Celtic ought to have no sympathy for fans at clubs which shut ours out.

One of the most amusing things over the last 24 hours has been the bitching and complaining from certain people in the Hearts support about getting the away game at Celtic Park on the final day of the season.

They are furious because they will not get that match in front of their own fans. You would think no club had ever been asked to go away from home for a potential title-clinching game on the last day.

Of course, it has happened to us many, many times.

As disappointing as that scenario is, nobody cares when it happens to Celtic. Nobody listens when we complain about it. Therefore, the idea that the fixture list should somehow have been twisted into an outlandish shape just to hand Hearts a home game, when they have three away matches after the split, would be funny if it were not so absurd.

In fact, as a football fan, I might even have found a little sympathy for them if their stance were not so shamelessly hypocritical.

They are complaining that only a few hundred of their fans will get to watch the title finale. Well, boo fucking hoo. If Celtic had to go to Tynecastle to clinch the title, only a few hundred of our fans would have been able to see it. Hearts made that decision a long time ago. Moreover, they have enforced it ever since by regularly slashing our allocation.

Celtic’s position on this has always been clear. If clubs cut our allocation, we respond in kind. Why should we not?

Hearts are lying in a bed they made themselves. They are getting what they deserve. They are reaping what they sowed. No one can deny that with a straight face, because everyone knows it is true. They cut our allocation to the bone and did it grinning from ear to ear. Then they took full advantage of reducing our numbers.

So yes, I am sorry (in the most deeply sarcastic way) that decision has come back to haunt them. I am sorry it has backfired in the worst possible way. However, that is what happens when you make a decision like that. You have to think through every permutation. You have to consider every consequence.

I am sure that in their wildest dreams they never expected to be challenging for a title this late in the season. Still, that is a failure of imagination more than anything else. The fact is, they would have done this to us in a heartbeat. Accordingly, we should have no hesitation at all in doing it to them.

So, for all those people with Hearts connections, and more than a few with Ibrox connections, who are squealing like pigs about this, don’t waste your time. This is not an appeal that will find any favour outside your own clubs. Nor will it win you a single brownie point or a shred of sympathy from us.

You are talking to the wrong people.

You are talking to fans who have wanted to follow their team away and have been unable to do so because of allocation cuts that are now standard across the game. Worse, those cuts often prove self-destructive. Even then, clubs persist with them. Even when they leave vast areas of stadiums empty, they persist.

So, let’s say it plainly; we are living in the world you made.

Do not blame us for that.

This is what you wanted. In fact, some of these clubs balloted their own fans on it, and those fans voted in favour. Celtic played no role in creating this situation. If anything, if you want to point the finger at a Glasgow club, there is one obvious culprit: the club across the city. They started all this in the first place. They gave every other club licence to do the same when they cut our allocation.

That is why it is so funny to hear them complaining too. They are now moaning that only a small number of their own fans will get to go to Falkirk.

Well, again, this is what you wanted. This is the world as you made it.

So do not blame us. Do not blame the governing bodies.

Above all, do not try to slither off the hook now and pretend you are being punished. You are not. The game has changed, and not in a good way for away supporters. You helped make it this way. Furthermore, even with all that, you still had to watch Celtic fans come and celebrate in your own house.

Yes, two of the three title contenders are away from home on the final day. Yes, that inconveniences their supporters.

Nevertheless, those supporters, and the official line from their clubs, rank among the most anti-away-fan forces in Scottish football. The Ibrox club did not even want to give us a 20 per cent allocation for the Scottish Cup tie at their own ground.

Therefore, for them to start making pained speeches about away fans being disenfranchised is a joke. Nobody should pay a blind bit of notice to it.

Some of us have talked about this for years. Some of us have defended away fans for a long time, and not just our own.

This habit Scottish clubs now have of trying to shut out visiting supporters is unhealthy for the game. Clearly, it is a problem. Yet nobody takes it seriously until it affects them. Nobody cares until it affects their favourite club. Then, suddenly, they become animated. Then, suddenly, it matters. All of a sudden, they find their voice.

That is where my tolerance runs out. At that point, I stop trying to be polite about it. These people are shameless. Their hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.

And I will say again what I said at the start. If Celtic were the club travelling on the final day, potentially to win the title at Motherwell or Easter Road, and our allocation had been cut to the hundreds, nobody would care. Nobody would raise a complaint worth a damn. Nobody would lose a second of sleep over it.

That is why I do not care now. That is why none of us should care.

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