Dr Reids Tenure at Celtic Park

Dr Reid Cannot Depart Soon Enough

On the 14^th of October a cloud that has darkened our great club is due to be lifted. That is the date upon which Tony Blair’s “attack dog,” Dr John Reid shall step down from his position as chairman of Celtic.

During my years supporting the ‘bhoys’ I’ve known some dizzying highs, along with some crushing lows. Despite the trials and tribulations that are associated with following any football club, the depth of my feelings for Celtic have never faltered. The reasons for this dedication are more than just ingrained tribalism. As a Celtic fan I do not just identify with the athletes who sport the four leaf clover on their chest, I also feel a great connection to the roots, or even the very ethos, of the club.

The knowledge that the conception of Celtic was fuelled by notions of compassion, and charity, should be a source of great pride to every member of the Celtic family. The fact that charity is still at the heart of the club, even in this age of balance sheets and bottom lines is a credit to directors past and present.

That one of those directors is Dr John Reid however, has been a source of unease to many of us since his appointment.

In its formative years, Celtic as a club was concerned with the support, and protection of the oppressed Irish Catholic minority in Glasgow. As the years progressed, Celtic became ever more inclusive (unlike some others) and the bonds many fans of the club felt with oppressed peoples throughout the world grew ever stronger.

With Dr Reid in position as a high profile Chairman, the public face of a club that had always stood with the downtrodden, was now the face of the oppressor.

In my expression of this viewpoint I am often lazily cast as either a bigot or an Irish Republican sympathiser. My disdain for the former Defence Secretary and his association with my club has nothing to do with the politics of the ‘Emerald Isle’. Rather it is my sincerely held belief that someone who was the very epitome of a “hawk” when it came to the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, has no place at club that’s values and traditions were so greatly offended by those incursions.

In June 2009 Reid received his honorary degree from Stirling University “for his contribution to public affairs”. While the news outlets covering the event described him as ‘Dr John Reid Celtic Chairman’, the placards of the protesters derided him, as ‘Dr John Reid War Criminal’.

To see a club such as ours, so closely associated in the eyes of the world, with a man who played such a pivotal role in taking Britain into two conflicts that will go down in British political infamy, was an affront to the noble beginnings which define our club.

Many of you reading this may dismiss my thoughts on the ‘not so good doctor’ as irrelevant, that what goes on in the boardroom should be of no concern to those on the terraces, that it is on the pitch matters that count, or maybe that I am allowing my political ideologies to cloud my judgement. While I accept that at the vast majority of football clubs these points would be entirely valid, I genuinely believe that at Celtic, things are different.

The charitable beginnings, the encouragement of tolerance and inclusiveness, that runs right through the history of the club right up to the present day, is what sets us apart from others. It is what keeps us ‘faithful through and through’, irrespective of trophies collected and titles won. When we can find no hero’s on the pitch, it is enough to know that the club itself is assured of its hero status. That it is why as fans we must fight to keep Celtic grounded in its noble and admirable roots, and to my mind the presence of Reid ran counter to those.

The reason I am writing this article now is I believe it ties in with the soul searching currently going on amongst the Celtic support. While issue of sectarian/offensive singing has been tiptoed around by many Celtic fans, recent articles by the excellent Irish journalist Phil MacGiollaBhain seem to have brought the matter to a head. I am not here to draw up a list of which tomes I feel are acceptable, and which are not, I have faith that with proper debate and discussion the right conclusions will be reached.  What cannot be allowed though, is that in (the utterly essential) cleansing of the song list, our traditions our uniqueness are also washed away.

It is imperative that Celtic remain in touch with the core, founding values, established in St Mary’s Church hall by Brother Walfrid. With Reid’s departure, the club will move ever nearer to those values we hold so dear.

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More Than a Club

More Than a Club

Season 2010-11 is one that will stick in the minds of most associated with Scottish football. For those of us of a Celtic persuasion however it is one that, due to some scarcely believable occurrences, will resonate within our club for many years to come.

Events on the pitch were mixed. Some wonderful football was played, a swagger that had been missing for too long showed signs of re-emergence. We had new heroes to embrace from as far afield as Honduras and Israel, closer to home a diamond of a striker was unearthed from the rough of the English Championship. In May we once again celebrated in the Hampden sun. However the crushing blow of European failure before the season was properly under way was a tough one to take, and of course on that ill-fated evening on a sodden Inverness pitch it became clear that the Championship flag would fly in the West for another 12 months.

It was matters off the pitch however where attention focused and the media glare was brightest. Our manager was lied to by one of this country’s “top” officials after a penalty bungle at Tannadice. The mainstream media missed no opportunity to deride Lennon as a “rookie” manager, and the portrayal of him as some snarling beast, barely able to contain himself was as appalling as it was inaccurate. Then of course we had the two events that made the blood of any ‘right minded’ individual run cold. It is a flawed society indeed that is no-longer shocked by mere death threats, but that is the situation we find ourselves in, it was only upon learning that we lived in a world where our manager had been the target of a viable explosive device that we experienced true shock. The image of a tracksuited Heart of Midlothian fan storming the Tynecastle technical area, with PC plod trailing in his wake, to launch a physical attack upon Lennon was beamed around the world. We now feared for our mangers safety and his sanity.

However when I look back on the season past it is not bullets or bombs, goals or defeats that stick in my mind. The moments I will take from 2010-11 are the ones that reminded me that as a Glasgow Celtic fan I really am privileged to support ‘more than a club’.

In a Scottish Cup tie we witnessed our ‘boy captain’ grow into a leader of men. With a swing of his left boot, McGregor was left clawing at thin air and the bhoys and ghirls in the Broomloan stand were sent into raptures, he then turned, raised his arms, and with barely a flicker of emotion stared down king rat himself. In one moment the armband around his bicep became a perfect fit and Celtic fans all around the globe rejoiced in doing ‘the Broony’.

Then on the last day of the season, with the title was gone, and with helicopter Sunday effectively a non-event, something extra-ordinary happened. Like the Tynecastle attack these pictures were shown by the worlds media, these were not images of hate however, what the world saw and heard was 60,000 people ‘doing the huddle’. Despite the fact that our great rivals had beaten us to the prize we all crave the most, the Celtic support rejoiced. It was breath-taking and it was unique.

People who do not share our allegiances mock us when we talk of ‘the Celtic way’, our insistence that winning is not the be all and end all, that it should be done in a certain style is derided by those out with the Celtic family. One of the reasons Gordon Strachan was never universally accepted by the support was his failure to grasp this, he was convinced we only cared about winning. Last season proved him wrong. Strachan’s reign may have been trophy laden but it lacked soul, the Lennon era has not yet yielded great silverware, though it will surely come, but the connection between club and supporter is back.

 Heavyweight (in all senses) hacks like James Traynor pour scorn on us when we ask that our manager is ‘Celtic minded’, but even deep down they must realise that our club is different. The normal rules don’t apply. Last season we reaffirmed our uniqueness.

It is unlikely that any of us will ever know if it’s a ‘grand old team to play for’, but we can be damn well sure that it is indeed a ‘grand old team to see’.

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