The celtic family – this is who we are

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jimbob
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The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby jimbob » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:47 pm

My Son wrote the following for monthehoops.co.uk its a good read





THE CELTIC FAMILY – THIS IS WHO WE ARE

At a time when the team isn’t playing particularly well, when the board is under pressure, when there is talk of Celt’s for Change II, when a bereft, poverty ridden rival side is ahead of us in the SPL and we are out of the League Cup, there has never been a better time to look with pride at the only part of our club which is not only as good as it ever was, but better, by far. What keeps this side special is you and me. The fans.

Over time, we have achieved recognition as one of the most colourful, vocal and friendly football supports anywhere on the planet. We make friends wherever we go. Supporters of other clubs, clubs with no overt connection to Scotland, to Ireland, to Celtic, have formed not only close bonds but alliances; Villarreal, Barcelona, St Pauli, Dortmund. There are Celtic supporter’s branches at Atalanta in Italy, at Hadjuk Split in Croatia and St Etienne in France, to name but a very, very few. The character of the fans has kept our reputation high amongst the giants of European football, even when our players on the park haven’t met the same standard.

Football supporters are a strange and put-upon breed. Alone of all the major sports, there is a stigma attached to being a football fan. So many people who don’t follow the game still look at the average fan as some kind of loud, drunken, yob. Not for nothing is it still called the “working man’s game”, because although prices have gone up, which has turned it into a pastime some can no longer afford, the average football crowd is filled with the same voices as years past, voices from the working class streets of our cities. Police officers around the land dwell on Saturday nights with horror – and it’s not rugby fans who give them nightmares. People who live in the shadow of the stadiums still bitterly regret it on certain match days, and more than one guy has met a girl he likes and who likes him only to find the second he mentions being a football supporter that she switches off instantly. It’s a pastime still viewed by many intellectualists as a little boy’s game, and the passions of fans are studied as though they were a form of mass psychosis. No other sport attracts such attention – both good and bad – from the world around it.

With this is mind, it is not hard to imagine the collective horror that must have filled the people of Seville in the run-up to that cup final, as press reports about the expected numbers began to climb, with ten thousand becoming twenty, becoming thirty, becoming forty ... then up and up until the security chief in charge of the game scoffed when the estimates reached 50,000. Rafael Carmona described that figure as “madness”, pointing out that it was a midweek game, and asking “How many fans do Celtic have?” He estimated that no more than 4,000 would make the journey, a mere 20th of the total who descended upon the city in a crescendo of noise and colour.

The people of Seville were not scarred by the experience of 80,000 football fans on their streets. Far from it, in fact. They took us to their hearts, they embraced the cavalcade and the event became enshrined in the local consciousness. The mayor poured acclaim on the fans, sending a letter to Lord Provost Liz Cameron praising them in tones so laudatory they are endlessly quoted by Celtic fans who take immense pride in the success of the occasion.

Seville makes us proud, and rightly so, and from the moment we knew were going there, the effort to make it memorable swung into gear, but the most important aspect of that was what went on in the collective consciousness ...... and there [I:a06d0a08]was [/I:a06d0a08]a collective consciousness at play in those glorious few days.

That collective consciousness drove us to be on our best behaviour; it moderated every single person who took part, and the longer we hold ourselves to that standard, the better the standard will be, and the more we have to hold to it.

Not every club has fans who see things the same way. Having watched Seville and learned lessons from it, Manchester City Council knew it would face a vast support from Scotland for their own showpiece event and they weren’t caught on the hop the way the Spanish were. Celtic’s travelling circus caught Seville by surprise, and their local authority were forced to scramble together plans at the last minute. Manchester was more fully prepared, but when small things went wrong, it turned into a disaster. A lot of people, even today, blame the organisers, but the Seville experience wasn’t flawless. They just had more civilised guests at the party, that’s all.

For all that, the citizens of Benidorm must have been appalled at the prospect when they discovered that the Celtic Supporters Association had taken it upon themselves to nominate their city for their first ever European Convention. Having tens of thousands of football fans in your city for a single event, lasting a day, is one thing ....... bringing thousands to town for [I:a06d0a08]a whole week[/I:a06d0a08] at the height of summer ...... who in their right mind would want that?

