O’Neill and Celtic win “April 27th” debate

Celtic have “Backed Down”. That was the news on BBC Reporting Scotland tonight. But when Rhona Wotzhername ended her little piece on the hooplah over the final Old Firm fixture of the season she used the phrase “this now infamous match”. THERE’s the real point to all the whining garbage we’ve been subjected to by Martin O’Neill and his glove puppet Ian McLeod over the last five or six days. Celtic haven’t backed down at all. How can you back down from something which is in no way a challenge? Celtic WON today - and you have to hand it to them, they’ve been absolutely brilliant: Celtic today played their last card of a concerted PR effort to make sure this season, even if they finish it trophyless, will be THEIR season.

See, the last SPL tussle between the only two sides who can win the 2002/2003 Scottish championship is no longer a “title-decider” or yet another “Most important Old Firm fixture of all time”. No, no, no - it’s now “infamous”. It’s now “shrouded in controversy”. In other words, the result will be overshadowed by a preception of anti-Celtic bias.

The BBC report included a vox-pop outside Parkhead. Various Celtic punters came ambling out of the club shop at the stadium to give their tuppence-worth on their club’s decision to back down. One bloke said they shouldn’t have backed down, the other two didn’t seem to have any notion that the final decision to play the game on the 27th of April was actually Celtic’s. Already the opinion was that this was yet another conspiracy against their team. Misinformed as it is, this an opinion which is going to stick and fester - and why not when it’s officially sanctioned by their heroes.

O’Neill and McLeod KNOW the April 27th date was pencilled in LAST AUGUST. Celtic agreed to it then, knowing very well that Thursday nights were UEFA Cup nights and that they could wel be playing in that competition. Rangers, who had no Champions League qualifiers at this time and would ONLY be playing in the UEFA Cup this season knew they actually had a BETTER chance of being in the UEFA cup semis on April 24th … considering we’d got to within one goal of the quarter-finals last season. No objections from us.

O’Neill, McLeod and everyone else wearing a suit in Parkhead KNOW there’s no other date on which this match can be played without effecting the TV deal or without it having a mathematical chance of being a title-decider. Every single quote from Celtic Park on the topic is prefaced with an acknowledgement of why this game shouldn’t offer either side any chance of clinching the SPL trophy.

But what O’Neill, McLeod and Celtic FC/PLC/RUN DMC know most of all, is that their team is in very real danger of ending this seson without a single piece of silverware to their name. I, personally, don’t think this is disastrous for O’Neill’s CV and Tam Shields wrote a very perceptive piece in the last Sunday Herald explaining why it would be far from shameful for Celtic to win no cups, given their undeniably memorable European run … even if that should end at the semi-final stage. But with so much money resting on their share price and with O’Neill being an unashamed winner, there’s no chance of either men taking any chances on public perceptions of Celtic’s achievements in 2002/2003. If they win nothing it just CANNOT be seen to be their fault.

So it’s time to resort to the lowest common denominator and whip the Celtic fans and the tabloid press into a frenzy of conspiracy theories and notions of anti-Celtic shenanigans.

I’m reminded of Scorcese’s Raging Bull. The scene in Jake La Motta’s kitchen when Joe Pesci explains to De Niro of an upcoming fight, “If you win, you win. But, even if you lose, YOU STILL WIN!”. This is the situation Celtic have successfully manoeuvred themselves into. If they win the game on the 27th it’s a remarkable victory against oppressive, evil forces, won against overwhelming odds. If they lose the match, the moral victory remains undiminished. To ensure the final piece of this media jigsaw slotted into place, however, they had to act today. They had to be seen to be yielding before they were yielded to and, ultimately, caught out.

Had the SPL meeting actually gone ahead tomorrow and, heaven forbid, decided Celtic could come to Ibrox on A MORE SUITABLE DATE, then they’d have to face Rangers on the even sporting terms they’re so ready to talk about these days. So Celtic didn’t even let today’s meeting between SPL representatives and the police chiefs go ahead, lest Strathclyde constabulary actually came up with a plan which allowed the tie to be shifted from April 27th.

Most Rangers fans wanted Celtic to pick their own date. We’d happily play them anytime which suited them, so as to wipe away even the most fantastical doubts about the “sporting nature” of the tie. But then that would have left Celtic with it all to do. No, they want Rangers going into this game under the same kind of pressure as a team suddenly up against ten men.

