Borussia Mönchengladbach vs Celtic: Time for Brendan Rodgers's Celts to show they can go from good to great

For a club with our history, there is nothing quite like a night in European competition. 

There is the romance of facing the finest teams from across the continent, with their differing approaches to the game a fascinating contrast against which to test our style and quality of play. 

Not tainted by the disregard that over-familiarity can breed between domestic opponents, the mix of wonder, uncertainty and “what if” makes any European night something to be savoured, especially in the top competition. 

It is also a time for reflecting, for benchmarking ourselves, not just against our European contemporaries but against Celtic teams past. Different clubs from different countries prompt us to recall their own special memories. 

This week’s German opponents naturally bring back memories of their fellow countrymen, against whom Celtic have rarely fared well. And yet we did once enjoy a famous victory against a German team, against the odds. 

The early 1990s was no time for glory-hunters at Celtic Park. As a reaction to
Graeme Souness's success at Ibrox, an increasingly desperate board turned to Liam Brady. 

Brady was thought to fit the bill perfectly, even being compared to Souness in that he had played at the highest level in England, Italy and internationally -- and had no management experience. But he talked a wonderful game. 

SAFE HANS?: No, Bodo

Our first European outing under Brady had seen the team thrashed by Neuchatel Xamax and Brady's time had been marked by some swaggering performances against smaller teams before usually collapsing in the big games. 

Brady didn't have as much money to spend as Souness had but he managed to squander most of it, anyway. So, when we lost 2-0 to 1. FC Cologne in the first round, first leg of the UEFA Cup, there seemed to be a depressingly familiar feeling. 

We didn't give up because we were Celtic and to do so was anathema to us. So, we looked for what crumbs of hope we had, invoked the spirits of great Celtic heroes of the past for strength, and steeled ourselves for the challenge ahead. 

I was working in a pub at the time and, that day, two young German fans came in. 

We politely discussed the first leg and anticipated the second until one of them tired of the pleasantries. 

He stopped conversing in English and started making insulting-sounding comments in German, much to the embarrassment of his friend who nevertheless found it impossible not to laugh. 

This went on for some time with the meaning becoming increasingly clear. According to our Cologne fans, Celtic were sh*t and they were going to win easily. 

I bit my tongue, as I was working until 6pm and dreaded the bar chat from each new customer who wanted to talk about the game. 

Usually, I would have welcomed the chance to prove them wrong, pride coming before a fall and the gods of football dictating that crowing too loudly before a game was as good a sign of an imminent crash as a brash pre-match quote pinned on the dressing room wall. 

But I became increasingly unsettled, not least because this was one of the few times in which I hadn't been able to get a ticket for the Jungle but would take my place in what we still called the "Rangers End", in those days of binary choices. 

When my shift finished, it was my usual ritual of walking to the ground in my black brogues (I could go at a fair lick in those days) scoffing a sausage, black pudding, haggis or fish supper on the way, smarting from the uncomfortable afternoon I had endured and conjuring as much hope as I could muster. 

In the ground, however, there was that particular atmosphere that sometimes had a special flavour of optimism. The singing, swaying crowd seemed to be instilling confidence in each other. 

HEY, LITTBARSKI! Show us your medals

I remember lamenting the fact that I had chosen that night to be unable to get into the jungle but chastising myself with a reminder that I was lucky to be there – I felt that way every time. There was also that sense that the people around me felt we were going to pull something off. 

Cologne were a formidable team. Not at the highest level of European competition but boasting the likes of Bodo Illgner in goal –a West German international who would go on to play for Real Madrid until one Iker Casillas took over. 

They also had the wonderfully talented Pierre Littbarski, by then 32, who had 73 West German caps to his name. 

Whatever the Celtic fans were feeling must have transmitted itself to the players because the Celtic team that night started with a sense of purpose and belief – as if a statement to fans and opponents alike that "this is our home and nobody comes here to push us around".

The qualities of Cologne were still evident but Celtic were calling on the best traditions of attacking football and old-fashioned guts – hungry for the ball, using it with belief – with no question of shirts “shrinking to fit inferior players”.
My view of the first goal was poor – a wonderful left-foot strike by the imperious Paul McStay.

The second came from Gerry Creaney, a fact that I didn’t even know until after the game, believing that it had come from John Collins. Creaney had diverted Collins's shot in but the noise of the crowd often drowned out the stadium announcer.

At 2-2, we were level on aggregate but a Cologne goal would surely have sunk us.

Having been at Celtic Park on that infamous night when we scored five goals against Partizan Belgrade – but conceded four to go out of the tournament – that was a situation to fill me with concern.

Yet my fellow fans were having none of it – we were going through and I wasn’t going to question them. In fact, I’m sure I must have heard the familiar cry of encouragement: “This mob are sh*te!” (Which they assuredly were not).

11 minutes from the end, I had cause to thank the fates that had allowed me to view Collins lashing home the third. (It was Collins’s night – make no mistake about that.) It was met with a rapture all too rarely seen in those days.

The kind of eruption that has you shredding your throat with cries of joy, grabbing hold of the nearest fan for embraces and to try to somehow stay on your feet as the surge of the crowd sent your feet stumbling over terracing steps.

Joyful arms whacking you in the face, the adrenaline too high for you to properly feel it and the rapture so great that you wouldn’t just forgive it but welcome a bruised reminder of the moment preceding its infliction.

One more goal from Cologne? It was never going to happen. Everyone in the ground knew it.

However fine their players were, they were butterflies in a storm and we were thunderous and electric. The final whistle was more of a herald’s trumpet: “Hey, Europe, never, EVER, write off Celtic!”

It was a moment to dive into and swim in, arms flailing, body battered by the tumultuous waves of fellow Celtic fans to whom these nights were becoming all too rare.

What could you do but roar until the strains of the Celtic Song called you into a choir, your vocal chords savaged but your heart and lungs pumping it out anyway.

Men too proud to cry, bellowing all the louder and more ferociously lest anyone think they were “having a moment”.

This was what you lived for. To show the world that, on your night, you were a match for anyone. Disrespect us at your peril because, even when we’re down, we’re still Celtic.

When we eventually filed through the exits, I knew where I was going. Back to the pub to enjoy the glory, hopefully catch the highlights and renew an acquaintance.

Anyone who has made that journey from Celtic Park on foot, along the Gallowgate, down Argyle Street, knows that, on such a night, if you’re fit and able, your strides fairly eat up the ground before you.

I can still feel the cold air punishing my lungs, my hair and face drenched with sweat.

I’ve never been one to openly gloat about victories when with fellow fans, feeling that “rubbing it in” lacked class and was unnecessary. But, perhaps what had bothered me most was that I had always had the utmost respect for German football, as I do now.

When some commentators were calling it “efficient”, “clinical”, even “boring”, I was watching teams that seemed to apply values of doing things the right way – being tactically astute, fit and strong, but emphasisng technique and practised patterns that could produce the most incisive football.

So, maybe my uncomfortable afternoon smarted more because my antagonist was a supporter of a German team.

Whatever, they were already in the bar, both humble and chastened this time, when I ordered a Lowenbrau and asked them what they had thought of the game. There were muttered answers saying very little. “And what do you think of Celtic now? Do you think we’re any good?”

No answer was necessary. The afternoon had been theirs, but the evening was mine.

More than two decades later, Celtic played an excellent Borussia Mönchengladbach team which fully deserved their 2-0 victory at Celtic Park.

They played with style, class and courage, drawing on the atmosphere, instead of being shocked or cowed by it as so many teams have been in the past.

Their fans also made a lot of friends due to their passionate support of their team while displaying a spirit towards their opponents that has, I suspect, engendered a fondness for their club that will endure.
Celtic face a huge task on Tuesday. But this is what we are made for.

We have a good team and some excellent players. We know that we are not where we want to be and Brendan Rodgers says as much at every opportunity.
We are not a “great” team. Yet.

But one of the markers of a team that can develop to greatness is its ability to exceed expectations.

To refuse to accept any wisdom that says what they can’t do on any given night. There could be no better time for Celtic to pass the first of those tests towards that goal than on Tuesday.

Borussia Mönchengladbach are, in my opinion, a far better team than the Cologne side we faced in 1992. On the other hand, when I look through the Celtic players from that time, only McStay, Collins and arguably Boyd would have got into our current first eleven.

