GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MAY 16: Martin O'Neill, Interim Manager of Celtic acknowledges the fans after winning the William Hill Premiership trophy following the team's victory in the William Hill Premiership match between Celtic and Heart of Midlothian at Celtic Park on May 16, 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
Years ago, I heard a story, and I can’t remember where I heard it.
It was about a little old guy, apparently in his late fifties, dressed in overalls, who got on a London Underground train and saw two men harassing a woman. He went over to resolve the matter and they attacked him.
Unfortunately for them, this ordinary-looking man was not merely trained in martial arts. He was a sensei. A teacher. A master of the art.
He was, I think, a hospital porter or something equally ordinary. Not well built. Not powerful looking. Just a little guy in overalls. The two men who attacked him looked tougher. Stronger. More dangerous.
Then he dispatched them with the ease that comes from years of discipline and study.
I thought about that story these past few weeks.
About a month ago, when the Ibrox boss was attempting a little psychological warfare and the boss at Tynecastle was trying something similar, Martin O’Neill unleashed his claws on both of them during a press conference which left a lot of people scratching their heads.
Wasn’t this supposed to be the doddering old guy who keeps going on about his age?
I said at the time that anyone who believed that act, for that is what it was, was an absolute fool.
Greatness can wear the most ordinary clothes. It can look like nothing at all. But a predator is not a house pet, and our media blundered into the same category error as those two guys on the train.
They acted on the outward appearance without recognising that they were going up against a man of steel.
What O’Neill has done this week, in the aftermath of his finest hour as a manager, his greatest achievement as a boss, has been, in a way, even more impressive.
I’ve read one journalist speak about O’Neill with a degree of spite because he had clearly fallen for the sweet old man facade and felt cheated that, in fact, O’Neill remains the ruthless, committed, disciplined master of the art he always was, and that he proved it in his steady rebuttal of Jim White at the start of the week.
I thought to myself, “How stupid are you? How petty do you sound being angry over your own mistake?”
But it is clear he was not the only one who made that mistake. Others were similarly lulled. Danny Rohl certainly had no idea who he was poking with a stick until O’Neill snatched it out of his hand and whipped his backside with it.
You would think that, having seen that lesson and having watched O’Neill’s complete dominance of Rohl, other people would have known better.
In his interview with Jim White, which Tom English somehow thought Jim White won, O’Neill fired the warning shot. He laid down a marker. He told people: you are not going to get away with this, so don’t even try. Still, they tried.
Yesterday, he came in with both barrels fully loaded and unleashed the barrage.
It was as if people in the media had not got the message. As if those two guys from the Underground story had gone back onto that train every night looking for the little hospital porter, not realising they were not going to take revenge, but offer themselves up for a second dose of what they had already got.
When one interviewer asked O’Neill if he wanted to revisit his statement on the pitch invasion, O’Neill looked at him with such withering contempt before saying no, then elaborating on that answer, that I felt my own balls shrink just watching it.
When he pointed out that during a pitch invasion at Kilmarnock, Derek McInnes had been on the pitch celebrating with the fans, I burst out laughing.
When he dared Tony Bloom to produce evidence that assaults had taken place, he was dismantling Hearts’ entire narrative.
Last week, I wrote about what the respected physicist Richard Feynman did during the Challenger hearings.
He brought a little cup of ice water and pieces of rubber into the room, then performed an experiment that cut through the BS NASA was trying to sell to the world more effectively than any prepared statement ever could.
O’Neill deployed his own version yesterday.
He asked a hapless journalist, who had probably spent the entire week fulminating about the pitch invasion, how long it had taken to clear the pitch.
Twenty minutes was the guess.
I can only imagine the look on his face, and the looks on other faces in the room, when Martin O’Neill said three.
Three minutes.
When you hear that number placed in its proper context, it devastates the whole narrative pushed not just by Hearts, but by everyone who has stood against Celtic this week.
The moment that supposedly shamed Scottish football, the pitch invasion treated like a riot, the incident supposedly threatening the safety of players, was over and done with in three minutes.
That is Feynman with the ice water.
That is the moment where all the language, all the hysteria, all the moral panic and all the carefully built outrage collapses under the weight of one simple fact.
Three minutes.
I am not convinced that O’Neill staying at this club beyond tomorrow’s cup final will serve either him or us well. I hope, in part, that this is Martin’s last hurrah, because he has climbed the mountain. There is nowhere left for him to go.
This would be the crowning moment of his career. All he can do after this is risk it, and he shouldn’t have to.
This is a greater accomplishment than almost any manager in modern Scottish football history. It is up there with Rodgers’ Invincible Treble as an immortal achievement.