The local authorities were concerned about that, initially. When the supporters association made plans for a Celtic Village, the council and the authorities insisted it be placed on the outskirts of town, expecting no more than five thousand fans to arrive. After all, this wasn’t a big game, but just a gathering organised by a supporters group. In the end, Celtic fans filled the city. Some twenty thousand filled Benidorm itself, with many, many more in outlying towns, and for one week the area was turned into the Costa Del Celtic.

The week ended without incident. The fans went home, with more plaudits ringing in their eyes and the Mayor of Benidorm joining his counterpart in Seville in paying tribute to the supporters and inviting them to come back anytime. Local authorities in Spain and elsewhere, the sort of people who fret over domestic derbies, who spend their weekends taking care of football related problems, have issued invites ever since; when the CSA began to plan their second convention, for next year, they could literally have picked anywhere on the European continent and our fans would have been welcomed.

In the end, Santa Ponza’s invite was the one the CSA accepted, and it has been chosen as the venue for the event. Far from discouraging an influx of football fans estimated as being from anywhere between five and twenty thousand fans, they [I:a06d0a08]wanted us there[/I:a06d0a08], and now the local community is bracing itself for a week-long party the likes of which they’ve never seen. This time the Celtic Village isn’t on the outskirts; it’s right in the centre of town.

At a time when football has become a cynical business, and fans have become spoilt, when the reputations of numerous clubs are in the gutter because of hooligan elements within their support, events like these confirm that we are special, and, outside of Scotland anyway, everyone who comes across us knows it.

One only has to look at the immense work the Celtic fans put into good causes, work without limit, work without anything at the end of it but the satisfaction of knowing we have helped someone worse off than ourselves. Take the Association’s Walfrid Wells project; as Celtic fans, we have no stake tied up in the lives of thousands of villagers across Africa, yet we made their crusade our own. The Association has raised not only thousands, but [I:a06d0a08]tens of thousands[/I:a06d0a08], and put these wells in towns all across the continent. Each bears the name of either an individual donator, or a group, who get a certificate to hang on the wall or put in a cupboard. What the people of those small towns get is much more valuable than a piece of paper encased in glass, and so the generous nature of Celtic supporters has not simply enriched lives but it has saved lives too.

The Celtic Supporters Association has been doing a world of good in the community for decades. The Annual Rally event, the 62nd of which was held this very year, has been a source of raising funds for charity since it was set up. It is impossible to quantify the total raised over that time, as impossible as quantifying exactly the amount of good it all has done, but that lives have been transformed beyond measure is certainly not in dispute. Celtic supporters have always been there, to do what they can, at crucial times, for people we’ve never met, never known and never would; one example is that in the aftermath of the Dunblane Massacre, the Celtic Supporters Association raised money for the families and paid for them to go to Disney World.

Celtic fans often pull magic from their pockets for local causes when they go abroad too. When an oil slick devastated the fishing villages of Vigo in the lead-up to our UEFA Cup visit there in 2002, Celtic fans took up a collection on the planes going over there ... and raised £2000 for the fishermen of the area.

Tragedies within football, with no connection to us, inspire our fans to show their generosity and decency, and win us friends across the globe. The 20th Anniversary of Hillsborough was marked by Celtic fans as if it was a tragedy which struck at our club and not at Liverpool FC. Celtic fans presented a banner to our Liverpool friends that day, amidst emotional scenes which touched us all, and why should they not? These were fans just like ourselves, full of passion and principle, and their club has been a pillar of its community in the way Celtic is to ours. This is but one example. To this day, UEFA’s official website carries a story which sums up the way Celtic fans choose to conduct themselves and express the things we stand for; when we visited the Portuguese capital in 2004, Celtic supporters brought with them a magnificent tribute to the Hungarian footballer Miklos Fehér, who had died of a heart attack during a match for the home side, Benfica.