As Pep Guardiola noted after our 3-3 draw, Celtic players wear the shirt knowing they are expected to win every week.

In its own way, the task facing our winning team of talented players is similar in scale to the one that that team that was on a downward trajectory was presented with, 24 years ago. Good teams do what is expected of them.

Great teams do a bit more – they surprise people, make them sit up and take notice.

We will learn a lot about the heart and courage of our players on Tuesday. Can they exceed expectations?

Can they go to Mönchengladbach on their own ground and show that they are never to be written-off, never underestimated, because they are Celtic and filling a shirt that does not shrink? I believe they can.

Because I believe that the direction this team is going in is to be better than good or very good. The proof of that will be seen on the field of play.

It’s up to the players now to define their own place in our club’s history – good or great.

I can’t wait to see their answer.

Four points good – two points bad for Celtic against Borussia Mönchengladbach

There’s nothing quite like being in the Champions League to quicken the pulse a little and that Wednesday morning rise seem a little more appealing (unless the match is on a Tuesday, of course), knowing that most of the cares of the day will likely dissolve with the excited anticipation of the match ahead.

When your team’s most recent outing has been a stirring performance and an encouraging result, the positive vibes resonate a little more strongly.

Celtic fans hardly need reminding that the 14 days covering our head-to-head with Borussia Mönchengladbach are likely to be the most crucial of the season.

Mönchengladbach are not just a very good team – the are a great club, as people of my age, who remember their “Golden Years” will know well.

An early football memory is of one of my primary school classmates asking me if I knew who was playing that night. “Borussia Mönchengladbach”, he said proud of his ability to pronounce the name someone had written on a piece of paper for him.

I went home and did the same thing. With a little bit of help from the Internet, I can tell you the precise date: 25th May 1977.

At that time, I was oblivious to the fact that it was the tenth anniversary of Celtic’s European Cup triumph in Lisbon (though the commentators would surely have said so through the fuzzy sound and apologies for picture quality that only seemed to add to the crackling drama of such nights) but the final against Liverpool that night was a clash of two European giants, in the days when the game seemed a little more pure.

Some of the names from that team, though, resonated through the ages, Berti Vogts, Rainer Bonhof, Allan Simonsen (one of the early greats of Scandinavian football), Uli Stielike. A certain Jupp Heynckes, who also played, would go on to managerial greatness.

Liverpool called on giants like Phil Neal, Jimmy Case, the late Emlyn Hughes, Terry McDermott and, of course Kevin Keegan.

Liverpool and Keegan would win the cup, before the poster boy of English football went to join SV Hamburg, replaced by our own “King” Kenny Dalglish, breaking the hearts of Celtic fans everywhere.

Allan Simonsen: The original Danish Dynamite

Keegan would take over from Simonsen as European Footballer of the Year, while Dalglish would usurp Keegan's place in Liverpool's history.





It’s apposite to recall these days now to remind ourselves that Borussia Mönchengladbach is a club of real European pedigree who will draw on that historic tradition over this Champions League campaign.

So forget Mönchengladbach’s away form – any notions that we will face anything like a comfortable task should be scotched right now. These two matches will take every scrap of our endeavour, every moment of skill and above all, unrelenting professionalism from every Celtic player on show.

It will also require every decibel of relentless singing and chanting that the Celtic faithful can deliver.

A win tomorrow will not be enough, despite some complacent comments to the contrary.

I believe that two wins is too much to hope for, just as I believe that Mönchengladbach will not leave the competition without recording at least one win.

Mönchengladbach don’t yet have a point on the board but we – let’s not forget – have a negative-7 goal difference, to their five. Going into the last two matches without a single-point advantage and an inferior goal difference would leave us perilously close to exiting Europe.

So a win tomorrow is vital; a win by two goals would be amazing. That would leave us all but guaranteed third place, should we secure a draw in Germany.

Failing that, if we should end up with a win each, at least levelling that goal difference would give us more than a fighting chance.

Spare a thought for Oskar
Halliday and his family.
RIP

Arguably the most dangerous outcome would be a narrow win at Celtic Park leading to the complacent believe that we would be almost home and dry, as far as European football is concerned.

The last round of matches is always a lottery as, should Barcelona or Manchester City have won the group before the last match, they would most likely rest several of their top players.

So, we should be cheering for our friends in Catalunya, too, (and maybe we’ve made new friends in Manchester), as it could be vital to our interests that City face Mönchengladbach, needing at least a point.

Brendan Rodgers isn’t talking about the Europa League and he’s to be commended for that. But our immediate job is to secure third place. Then we can dream.

* And a final note, with the notable exception of Kevin Keegan’s old German team, every Celtic fan I know has always spoken of how warmly received the fans have been in Germany. I expect that to continue in Mönchengladbach, so I hope that their fans will be accorded the welcome they assuredly deserve – until the game starts.

What about the plan, Celtic? The vindication of the fools

It was announced on Friday, with no fanfare whatsoever, that John Park had left Celtic.

John Who? The majority of Celtic fans who have taken a close interest in the club’s operations over the past few years will know the name well.

Football Operations: John Park and Peter Lawwell

Having been at Hibs and credited with the discovery of Scott Brown, Kevin Thomson, Derek Riordan and Garry O’Connor, among others, it wasn’t surprising that Park would have been seen as an attractive target for Celtic. What club wouldn’t want a guy who had a track record of unearthing local talent that went on to earn international caps?

I should state here that no criticism of John Park is implied – I have no doubt that he did hs job exactly as he was expected to do.

However, despite constant denials from Celtic – and successive coaches, who may have been contractually obliged not to comment on negative aspects of the workings of the club – suspicions remained that Park’s role was not always consistent with the footballing aims of the manager/head coach, whatever we are supposed to call him.

The alarm bells first started to ring shortly after Gordon Strachan left the club. Overall, Strachan did an exceptional job for us and should be thanked for that. However, shortly after he left he made a cryptic statement indicating that he would never again sign a player he hadn’t seen.

During Strachan’s time, Celtic signed Thomas Gravesen and Roy Keane – both of whom he had assuredly seen, but neither of whom he apparently wanted.

Keane, in his inimitable style, went on to say that his future manager’s absolute disinterest in having him as a player was an extra motivation to sign – an “up you, Gordon!”

Gravesen was a different case in point, altogether. Stilliyan Petrov had gone to Aston Villa, having been kind enough to sign a contract with Celtic, meaning that the club would get £7.5 million pounds for him, when he could have landed a much fatter deal by letting the contract run down.

Gravesen was then brought in, meaning that Celtic landed a Galactico to replace Petrov, and pocketed a whopping profit at the same time. Great!

Gravesen was a tremendous player – built like a brick sh*t-house, with an irrestible drive and energy that allowed him to dominate the middle of the park. In that regard, he was much like Victor Wanyama but he also had an attacking instinct and a powerful shot that persuaded Real Madrid that he could transpose those qualities to La Liga.

But there was a problem – Gordon didn’t want him and this established pro was neither able nor willing to change his style of play to suit the more controlled passing game that Strachan favoured.

It still seems surreal to recall that many people thought that Gravesen wasn’t good enough for us. He certainly was – but RIGHT for us at the time; maybe not.

Roy Keane was a different case altogether. Keano is one of a select band of players who I admired greatly in a pre-Celtic career before finding that the reality of him in a Celtic shirt was one inextricably-linked to an image of him as an utter ******le.

Both Keane and Gravesen were known quantities – but the warning signs were there. Our manager was being asked to work with players he didn’t know – like Du Wei, for example.

Many of us rang the alarm bells at the time but we were mocked by those who thought themselves the more “intellectual” Celtic fans. You know them – the ones who talked about “The Plan”.

The Plan (as another blog noted this week) seemed to involve John Park being a de facto Director of Football, with Peter Lawwell doing the contract stuff while Park identified the players in his “roving” role.

We were told that this was what was needed, rather than the "homespun" approach of Celtic managers signing players they have identified.

We signed some good players – Forster, Wanyama, Van Dijk – and sold them to Southampton as soon as they offered eight figures. For this, Peter was rewarded greatly and, we must presume, Park was, too.

