James Forrest
The Emperor of Ice Cream
Let’s not kid ourselves here. If it was the Ibrox club, instead of Celtic, who were still properly in the running for this title, 70% of the media would be batting for them. They would want them to do it. They would want them over the line.
You only have to look at how many of them tipped the Ibrox club to win it to understand what we are dealing with.
But now that this is down to Celtic and Hearts, I can tell you this much: nobody outside our support, and maybe the Hibs fans, wants to see us do this. Nobody.
Scottish football has bought into the Hearts fairytale. Now even the Ibrox fans are fully behind it. They don’t need to come to Celtic Park and win at the weekend. Winning does nothing for them now if Hearts get any kind of result the night before.
All they need to do is put 11 men behind the ball, hold us to a draw and trust that it is enough for Hearts to finish the job.
Nobody is going out of their way to do us a favour here.
That doesn’t mean Hearts won’t still find a way to mess this up. They might. I still think Motherwell are capable of taking something from them. But the idea that Scottish football is somehow batting for Celtic is, and has always been, ridiculous.
This year, especially, most of the game believes it would be good for Scottish football if Hearts won the title. Nobody is going to throw games for them. But nobody is going to run through walls to stop it happening either.
That leaves us in the most unfancied role of them all.
Party crashers. Spoilers. The club that ends the fairy tale.
If we do it, we will be resented for it. Nobody outside Celtic will be happy. Commentators will talk about what a disaster it is for the game that Hearts could not get over the line. They will ask what it says about the standard if this impoverished Celtic team is still good enough to win the league.
Even if parts of that are true, it will not be said as mere analysis.
There will be bitterness behind it. Anger. Frustration. Resentment that Celtic dared to be good enough again. Resentment that we spoiled the fun, shattered the illusion and ended the fantasy that Scottish football was about to change.
People have clung to that fantasy for months.
At first, most of it was about Ibrox. The Daily Record and its little chorus kept telling us the balance of power in Glasgow had shifted. But nothing has shifted until that club wins a title race, not once, but enough times to justify such a stupid statement.
That does not look like happening any time soon.
So now the fantasy has moved to Hearts, and if Celtic ruin that as well, the reaction will be something to behold.
Fine. Party crashers it is. I’m happy enough with that. I’m happy enough for this club to be the subject of resentment, anger, frustration and fear. Even a little loathing. It is not exactly new, is it? Some people have been singing that song for the past decade.
I’m under no illusions about what will happen if we win this title.
We will not get credit. We will eat a lot of dirt.
Rather than acknowledge that Celtic did what champions do, people will be angry that we arrived late and burst the bubble. A lot of people who want a winner outside Glasgow will feel not only a loss, but they’ll feel cheated.
That brings me to a reality TV analogy, because of course it does.
In the first season of Gold Rush, the Hoffman crew spent an entire year trying to mine the Porcupine Creek claim. They were amateurs, but they had a dream. The old man, Jack, believed there was a glory hole, a rich deposit of gold at the bottom of a waterfall. They fought, struggled, failed, learned and finally discovered that there really was gold there.
By the end of the season, they had not made money, but they had found hope. They vowed to return the following year and do it properly. As an audience, you were rooting for them. You had watched them suffer. You wanted the payoff.
Then season two starts. A veteran miner called Dakota Fred turns up. He was seconded to the Hoffman operation (over their objections) at the end of their rookie season. He came in to professionalise their approach. In doing so he realised what they were sitting on.
In the off-season he bought the claim and as season two opens he shows up in his pickup, and tells them to pack their stuff and leave.
It is brutal and ruthless. It feels like an act of utter bastardy, even though Fred had every legal right to do it and the Hoffmans had failed to secure the claim. He saw the opportunity, understood what was there, and took it.
For a while the audience felt totally screwed over, because we’d seen the Hoffman’s get totally screwed over. That is how Scottish football will feel about Celtic if we snatch this title away from Hearts at the last moment.
People have invested in the story. They have imagined the ending. They have already pictured Hearts standing there with the trophy, Scottish football renewed, the Glasgow dominance broken, the fairytale complete. If Celtic walks in at the end and grabs the claim, nobody is going to admire the professionalism of it.
They will call it cruel. They will say we ruined the perfect outcome. So be it.
Give us peace. We are not here to give Scottish football the ending it wants.
We are here to win the league for ourselves, and if we do it and that makes us the party crashers, fine.
If that makes us the villains of this particular fairy tale, fine.
Scottish football was never going to love us anyway, so if Celtic have to literally break a few Hearts to secure the prize, I think I can probably live with it.
