The way Celtic fans engage with this club changed forever this season.

This is a big night for the Celtic supporters’ Collective. They are holding a meeting at which, for the first time, they will open the floor to anyone who wants to attend. It will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

It is a good and necessary move.

We will only know if it proves effective when it finishes and the club publishes the minutes for the support to read.

Every pressure group and every organisation that launches a campaign encounters the same basic problems and the same resistance. It always starts with people telling you the goals cannot be achieved. That is par for the course.

The world is full of people who cannot imagine a way to do something and who then convince themselves it cannot be done. Fortunately, there are always others who step forward, look at problems and search for solutions and find them.

That is how progress, all progress, happens.

Celtic, at the moment, is a club in profound crisis.

It could have drifted along in that crisis for years. We could well end up trading trophy for trophy and title for title with the club across the city, and perhaps others, while the rest of the game modernises and we stand still.

Over time, we could lose any advantage we currently have, and lose it for years.

The only thing standing in the way of that is the Celtic support itself.

There are people who will say the Collective has changed nothing.

You have to be extremely narrow in your thinking to believe that. Not only is Peter Lawwell no longer chairman, but as the European Club Association made clear, he is no longer even on the Celtic board. He has stepped away completely.

If you have done anything to promote the Collective or spread the word about its aims and objectives, then that is your victory as much as anyone’s.

This was the man we were told dominated Scottish football for decades.

Yet in a matter of months, our pressure forced him out the door.

If that same pressure continues, more change will follow.

Even that does not fully capture the significance of what we have achieved.

The real victory lies in the existence of the Collective itself.

There are naysayers within our support. There always are. Some refuse to accept how serious the situation is. Others look down on fellow supporters who disagree with them. I associate that attitude more with the fans across the city, but it exists within our own ranks too.

Those people will tell you nothing has been achieved and nothing will be achieved. They will say the movement is divisive. In reality, they are saying they are content with mediocrity and decline.

They have removed themselves from the conversation about the future of this club.

They have nothing meaningful to offer it.

The reason their view will not prevail is simple. They have chosen passivity, while others have stepped forward to act.

That is the real change. That is the real victory.

For the first time, there is an organised body, made up of hundreds of supporters’ groups, taking action with the explicit aim of forcing change. Its existence has altered the landscape permanently.

When you consider everything that has happened over the last few months, it is remarkable that the Collective exists at all. In that time it has launched a high-profile “Not Another Penny” campaign. It has organised protests and even a match boycott.

It has done all of this through managerial upheaval and in the middle of a live title race.

The people behind it have done so in their own time, facing opposition from within the support and mockery from sections of the media who do not believe fans should have agency, unless it suits them.

Have mistakes been made? Of course. Has everything been done as quickly or as decisively as some would like? No. There is no way to satisfy every section of a support as large and diverse as ours.

Every campaign begins with one essential task: holding together the coalition that brought it into existence. That is not easy.

Every decision requires balancing different views. Every action risks disagreement. People will walk away. We have already seen that happen, whether over the boycott or other issues. That is part of the process.

What matters is that the Collective has held together. It remains intact and active. That, in itself, is a significant achievement.

Some have said that tonight the Collective has to lead. It has to show leadership. That sounds simple. It is not.

The Collective has never claimed to speak for every supporter. If it acts as though it does, there will be backlash. People will say, “You do not speak for me.” Others will say, “You cannot tell me what to do.”

We saw that during the boycott. The number of people insisting nobody could tell them to stay away from games was absurd, because nobody was trying to force them to do anything.

As someone who has taken part in campaigns before, I can say this one is better organised and more coherent than many I’ve seen. Plenty of movements collapse because they move too fast, demand too much, focus on the wrong priorities, or let internal divisions tear them apart.

That has not happened here. Everyone involved deserves credit for that.

Yes, the next steps matter. They always do. But do not believe for a moment that those steps will resolve everything quickly, or that they will be a waste of time if they do not.

This is the season Celtic supporters decided they would no longer stand back and watch decisions taken in their name.

They said, “This is our club,” and acted accordingly.

We have found our voice. We have asserted ourselves. Whatever happens from here, this movement is not going away.

Even when this campaign ends, supporters will not return to silence. Those days are over.

To borrow and adapt the words of a former Celtic chairman, we will no longer sit at the back of the bus, regardless of who is driving it or where it is going.

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