GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 16: Celtic fans celebrate after their team secured a 3-1 victory to win the Scottish Premiership title on May 16, 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland. Celtic bested Heart of Midlothian, who needed at least a draw to win the title. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Another day in. Another round of negative coverage about Celtic fans and our title celebrations. Another round of vitriol and bile poured upon us by people who simply cannot cope with how the season ended.
I am still finding it hilarious.
Keith Jackson’s column this morning was demented, deranged, absurd moon-howling. It was one of those pieces so bad that I can barely even bring myself to parody it. The thing is, he is not alone.
The description of fans who were on the pitch for no more than ten minutes made it sound as though Celtic Park had become a major combat zone. How these people can write this stuff and imagine anyone outside the Ibrox and Hearts grievance bubble will take it seriously, I do not know.
Some of them seem to cling to the idea that we are going to be shamed into handing back the title, or that some investigation will somehow hand it to Hearts.
In the real world, none of that is going to happen. We are champions. That is all there is to it. These pitiful bitches are either going to have to get over it or spend the whole summer like this. Personally, I hope they spend the whole summer like this. I hope they never get over it.
I wrote last night, in my piece for Hibs fans, about how the 2016 Scottish Cup final, which should have been one of the greatest occasions in Hibs’ history, was characterised afterwards by the same pathetic outburst of fury, anger and hatred because they had dared to challenge the accepted wisdom that the Ibrox club were going to win the cup and complete the so-called journey.
In that instance, Hibs fans spilled onto the pitch to celebrate a triumph more than 100 years in the making. They were then blamed for everything that followed.
What you come to realise is that, when they cannot stop teams in green and white from winning things, their efforts shift instead to stopping us from taking any pleasure in winning them.
That is the real game now.
They cannot stop Celtic from winning trophies. They cannot stop Celtic from being successful. There is literally nothing left in the arsenal that they can throw at us. So, the objective becomes the smear. The warning. The message that says: you may win everything you want, but you will not be allowed to enjoy it.
Except we do enjoy it. There is nothing they can do to stop us enjoying it. In fact, the more they cry, the more they wail, and the more they show off their own bitterness, the more we enjoy it. Part of the pleasure now comes from anticipating the meltdown that follows any major Celtic success. It happens every single year.
I have not paid a blind bit of notice to the stuff about Trongate. Why should I? It is one of those subjects I was bored covering in the run-up to the game, and I knew exactly what we would get in the aftermath. The usual nonsense about broken glass and a bit of rubbish left lying in the street, as though this is the only occasion in the entire year when the cleansing department has to clean things up.
As though it is the only occasion in the year when the police have to do some, what is that word again? Oh yeah. Policing.
One of the great satisfactions I get on a day when we have done well, or when Ibrox has done badly, is going onto their fan forums and sampling their pain.
I don’t know if that makes me a bad person. Maybe it does.
Maybe it makes me small-minded and petty that I derive satisfaction from that kind of thing. But I find them hilarious. I find their conspiracy theories hilarious. I find their general conduct at times like these almost painfully funny.
Sometimes it is painfully funny.
But who needs to go and read the comments of individual low-IQ football fans who cannot control their anger when you can go onto the websites of major national news titles and see alleged journalists behaving every bit as badly? With every bit as much frustration. With every bit as much paranoid, irrational fury.
None of them even stops to think how they come across. None of them stops to think that, outside their dwindling tiny audiences, everyone else thinks it is a joke.
Like others, I was not very happy when I first read Celtic’s statement. As Paulina said this morning, there is an argument that we should have been more robust and defended ourselves from some of the wilder allegations.
But in point of fact, I was sent an email the other night containing a graphic full of wildly inaccurate claims about this season. I was asked if I intended to respond to it.
My answer was simple. Why would I?
It was batshit crazy. I cannot respond to every batshit crazy claim that some lunatic makes. I would do nothing else all day except respond to insane people.
Maybe that is the genius of Celtic’s statement. Maybe that is the really beautiful part of it.
Paulina framed it as a big club doing what a big club does. Acting responsibly. Acting in a manner that respects the opposition and the occasion. Looking inside its own house and finding some fault from time to time.
