This Week's Events May In Time Hurt Lawwell And Celtic

THERE has always to me, looking on from afar as it were, about Peter Lawwell. He has that sort of smug, aren't I clever, face, you would never tire of kicking.

 

Figures don't lie, however, he has been an excellent chief executive for Celtic, insofar as his day-to-day running of the club - it cannot be easy being the only shark in the shallow bay,with slim pickings around which is the Scottish football money pit.

 

He has worked his way onto a seat of real power on the SFA Board and, it would be fair to say, right now, he is THE most-important and influential man in Scottish football.

 

But, with power comes responsibility, and, often, Mr Lawwell does not exercise his considerable power with the correct degree of good sense. Such a case cropped up at this week's Celtic annual meeting, with his ill-advised "Rory Bremner" moment.

 

OK, the Celtic Family is having a right good laugh at the self-inflicted travails across the city, aren't we all? As one of the few journalists who saw it coming - I had, after all, already seen through David Murray's vaulting over-ambition in Scottish basketball - I was not surprised when the management model which had failed in basketball also failed on the bigger stage at Ibrox. I was, however, amazed at just how large the toxic fall-out became.

 

However, the constant attempts of the Celtic Family to tar Rangers as a "dead club" have no basis in reality. Yes, they are under new management; certainly, they are serving a somewhat lenient sentence for their crimes by being asked to clamber back from the senior basement; but, make no mistake - Rangers, playing in the First division though they are, are still Rangers.

 

The fans continue to, albeit perhaps at a lower volume, wear the Sash their father wore and guard old Derry's Walls. That arrogance has not gone, indeed, as I know from personal experience, there is a lingering sense of hurt and injustice amongs Ra Peepul, which will, some day, come back to bite the rest of Scottish football.

 

Rangers will rise again from the ashes, and they will return to the Premiership hell-bent on shoving the jibes down the throats of the Celtic Family.

 

It is OK for the fans to gloat and jibe - were the boot on the other foot, as it so-nearly was prior to the wee Scots-Canadian in the bunnet's last-gasp intervention, the positions would be reversed. However, though the clubs have a long history of public bickering, when the committee room doors closed behind the real power brokers at Carlton Place, Park Gardens and latterly at Hampden - the Old Firm always stuck together as a potent force of self-interest within Scottish football.

 

With off the cuff remarks such as those reported from the Celtic agm, Mr Lawwell is playing a dangerous game and, friends in journalism still at the coal face assure me, the once cosy relationship between the Big Two is not what it was.

 

Rangers, during the Murray Years, forgot to remain friendly with the other clubs - regarding them as: "The Little People", but, the Old Firm Alliance, although not as strong as in the days of Bob Kelly and John Lawrence, was intact.

 

The fact there currently appears to be no alliance, could yet back-fire on Mr Lawwell and Celtic.

 

Murray and Rangers apparently - on their way to nine-in-a-row and seeming dictatorship, forgot the old rule: be nice to those you meet on the way up - you may need them on the way down.

 

By his remarks this week, Lawwell risks having that scenario hit him with the force of a typically mis-timed Lee McCulloch "tackle".