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You only have to look at how many of them tipped the Ibrox club to win it to understand what we are dealing with.
But now that this is down to Celtic and Hearts, I can tell you this much: nobody outside our support, and maybe the Hibs fans, wants to see us do this. Nobody.
Scottish football has bought into the Hearts fairytale. Now even the Ibrox fans are fully behind it. They don’t need to come to Celtic Park and win at the weekend. Winning does nothing for them now if Hearts get any kind of result the night before.
All they need to do is put 11 men behind the ball, hold us to a draw and trust that it is enough for Hearts to finish the job.
Nobody is going out of their way to do us a favour here.
That doesn’t mean Hearts won’t still find a way to mess this up. They might. I still think Motherwell are capable of taking something from them. But the idea that Scottish football is somehow batting for Celtic is, and has always been, ridiculous.
This year, especially, most of the game believes it would be good for Scottish football if Hearts won the title. Nobody is going to throw games for them. But nobody is going to run through walls to stop it happening either.
That leaves us in the most unfancied role of them all.
Party crashers. Spoilers. The club that ends the fairy tale.
If we do it, we will be resented for it. Nobody outside Celtic will be happy. Commentators will talk about what a disaster it is for the game that Hearts could not get over the line. They will ask what it says about the standard if this impoverished Celtic team is still good enough to win the league.
Even if parts of that are true, it will not be said as mere analysis.
There will be bitterness behind it. Anger. Frustration. Resentment that Celtic dared to be good enough again. Resentment that we spoiled the fun, shattered the illusion and ended the fantasy that Scottish football was about to change.
People have clung to that fantasy for months.
At first, most of it was about Ibrox. The Daily Record and its little chorus kept telling us the balance of power in Glasgow had shifted. But nothing has shifted until that club wins a title race, not once, but enough times to justify such a stupid statement.
That does not look like happening any time soon.
So now the fantasy has moved to Hearts, and if Celtic ruin that as well, the reaction will be something to behold.
Fine. Party crashers it is. I’m happy enough with that. I’m happy enough for this club to be the subject of resentment, anger, frustration and fear. Even a little loathing. It is not exactly new, is it? Some people have been singing that song for the past decade.
I’m under no illusions about what will happen if we win this title.
We will not get credit. We will eat a lot of dirt.
Rather than acknowledge that Celtic did what champions do, people will be angry that we arrived late and burst the bubble. A lot of people who want a winner outside Glasgow will feel not only a loss, but they’ll feel cheated.
That brings me to a reality TV analogy, because of course it does.
In the first season of Gold Rush, the Hoffman crew spent an entire year trying to mine the Porcupine Creek claim. They were amateurs, but they had a dream. The old man, Jack, believed there was a glory hole, a rich deposit of gold at the bottom of a waterfall. They fought, struggled, failed, learned and finally discovered that there really was gold there.
By the end of the season, they had not made money, but they had found hope. They vowed to return the following year and do it properly. As an audience, you were rooting for them. You had watched them suffer. You wanted the payoff.
Then season two starts. A veteran miner called Dakota Fred turns up. He was seconded to the Hoffman operation (over their objections) at the end of their rookie season. He came in to professionalise their approach. In doing so he realised what they were sitting on.
In the off-season he bought the claim and as season two opens he shows up in his pickup, and tells them to pack their stuff and leave.
It is brutal and ruthless. It feels like an act of utter bastardy, even though Fred had every legal right to do it and the Hoffmans had failed to secure the claim. He saw the opportunity, understood what was there, and took it.
For a while the audience felt totally screwed over, because we’d seen the Hoffman’s get totally screwed over. That is how Scottish football will feel about Celtic if we snatch this title away from Hearts at the last moment.
People have invested in the story. They have imagined the ending. They have already pictured Hearts standing there with the trophy, Scottish football renewed, the Glasgow dominance broken, the fairytale complete. If Celtic walks in at the end and grabs the claim, nobody is going to admire the professionalism of it.
They will call it cruel. They will say we ruined the perfect outcome. So be it.
Give us peace. We are not here to give Scottish football the ending it wants.
We are here to win the league for ourselves, and if we do it and that makes us the party crashers, fine.
If that makes us the villains of this particular fairy tale, fine.
Scottish football was never going to love us anyway, so if Celtic have to literally break a few Hearts to secure the prize, I think I can probably live with it.
Choose The CelticBlog as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.
The post Celtic now occupy the villains role in this title race. So be it. appeared first on The Celtic Blog.
Continue reading...