I prefer to look at it another way.
It is a classic strategy in political communications. You front up. You say, “Yes, okay, we got some stuff wrong there. Next question.” The idea is that you kill the story stone dead. You leave it with nowhere else to go.
If Celtic had responded aggressively, that would have elevated the story for another day, and another day, and the day after that.
But where does it go from here?
In light of Celtic’s statement, any demand made of our club now sounds manifestly ludicrous. Any claim that we do not take it seriously is obviously idiotic. Any demand for sanctions against Celtic is completely absurd when we have said we will cooperate and work to make sure there are no repeat incidents.
We apologised to Hearts. I ask the same question Paulina did. For what? For winning? For daring to beat them and subject them to a summer of misery?
I don’t think we should be sorry for that.
To me, it seems like one of the few things we absolutely should not be sorry for, especially since not a single person in the age of digital technology, where everything is filmed and analysed from 100 different angles, has produced a shred of evidence to support the wilder claims here. Still, Celtic’s apology is on the record.
Our club acknowledges some fault. It has given the naughty fans who were on the pitch a slap on the bottom. Celtic has, as she said, acted as a responsible club does.
It has not made excuses for fans who invaded the pitch, unlike another club I could name. It has not said it will stand by supporters no matter what, unlike another club very recently did. This site and a lot of other Celtic sites condemned that, but no one in the mainstream media bothered to. Did you notice that?
So, we have confronted them with their own hypocrisy. We have done what they were screaming for us to do.
Beyond that, what else is there? What else, except the outrage? What else, except the bitterness seeping off every page in certain national newspapers, determined to find every negative they possibly can to justify their hatred?
That is what we are dealing with.
These people hate us. It has never been more obvious than it is right now. It has never been more in your face. And Celtic has left them naked and alone with it. Celtic has removed the performative part of it, which was about blaming our club and demanding that we pay. We’ve exposed the hatred as really all this is about.
If people want to know why this title feels sweeter than all the others that have come before it, even the ones we won by 20 points, even the ones where we racked up trebles and invincible trebles, there is your answer.
This outrage. This anger. This frustration. The sections of this country that cannot cope with seeing happy Fenians everywhere.
They are why this one feels so good. They are why I will be walking around with a smile on my face for the whole summer.
Yes, I am proud of my club. I am proud that we are champions. I am proud of my fellow supporters, my team, my manager.
But partly, I am pleased that we live rent-free in these people’s heads. I am pleased that they cannot get over their bitterness. I am pleased that we have ruined many a summer, and that a lot of these people have been laid waste by what we watched over the last eight or so days. I hope they are still grieving when the season starts.
Because, of course, there will be wider implications beyond this season.
People are now talking about changing the law to make pitch invasions illegal, as they are in England.
I’m all for that.
I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t think fans should be on the pitch, in case anyone is under the impression that I do. It happens all over Europe, and nobody has meltdowns to this extent when it does, but if people want to change the law and make it a criminal offence, I have no issue with that.
I have a feeling some of the people calling for it will regret it in due course. Don’t ask me why. I just have a sneaking suspicion that is what will happen.
The repercussions beyond this season are going to be enormous. We now have two Scottish clubs living in a state of permanent grievance, and that is a problem. It is a problem we are going to have to reckon with, and that sense of grievance is being stoked by the media.
Jackson’s piece this morning went out of its way to hint that something dark happened in relation to the missing minute, which he thinks should have been added on at the end of the game, although he accepts that the minute would have been completely inconsequential in terms of the result.
He continues to repeat the claim I have heard elsewhere, that the match was stopped by Celtic fans, when this has been denied by the match official. I don’t know how many different ways there are to say this, but the match was not abandoned, as he and others wish to claim.
As for claims that Police Scotland told Hearts to leave the premises, my suspicion is that the story is either entirely fictitious or at least partially fictitious. If there is any truth to it at all, my view is that Police Scotland were concerned for the safety of people at Hearts because of the behaviour of people at Hearts.
Lawrence Shankland appeared to want to fight with supporters. Frankie Kent stamped on someone’s phone. Their Austrian midfielder seemed to challenge Celtic fans to a fight.