The Celtic fans banner, carrying his name, his shirt number, and the phrase "Nunca caminharás sozinho", You’ll Never Walk Alone, was one of the most sporting gestures seen in a stadium anywhere, in recent years. "It was a unique moment and a wonderful gesture and we want to say thank you," Nuno Gomes, Benfica’s striker, told uefa.com in the aftermath of the game. "You don't see this often and fans around the world can learn a lot from these British supporters. We are very glad because every day we remember our friend Miki Fehér. He is always with us. This is a great display of fair play from an opposition club."

That it had its exact antithesis a few weeks ago in Hamburg, where our fans were greeted with a “No Surrender” banner, was meant to antagonise us; instead Celtic fans conducted themselves with the dignity and class admired and respected across Europe.

We take our place in the footballing community seriously.

If the view from the outside suggests we’re something special, the view from the inside bears that out all the more. When the chips are down, and fellow fans are affected, or when the supporters take a club cause to heart, there is no support like us.

It was the Celtic support which came together and paid for the Jock Stein bust which has pride of place in the foyer of the ground – a permanent reminder to all of our greatest manager and greatest figure and of his place in the hearts of the fans, and at the centre of the whole club itself. It was the support which raised the vast bulk of the cash to pay for the statue of club founder Brother Walfrid, which sits outside the stadium. And in 1997, when the chance came to own a part of the club, Celtic fans oversubscribed the share issue, and raised a then British record.

Lately, perhaps in the last ten years, an idea has taken root, and it’s something which transcends all the work we have done abroad and in meeting with other clubs. This idea has become so prevalent, and is so embraced and accepted, even Peter Lawell and John Reid express it whenever we welcome a new player or member of staff to the club. We call it the Celtic Family.

Take the story of the Louisiana based Celts who lost their homes and their businesses when Hurricane Katrina swept through the state some years ago. Witnessing the devastation, the global Celtic Family swung into action to help the members affected by the disaster. The fund raising helped get folk back on their feet, and this gesture was born out of nothing more than a shared love of a football team.... not a political cause or a religious doctrine.

It helps to view it with detachment, as though it were not a part of us. Think on it the way those who don’t get the Beautiful Game think on it, think on it in cold, stripped down logic, in terms of just the facts; we helped people thousands of miles away for no other reason than they support the same sports side as we do. When you say it that way, it sounds kind of silly, but with an undeniable poetic quality, the feel of something that transcends its roots – and that’s because it does transcend what some people say is “just a game.”

We, who follow it as Celtic fans, know it’s a lot more than that, as Celtic is much more than a football team.

The story of our fellow supporter Kano, as featured most prominently on Celtic Quick News, is a beautiful case in point. Again, stripped of its emotions and viewed on the facts, it sounds unbelievable, and yet it is happening, now, right before our eyes. The global Family of Celtic fans is coming together in a single cause, for a single individual, in a way which must be astounding to anyone on the outside looking in. I believe it’s a global story, a story which should ring out in every continent and across all barriers. I think in the modern age it is a miraculous story, a story about our most basic humanity, a thing we hear very little about in our troubled and very self-centred society and culture. It is an extraordinary story, about an ordinary man, a good man, but one who lived an ordinary life, and the people who love him, a story about what happened to change his life forever, a story about what happened next and a story about those who found something in themselves they maybe never knew was there.

I think it would make a tremendous film one day.

Finally, it is a story about this Family of ours, about how a man with no connection to us other than his membership of this great collective whole, became a symbol of everything we are. It is a role he never sought and does not seek, it is a role none of us would ever wish to play, but if they were giving Academy Awards for courage, he and his loved ones would win them all, and so it is a story that inspires us, and our membership of this Family inspires us too.

Again, it helps to view it with detachment.

Martin Kane is not a blood relative, or the person who lives next door. For most of us, he never touched our lives. Those of us who never met him might not even have known he existed, but for his occasionally barbed but pointed posts on a website, where he was just another person posting under an assumed name.

Our only connection with him was the sports club we follow, and he is based on the other side of the world from that in which said sports club plays its domestic games.

