Saturday morning at seven o’clock standing at the bus stop waiting on the bus coming to head to Dingwall. It was freezing in Port Glasgow, then a four hour drive up the road to our destination. It’s the same every week, the only thing that changes is the destination, and the time it takes to get there. But it’s worth it, we have the privilege of going to watch the “Famous Glasgow Celtic” and being part of the Celtic Family, and sharing in the joy of success, on the odd occasion we have to suffer in defeat, but that doesn’t happen often, and after you suffer the pain of defeat, winning tastes even more sweeter.
Apart from the journey time, I enjoy going up to Dingwall, their supporters are very friendly, and even the local cops give you a smile, not like the majority of cops we come across in the West of Scotland, to most of them you’re not just a senior citizen, you’re a man with a green & white & scarf on, that puts you in a different category. As for the football, it was as usual a tough match, Ross County will always give you a game, most years they are fighting to get enough points to stay in the Premier League, and this season is no different, although they are on a decent run in recent weeks. I think if you asked the Celtic supporters who they wanted relegated, I believe the most would want the team from Edinburgh that play in maroon to be that team, so good luck to County.
It just shows us as well, that although we have the strongest squad of players in the League, circumstances can change, and you can find yourself struggling to put a team on the park. We certainly missed the speed and creativity of Nicolas Kuhn, and the running power and stamina of Daizen Maeda, the two leading scorers in the League, with thirty goals between them so far this season, so fortunately for us we still had the wee magician Kyogo to score a couple of goals, and Big Arne and Luke sealed the points, which made for a pleasant journey back down the road to the Irish Republican Free State of Port Glasgow.
I was surprised about the state of the pitch on Saturday, maybe undersoil heating can’t help if the temperature drops to minus four degrees. I think we need to make sure that teams who are playing in the Premier League have the correct infrastructure to accommodate playing football at that level. I think that should mean no more plastic pitches, we know that a couple of teams possibly coming up have plastic pitches, so it must be clear, you can only play in the Premier League with a grass pitch. We go up to Dundee tomorrow night, that will be another tough match for us, the games are coming every three or four days, and I thought it was strange the Dundee didn’t play at the weekend, apparently yhey played Kilmarnock earlier in the season, as I said, strange.
We sit at the top of the League this morning, fifteen points clear, and with a huge goal difference, so we are in a healthy position, and can look forward to the remainder of the season with confidence. There has been plenty of progress in the team, and the squad will be strengthened again in the next couple of weeks, we surely will go into the knock-out rounds of the Champions League, and the ninth treble is squarely in our sights. In Brendan we trust 200%.
Glasgow’s still Green & White.