We also signed players who would walk into the all-time Hall-of-Guff, should such a thing ever exist. But that didn’t seem to matter – six flops were more than offset by one £10m pay-off.

Those of us who protested were decried as fools. We were asked how much money we wanted to spend and told that amount would bankrupt the club – even though we had never answered the question.

We were reminded of the mantra of The Plan, an entity lauded by the followers of one site (who routinely referred to its owner as if he was a knight of the realm). Those who couldn’t or wouldn’t sign up to said scheme of modernism were labelled as naive, wreckers who would see the club bankrupted.

There was to be no middle-ground between reckless spending and feckless recruitment with a view to player-trading being the primary function of the club.

We were reminded of Porto – we never came close to Porto’s achievements.

“Celtic fans” -- the new kind who understood business better than the common-or-garden “beggin’-yir-pardon-sir” plebeians – told us that the balance sheet was what mattered most of all.

What – you want to watch a good team, playing good football with aspirations to raising the standards year-by-year? “I suppose you think we should spend £12m on the likes of Tore Andro Flo? No? How much should we spend - £20m, £30m? Do you have any idea how well we’re run?”

Buy your ticket and shut your mouth was the mantra.

And yet – look what has happened.

The Plan has changed. Why? (Whisper it.) Because The Plan failed.

The Plan, which saw Celtic radically under-invest in the post-Rangers years, also brought Euopean failure, fans expressing apathy and anger, the club giving the Head Coach’s job to a virtual rookie and key players in the squad sold from under him.

And what was the response to this failure?

That is something you are never likely to hear from the “new realists” who lavished praise on the Celtic knight, while they munched their prawn sandwiches, laughing about their pie-eating, team-on-the-park days.

How many dissenters ever said we had to spend £10m-£20m, however hard the saints of Peter’s rapid news site asked? Few, if any. On the other hand, many welcomed the change of approach for this season.

A manager – not just Head Coach – who is in charge of the football operation because he understands it better than anyone. I’ll admit that I wasn’t convinced that Brendan Rodgers would be the best choice for us because I’ve always been suspicious of “highly-regarded” picks.

I cannot give him the backing that he has given to Scott Brown as both regular readers of this blog will know that I never give more that 100% to anything – it’s illogical.

But what have we seen – Moussa Dembele, who had shown his potential in the English Championship, persuaded to come to Celtic for the next stage of his development.

This was not part of The Plan.

Those of us who are old enough need only cast our minds back to the tears Henrik Larsson shed when it seemed as if Feyenoord would scupper his move to Celtic. That was not to do with love for Celtic at that time but, as Henrik said, he had seen how Pierre Van Hoojidonk had developed.

Neither was it part of The Plan – it was a straightforward reaction by a player who had potential, recognising that he could emulate or exceed Van Hoojidonk’s achievements, if only given the chance.

That’s one of the reasons why Dembele is such a great signing for us. It’s not just because we have such an exceptional player (whose comments on receiving player-of-the-month were just what every Celtic fan would love to hear).

But, when Moussa signed, Zinedine Zidane said it was a logical move for a player he had been watching. Zizou said he had to score in the Champions League – Moussa duly scored. France Under-21 caps – two goals in two games, drawing praise from Didier Deschamps, who has already discussed bringing him into the top squad.

This seems lost on some people – we have a manager who was influential in the development of Raheem Sterling and Luis Suarez and who Steven Gerrard described as the best one-to-one coach he had ever worked with.

His initial work with Dembele will also be noted by other players whose aspirations match Moussa’s – to play in the Champions League and get the attention of the coach of one of the elite European national teams.

If Moussa can get his full call-up for France, why couldn’t any other French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or English player seek to follow his path at Celtic?

That wasn’t The Plan – find some potential, give them a couple of seasons to show their licks, sell the best for big money. Figure out what to do with the rest.

The Plan would never have brought Henrik to Celtic and this is the time for those criticised for objecting to it, to recognise that.

There are two other distinctly “off-plan” signings but the sort who idiots like me always sought (you know, we were hell-bent on the destruction of the club).

Signing Kolo Toure did not fit The Plan. He was a “diminishing asset” before Brendan Rodgers persuaded him to leave Liverpool, where fans expected him to be offered another contract.

What Kolo has become is more than a defensive rock – he is the defensive coach in-situ; the guy who knows exactly what has to be done, where players should be and the decisions they should make. Any defender who doesn’t learn from playing with Toure will demonstrate much about his future potential.

(In this, he is adding value to his defensive cohorts, Plan followers.)

And the third “off-plan” player is – of course Scott Sinclair. Sinclair epitomises something else that we should be seeking to exploit – a player with abundant skill, who has had a hiatus in his career, but who an astute manager can assist towards fulfilling his full potential.

Players like Scotty don’t make any sense according to The Plan – you take someone who is paid a massive salary and invest a great deal to persuade him that he should come to Celtic and, if he has sufficient belief, might flourish again; even maybe play in the Champions League.

Once upon a time, it was Chris Sutton – devastating with Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers – but discarded by a too-rich club who paid £10m for him while most of the English media chose to forget how good a player he was.

Chris Sutton is one of the best Celtic players I have seen with my own eyes. Scott Sinclair need only look to him for inspiration.

There is, though, a fourth issue, and that is about keeping players. For that, look no further than Kieran Tierney. With major clubs said to be ready to offer in the region of the magic £10m, Kieran actually chose to sign a long-term deal with Celtic, the club he supports.

I’m not the only Celtic fan who gulped a little bit of emotion when KT chose to stay with us, a Celtic supporter ready to fulfill his dreams in a Celtic shirt. But again, many of us suspect that the prospect of working with off-Plan Brendan Rodgers was significant.

This is not The Plan – but neither are Celtic facing bankruptcy. In fact, the club is enjoying just the sort of financial rewards hoped-for by non-Plan exponents, while The Planners were espousing the benefits of the Europa League, instead of the other tournament we were supposed to qualify for, three years out of five.

It is worth remembering that nothing has been won this season. Fans and players need to be conscious of that. And it was wonderful to hear Pep Guardiola defining what it means to pull on a Celtic shirt – to win every week. When Pep is paying homage to the values of the club, it can also serve as a reminder that complacency never fits with being a Celtic player.

We respect the opposition, no matter who they are, and play to win.

We know that we do not have a divine right to win and that every point or victory must be earned on the park.

These are the values and ethos of the club – not any immutable Plan, supported by people who could well be called propagandists.

A proper manager who knows what he is doing (with astutely-chosen professional assistants), leading the football operations of the club – in charge of signing policy.

That’s not The Plan – but it’s what reckless fans like me thought could work, all along.

Some Celtic “fans” probably hope we’re wrong.

Celtic: On spin, hostile PR, press bans and media freedom

A free, fearless and impartial media is one of the pillars on which any society

Due diligence: Two Scottish sports
hacks discuss standards and ethics

claiming the accolade of “democracy” rests.

In various corners of the world, journalists have been pressurised, intimidated, sacked, arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even killed for their determination to get to and report the truth.

It is through journalism that presidents have been held to account, crimes revealed, spying exposed and more. And so we should be careful to do nothing to support the suppression of truth or the journalistic freedoms on which a just and transparent society depends.

And yet, that sacred implied contract of society defending a free press is based on a number of clauses. The journalism cannot always be fearless, it is rarely free in the truest sense but it must always strive towards such impartiality as is possible, allowing for – but guarding against – unconscious biases.

It must never, ever stray from seeking to uphold those ideals and when it does so – stray from the seeking, rather than attaining these ideals – it loses its claim on our protection. It becomes something weak, spreading error, misinformation and even disinformation. It becomes something anathema to all journalists everywhere; a thin cloak of journalistic privilege over a body of PR or even propaganda.

When that happens, the rules change fundamentally. The so-called journalists and the publications they represent distort their core mission for reasons that are not always clear – fear, self-interest, blackmail, bribery, intimidation – and they become something not only unworthy of privilege, but demanding to be challenged.

And this is pertinent now, perhaps more than ever. It is indicative of the absurdity surrounding one part of Scottish society that such issues are being bandied about over the subject of football.

Once, Scotland might have been said to have excelled at the journalistic game, far more so than the one of beauty in which we invest so much of our time, money and emotional energy.

