Saturday night in Paisley was a hard fought and well deserved victory, once again it could have been a bit easier, but the referee Ryan Lee and VAR lead Don Robertson had other ideas about that. The two disallowed goals were contentious to say the least, especially the Camilo Duran offside call, the pundits said it was tight, the picture I saw with the lines drawn gave a false impression, you can only judge it correctly if the lines are drawn at 90 degrees to the play, the picture I saw was nowhere near that, and also the ball came off a Saints defender. I thought the referee was poor all night, he is another new match official who wants to show he is the main man, well I’m afraid he has a bit to go to get to the top, if he ever does that is.
It’s always a difficult match in Paisley, and Saturday night was no different, they always try to stifle our play and stop us playing fast attacking football, with the help of Mr Lee they had some success, but when Celtic were allowed to attack at pace we looked very good, Yang and Camilo gave the Saints defender a torrid time of it, Yang is going to be a big loss in the next two weeks, and when Haissem gets up to proper fitness, and Big Kasper comes back, we will have a very good front line. I also thought Mika Baur had a fantastic game in the middle, again once he gets more games he will be a great addition to the team. With the new additions we will have our strongest midfield since the early 20’s. we will need a big squad capable of stepping up at any time, we will be playing almost every midweek from now until at least January, and hopefully beyond, we will play at least eight more games than every other team with the exception of Hearts, but if you want to succeed domestically and have regular European Football that’s what it takes.
St Mirren have joined the majority of premier League Clubs ripping off the Celtic Supporters, and I suppose Oldco Supporters suffer the same treatment. Saturday night was the quietest I’ve seen for a while, I did see a few skipping in, or transferring from the home parts of the ground, but I also saw empty seats all around the stadium. It was announced there were 6,911 at the game, that’s at least 1,000 down from capacity, the opposite end from the Celtic Support was less than half full, and the other two stand had enough empty seats to accommodate those in that stand. But hey St Mirren have a better idea, charge the Celtic Supporters £37 per ticket to make up the shortfall. It must be the only form of entertainment who lock people out when there is room for them inside, but they get their money by overcharging, it’s Paisley, and the Marbill Stadium, not the Emirates in London.
It’s on to Perth on Wednesday night for another tough game, Perth has been mostly a happy hunting ground for us for many years, but that means nothing, we still need to do our job and get the game won. Then it’s a double header against the Newco, and through no fault of ours there will no Celtic Supporters present at Snake Mountain, which is a scandal, and the blame lies firmly at the door of Sevco FC, and also at the door of Police Scotland, Hugh Keevins disagrees with that, but then he has always talked nonsense, just ask Lubo Moravcik. When the cup tie was played at Govan in March, because of the latest rules, we all knew there had to be a winner, even if it had to go to penalties. So bearing in mind that history tells us that the Newco, just like their former club Oldco don’t take defeat in cup games very well, and not just against us, ask the Hibs supporters. So why were Police Scotland, and the team responsible for the match, the home team, not prepared for the very eventually that happened, as always it’s never the fault of those two.
So there will be no Celtic Supporters in attendance next week, the question is, do either of the aforementioned organisations have a plan for protecting the Celtic Players and Staff, and any other representative of Celtic Football Club? Because there has been plenty of instances of assaults on our players and staff in the not too distant past, I well remember our captain at the time Scott Brown receiving scandalous abuse about his very ill sister from an ignorant bigot wearing the colours of Rangers, while a sergeant and lots of constable’s of Glasgow’s finest stood very close by, and did nothing “Scotland’s Shame” right there. I don’t know what amount of security Celtic took to Govan in the past when we had no supporters present, but if it was down to me I would not have any Celtic personnel there that are not necessary as part of the playing squad and staff.
Finally, I attended the Requiem Mass for James Mc Intyre this morning at St Francis in Port Glasgow. Jim was the Celtic Supporter who took ill at the home game with Lask, sadly he later passed away in hospital. It has to be said, the medical people who treated Jim at Celtic Park did all in the power, but sadly to no avail. There was a good turnout at Mass, with representatives from Celtic FC in attendance. Requiescat in aeternum pace Jim. You’ll never walk alone.
Glasgow still is and always will be Green and White.