowing them, that’s exactly the sort of thing they would do.
But all joking aside, let’s be serious for a minute.
People will have many different reasons for not attending that game. I won’t be there because I’m off on holiday next week.
(I’ll still be blogging, you won’t even notice.)
But if I was here—would I go? And the answer is probably not. Because I do think it’s a piss take to ask fans to pay for that match. And I do think that the board is very good at treating us with contempt whilst expecting unquestioning loyalty. This may well be aa demonstration of how little tolerance many of us have left for that. And it’s one that doesn’t hurt the team.
If the people at the top have any sense, they’ll look at the sales for this game. And if those sales are abnormally low, they’ll do some soul-searching. They’ll ask themselves why. Because when Starmer and Reeves and Kendall stood in the Commons the other day and treated their own voters—and their own MPs—with high-handed arrogance and disdain, we all saw where that led.
That kind of arrogant dismissal is something we’ve all gotten very used to from Celtic’s boardroom too. That’s why it’s so easy to recognise when you see it elsewhere. And this one time, fans have the opportunity to vote with their feet. To show their disgust and frustration in a way that doesn’t hurt the club. And I wholly understand why many, many, many of them might want to do just that.
If this is a problem, Celtic needs to fix it. Time for some real engagement with fans instead of treating us as walking cash machines. Enough is enough.
Before we even start takin any games seriously, as well as the other few key areas we all know, it’s glaringly obvious we need tae first and foremost, strengthen our mid. We’re far too lightweight and we need muscle in there. Thats where teams have been gettin increasing joy against us. If we don’t sort that, we’re goin tae get found out, even more than last season.
I’m sick of being taken advantage of by a board who are filling their boots at the ordinary fans expense, and club employees and sycophants from a fans forum who have forgotten why the club was formed. As someone who is over 65 and retired through I’ll health, I am not allowed the full over 65 discount on my season ticket or any other tickets as the ticket office decided to have a cut off date of end of season, instead of beginning of season(if they have to have one at all) I’ll still go to every competitive match but won’t spend a penny inside Celtic Park until these people start treating us with respect. I’ve stepped up at every time of asking even borrowing money for shares to keep us alive when I was unemployed. I stood in the freezing cold protesting to keep our club alive because of belief in Fergus and love of Celtic. I have no belief in this mob in the boardroom at the moment. I’ll watch the Newcastle match in the local pub and put my £25 in the publcans till. At least he looks after those less fortunate in the local community with free meals and food bank donations.
I remember also getting friendlies and a cup game on the ST. Most of these friendlies were poorly attended and I think that is still the case. Fans know it’s a training match and it’s more the lack of competetiveness than the price (though that will impact). Possibly gives fans who don’t go regularly through the season a chance to see the team. As for next I could care less about pre season games.
The price of the Newcastle ticket isn’t the issue, it’s the constant fleecing of fans and lack of ambition that grates. If we don’t qualify for the CL it’ll be because we didn’t invest enough in the squad, if we do qualify then they’ll see that as job done. Should we not try and win it? The question they should be asking is, what can we do with all this money, within reason, to give us the best chance of winning this tournament?
Instead the focus is to make a profit on player trading EVERY season and get far enough in Europe to make a profit. All the while putting prices up for ST’s, friendlies, strips, prices in the stadium etc.
A gesture is needed from the club or a positive plan as to what the money is for would be nice.
For any home friendly the ticket price should be reduced possibly by 50%.
As Celtic have now received a large fee for Khun I think Celtic will sign a couple of quality players although I expect them to have made a profit at the end of the window.
My worry is that Maeda and Hatate may be sold after the champions league qualifier which ever way it goes.
If Maeda and Hatate are sold I’ll have a massive tantrum. That is unthinkable.
First of all, it’s a friendly, which will never be as popular for the fans as a competitive match. A game in which we and them will be rotating players throughout the match to get them match fit, yes a training match. Secondly the opposition do not rate as a top draw, they do not whet the appetite in the same way as a top European side would do, even a top English side, which they most definitely are not. I don’t read anything into it other than that.
I think the deeper main thing is fans are frustrated by the style of play and no plan ‘B’. They are expecting things to be the same this season and are hoping the transfer window indicates a more positive approach.
I can’t see it myself
Last season there were audible sighs of frustration with the sideways and backward passing, tactics which left players like Kuhn hanging about the wing waiting for service. He got blamed for poor performances against Sevco and it seemed to hurt him and probably initiated a desire for a move to another club.
In his defence I saw BR screaming for Scales and CV to get the ball forward to no avail. Surely he could “go through” them at half time.
Say what you like but the fans are sick of the tactics and we couldn’t even beat Aberdeen in a final. not to mention two skelpings from Sevco.
Something has to changed and seen to be changing.
Ironically I believe Sevco with Martin in charge will kill any spontaneity they had so there are positives.
Plan B is.
Boring Boring Brendan.
Like you I can’t stand the pass side & back tactics.
Personally I’m not attending because I’m not happy at Celtic arranging a friendly with Oilwash Utd. Maybe others are of a similar mind?
It’s no big surprise that these match tickets are selling poorly and I agree with some of the reasons given here. I believe Newcastle sold their initial 7,000 in minutes and now have been given another 3,000 which also sold out. I also believe they may now be given as many as they want. Maybe there will be more Newcastle fans than Celtic fans at the match?
There are several reasons for this. If you remember the first few seasons of the most recent 9 in a row. There was only about 20,000 for scottish cup home games early rounds. Season ticket holders generally didn’t bother buying tickets Also UEFA cup games the top tier was shut, though winning titles unopposed a lot of fans didnt wish to turn up for every game. Maybe blowing the treble has put people off this time round, also Newcastle are going to be the far better footballing side on display which possibly explains why their tickets are selling like hotcakes. A good day out just up the road.
What surprise me is that Celtic can’t sell tickets to neutrals or tourists. Liverpool Napoli sold out 65,000 tickets at Murrayfield for a friendly a few seasons ago.
Maybe an issue with advertising or marketing or are visitors really not bothered or see £25 as too much to watch this game??
I used to go to an odd pre season friendly just to get ma long summer football starvation period over and done with early doors…
But there’s just so so much bloody football on these days so there is !
The cost of these friendlies has to be considered, not just the ticket price but travel etc also.
The other factor is what type of team will celtic put out? I don’t want to pay over the top to watch never going to make it fringe players from either team.
Other aspect is its Glasgow holiday time, a lot of fans booked holidays long before this match was arranged.
Then there is my main reason, I can’t stand Boring pass back tactics, Rodgers is switching me off watching Celtic.
We need a style that attracts fans, from xmas Celtic reverted to our keeper having a minimum of 6 times more possession than our strikers.
Boring Boring Brendan will switch off more fans with his tactics.