In recent decades, however, Scottish sports journalism has rarely sought to set the bar as high as a Fosberry Flop. We can be in danger of presuming that we have too much and too perfect knowledge of motivations – that is largely irrelevant.

What matters is the evidence of the output and, while it is problematic to talk of “empirical evidence” in something that doesn’t lend itself to statistically-rigorous analysis, we can take another approach.

If we were to evaluate the output of the Scottish media in terms of positive or negative media coverage, what conclusions would we draw?

We needn’t and shouldn’t seek PR spin from the media. That invariably obscures truth, which followers of a once-famous club know can, in the most extreme circumstances, prove fatal.

Is the coverage negative? Overwhelmingly, yes, which is remarkable, given that this seems to be the case in promising, as well as challenging, times. This raises issues, to which we will return.

However, there is a third question: in a scenario in which a competitor saw itself as being in a polarised market, despite there being other legitimate (and longer-established) players, would that competitor be likely to think that their PR budget had been well-spent, both in promoting their brand and denigrating the brand of their rivals?

The answer to that would also seem to be an unequivocal yes.

On the subject of Celtic receiving negative coverage in times of success, we could conclude that the club’s public relations strategy or implementation is flawed – it certainly has been in the past.

On the other hand, we might equally ask if what masquerades as objective media coverage in this country is, in effect, PR for our would-be rivals. And, if we conclude that the answer to that is “yes”, that doesn’t simply validate action consistent with challenging a hostile PR machine – it positively demands it.

Imagine a scenario far removed from football. Coca-Cola and Pepsi see their competition as a zero-sum game – what’s good for Coke is bad for Pepsi and vice-versa. There are other brands out there but the media focuses on the big two, no matter what. (As if you didn’t know, the world’s third-best-selling brand is RC Cola – in red & blue packaging but unlikely to be sold at at least one Scottish football ground).

Let’s say Pepsi have gone through really bad times (they haven’t – it’s just pretend) and the company is really worried about where it goes from here. Their results are bad, their innovations are damp squibs, Pepsi drinkers constantly disgrace themselves in public.

On the other hand, Coke is flying high: buoyant on the market, great new products and a feelgood factor surrounding it because people just like it.

If the trade press constantly banged the drum for Pepsi, against all evidence, and ran bad news stories against Coke every time things got really serious, would you expect the Coca-Cola Company to just shrug awkwardly and say: “There’s nothing we can do”?

To continue the analogy, it’s like Coke going strong where a company that thinks it’s Pepsi – but is in fact, not RC Cola, not even Strike Cola, but Solripe, whose branding has been bought by The Sticky Sugar King NewCola Company – is getting all the good press, while chunks are being taken out of Coke, to the detriment of the brand.

Without trying to speak for Coke, Pepsi or Celtic, the point is that, regardless of what Celtic do on or off the park, the media coverage seems to diminish the good, exaggerate the bad and run smears on the club when our over-inflated “rivals” are in the darkest of places.

And at that point, it is more than legitimate to question the press privileges given to certain publications and simply say: “The ba’s on the slates!”

Many Celtic fans baulk at the idea of “media bans”, with a quite admirable appreciation of the principles espoused at the beginning of this article. We should laud and respect them.

However, while the principles of media freedom are eternal, the prevailing conditions and practicalities of the modern age are radically changed.

Firstly, let’s not forget that this is football – the entertainment business as surely as the popular music industry. (Look, straighten that face – you get awful live concerts, too!)

We are not talking about central government, institutions substantially funded by the public purse or matters of pressing social concern.

We’re talking about football. It means a lot to us, is important in its own way, but is not intrinsically relevant to democracy or larger quality-of-life issues.

If that seems to be trivialising the issue, it is the same logic used by sports desks and sports hacks, allowing them to concoct and print unadulterated garbage, with the defence of: “Lighten up, it’s only a game!”

But, by the same token, those who absolve themselves of professional standards also lose the right to claim the status of loosely-defined “colleagues” who actually do journalistic work. To fail to recognise that is to stand behind the scribes who reported the World War II bomber found on the moon or exposed Freddie Starr’s taste for hamsters.

Secondly, what is offered by football clubs – much like the music industry – is privileged access, based on the “legitimacy” of the media outlet.

When people in important positions at Celtic agree to the odd interview with the independent websites, most of us appreciate it. When the club offers regular exceptional privileges to fan sites, it often provokes suspicion.

Why? Because privileged access is not a right – the clue is in the name. It is a recognition of a certain journalistic standing as well as standards, also known as “legitimacy”. And, while it is not something to be traded as currency, neither should it be given out unthinkingly, because – you know – “people might talk”.

And this leads us to a third point – the protocols surrounding a “free press” – originally meaning printed media – were established when there were few means through which the general public could glean information as to the events and decisions which intimately affected their lives.

They were never designed to defend the right of idiots to represent the interests of their favourite football clubs, to the detriment of competitors.

There should be no suggestion of Celtic trying to pressurise journalists into writing whatsoever they choose, as long as it remains within the realms of truth, legality and basic journalistic standards.

And decades of experience have told us that they will write anything about Celtic without fear, which may not be the case when reporting on others who demand favour.

But the club does not have to extend media privileges to those who eschew the principles of journalism, any more than it has to give every blogger a press pass to eat sandwiches and free tickets to the game.

In the 24-7, multimedia, social-media age, no one can stop people reporting on the matches, if they buy a ticket or watch it on TV (which some hacks do) or reporting the outcome of press conferences, which are often streamed, anyway.

You’ll find a dozen Celtic fan sites doing the same.

They, too, are informing the public, equally deserving or undeserving of privilege.

So there is no need to talk of “bans” or attacking press freedoms, if privileges are withdrawn from those who do not feel bound by professional standards and values, instead leveraging those principles in order to damage our club.

Celtic must protect Celtic, with or without those “legitimate” journalists who seem hell-bent on damaging us. Cut them off, without fear or favour.

If they’re hacked off, sobeit. What’s the worst they can do – relentlessly and unfairly criticise us?

That would be awful.

--

Losing 7 goals in Barcelona may be unfortunate – 2 in Inverness looks like carelessness

“Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.”
                                                                                                                   – George Bernard Shaw

Brendan Rodgers has made a big impression in his few months as Celtic's head coach.

On arriving, he immediately spoke like a man who fully understood Celtic's values, standards and the expectations of supporters beyond the “famous club with a great history – great fans” trope that is standard fare with such appointments.

Look Mum, No hands!

There was an authenticity to Brendan's words that allowed us to take his expressions of respect for the club and its fans without salt.

That was quickly followed by the sort of football talk that reassured most of us that we had someone who knew the game. When I listen to a highly-paid expert giving a post-match analysis, I like to hear comments that I couldn't have made myself.

That gives me confidence as I am not qualified to be a football coach so banal talk about “commitment”, “belief” “finishing in the final third”, etc. – football commentators' bread-and-butter – do nothing to tell me that we have a coach for the modern game.

So, I'm really delighted that we have Brendan Rodgers and his coaching staff. We have made progress and that, I think, accounts for the difference in responses to our two big defeats by Barcelona, in recent years.

When we lost 6-1 under Neil Lennon, I was crestfallen as it was indicative of a club on the way down, with no indication of when we would touch bottom.

Last week's loss seemed like a painful setback on the way up.

I often think it's something similar to physical health.

When you're feeling okay but the symptoms of flu or something worse start showing up, it's a dispiriting, anxious feeling. When you feel pretty lousy but a lot better than yesterday, the spirits begin to rise.

Being down, looking up is always more fun than being up, looking down. Otherwise, we would never climb mountains – but it's hard to remain at the top for long.

And, so Celtic's impressive start to the domestic season has faltered, needlessly giving away two more goals and squandering a dominant position.

It's not a crisis – not even a pre-crisis warning sign – but remedial action will be needed.

We should, though, congratulate Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who gave nothing but full, professional application to their afternoon's work, took their goals well and had two arguable penalty claims.

On the other hand, while Celtic certainly played some entertaining football, the defending was alarmingly similar to the experiences that have kept us up at night over the past year-and-a-bit.

It was worrying to see how much we missed Kolo Toure at the ground of the club that then occupied bottom spot in the Premiership table.

Kolo's qualities are evident and any team would miss him but the man is 35. We should be able to rest him and have his deputies perform professionally.

