The Celtic fans title party smears have already started.

No sooner has the fixture list been published than some of the now annual nonsense we have to endure has kicked up again. Once more, it comes from residents in the area where Celtic fans have traditionally held their title parties.

Now listen, I do not want to minimise the fact that there is disruption in those areas every single year when Celtic fans are celebrating. That much is obvious. However, the hyperbole around it is nonsensical, and some of the claims are fantastical rubbish. Those trying to raise awareness of what the local community goes through at times like this would do well to tone it down a little, because this sort of thing does them no favours.

Glasgow Live has published another piece today. In it, a community activist makes a rather astonishing claim, and I find it hard to credit.

“It has gotten so bad that residents either feel like prisoners in their own homes that day, or book to go away,” she says. “Last year we had residents who live right at Glasgow Cross out helping to clear up the mess – vomit, broken glass, urine, faeces, bottles and cans and just rubbish everywhere. It’s a disgrace.

“One of our members lives on a top floor flat overlooking the square and they had a flare hit their window, eight floors up. She took video of adults handing out flares to kids who were then throwing them at people.”

There is so much in that single statement that makes all my Spidey senses tingle. First, the geography is not clear. I struggle to think where exactly there is an eight-storey building that ticks all the boxes for where that resident is supposed to live.

Then there is the claim about adults handing flares to kids.

It sounds so wildly implausible that it makes the whole thing feel vaguely preposterous.

Those kids then throwing flares at people sounds even less credible. It feels like the kind of detail someone adds when trying too hard to paint the worst possible picture and doesn’t realise it goes several degrees over the score.

Then we come to the flare itself. The idea that a flare hit a window eight storeys up sounds like another stretch. People do not normally throw flares. Moreover, the recklessness of such an act would probably get that person’s head kicked in by everyone around them.

Also, we cannot overstate the difficulty of doing it. You’re talking about 20 to 30 feet vertically. That would be quite the feat. The idea that someone threw one from the ground and hit a window that high sounds like the product of an overactive imagination.

Now, I am not saying this did not happen.

What I am saying is that this claim goes to such extremes that we should never treat it as representative of the whole. The allegation is pretty nuts. If someone really filmed it, and if video footage really exists, then whoever has it should hand it to the police. Yet I notice the report did not include that footage. At this stage, it remains a claim. If evidence backs it up, then it paints a shocking picture.

Still, it sounds so extreme that it is automatically suspect.

More importantly, it would not be the first-time claims like this have surfaced and then turned out to be wrong. The last time Celtic fans partied in that area, some of the claims made in the aftermath were so patently false that I barely had to do the minimum amount of work to trash them.

Look, if I lived in that area and the party happened on my doorstep every single year, I might not be terribly impressed by it either. There is a difference between living miles away from it, attending it for a few hours, and having to live with it.

Even so, it is not the only time that area is swamped with people. I can think of one event on the Glasgow social calendar which comes far closer to ticking all the boxes of degenerate behaviour in a toxic atmosphere than some of these people attempt to portray this as.

There is either real naivety in the media outlets which publish this stuff or something else altogether. In truth, they may well know exactly what they are doing. They may simply choose to publish whatever gets them clicks, gets them hits and paints our fans in the worst possible light. Believe it or not, not everyone who lives in that area wishes our club well. Not everyone there is remotely pro-Celtic.

Moreover, I know for a fact that a lot of this criticism comes from people who simply do not like our fans in the first place. Every year they weaponize this against us.

At the same time, those same people have no issue at all with thousands of Orangemen walking down those same streets. The acres of press coverage always devoted to this subject are never devoted to that other annual event.

These organisations, along with Police Scotland and the local council, need to be more honest in their definitions and in the way they describe these events.

We are not talking about occasions that turn Glasgow into a battlefield. We have seen those kinds of events before, but they are not normally associated with Celtic fans winning a league title.

As a result, the hyperbole and the hysteria are unwarranted. If you want to sell me on the idea that it is disruptive on that day, and that the clean-up places an undue burden on the citizens of the area and on Glasgow itself, then make that case.

Let me be blunt, though. I do not think one day is going to ruin your calendar year. I do not think the Glasgow tax burden suddenly shoots through the roof because the council has to clean up the area. That community activist talks about local residents having to come out and lend a hand. Fair enough. However, Celtic fan organisations lend a hand too. That part is completely absent from the commentary.

While I am at it, let me offer some PR advice for the future.

When you are trying to make a case, do not reach for the extreme example. Do not go straight to the most scandalous, ridiculous or overblown claim.

It undermines everything else you are saying. People hear it and dismiss it automatically. They do that without even bothering to find out whether there is any truth in it at all. Consequently, they stop listening to anything else you have to say.

If something sounds even remotely out there or improbable, then don’t use it.

No matter how much your little fingers want to type it into a statement, do not do it.

Instead, find something more grounded. Find something more real. Find something that speaks to the average person’s experience.

After all, an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.

Once that claim is in the public domain, it is going to be challenged there. Groups of people throwing flares at each other sounds ridiculous. The idea that someone aimed a flare and hit a window eight storeys up sounds ridiculous. Adults handing flares to children sounds absolutely preposterous. In the end, it undermines every other claim you make.

This really is the silly season.

I have some sympathy for those who live in the area. But it is greatly reduced reading this stuff.

This reaction is poisonous, spiteful, exaggerated and hysterical. That is not the way to win people over.

It is not the way to win the argument either.

In truth, Celtic fans should be able to have their day. If the city offered some alternative, there would be no issue here.

So far, though, no one seems interested in providing one.

It’s much easier just to criticise our fans.

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