The conduct of their players and coaching staff put them all in harm’s way, and Police Scotland may not have wanted them remaining in the ground where they could provoke further controversy.
I still agree with Hibs fans who have characterised Hearts as the team who ran away.
They could not wait to get on their bus so they did not have to hang around and watch Celtic celebrate. The pitch invasion itself lasted a matter of minutes. Celtic made a tannoy announcement asking fans to return to the stands. Police and stewards made sure they did. Within a few minutes of Celtic scoring the goal, there were no supporters left on the pitch and no danger to speak of.
So, it was not the atmosphere that was poisonous. It was not the conduct of our supporters that was shameful. It is the reaction since that has been both poisonous and shameful. Embarrassing as well.
That is what heaps disgrace on our national game. The fact that so many people in the commentary class are unable to keep their own bitterness in check.
One of the things that makes the bitterness so extreme and the reaction so severe is that they know there is nothing they can do.
It is the frustration of impotence. It is the anger and fury of helplessness.
Because I know that, and because I know they know that, there is a part of me that finds all of this very, very funny. Distasteful, maybe, but comedic just the same.
That grown men are so unable to bury their animus and that they are acting like such children cannot be anything else.
They said that the spectacle of our fans on the pitch celebrating the third goal ruined the season. I am sure it did. Just not in the way they want us to think they mean.
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The Faint Hearts ran away and the snowflakes are in hysterics with their faux outrage.
It’s just sooo hilarious and sooo sweet!
“Lawrence Shankland appeared to want to fight with supporters. Frankie Kent stamped on someone’s phone. Their Austrian midfielder seemed to challenge Celtic fans to a fight. The conduct of their players and coaching staff put them all in harm’s way,”
Keith Jackson is a liar. And did Jackson not mention Shankland should have been given a second yellow card and sent off? He was already on a yellow when he went and started on Maeda and grab him by the throat. The incompetent ref let it go. Surprise, surprise. Perhaps Wullie Gollum would like to address that point in his VAR review program? I very much doubt it.
I have a recording of what actually happened in the tunnel and why hearts left the stadium so quickly. If any one wants a copy email me on scot1888@hotmail.com
Brilliant headline. In a nutshell.
If the match had restarted after Calmands goal Celtic probably would have scored again,putting the goal difference debate to bed.Role on 6:30pm, this evenings Trinity Tims podcast is going to be pure gold.
Ran away, ran away
And the dirty —— ——– ran away! ?
In an earlier article someone mentioned Tierney praising CMG and saying someone is always on here sniping at the latter. That would be me and I can’t find the comment to reply so I will do it here. I stated last week MacGregor was the best player in the league and recently saw him walk past 4 players as if they weren’t there but for some reason he chooses to play centre-half and have consistently tried to point that out. He could have been as effective as a Lampard but rarely goes out of his comfort zone.
It is like having a Ferrari which only does 20mph so for me his supporters are basically saying yes but it is still a Ferrari. If he is inspirational in the dressing room make him assistant manager or play him forward and I stand by my sniping…er constructive criticism.
Having said that I would have chosen to win the league this way rather than by 20 points!
CG, your comments are normally always relevant and well thought out, so well done for that, but your continuous criticism of Calum was way over the top and said far too often. Fortunately you did not get many bites, most of us ignoring you rather than getting involved with someone so anti CMcG, that it was pointless. I hope you have come to your senses now and fully appreciate our Captain.
Sorry JG for the reasons laid out. I would love it for someone to lay out a logical and well thought out argument for his inclusion. CMG controls the play and people have forgotten how bad and boring the football was before the last 5 games when they had to put in an effort.
He has been a passenger for most of the season and the Scotland fans wouldn’t put up with it.
The creative play usually goes through Scales and lately Trusty has been entrusted with that job because the midfield, as often or not , are missing in action.
CMG has talent, albeit wasted but Engels has no footballing ability whatsoever.
I am afraid we need a complete overhaul of the midfield. What could we achieve if firing on all cylinders.
Sorry you are preaching to the unconverted but appreciate the intelligent tone of your argument.
