The Green Brigade is right. Celtic Park needs to be a weapon again.

Earlier today, the Green Brigade made quite a statement. They urged every Celtic fan who will be at Celtic Park at the weekend to do their bit. To cheer on the team. To make sure the team gets over the line.

This is a controversial move in some ways, and it has already been interpreted in some quarters as the Green Brigade trying to tell other fans how best to support the club. But really, it is not that at all.

It is good old common sense.

I love how the critics of the Green Brigade shift their arguments. These are the guys who are accused of jeopardising the club by fixating on politics and other things. These are the guys who some sections of the support did not want back in the ground at all.

All the while, people complained about the poor atmosphere, as though that poor atmosphere had nothing to do with the fans actually in the stadium itself.

Look, I do not want to go on a downer against fellow Celtic fans. I have already gone on a downer against one fan media site today, and they deserved it. But the Green Brigade is not trying to tell fans how to support the club.

It is asking that we all do a little bit more. That we all give a little bit more. That is not an unreasonable proposition, because when these guys were not in the ground, we all know the atmosphere was flat. Everybody who was in the ground when the Green Brigade was not there does have to assume a little bit of responsibility for that atmosphere.

Sure, there were, and there are, mitigating circumstances.

It is very difficult to get enthused over the brand of football that we have been watching. It is very difficult to sing in support of the club when so much of the club is wrong. When the leadership of the club has no respect for the ordinary fan who sits in the stands, it is asking a lot of some people.

But this is where the rubber meets the road, as the saying goes. This is where every advantage the team can get counts more than ever.

It is not unfair to suggest there is a collective responsibility on all of us. It is not unfair to suggest that we be more than just passive observers of the game.

A Celtic Park in full-throated exuberance is a weapon.

It is a potent weapon.

We all know this is true, and that is why some of us clamoured so loudly for the Green Brigade to get back in in the first place. They are the beating heart of Celtic Park when they are at their best.

But it was never solely down to them to create an atmosphere.

Atmosphere comes from us all.

This has been a long and tough season. It has had more ups and downs than I have ever experienced as a fan. More downs, certainly. The only good thing that has come out of it, the only thing that shines brightly, is the fan base itself and how supporters have come together to form the Collective.

Supporters have discovered their agency in that regard. Fans are no longer going to be passive observers. They are going to be involved. They are going to make sure their voices are heard.

That is all to the good, and in the longer term it will benefit this club in ways we cannot even imagine yet.

But we do not have to imagine circumstances under which the fans give the team that extra five or ten per cent it needs. We do not have to imagine it because we have experienced it.

We have all been in Celtic Park on a big, major, game-changing night. Or on a massive, all-or-nothing afternoon.

There are so many of them in my memory that stand out a mile.

The league decider against St Johnstone, when Larsson and Brattbakk scored. The night Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink grabbed a late winner to keep our flickering title hopes alive, a result that shaped how that race played out.

The big European nights.

That night in January of Ange’s first season, when we went top of the table by beating the Ibrox club comprehensively in front of a raucous home support.

Those are just a handful of examples where the supporters gave the team that extra jolt of electricity. That extra boost they needed.

In the three home games we have left, we will need every bit of that energy. Every bit of wattage we generate in the stands will be critical.

I cannot wait for the weekend so I can play my part. I cannot wait for the games to come, and I know we all feel the same way.

This might be exactly what we need to get this team over the line.

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