The most ingenious thing about all this desire to dismantle the credibility of the tie and shift media opinion against Rangers is the language used. McLeod and O’Neill have been incredibly careful to enshroud all their protests in the double-bluff of repeatedly askingt for “a level playing field” while all the time ensuring they put Rangers in a no-win situation.

At first, when this all kicked off, when I first heard McLeod had objected to the “fairness” of the date of this tie, I laughed out loud. As previously reported, I found the whole thing quite amusing. But Celtic soon behaved like the adolescent at the dinner table, trying to be flippantly insulting, who is simply laughed at by his parents - they decided they would have to genuinely shock in order to be taken seriously. Like the spotty youth who suddenly screams a four-letter word across the condiments, O’Neill and McLeod simply lost the plot: One threatened violence if Celtic didn’t get their way, the other ensured that would happen by claiming the SPL was a pro-Rangers organisation.

Of course, the double-speak was employed once again. McLeod said he wanted to AVOID the threat of violence at the match, while simultaneously giving the nutters in the Celtic support the very reason they needed. O’Neill too was keen to tell us he didn’t want any trouble from the Broomloan Road stand on 27th April … but who’d even MENTIONED the possibility of trouble at this game until these two bampots opened their mouths?

Yes, there’s always the threat of a barney at these ties when there’s so many nut-jobs on each side of the divide but who, even in the sh*t-stirring tabloids, mooted the concept of the game being insultingly biased against Celtic fans simply because of the fact it was TAKING PLACE AT ALL???!! O’Neill told the BBC’s Ken McRobb on Sunday he was hoping the SPL wouldn’t move the fixture even closer to the Boavista second leg. Unbelievable - he’s just given every headbanger with a GCFC tattoo his blessing to take matters into his own hands!

‘ “Let me tell you, it wouldn’t have happened the other way,” snapped O’Neill. “Had Rangers been involved then there would have been absolutely no way this would have happened.” ‘ This is an O’Neill quote from the PA wire. Incredible! When was the last time Rangers were in the semis of a Euo comp? Ten years ago. Where was O’Neill then?! He doesn’t have a clue about our domestic fixtures during European campaigns but he knows EXACTLY what he’s saying to the Celtic support, with a nod and a wink. Coming from Northern Ireland, he also knows EXACTLY what kind of bother this kind of incitement can cause.

For men in positions of such responsibility, who know EXACTLY which of their many quotes would make the most headlines, this was a truly shocking turn of events.

What am I supposed to want now? As a Rangers fan who values his health but who also values the good name of Scottish football suppoters, am I meant to hope Celtic WIN this game so there’s no riot at our ground and no danger of me or my friends and relatives being caught up in a pitched-battle?!! Why were Celtic being allowed to blackmail the SPL into delaying the issue of the top-six fixture list in the first place? Why were they permitted to cause the rest of the teams in the league all sots of financial and logistical headaches by postponing hard dates for match sponsors, caterers, fans planning their weekends etc? Because the whole of the Scottish game is already scared to death of upsetting these over-sensitive children in men’s bodies.

Christ, Rangers won the title at Parkhead in May 1999 and mayhem ensued. What did anyone actually do to Celtic FC that day which was so wrong? Nothing! We also EFFECTIVELY won Nine-In-A-Row there in March 97 - Di Canio tried to kill Ian Ferguson at the end of the game, some celtic fans ran on the pitch to help their hero - it was madness. But, again, what did anyone actually do wrong other than beat Celtic at football??!! In short, it doesn’t take much to fill the headcase element among the Celtic support with a sense of moral outrage which needs avenged. They need to be told - by everyone EXCEPT Rangers - that this can’t go on. How long before we’re all quaking in our boots less we upset Celtic by making them play two games in the same week?!

I said in a previous rant about the celtic support rounding on a ref during an Old Firm game, “there’s no force more vicious and unmerciful as one indoctrinated in a firm belief of it’s own persecution”. How wrong I was! Far more vicious and unmerciful is the man who knows he can stoke up that force to new heights of red-hot indignation and does so without skipping a beat. Martin O’Neill is indeed the “Mini-me” Sir Alex Ferguson - he’s learning how to make one of the biggest clubs in Europe seem like a weak, feeble victim when it suits - but he really can’t be allowed to go on like this. O’Neill’s gone from being a dangerously good football manager to simply dangerous.