Because unless the three geniuses who are running Celtic entertain themselves elsewhere – and soon – what we once knew as our club will be nothing but a shadow dressed in green and white.
We have been let down before at Celtic – many, many times – going all the way back to the days when the club tried to sell Jimmy McGrory. Fans endured the shambles that was Celtic before Jock Stein; saw that great man discarded and humiliated by the White/Kelly dynasty; suffered as a small group of people led the club to ruin while our rivals and the mainstream media openly mocked us.
But in all those times, there was something that is missing from the Celtic of today – real fight from the fans; a raging determination that what had been built by generations of Celtic supporters would not be lost through the greed, incompetence or dishonesty of those who contrived to become its “custodians”.
Today, that seems to be missing. That is not to say that there are not thousands of fans who genuinely care for the Celtic we grew to love – the football club. But there are far too many fans mollified by welcome and long-awaited successes, amused by the trials of our city rivals and deceived by the spin machine that churns out propaganda under the guise of independent supporters' media.
Celtic is oh, so healthy according to the sort of people who prefer reading the Financial Times to football reports. But there are reasons why you should trust accountants at your peril – they can create any story based on statistical analyses and their primary focus is invariably money. Whenever you engage with people whose main drive in life has been the acquisition of wealth or personal power, you dance with the devil. Such people have no soul, they are rarely able to appreciate concepts such as beauty, tradition, empathy and identity – their psyches are defined by measurable gain; their instincts to view all intangible notions as expendable as they boast of their achievements over Cognac and Monte Cristos.
Such people have always been evident at Celtic's helm but rarely have they had such strong allies in the form of complacency, and outright dishonest “opinion-formers”, bought and sold with favours and promises, acting in the interests of the few against the many, declaring those who would dissent to be enemies of the club.
It is a manifest deception of which Stalin or Mao would have been proud – that those who cry out for the preservation of what were commonly-held ideals become castigated as enemies of the revolution, “wreckers” as our last Prime Minister would have called them. The most heartfelt and honest sentiments are distorted and portrayed as dangerous naivety or sheer delusion. There is only one viable method – made necessary by forces that the masses cannot hope to understand.
In the meantime, we have had foisted on us a policy that doesn't even reflect a sporting ethos, never mind a resolute commitment to win with style. This is a Celtic to win corporate admirers rather than football fans. But then, rather like the Fabians and their notorious distaste for the proletariat they took it upon themselves to save, the football fan has become an inarticulate embarrassment to those who sip wine with their football while those who drink the lager that emblazons the team's shirts risk being banned from the ground.
Football, as we once knew it, is dead. Celtic is a club whose breath is fading.
This is evident in the stands – the disinterest fused with frustration that has replaced what was once a gloriously passionate voice. Our team has talent but not heroes, the swift turnover of personell frustrating the process of developing a relationship between players and fans.
The prevailing policy is to remain a wafer ahead of a club in ruin, with rationalisations limiting expectation along with expenditure. Celtic fans were weaned on tales of the audacity of Patsy Gallacher, Charlie Tully, Jimmy Johnstone and Johnny Doyle; the fire in the bellies of Sean Fallon, Bertie Auld, Tommy Burns or Roy Aitken, the grace of Danny McGrain, Bobby Murdoch or Paul McStay. When was the last time a story was written by the modern Celtic? What tales of the current era will fire the imaginations of young fans? Does club policy allow for such romanticism?
Brand profile and asset management are the order of the day at the expense of the right of the fan to harbour ambition.
But still the plc performs exceptionally. Still, we are told that all is well.
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2 comments:
Your article is beautifully written,clear,articulate,logical and of course predominantly true. However, life nor football is not about romance and "Boys Own" heroes....not anymore. Like it or lump it , life and football is about money. WGS is a manager in the commercial sense of the word as opposed to the sporting sense. He is there to buy and sell and make money. Celtic exist as a PLC to make money. Every player of any style and class that we produce now is simply a book asset that they look to sell when things are tough. Things will only change if Celtic get in where the big money is...in the Premier League or in a European League. We could then afford to keep our local heroes...unfortunately, they will be playing alongside players with names like an optician's eye chart a la Arsenal,and if they don't tow the robotic line, they will end up at Falkirk. But at least Falkirk try to play entertaining football. You can't win, but keep up the fight.
Thanks for your comments, Bigmac.
As you say, the game has changed and most people understand the new realities. However, at what point does financial performance become more important than the football - which is supposed to be the raison d'etre of the club?
I fear Celtic are starting to resemble companies like Tesco - "Sure, we are primarily a food retailer but why shouldn't we sell PCs or travel insurance?"
We have already seen this season, the club apparently calculating that it would be better not to invest to make a proper Champions League challenge, believing that a UEFA Cup run would be an adequate alternative and cost less to sustain.
We know how that ended.
Lifted from another site: (From Celtic's Annual Report 2008, Page 25): "An additional discretionary amount was awarded during the year to reflect Mr Lawwell's contribution to successful player trading outcomes".
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