This morning I awoke to a Twitter feed overflowing with outrage from many Celtic fans, demanding bannings, apologies, retractions and the like over a headline on the back page. When I eventually clamped eyes on said picture, I was expecting more to be honest – my first thoughts were of pity for a declining chip wrapper which is only bought by old biddies and workies, and embarrassment for our blue rivals as they found out we were planning a mass piss take on their current plight.
I fully expected a few hours later that it would have simmered down to a nothingness but it had escalated into a retweet frenzy with many of the clubs most outspoken patrons backing and organising campaigns. #dontbuytherecord shouldn’t be a wake up call to fellow Celts – it should have been a way of life since the frankly cringeworthy “Thugs and Thieves” fabrication about the Celtic Xmas night out in Newcastle a few years ago. No comendable scribers, a few flailing columnists (Galloway should be more embarrassed than any of us today), and an ever dwindling circulation tell us the full story behind the headline – a desperate attempt at creating some controversy on the eve of the first Glasgow Derby of the season.
It seems they succeeded in the latter, but have shot themselves in the foot as the club have issued a statement attacking the immature and ill-timed pictorial and also distanced themselves from the paper and its sister rag, The Sunday Mail. This could well be the bhoycott that puts the final nail in the coffin of the abject and divisive journalism which is housed at this comic organisation. Given the ordeals Neil & his family put up with last season and the shocking verdict on nutter John Wilson following his attack on Lennon last season, the custodians of the club have gone into a siege mentality on the gutter press – this scenario is long overdue and one that Fergus McCann will also feel is correct, the Canadian also treated them with the contempt they divulged to others.
Now that this stance has been taken by the club I hope the last few fans that maybe still sheepishly sneaked a copy under their broadsheets will realize the filth they were buying into. Celtic will overcome and outlast these fools.