Yet, somehow, his story has become part of our myth. That myth is [I:a06d0a08]what[/I:a06d0a08] we are. His plight has become our plight, as he was part of this Family. That is [I:a06d0a08]who[/I:a06d0a08] we are.

So it was, then, that Celtic supporters, most of whom have no stake in the outcome, took Kano’s cause to their hearts, and put in time, effort and money, in gestures so immense they give us all faith in our fellow human beings. When Martin Kane was struck by the terrible disease which transformed his world, turning it upside down and inside out, he and his loved ones could not have known what the response would be from his extended family, the Celtic Family, as they rallied round, and soon went into high-gear to lend first a friendly ear and then a helping hand. From messages of support came the first offers of help. From those offers came pledges, and from those pledges came a tidal wave of awesome proportions, as every resource at the disposal of the global Celtic Family was put to work, all geared towards one goal; Get Martin home for Christmas.

Today, because of those efforts, the Kane family has sixty thousand reasons to believe that tomorrow will be a brighter, better day. In just a few months, a hard-working group of fans has rallied support behind this simple cause and have raised that staggering amount in cash and pledges. It is a tribute to those fans and a tribute to the Celtic Family as a whole.

Those most responsible shrug off such praise as if all of this were nothing, as if it were normal, as if it were ordinary, and not a miracle for the ages, as if it wasn’t a gesture to turn our individually-centred world on its head. Martin Kane is Family, they say, and this is just what loving, caring Families do.

And so, the title has been adopted as the collective name for us, in much the same way we call another side and its fans Scotland’s Shame, and at a time when football supporters are held up as a problem for society – last year scores of them were even featured on Crimewatch UK – we can hold our heads high everywhere we go, and outside this small-minded land of ours, where our every song is scrutinised and our every banner is examined, and where even in our silence we can still be condemned, we are lauded, winning friends and awards whilst other clubs attract trouble like flies and come home to await UEFA investigations, charges and fines.

On the field, our club is viewed as a fading power. The league we play is a backwater, and there is no exit route in sight. We can no longer afford top players, and this country may not be able to attract big names even if we could, but Celtic is still special, it still holds a great attraction, and the reason is found in the vast, friendly army which would, as the song says “go anywhere” to follow the team. This club will forever be special because we are special.

At a time when teams across the continent view European away ties as potential minefields, and riot police prepare for hostile guests, like soldiers awaiting an invasion, many thousands of Celtic fans are, once again, preparing to descend upon a Spanish holiday resort next year, and this time by invite, to paint the town green for the Association’s second European convention in Santa Ponza. That any city in Europe would want such an influx of fans from any other side is almost unbelievable, but we are not just another side. Our reputation goes before us, as the best of the best, and so once again, the Spanish coastline will become the Costa Del Celtic and The Conga will compete with The Huddle on sun-kissed Spanish beaches. Any profits made will, of course, go to charity.

That’s the Celtic Family for you. This is who we are.

irish eyes
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby irish eyes » Sat Nov 28, 2009 12:04 am

Excellent reading the above post. I have always been proud to be a CELTIC supporter and the above post just highlights some of the reasons why I am proud.:clover:

paradise found
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby paradise found » Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:14 pm

:good::good::good::drink::drink::drink::drink::bashful::bashful::bashful::bashful:

thebonnerbhoy
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby thebonnerbhoy » Thu Dec 17, 2009 1:51 pm

Absolutely brilliant

gert/canada
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby gert/canada » Thu Dec 17, 2009 9:39 pm

Superb this really is " WHO WE ARE

antrucker
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby antrucker » Sun Dec 20, 2009 9:57 am

very emotional reading , this is what we are about. y.n.w.a.




THE CELTIC FAMILY .

celticbobo
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby celticbobo » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:46 pm

Great read Hail Hail

max
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Re: The celtic family – this is who we are

Postby max » Thu Dec 24, 2009 1:23 pm

To paraphrase the late great Tommy burns, 'You're there, and you're always there, and god bless each and everyone of you'.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO THE CELTIC FAMILY!

HAIL! HAIL!


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