That seemed too much for Celtic and that shows something of how much work has yet to be done. (Maybe our recent games will ultimately prove to have a positive effect – “like a new signing” ©BFDJ).

After the Barca game, Celtic fans were commendably understanding of the result, given the challenge faced and the early stage of development. But that sort of indulgence shouldn't be taken for granted by any of the players.

What was needed today was a professional performance – not five or six goals – just the sort of “back-to-business” response that should follow a truly awful mid-week result.

What we got was some highly-entertaining football but with hapless, leaderless defending and a sense that some of the forward players thought the win was a fait accompli.

Yes, Fon Williams was outstanding in goal (remember how that used to feel?) but that doesn't tell the whole story.

Celtic had 23 shots on goal, only nine of which were on target. That seems to reflect my perception of a game in which too many players were taking speculative efforts, instead of ruthlessly getting the game won.

And that's not good enough.

We all expect to win the league again but the Celtic shirt does not shrink to fit big-time Charlies, as a founding father might have said, if he had been watching.

We should not be defending as if scared teenagers, whenever Kolo Toure is not around, and nor should we expect three points when donning the fur coat but eschewing the intimate undergarments, in attack.

A professional performance would have been one that converted possession into chances and chances into goals in a reasonable ratio.

We cannot expect to have a properly balanced squad after a few months of the Rodgers era, following years of “asset management” by the men in sharp suits.

That said, on the back of the worst result that anyone under the age of 114 has experienced in their lifetime, some proletarian graft should have preceded any desire to be flash.

It is the natural order of things.

After failure, follows humility. With humility you learn to focus on basic values, which lead to success, which allow you to flourish.

This team is generally doing well and exceeding expectations – we are not ready for the car park.
But we need to get our priorities in focus.

Being in the Champions League is great. It is where we belong and we must rise to its challenges.

But neither are we too great for the Scottish Premiership. It is also where we belong and we must respect its challenges, too.

We have the best players, coaching staff, stadium – everything – in Scotland.

But we should always choose confident humility over arrogant complacency.

Play well, play fair, entertain – but get the job done, Celtic.
--

Philosophy - and irrefutable proof that fans make football

"Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!"
 - Thus Spake Zarathustra

It is now so ingrained in the ethos of Celtic fans that anyone who couldn't quote Jock Stein declaring that the two greatest teams in the world, without fans, are nothing would be viewed with deep suspicion.

The smart knew him to be right; the wise wouldn't have needed him to tell them.

But if any doubted the great man, they need only have witnessed Celtic playing Atletico Madrid behind closed doors, in 1985, to understand how surreal and lacking in entertainment value football without fans is.

Contrast the two occasions and results.

In one, in a hostile atmosphere, Celtic produced an excellent result. In the surreal return leg, the absence of Celtic fans was Atletico's edge.

This was, of course, a hangover from one of the worst experiences of my life supporting Celtic - the shameful Rapid Vienna affair.

Celtic were treated unjustly by UEFA but some fans were suckered, too. And how ironic that the actions of a few fans should have had such a history-defining effect on Celtic's future.

It would not be until the reign of Martin O'Neill that European football would be a positive experience for the club.

It is the presence of tens of thousands of fans, packing stadiums, that makes football and a few can undermine the experience for everyone. We have seen much of this over thelast week.

I was looking forward to the match on Saturday and, of course, very keen that Celtic should win. I explained as much on this blog.

But, however hard some try to say otherwise, I didn't have the butterflies, the anxiety or the adrenal excitement that preceded matches with the real Rangers.

None of that - the stupid superstitions, the rituals, the trying to find reassurance from other Celtic fans that we had enough to win - was there.

Yet, we witnessed a fantastic occasion.

And why? Because the ground was full and bouncing.

Tuesday was as cringe-inducing a night of football as you could ever witness. In fact, it was the sort of score against Celtic that I have always hoped never to witness.

But while the anticipation, rapidly metamorphosed into shock and then a worrying, helpless sense of inevitability, the sounds of the crowd made a no-contest into an event.

Because fans, without football, can watch Bake-Off but football, without fans, is nothing.

I have a friend who once played bass with a successful band. (He's not personally famous but  he had his moment in the sun.) He told me that the clichés about performance were true:

"The crowd gives you energy; you give it back to the crowd and then they give it back to you - amplified!"

And this was what we witnessed on Saturday – and on Tuesday (though Tuesday's recipients were not in green and white).

Yes, the game with The Rangers was a grudge match - it had added "local derby" spice and the premature rhetoric had cranked that up.

But it was neither our most difficult nor important match of the season so far. It wasn't even the most serious SPFL test, but Celtic fans spent the rest of Saturday smiling, laughing, celebrating - energised.

But that's not the whole story. All of us who have followed football know there is a joyful difference between witnessing players who can revel in such an atmosphere and those who wilt.

We've all seen them - the talented players who either get intimidated by aggressive fans in away matches or collapse under the weight of expectation, best articulated by Tony Cascarino in his hilarious autobiography. (Tony, you were so funny that I forgave you for the way you performed for us.)

Tuesday saw some do just that. The younger players, we can excuse completely. One or two more established professionals should enjoy no such indulgence.

None of the players at the Camp Nou would gain pass marks. But this was an occasion on which we saw the real “men and boys” in our own team.

Saturday was particularly enjoyable because, when the volume was cranked up to 11, we saw a team with belief in themselves, confidence in their coaches and trust in each other. On such occasions, stars rise.

And it will come as no surprise that the brightest of them all on Saturday was Moussa Dembele.

When we signed a young striker with a solid English championship season behind him, I was encouraged and pleasantly surprised. It was the sort of signing many of us had been asking for in the "on plan" years.

When he stepped up to take that penalty against Astana, many of us who had been around for a while sensed a defining moment.

Saturday was another great test, passed with flying colours and, despite being “psyched out” by the Barca keeper Ter Stegen and placing a mid-level penalty, I have no criticism of him.
Moussa has strength, close control and the ability to combine both to hold the ball in the six-yard box under intense pressure from defenders.

It is exactly the sort of skill that one former Celtic striker, now sadly reduced to being a SkySports pundit, once said he had tried to copy from Kenny Dalglish, believing that the tight confines of the playground had been an ideal training ground. (Not, not you, Andy Walker, nobody is interested in your playing style - I'm talking about Charlie Nicholas.)

People quite rightly talked about the variety of goals from Saturday but another indication of Dembele's quality was his ability to bring difficult long passes under control with his chest.

That doesn't just demonstrate learned technique but the ability to remain calm while 60,000 people are screaming at you.

And I saw no indication that he was dealing with the Camp Nou atmosphere any less well than anyone else. Playing a lone striker role against the world's best team – which is hamering your teammates behind you – is a tough task and Moussa was not the worst player on display.

Tuesday could have crushed the spirit of the team but there are still positive signs.

We have, in varying measures, skill, speed, solidity, creativity and versatility, but not enough of any of them yet. We are a long way from being a top team, as Barcelona showed – but then they have done something similar to genuinely top teams (like Valencia).

But the general direction is positive.

We faced a monumentally difficult task in Barcelona on Tuesday – and we failed.

Let's be clear - anything professional and competitive against Barca would have been a success. None of our players left with their reputations enhanced but while the occasion was too early for some, a few at least fought until the end – as always, Scott Brown – and a few let us down both in terms of performance level and courage (also known as commitment).

I expect that their names have been duly noted by the coaching staff and that they will follow some of their “team hangover” colleagues out the door when an opportunity arises.

You can make mistakes, you can play badly – not acceptable but understandable. If you play for Celtic, you better have the pride and moral courage to conspicuously give everything when things are going against you – for your teammates, your coaches and the fans.

If your hamstring has once troubled you so badly that you signalled to the bench when struggling with your lower-division rivals – and then recovered when you realised your team had used all three subs – you had better make the most of the privilege of representing Celtic against the world's finest footballers.

If an easy win makes you so cocky that you want to run around with a beachball on your head, then don't try to be the invisible clown three days later, when real footballers are running your team ragged – and real men are doing their best to try to combat it.

We have seen two mismatches over the last five days, bringing joy and discomfort to us, in equal measure.

Yet, they have both been great football occasions in their own way, because, despite the malicious jibes of those small-minded officials of a small-time club, overwhelmingly the fans made them so.