Totally agree with your comment on Engels, he is bang average at best.
My favourite bit of Saturday was when news filtered through to the Falkirk Stadium that Walter Maeda had scored and they were going crazy but then the truth dawned that it was actually Albert Maeda who got the second goal
And in other news.
Britain’s wealthiest top 50 families have accumulated more wealth than 35 million people of Britain.Norway’s SWF has reached 2 TRILLION dollars.In the West of Scotland and beyond, stupid working class people are fighting over football.The top
0.1% of the population are laughing all the way to the bank.
In case you’re wondering, I’m ex-St Mungo’s Academy , Townhead.(Nil Sine Labore)
So am I. One of The Tardy Host.
Guys don’t want to put your gas at a peep but Google “The Tardy Host” and you get James Corden.
Just to show how dementedly bigoted the haters are in the media, compare how Ipswich fans were referred to by that same media. They were praised for “wildly celebrating their teams promotion”. Far greater numbers invaded their pitch than the small minority who invaded Celtic’s pitch. Thousands of Ipswich fans did it and not a negative word anywhere in the media.
Also, just look at how the scummy media phrase their attacks: “Hearts ace stands on Celtic yobs phone.” And “Hearts ace Shankland clashes with Celtic fan..” Then their biggest lie of all: “Hearts players assaulted as Celtic fans stormed onto pitch in wild scenes..”
Police Scotland need to ask these bitter bigots for any evidence of “assaults” but we know nothing is going to happen because there were no assaults on Hearts players. And look at the pictures. Bitter bigot McInnes with his manky face all viciously contorted as he jesticulates to Maeda. That piece of filthy bigoted excrement needs to be dealt with by the football authorities. He’s that much a “hard man” he and his team of losers all ran away as quick as they could. The fact he was outwitted by MON, and showed his lack of class, shows us all what a rank amateur he is.
All of this is on a par with the bitter bigots in the media reporting a Celtic fan brandishing a knife at opposition fans as he stood right in front of police officers. Remember that, folks? Turns out it was not a knife. It was part of a high-viz jacket one of the police officers was wearing. Scummy liars, the lot of them.
What an excellent fuckin article there James…
Dissecting it all and filleting Uber Hun Jackshun to the core…
Jeez I love the pain of Heart of Midlothian (Specifically after their behaviour since Wednesday)…
But by fuck I love the pain of The Scummy’s of The Scottish Football Media ONE MILLION per cent more !
That’s Jackshun’s pain exposed and ma schadenfreude is gladdening my warm wee heart…
They’ll be more as well James – Hopefully ya find time to expose them as it’ll be a pure fab read as I certainly won’t buy them tempting as it would be today…
LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVIN THE SCUMMY BASTARDS PAIN !!!!!
We celebrate too much do we? . Well, we still have the cup to come!, you aint seen nothing yet.
Fuck the lot of you.
They have such little true pride in themselves that they actually want us to win the cup so they gain entry to the Europa League rather than that wooden-spoon Special Olympics equivalent UEFA Conference League if we lose the match. They’re an utter joke but I couldn’t agree more with your final words! HH
This orange tinted gaslighting eminates from the crumbling structure of Legoland in Govan, an eyesore that should have been bulldozed or refashioned into homes for the homeless in 2012. There might be disappointment elsewhere that nobody could dethrone us from our earned place as undisputed champions of Scotland for a record 56th time but back in the ruins of Castle Greyskull they’ve clung onto their “55 titles – Most successful team in the world” delusion as tightly as other myths that soothe their agony like their 9iar* being untainted, that some phantom ship “Brittania” rules the waves as they’re at the mercy of Iran’s IRGC allowing goods to pass through the Strait of Hormuz for future quality of life, that they didn’t greet their own new signing Mark Walters, a black player, with monkey chants and bananas thrown his way, that to be called “huns” is a racial slur against them and should be a criminal offence to inflict on them, “The Famine” song being just a wind-up aimed at rival fans who can’t take some banter, that they ARE our rivals in any shape or form, the Old Firm being a thing that exists (not one of them will accept it doesn’t), they’re the same club as the even more illegitimate entity formed in 1872 playing in that shoebox stadium today, that there’s an equivalence between a small number of fans running onto their own team’s turf to celebrate a league title sealed with the last kick of the ball and a large number of masked hoods throwing bottles and launching fireworks towards opposing fans still in their seats in the away end because they lost a match…