But let there be no doubt whatsoever: O’Neill could continue doing this job.
I have no doubt that he is mentally sharp enough. I have no doubt that he is tactically astute enough. I have no doubt that he is psychologically strong enough for whatever Scottish football would continue to throw at him.
He is streets ahead of his opponents, both on and off the field. No manager in this country is going to touch him. No journalist can lay a glove on him.
For all that, I still hope tomorrow is his final game. But make no mistake, Martin O’Neill can dominate this game for at least another year, and probably a lot longer than that.
The underestimation of this guy has been off the scale.
If you regularly read this blog or watch the podcast, you will know that right from the start Joe McHugh has considered the whole “I’m just an old guy” act to be tiresome and stupid. We know better.
I have laughed at the idea that anyone could possibly have been convinced by it. Yet a lot of people were.
Perhaps those in the media saw what they wanted to see. Celtic, led by an elderly gentleman supposedly one step away from a little room in a nursing home.
But how many times have we seen O’Neill on punditry duties dismantle someone’s argument with casual ease? How many times have we seen him show an intelligence that stops just short of arrogance?
And he has every reason to be arrogant. He has been the smartest guy in the room for every second he has spent in Scottish football.
Paulina wrote an outstanding piece in the aftermath of the game against the Ibrox club, where she talked about the Celtic lion and referenced Christopher Walken’s superb speech in Poolhall Junkies.
The lion may look lazy, even broken, lying in the sun and wanting to be left alone.
But the lion will only tolerate so much encroachment on his domain, so much provocation from those in his surroundings, before he gets to his feet, runs like the wind and tears everything to pieces. Sometimes the lion has to remind the jackals what he is.
That is the man we have at the helm. That is the measure of the man.
That is the danger they all ignored. I would guess some of them are pretty sorry that they did.
The lion is still a lion, and yesterday he opened his claws and this time they weren’t just for show.
It was magnificent.
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I wouldn’t expect any less class from O’Neill. There have been plenty of things said and done by the tag team of McInnes & Rohl directed our way that he’d have been justified in tearing them so many new a-holes they’d resemble Swiss cheese on legs by now but it truly is boys versus a man when it comes to them. Even with an army of sock puppets in the media to back them up they’re no match for class, on and off the pitch. Neither has beaten Celtic under MON, a record they’ll have to live with their whole lives if this is O’Neill’s swan song tomorrow as manager. Rohl will have to live with finishing 3rd behind us and McInnes with so many humiliating moments I’ve lost count but bottling it in the final game v Celtic after going ahead in a match he only had to draw but ended in a resounding defeat will eat away at him every night he shuts his eyes and tries to sleep without dreaming about Osmande’s 3rd goal being slotted into an empty Hearts net to well and truly end the match in such majestic fashion with only Celtic players to his left and right and not a Hearts player in sight. It was a magical, miraculous end to a season the 2 huns below us threw more money than ever into stopping us win.
btw. The amount of time fans celebrated is irrelevant as the match was finished. It’s none of their business what we do in our home after they chose to leave without getting cleaned up in the away dressing room. Also scoring after 97 minutes of the match have passed is scoring in the 8th minute of added on time. Our goal was scored with 7 mins 30 secs on SKYs unofficial clock. That’s well into the 8th minute of added-on time. There’s no mechanism of announcing via the time-added-on board the official raises for the players and public view to state 7 mins and 29 seconds of added on time. If there was we’d either have scored the 3rd faster or won 2-1 and still won the league anyway. All arguments over fans on pitch negating the score of a match already concluded by the ref or a missing minute are hilariously easy to knock down. As the banners say, NOT A PROBLEM !
I like that Green Fhloyd, what we do in our own home ground after the game has finished is no one’s business but our own. Spot on Bud!
First chance I’ve had to really post anything, after our glorious title win last Saturday. Just been catching up on some tremendous articles by James & Paulina, and of course the wide range of outstanding, comments that accompany these articles!!!
Firstly, I’d like to thank MON, coaches & players for delivering the sweetest ever title win, to the backdrop of one of the toughest seasons/years I’ve encountered, both from a Celtic fan perspective and on some personal levels!
No, it’s not been easy, when you compare it to the titles we’ve secured with ease, but that is why it’s so sweet. Written off by everyone, including huge swathes of our own fans, it was glorious to see young Osmand run the ball into an empty net and break many hearts, not just those that were on the park.
I’ve kept the faith, glad I did and at the same time, reaffirmed to me that our club has indeed got that magical, spiritual base that not many other clubs can compare with ! The tifo echoing Billy McNeill’s words “ There’s a fairytale about this club,” rang true last week.