Those same fans make football – and footballers – something.

It is encouraging that almost all of our players over the two games recognised that.

Brendan Rodgers poignantly quoted Jock Stein on Saturday on the 31st anniversary of Jock's death (and the fifth anniversary of Brendan's own father).

Brendan and his coaching team – so strong on detail and so demanding of intensity – will surely be reinforcing some of Jock's simple values over the coming months.

--

Celtic crushed in Catalonia. Disappointed – si! Despondent – no!

Sometimes you have to take your licks in football and tonight was one of those occasions.

Should we ever think that losing 7-0 is acceptable? Of course not.

Welcome to Catalonia: Thanks, I think.

But there are times to recognise the excellence of our opponents and to decline the invitation to panic.

Most Celtic fans had a gnawing suspicion that Barcelona could run run up several goals against us. We just hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

And while going into every match with the expectation of a chance of winning is what a top club should aspire to, it was difficult to see how we would prevent Messi, Neymar and Suarez from scoring, aided by the sheer mesmerising creativity of Iniesta and a host of other stars.

Simply, Scottish teams have had no difficulty in scoring against us and Hapoel Beer Sheva netter against us twice in both legs, so arguably the most potent strike force that football has ever seen always looked likely to score three or more.

That it was so many smarts, naturally, but how do we respond?

We can panic, start berating our players and choose despondency or we can take a broader perspective in our disappointment.

We have defensive shortcomings that have only partially been addressed, a dearth of players with top-level experience and a thin squad.

For some of those players, the size of the occasion appeared to be too much, which is no surprise when going a goal down within three minutes in the Camp Nou.

That exacerbated our problems as the tension showed in some of our passing with loose balls and a reluctance to commit to going forward exacerbating the pressure of a relentless Barcelona.

With one or two more years of experience, some of those passes would have been attacking and a little more accurate. That same hesitancy was also evident in some of the running, meaning that good possession was turned into more and more Barca pressure.

But this was quite literally the hardest task that football could offer and came at a very early stage in the Brendan Rodgers reign. It should also be noted that those squad shortcomings have been several years in the making.

Nevertheless, clear progress has been made.

We have some genuine young talent, a coaching team that understands what they have to do to make progress and – crucially – growing confidence in the squad.

And that confidence is what we must guard most preciously of all.

A result such as this could crush the confidence of some of these players and bring us right back to where we started on day one. Fans putting pressure on the team or coaching staff will only undermine our aspirations of improving.
So, however hard, let's take it, support the team and help them grow.

We have other hard tests ahead of us – and some key additions will be needed in the next transfer window – but there is more to come from this team and it can still make us proud.
--

Celtic - The Rangers: We don't like them or their people

"We don't like this team. We don't like their people."

It was in 1989 when the legendary Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche

probably summed up the unrepentant spirit of sporting contempt better than anyone else, either before or since.

The Bengals had just prevented the Houston Oilers and their coach Jerry Glanville from clinching the divisional championship - by 61 points to 7.

On the way, they had taken every opportunity to score that was available to them, including the sort of moves only usually made by teams ready to take a chance in order to score when desperate.

A fake field goal, an onside kick,  even a field goal in the dying seconds when their opponents were already thoroughly crushed. It was roughly the equivalent of a team that was 6-0 up sending the goalkeeper to their opponents penalty box for a last-gasp corner.

As Wyche went on to say,  "When you get a chance to [run up the score], you do it. I wish today this was a five-quarter game."

Was that in keeping with the spirit of respect for an opponent that normal etiquette demanded? Absolutely not.

Did every fan of every sporting team know how Wyche felt and secretly imagine themselves in a similar scenario? Hell, yeah!

Today, Celtic under Brendan Rodgers will, for the third time, face a club claiming one of the most toxic legacies in sporting history.

There will be no Wyche-like words at the end from Brendan. And there is no animosity between him and his former office junior Mark Warburton.

But the antipathy towards the visitors tomorrow will be real and justified. The aforementioned coopted legacy includes almost 140 years of willingly revelling in the persecution of minorities.

It includes bad debt, deliberate fraud and cheating, all of which were celebrated as if illustrating a sense of conspicuous entitlement, the like of which can only ever be demonstrated by supremacists desperate to believe that "lording it" over all others is their birthright.

At Aberdeen, Stewart Milne once endured years of criticism for never coming close to the success of the Alex Ferguson era, perennially pleading that the club consistently outspent everyone outside the "Old Firm".

After a sales glut,  Hibs chose to balance the books, in order to secure the future of the club, a decision that was widely criticised.

Hearts, suffering an administration event,  chose to pursue a strategy of recompensing the creditors, thereby avoiding liquidation and preserving the club's history,  though being relegated along the way.

And Celtic, let's not forget, "paid all the bills" under Fergus McCann.

All of the above would be considered honourable in any country in which the sporting authorities and media were not dysfunctional to the point of perversity.

But we're talking about Scotland, where those who chose to accept that one of the consequences of mismanagement must be a sporting penalty are decried as fools.

Where the cheats, the bad debtors and the fraudsters are simultaneously celebrated as both sporting and moral victors and victims, without dichotomy.

Where a cult has been created in which an imposed narrative is considered higher than truth itself; more powerful than accepted existential norms.

And the people who, without shame, pound their knuckles into the turf,  demanding that their inherited rights to "respect", "esteem" and deference take precedence over easily demonstrable facts - at gunpoint, if necessary - claim that occupying territory wearing a uniform and struggling under a historical name also lays claim to historical values.

These ideals they express through the most vile abuse, threats of violence,  guttural chants of prejudice and obscene accusations.

Their team lays claim to the legacy of its predecessor by signing the worst that football has to offer. If Rangers had El Hadj Diouf, The Rangers must have Joey Barton, who can insult Celtic, our captain and even our manager without his own "boss" being able or inclined to discipline him.

And in all this, they are supported by the media while the authorities at best look away.

There was another notable quote from that famous Bengals - Oilers match.

It came from the Bengals iconic quarterback Boomer Esiason:
"It's like playing against the bully in your high school. You finally reach up and slug him in the teeth and he runs away."

The team we will face today claim the legacy of Scottish football's ultimate bullies. In that, they play a dangerous game as they are poorly equipped to do so.

Esiason was not, of course, advocating violence and that should not feature in any form.

He was talking about dishing out retribution in a sporting sense - on the public field of play.

Celtic have a bigger game this week when we take on probably the best team in the world in the Champions League, so any fulsome thrashing is likely to be tempered by resting key players.

For that reason, it is probably unrealistic to expect a record-breaking five or six goals.

And,  yes,  The Rangers are better on paper than Red Imps, who beat us,  so anything could happen.

But remember that we don't need to recognise the continuity myth to dislike this team or their people.

And we needn't hesitate to say so.

Game on.
--

Celtic v Hapoel Be'er Sheva: A right to protest – but right to protest?

Here we go again.

In the spirit of navel-gazing nostalgia that has come with the tenth anniversary of this blog, I have found myself compelled to self-reference again.

Because, yes – you've guessed it – Celtic have been drawn against another Israeli team in the Champions League qualifiers and some people just HAVE to demand a protest.

As I said almost seven years ago, when Celtic were drawn against Hapoel Tel-Aviv; I am no supporter of Zionism. In that, I am joined by the most orthodox Jews,

I abhor the oppression of the Palestinians, brutally denied their rights by a murderous regime.

I do not believe that Israel should be part of UEFA because, quite simply, Israel is not part of Europe, by any stretch of the imagination.

And I particularly note that the Israeli Defence Force has been accused of attacking young Palestinian footballers, which should be enough to mobilise the entire football community in a demand to stop such attacks, even to the point of suspending the Israeli football association from participating in international competition.

But how and when is it appropriate to protest?

Not for the first time, Celtic fans are being told what they must do, when they must do it – and being told that dissenting from this means abandoning Palestinian children.

All very well-meaning, avowing noble intentions but carrying the logical weight of the Manic Street Preachers saying that pacifists are willingly condemning their children to death at the hands of Fascists.

You remember them – those young Welsh lads born just too young to join the International Brigades or to take arms with Ernesto "Che" Guevara Lynch in pursuit of the international liberation of the

Che: 'In my son's veins flowed the
blood of Irish rebels'

working classes – so they formed a preachy pop band, instead. (Great tune, though.)