I could go on all day here. IRA chants should be illegal even though they arguably pay homage to Bobby Sands more often and louder than we do, their only issue with him being that he’s passed on now so that renders him irrelevant, as if any man has got the better of death or ever will so why celebrate or insult the memory of anyone? That orange has always been their 3rd or 4th kit since Dick Advocaat was manager of Oldco and is merely a testament to him and other Dutchmen they’ve signed then sacked since then as if “the same club” fallacy mentioned above wouldn’t negate that even if it wasn’t the sectarian lie they’re too ashamed to admit. They arra peepul! (more like “the pupils” just given a masterclass in how to win things and influence the sanity of everyone below who doesn’t know how to, by their relaxed and jovial teacher of teachers, Martin O’Neill!). Glasgow is NOT green & white, they weren’t operating illegally as an entity and employer for over a century due to their “NO CATHOLICS ALLOWED” policy that applied from the Chairman down to to the toilet cleaners inside Ibrox meaning they have never been able to meet the lowest bar, bare minimum requirements under FIFA & UEFA & all subsidiaries including the SFA’s written stipulations of being a participating member club, not to mention breaking the law of the land. A land they despise even though without it GB & UK couldn’t exist or that butcher’s apron they fly rather than their own national flag! Geez I better stop and just put etc etc ad nauseum or this comment will be longer than the article! 😀
But to return to the first one, their illusionary 55 titles all won by the same club, their shared folie a deux belief that it existed and could never be beaten has been shattered even in their own deluded heads. They can’t even fool themselves over that any more. The only thing they can cling onto now – and it relies on acceptance of “the same club” delusion – is they’re the most successful winners of the Scottish League Cup in the country, a competition that to any truly successful and major club in Scotland only means anything as part of a domestic Treble, maybe the lesser double too. That’s why we’re the only club who look on it that way. Nobody else even comes close to a double of any kind never mind a Treble.
Of course that’s just the football side of it and the bulk of it is indeed engrained in anti-Irish hatred that’s centuries old. But we’ve been here, us Gaels, for at least 6,000 years on these two mainlands. We’ve never claimed to be the peepul. We didn’t conquer the Picts who were sparce in number when we landed, they assimilated with us and vice versa. We resisted and conquered empires who tried and will continue to try to eliminate us one way or the other their hatred runs so deep. Bring it on.
Gaelic and Celtic myths and legends are part of our identity and include everything from leprechauns to goblins to faeries and fabled Kings and Queens but we don’t confuse them with reality. The minute you tell a hun that the King James they hate was Prince Billy’s father-in-law and uncle they look at you as if you’re the stupid one. They’re ahistorical people whose reality is intertwined with generational delusion and manufactured grievances that result in hatred of the others but is seldom grounded in historical or contemporary truth and fact. Their da telt them to hate Fenians and support “the same club” they did and that’s as deep as they get. And dead people’s legacies are nothing to them.
6 in a row coming soon, huns. Cry us a river for that season in advance ya whinging runts, you might as well get it out the way now while you’re on a Rohl. lol
HH & TaL
The nonsense about the pitch invasion is off the charts. The fans were on the pitch for less than 3 minutes on Saturday, I couldn’t believe the coverage it was getting. A few 100 ran onto the pitch, they were asked to clear a couple of times and were all off quickly. This season has broken so many people, it tastes sweeter than ever.
Just my opinion, but two things should happen.
#1 Any fan who can be identified as being on the pitch should be given a lifetime ban from Parkhead. Their behaviour has given everyone else a stick to beat us with.
#2 The club should set up a ticketed area with a big screen on Glasgow Green (or wherever) to move celebrations out of the city.
The morons who invaded the park ruined what should have been a moment of great celebration.Instead the mood of the majority of fans in the stadium turned to anger as these brainless clowns spoiled it.Any of them who can be identified should be banned for life.