Can I just say that the pitch invasion, marred the moment for me and undoubtedly 99.95% of the fans watching from their seats!
It should never happen and I was very annoyed at the time. It is definitely something that needs to be addressed and prevented from being a regular occurrence. All it does, ( and they don’t require any reason,) is give our haters, an unsavoury brush to tar us with !!!
I’ll never condone any fan coming onto the field of play!
Nevertheless, the vitriol, anger and anti Celtic bitterness, has been disgraceful, but probably unsurprising, if you’re a Celtic fan !
The vitriol has been building throughout the split, and the blind rage escalated once the Smsm and Sevco lovers realised their team was not going to win their second title!
It then went stratospheric when we rightly got our penalty against Motherwell, and they were falling over themselves to shout about corruption, cheating et al, knowing full well you couldn’t mark their necks with a blow torch !
Hypocritical hyenas with short memories.
All because Celtic FC, founded in 1888, by Brother Walfrid to feed and support the impoverished, which has an unbroken history, and are the most successful club in Scotland are once again, the Champions of Scotland.
It was never meant to be thus, and it has taken a huge toll on them all…individually, collectively,emotionally and psychologically. Hence their outrage, bitterness, enmity and envy.
They want what they can’t have or achieve, and it hurts them badly.
Having said all this, I’m certainly not making any excuses for their terrible behaviour or the untruths that emanate from every pore of these Sevco apologists. bitter pundits, and bigoted smsm!!!!
However, I’m not one for spitefulness or vindictiveness and I would rather that we always focused on our success, rather than concern ourselves with others.
Humility and dignity are huge values in my life, and I always believe, should be transferable to football, and whoever you support.
I believe it’s very important to have when following our wonderful club.
My last words are for Martin O’Neill.
What a man, what a character, what a leader, what a champion.
Only a man of his stature, ability and gravitas could have pulled this season out of the fire, and deliver this sweetest of SPL titles. I would run out of superlatives for the man but my respect and gratitude towards his leadership, is immeasurable.
Get the statue designed, built and erected on Celtic Way, as he goes down in our history as a true Celtic legend.
Let’s hope he can inspire our club to a double tomorrow. HH
He has been absolutely MAGNIFICENT in all this PR war that isn’t a war but that The Scumbos of Swinecastle have made a war in collusion with The Scummy’s of The Scottish Football Media…
But where the fuck is Lucan…
Apart from running away from Parkhead with another £17,000 of stolen wages in his hip pocket today…
On another topic ma false teeth (top only) nearly fell out earlier as a very witty Celtic supporter on Senitial Celts put up a post saying that Askou The Motherwell Manager was desperate for Toulouse…
His punchline = Why did he not just nip up the road to Liebrox then !!!!
Ah Fuck – Celtic supporters are pure awesome… We have no equal !
Martin O’Neill is up there, only 2nd to Jock Stein in Celtics post 2nd WW history.
If he wants to stay on for another couple of years, or decides to leave with our thanks, then I hope he gets to have the choice.
I think this club needs healed and MON is the man to do it, not for one minute do I think O’Neill would be a yes man to this board, and in fact I think he would be the opposite. He is the ultimate diplomat with an iron fist.
After their behind the scenes debacles this season, this board must know that they have to do better in the recruitment dept. MON is the perfect guy to shame them into action when it comes to rebuilding this team. After what will probably be a summer of farewells for some of our key players, that incoming money, added to the cash in the bank should give us a war chest for next season.
MON built a team very much a mixture of strong physicality and skill during his last tenure, if he stays I think we would see much the same type of team. Unfortunately maybe not with the same quality, but good enough to keep well on top of Scottish Football and perform reasonably well in the Champions League.
Completely agree micmac. MON has always been an excellent man manager, head and shoulders above anyone else we have seen in Scotland since the last time he was here! Comments from the players about MON and SM and Fothingham have been enlightening. He has also been pretty ruthless – think of the players who have not featured much (most were given a chance). Does MON have the stamina for a full season – only he will know the answer but my impression grows that he wants to give it a shot. At one level the league can’t be as chaotic again and maybe, just maybe MON is the one to convince one or two to hang around for another season, especially if Champions League football is on the horizon.
prooney1969 @ 2.00pm…
Another Daily Scummy Record financial propping up Celtic supporter…
Not alone though – Two on ma street as well…
I’d rather shag a pot ugly Sevco bitchette (plenty fuckin choice for sure) than give these Scummy Bastards even £0.0001 penny !
Got barred at golf club for telling a cuppla huns and thier ugly wives that .
We are the peepol and we are simply the best ,
They can shove their golf club up their fuckin arses , dumb fuck orange B’stards