And much of the cry for an anti-Israel protest during the match is similar in nature.

We'll just fly some flags, take the fine – the club has plenty of money – and declare ourselves sedentary liberators of the Palestinian people and the international working class.

And if you don't – well, then take a good look at yourselves. You obviously don't care about the Palestinian children who could have been saved by that protest.

Who are these people and what to they actually DO to make a difference, (in the event that you don't consider Tweets and Facebook postings to be actually “doing” anything of substance)?

What sacrifices do they make, I wonder, in defence of Palestinians, in their daily lives. Boycott Israeli goods? Probably – that involves laying off the Soda Stream, eliminating 1% of your available wine list and being careful to avoid kosher salt.

How many of these people, for example, protest outside the Israeli embassy or risk arrest and incurring criminal records and fines? I have no doubt that there are a few – but, as for the rest, do they only notice what is happening to the Palestinians when Celtic are playing a team from Israel?

They insist that it will “only be a fine” but that's not clear at all. Do they want Celtic to play European matches with a stand closed – to make a statement? Perhaps they can dedicate that empty stand to Nir Bitton, so that he can watch the game in an atmosphere of acceptable solitude.

And, no, being Israeli or Jewish is not he same as being a Zionist but we do well when we remember to recognise the sensitivities of those closer to the issues that rightly inflame world opinion.

Why stop at the risk of a stand being closed? Surely the only morally defensible protest would be to refuse to play any Israeli club, risking expulsion from the tournament, as the club did under Bob Kelly when he took his stand against Warsaw Pact nations who had crushed the Prague Spring?

Why aren't they calling for that? Is it because Celtic being deprived of European football is too high a price to pay to save the Palestinians?

Where are the protests against Celtic's involvement in the International Champions Cup, given that it is an American tournament? The US is the greatest sponsor Israel has, without whose support, the IDF could not defend its country, never mind act with impunity in oppressing the Palestinians.

Why should we tolerate dealings with companies from the country that has done more to spread terror across the Middle-East and Latin America than any other?

Would it be too inconvenient to target American institutions? Would the costs to the club be “too high a price to pay”?

And who do these people think they are to dictate the exact nature that any protest must take?

Why can't they buy their tickets and refuse to take their seats, for example? They could have a public ceremony – away from the ground – burning their tickets, which would surely draw media attention.

They could raise funds for Gaza, take the opportunity to start a campaign to place pressure on UEFA and FIFA to expel the Israeli Football Association from its competitions, unless attacks on Palestinian players end.

There are a million causes and that of the Palestinians is one of those most deserving of support. That said, there are as many ways of supporting the people of that region as there are people there.

A pointless banner or flag-waving exercise that brings the club closer to the closure of a stand – depriving the team of support and fellow fans the opportunity to attend European games – will not achieve anything.

If someone can tell me or anyone else just why the above statement is wrong, please let them do so.

And before Wednesday – I'd quite like to watch the game.
--

10 years blogging about Celtic

Shamelessly sentimental, relentlessly self-referencing: a happy 10th birthday to me

Few people noticed at the time but ten years ago today, a little-known blog entered Celtic cyberspace, making a splash like a teabag in the North Sea.

It was never intended to become significant, popular nor respected and it has lived up to those lofty founding aspirations.

However, somehow, it has survived a decade with hiatuses, and one long-term interruption. It may seem surprising that something so small should have been attacked, even from within the Celtic community, but that is just one part of the story.

In truth, that story is not especially remarkable. But at the top of this blog for all those years has been the motto: “Yet another personal view on Celtic Football Club.”

The blog was never intended to claim to speak on behalf of Celtic or Celtic supporters. I had seen the individuals and organisations claiming that legitimacy and always been dubious about their credentials as well as, occasionally, their intentions.

It was intended to be my personal view on my club – as stated in that first post – and that is what it has been. Never more than one stalk of barley blowing in the field of green.

And this reminiscence will be personal, too.

Those ten years represent a fair chunk of my life, and the attendant emotions and experiences in that life have had their parallels in my relationship with my club; our club.

It started with hope and anticipation and went through joy and despair, laughter and anger, sense and senselessness, victory and defeat, gain and loss in all its senses.

In the rich body of words recording and opining on Celtic's journey, it barely registers. Yet it has occasionally made an impact, too, in unexpected ways.

Background

By 2006, Celtic cyberspace had already been a rich world of news and views. Celtic fans led the way in terms of embracing the internet and the club's supporters probably still outstrip the fans of any

other sporting institution in the world.

There had been paper fanzines before – Not the View, Once a Tim and Bhoyzone – and at least two of their editors had gone on to take jobs at the club, effectively silencing their publications.

But on the internet, it was the pioneering Etims, which had set the standard. Etims offered an early

vision of the potential of “citizen journalism” before such a term had been coined and long before the blogging revolution which would transform the media landscape had even been born.

Elsewhere there were forums and Usenet but Etims established an editorial structure of news, polemic and (often frankly absurd) rumours. It's worth noting that they did this long before most of the established media even knew what the internet was.

By mid-2006, Celtic Underground had begun – “the site that's not trying to get a job with the club” – as a reaction to those independent sites that seemed to be trying too hard to curry favour with the plc.

At one time, I considered asking if they wanted me to write for them but concluded that they wouldn't need me and that I somehow prefered to be a lone voice, speaking to fewer readers than I might otherwise enjoy, than be part of a collective which I nevertheless valued and respected. (I seem to recall some vague invitation at one point but I'm fuzzy on the details.)

I guess I sensed that my inner curmudgeon was best given an outlet in a space insulated from decent folk.

Names and namelessness

I assumed the handle, One Star Means More, as a reaction to the idiocy of a club that had never won the European Cup putting five stars on its shirt, as if that somehow outshone the one star that ours represents.

It was a nod to the days when I used to read strange nicknames attached to sporting queries in the Saturday Evening Times, as well as the newspaper writers whose bylines represented personas, rather than individuals. Most often these were to be found in the racing pages, like Scotia, for example, but also in the Sunday Posts Hon.

I never pretended towards their levels of attention but there was something I have always liked about the nameless writer.

That has been criticised many times – more of that later – but always by people unhappy with something that has been written, especially when they know they have no answer or are just plain wrong.

It is also a practice that newspapers have often used with house bylines, though it has become fashionable in the mainstream media to condemn those “faceless, anonymous” writers online.

There was another reason.

Identifying personalities with their output is not always a good thing.

It can lead to too close an attachment of the person to their words. The writers can become precious and defensive, seeing criticism of their words as a personal attack. They also tend to face accusations of self-interest or being on an ego-trip – even personality cults (sometimes justly), often having their personal lives used to undermine the work they create.

A flick through Celtic's independent media would see instances of all of those things.

A few people know who I am and they find me just as outspoken/truculent in person. Occasionally, some of those have even implied that they could “out” me, idiotic though that was. Yes, there were occasions on which it could have made my professional work mildly uncomfortable, had I attached my name to the pieces, but no more than that.

If those few threats had any impact, it was simply that I stopped signing my first name to emails.

Ideals

I've always preferred to think of Celtic's ideals as being something to be preserved in as pure a form as this cynical old world will allow.

Queen's Park held on to their amateur status and became a club almost forgotten, though its place in football history is immense. I've never wanted that for Celtic but neither did I want the club's values and identity to be subsumed into an exercise in corporate branding.

I know brand managers and I admire their creativity. But Coke, Pepsi or Strike Cola have brand differentiation. They all sell cola and they all exist to sell the most cola at the highest profit.

Celtic play football but represent things that other clubs don't. It is rooted in our story of helping the poorest and most disadvantaged in society.

The founders of the club, including those volunteer labourers who built the first ground with their bare hands dug in the ground for a lump of coal and found a rough diamond that has been polished by countless hands to make it shine and sparkle, occasionally dazzling.

The acceptance, the inclusiveness – they seem like thoroughly modern 21st-century ideals. The belief in football as sport and entertainment for the fans and the betterment of the sport in general.

I'm not so naïve as to say that our club lives up to those ideals at all times but it saddens me every time I see us drifting away from that ethos best defined and embodied by Jock Stein.

