WHERE DO I begin in reviewing Saturday's disgusting scenes at Celtic Park. I'll begin with a What If?
What if, back in May, 1967, UEFA had decided that pitch invasion at the National Stadium in Lisbon had been grounds for taking the European Cup off Celtic and handing it instead to Inter Milan – might that have prevented the grandsons of those fans in Lisbon from their unacceptable behaviour on Saturday?
We will never know, but, in commenting on Saturday's carnage, we have to accept, the Celtic support has what is known in legal circles as: previous – a lengthy charge sheet of unacceptable behaviour.
Before the Celtic apologists pile in with: What about the other lot? This is not another chapter in the second oldest game in Scottish Football – Old Firm Whataboutery – on this occasion, it is the Celtic Family which is in the dock.
In writing this blog post I dug up a copy of The Scottish Professional Football League Rule Book, all 300 pages of it. Saturday's game was under the jurisdiction of the SPFL, so, it's their rules which apply around the scenes at the end of the game.
The first rule to come into play is Rule G68 – this calls for:
The Match Referee submitting, within 24 hours of the game ending, his official written match report.
What Don Robertson writes in that dictates what happens next.
The events at the end of the game – the pitch invasion and the carnage which followed are covered by Rules H28, H29 and H30 – Unacceptable Conduct.
Any neutral watching those scenes on television might reasonably conclude, after reading the relevant rules, that Celtic are guilty of a breach of Rules 36 and 37.
Consequently, they are in breach of Rule 38.
It would then fall to the SFPL to implement Rule H42 – which calls for consideration of a Police Report, the Match Official's Report and comments from Hearts.
It would then fall to the SPFL Board to decide on any action. They could adjudicate themselves, or they could form a Commission to look into the affair. They could perhaps decide:
to anul the result (Rule J16.4)
Deduct points (Rule J16.6)
Anul the match (Rule J16.7)
Withdraw the title from Celtic (Rule J.16.13)
All these possibilities – except, this is Celtic we are talking about, there are only two conclusions we can come to:
Is there enough whitewash in Scotland to cover everything up?
How big will the heap be after they've swept it all under the carpet?
Let's not kid ourselves, the Celtic Support has a long history of misbehaviour – which they added to yesterday, look at the social media clips of their behaviour post-game on Saturday, as they “celebrated” in their time-honoured style in the Trongate in Glasgow: throwing missiles at the Police and fighting among themselves.
The craven club board will shrug and say: “nothing to do with us”, before happily accepting their season ticket money and selling them their club merchandise – and Scotland and Scottish Football's image around the world suffers.
And yes I know, if it was the other lot, there would be little or no difference in the behaviour.
A line has to be drawn, but, under the current regime at Hampden and across at Holyrood, it aint gonna happen. We simply don't have the leadership with the balls to do something about this disgrace.
The league title was affirmation of the managerial genius of Martin O'Neill, to take that piss-poor (by Celtic standards) squad to a possible League and Cup Double is an amazing feat. But, O'Neill will never admit, they rode their luck along the way, in particular benefitting from a few Honest Mistakes from officials on VAR duty.
It is hard not to conclude, this was yet another Tainted Title.
O'Neill is unlikely to be in-charge next season, but, whoever succeeds him, they will need some serious rebuilding if the club is to defend their crown, far less make an impression in Europe.
FINALLY – since we are apparently not allowed to mention one cheek of Scottish Fitba's bigotry and bad behaviour alliance without a nod to the other – here's my take on this week's other stairheid rammy:
IN THE Partheon of Great Rangers Captains James Tavernier gets nowhere near the top shelf. No way does his escutcheon compare to that of the likes of George Young, John Greig, Jock Shaw, Davie Meiklejohn, Richard Gough, Sandy Jardine or Eric Caldow.
I rate Tavernier as a 21st century Bobby Shearer – a player of limited ability, in many ways lucky to have enjoyed such a stellar Rangers career. Shearer, however, for all his limitations was A Real Rangers Man – he was a Fan on the Park, if he had not been wearing the strip, he would have been on the terraces cheering-on the club. That can not be said of Tavernier.
With reference to Tavernier not getting the send-off he felt he deserved, I think of Young, for my money the club's Greatest Captain. Young's final Rangers appearance, the end of a 16-year club career, came in front of 35,000 fans in a Glasgow Merchants Charity Cup semi-final, a 2-0 win over Clyde, at Ibrox, on 4 May, 1957. Young is not even mentioned in The Glasgow Herald's match report on the game.
Young's last-ever match was in a 2-1 Scotland win over Switzerland in a World Cup Qualifier in Basle, later that month. He was then rested from the national team which played World Champions West Germany, in Stuttgart, but was looking forward to bowing out following Scotland's World Cup Qualifier against Spain, in Madrid's Bernabeau.
The SFA Selectors, however, had other ideas; they didn't recall him for this game, a decision which caused a minor stooshie at the time but was quickly forgotten. I reckon the fuss over Tavernier being left out against Hibs on Wednesday will no last half as long as did the furore over Young's omission from the team in Madrid.
Jardine was quietly allowed to depart to play out his career at Hearts, Caldow ended his Rangrers career in the Reserves, before being quietly freed. Shaw was allowed, without fanfare, to retire and join the club's backroom staff. No big send off for these legends.
Compared to the Rangers Captains I listed in the opening paragraph, Tavernier has to be rated as a journeyman of limited ability. Given the state of British Football today, I would say, had he been any good, a mid to lower level English Premiership side, or perhaps one of those yo-yo teams who drift between the bottom half of the Premiership and the top half of their Championship would have taken him back south years ago. The fact nobody bid for him demonstrates what an average talent Tavernier was.
The fact his non selection and his dummy spitting made such headlines, also demonstrates how the Scottish media has dumbed down this century.
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