Whither (the hell) we go?

An unusual spat occurred recently that would be unworthy of comment were it not for the profile in the Celtic online community of the protagonists. 

In the green corner, we had the one-and-only Barcabhoy, erstwhile of the parish of Celtic Quick News but also known to break
bread at The Scottish Football Monitor. 

In the white corner was Etims – or rather its representative – engaging in a conflict of opinions that became heated to the point of nastiness on the bloody battleground that is Twitter. 

For those unfamiliar with either, Barcabhoy has, for many years, held court on the CQN forum, garnering a phalanx of supporters and being much garlanded for his insightful contributions, especially on the financial and commercial complexities of the football in the era of Celtic plc. 

ETims (as the pluralised non de plume suggests) is not a single person but a team of Celtic-minded writers who were at the very vanguard of the new media fanzine.

The Electronic Tims were harnessing the power of the Internet when many established mainstream media news titles were thinking of web pages as an ethereal manifestation of some black art that would be scattered to the four winds with the sprinkling of some holy ink. 

I am not up-to-speed with all the relative personnel changes that have taken place since the inception of the Etims but it is safe to say that no one person could speak for the collective authoritatively.

 

Some screenshots will give a flavour of the debate but the heatedness of the exchange between people who represent very different constituencies seem illustrative of much that is going on in these disquieting times for Celtic supporters. 

Barcabhoy often seems to be well-educated, well-informed, well-off and well-regarded, the latter being at least matched by self-appreciation. 

His offence was a scathing put-down of fans critical of Ronny Deila, with the implicit defence of the plc-before-the-club apparently being inferred. It is a charge that has been laid at his door before.

The ETims website is no longer in its heyday – first being surpassed by Celtic Underground (with some ETims defectors, I understand) – and the operator of the Twitter account chose to respond in a manner that could be euphemistically described as employing a direct use of industrial language. 

Both sides had their supporters pouring scorn on the other in equally disparaging terms, while other onlookers lamented the visceral discord. Both players have had their moments and are deserving of some recognition for their past contributions. 

The ETims could rightly be described as visionaries who helped Celtic occupy a new media space that put the club indisputably head-and-shoulders above any of its Scottish rivals, with few clubs from Britain or beyond matching the verve and colour of the Celtic online community.

Barcabhoy is not always everyone's cup of tea, including my own, but when he was riding the peak of the CQN wave, he was also one of the main energisers of that one-time seemingly revolutionary medium, employing a language rarely heard in sporting circles.

But, frankly, neither Barcabhoy nor the Etims Tweeter matter much in comparison to the division that their clashing of heads denotes. Recently, there have been vociferous arguments for and against the tenure of Ronny Deila. Both sides have been declared idiots by the other. Celtic are either enjoying acceptable times on the park with fiscal common sense in the boardroom or a managed down-sizing of expectation, with cynical operators who care neither for football nor fairness. 

The notions of the Celtic family, the Celtic way of playing – Celtic values – have all been derided, as well as the adherents of the “old-fashioned” or “pragmatic” outlooks. To demand better is now to fail to support the team, be “faithful through and through”, to be a trophy-hunter or – worse – to do the mainstream media's job for them. To call for moderation is to lack ambition, to be a board lackey, a happy-clapper. And there is a risk in all this. 

For full disclosure, this blog was a victim of an underhand attack by some supporters of a different view, currently descending from the crest of their own wave. And to your writer's shame and regret, he “chucked it”, lost his spirit, let the people who thought cyberspace wasn't big enough for the both of us, win. At least temporarily.

 

But Celtic and the club's fans (can we really discuss both as part of one entity?) risk throwing away much of what made the club great, even different – like no other. Celtic did diversity before it was even a “thing”, far less a buzz-word for the liberal chattering classes. 

Being “open to all” carries the inherent demand that a plurality of perspectives, experiences and opinions be heard – and respected. 

The club has faced unfair criticism from the established media for decades and that has led to suspicion of the branded news titles and those who would echo any of the views to be found therein. And, in that sense, the mainstream media have failed Celtic through excessive scrutiny, in that just criticism has been seen to be equivalent to unfair attacks of old.

But one of the things that protected Celtic from the fate of our formerly high-flying rivals was our ability to hold the people running the club to account. It can be strongly argued that that complaisant or complicit media machine that failed to scrutinise Rangers contributed strongly to their downfall.

And if Celtic should eschew criticism – what then? Where people care about the welfare of anything, whether child, family, club, party or country, there is commonly an intuitive understanding that all voices will be heard.

 

That we will exchange views, freely and forcibly, in the trust and expectation that such tough love will lead us from error and perhaps point the way to opportunity. 

When Celtic fans cannot listen to the views of others who love and care about the club without abusing or patronising each other, we will be a club like any other, without belief, identity or values. 

Why would we go there? Where would it lead us? --