"We did it by playing football; pure, beautiful, inventive football. There was not a negative thought in our heads."
“Football, without fans, is nothing.”

I still despair when I see Celtic teams play a negative game, though I understand the professional necessity sometimes. (Celtic did the same in the away leg of the European Cup semi-final in 1967, against Dukla Prague, the one decision Jock regretted about that campaign).

I cringe when I see a Celtic player cheat or go in to hurt an opponent when hard-but-fair should be a clear enough rule for anyone.

Yes, there have been times when we've been let down on the field – too many of them. There have been a few occasions that the same can be said of the fans.

And the Celtic bloggers, too.

Dark shades of green

Once, from the wild blue yonder, I received an email from a would-be blogger asking for some advice on setting up his own. I shared such tips as I could and wished him well.

I noticed that he didn't even say thank-you, never mind sharing reciprocal links, as some blogs did in those days – where are you, Lord of the Wing? He went on to become quite successful before turning his blog into a clickbait outlet, seemingly chasing the advertising revenue that page impressions could offer.

Too many have followed in his footsteps. Yes, independent bloggers can churn out the same rewrites and hastily-written copy that the mainstream writers do. But they lose something by doing so and the readers notice.

Another Celtic writer had a donation button. I made a small contribution – a whole fiver! I noticed that he, too, didn't say thanks and I sent him a politely-worded message, noting that, while such oversights are understandable, some acknowledgement might encourage further contributions from others.

He noted my point – and still didn't say thanks!

But that was all trivial. The lowest point this blog experienced came after another polite request to another high-profile blogger was met with snippy hostility.

The request was: “Please don't allow people to post the entire text of my articles in your comments section, especially when I have a small charity fundraiser. You don't share links and that's fair enough but you censor out other copyrighted material, so you should know better.”

He rallied his troops and emailed me back noting that “you don't use your real name on the blog”.

I began receiving unpleasant comments in defence of the other blogger – did I say something about personality cults?

24 hours later, the Facebook page associated with the blog had been disabled due to the fact that my own name was not used at that time.

In truth, I had long had my doubts about where this guy was coming from but, really, was Celtic cyberspace so competitive that blogs could seek to deprive each other of building their own audience through their own writing?

And would we really go so far as attacking each other's long-built-up sources of outreach?

My suspicions of that other blogger's motivations were strengthened at that time. The views I began to hold have become more popular.

But, to my shame (and his satisfaction, no doubt), I couldn't take any more, especially making this process a personal battle. It wasn't what I started it for. I chucked it. For three years.

I've never been one to run from bullying, which is exactly what this was, but I had other things going on in life and that was demoralising.

I'm ashamed because it was one of the very few times in my life that I had known I was in the right and let a self-serving cynic win through dirty tricks. I've always been the guy standing up for the underdog, often to my detriment.

For the record, no such attacks ever came from fans of other clubs – criticism, a few insults, sure. But people can become used to being deified and can start assuming that status as their right.

I had been onto him for some time – sussing out his intentions – and he clearly didn't like it.

But let's end that chapter.

The best

I still believe in Celtic fans and admire the Celtic bloggers who contribute something different, new, personal, sincere.

Tictactic, for example, is on my list of things that I simply must make a point of reading regularly. It's brilliant and has few parallels on the net.

Tir Na Nog, as the name suggests, brings legends from the land of our youth.

Personal, longform articles, sharing memories in such a generous way that we can feel part of them.

And, The Clumpany, continually poking a finger in the blind eye of the Scottish mainstream media, always hitting the mark.

Witty, irreverent – sometimes writers just strike the right tone and Clumps does just that.

There are others, many of them excellent, but these are the ones I would like to highlight, which brings me to another point.

Internet morons

New media has shown that the difference between an established writer and an “internet moron” is simply one of opportunity.

Read through the dross that appears in your daily news titles and ask yourself when was the last time you read something that really increased your knowledge or was a pleasurable read?

Ask another question: what credentials qualify these people to spout their buckshot views towards you, claiming special credibility in the process?

Reading through my own blog, I was amused by how many times Darryl Broadfoot had been mentioned. Then again, he was in a job that he was grossly underqualified to do in a publication that I still read at the time.

By “underqualified”, I was referring mostly to his “Greek saga” writings, not his suitability as head of communications at the Scottish Nylon Blazers Society.

Think of the writers, the reporters. When can you think of something that seemed to be of any value or enjoyment, compared to your favourite independent writers? My guess is that such occasions as there are, are rarities.

Overwhelmingly, those who denigrate indymedia are simply not offering anything like the quality of product that countless individuals outside the mainstream are able to produce. I've met many of them. Deep down, they know it.

Could you finish this, please?

What – you mean I've spent ten years writing this and you don't have ten years to read what I have to say about it?

Well, yes, this blog has been a personal indulgence, as many blogs are. I have always written what I wanted to write when I wanted to write it.

But I've tried only to write when I thought I had something that some other people might want to read.

I never wanted it to be in competition with other blogs and, far less, the sort of clickbait that may well bury this post so that few, if any, read it (and, in the name of the wee man, there are some masterful clickbaiters out there).

I have written emotionally; indulged in hyperbole, far more often than measured comment. I've made predictions that were sometimes accurate, often not.

I've posted things that were just silly and things I thought were worth saying, to find that very few others shared my view.

But I've been grateful for the opportunity. I've actually written for quite a number of publications and, despite the adverts, never sought nor found profits from this blog. I've considered adding a “Donate” button but, perversely, I'd probably find one pint collectively bought by 100 people to be more enjoyable than real money (though I never rule out real money!).

But the main reason I write this blog is that I want to. And I want to because I believe in Celtic.

I believe in football.

Football is just a silly game and it is ridiculous to think of it as having any value when the world is afflicted with poverty, terror and war.

And yet it does have value all over the world.

In the slums of Rio and Buenos Aires, in the most afflicted parts of the developing world, football is embraced, hopefully, joyfully, despairingly.

Like the community that Celtic was founded to provide for.

It is the game that everyone can play, if they have an approximation of a ball and a piece of ground to kick it across.

Football is corrupt. It is run by billionaires and millionaires. Clubs are owned and operated by men who may no longer drive their jags wearing camel coats and gold watches while puffing fat cigars because they now have drivers, climate control and other drugs of choice.

But football, like no other sport is egalitarian. You don't need an executive box, a season ticket, any ticket – you just need to profess your love and support for your team. Bond yourself with all those of like mind, and you are one with them.

In 2016, every Portuguese is a European Champion, much like every Celtic supporter – wherever they were, whoever they were – was a European Champion that night of 25th May, 1967.

That, to me, is what defines football.

The process of life is one that challenges preconceptions, deeply-ingrained values and those beliefs we would like to hold but doubt, nevertheless.

My observation of Celtic has led me up the mountain, down the valley and to the edge of the cliff.

I remember discussing with a close friend and Celtic man whether the corporate direction of the club would finally make us unable to call ourselves Celtic supporters.

But then I realised that the fans have always been the ones to direct the club back on the right path. It's a hard fecht but, if we give up, who will stop Celtic from becoming a club like any other?

Times change and values with them – over ten years, certainly.

But I am still inspired by Celtic.

Some people know me as a cynic. But I still harbour a hope that I know to be unrealistic:  that Celtic may one day, again, rise to greatness on the European stage.

I still choose to believe that maybe the supernatural powers of the game will enable us to do this playing football, pure, beautiful, inventive football.

You may disagree and you may be right.

I believe in Celtic fans. Not that calling yourself a Celt means that you are a better person than anyone else but that genuinely adopting the values of the club will mean something,

I've worn my Celtic shirt in many places in the world and found the quiet nods and the fist salutes from strangers that come with it.

All over the world, people still recognise Celtic as being something special. That reputation will only continue for as long as new generations reinforce and enhance that sense of being something that the football world can respect.

The fans are Celtic. And that's great. I believe I could go anywhere and find a welcome from a Celtic community. People I identify with. I hope that continues.

And for reading this blog, for your patience, your interest, your comments; your love and passion for and belief in the club that I love, am passionate about and believe in ... thank you.

We share a lot – hopes, dreams, passion, love, disappointment, anger, grief and more. Proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

We are Celtic, together.
--