In a game of two matches, it was simply a case of digging it out in Dingwall yesterday.
Now, if Celtic can make it three league wins in a row against Old Firm FC this year, then the title is as good as done.
The Hoops will have home advantage with only a token presence of Sevco’s delightful klanbase.
Perhaps the venue itself should take a bow and not just because of the world-renowned atmosphere at a rocking Parkhead.
Last week a buddy of mine related a conversation he had “a decade or so ago” with a chap who had advised several topflight English clubs on financial matters.
He was, of course, aware of the Glasgow rivalry.
However, the Englishman was certainly no expert on the Fitba feud on the Clyde.
My buddy said he asked one question that stuck in his memory.
The Englishman wanted to know which club had the biggest stadium capacity.
Of course, the answer is Celtic with 60,411.
Conversely, only 50 817 dignified souls can be accommodated in the stadium that John Brown played for.
When the Englishman heard these basic facts, he stated that he didn’t need to know anymore:
“No contest then”.
In his view, there wasn’t anything that the club with the smaller stadium could legitimately do to tip the balance in their favour.
Dear reader, in professional sport, the crucial variable, in the long run, is money.
Over the league campaign, pounds means points.
Of course, there can be an aberrant season but look at the league titles since Celtic Park was redeveloped.
In the 21st century so far, the Parkhead club has won the league 15 times.
After rescuing Celtic from the brink of insolvency at the 11th hour, Fergus McCann got his new stadium.
It was partly paid for by a share issue that thousands of fans bought into.
Full disclosure, I was one of them.
Once that vision was a reality in steel and concrete, the city rivals had to contend with the inconvenient fact that those 10,000 extra seats were an inbuilt advantage for the Parkhead club.
This meant that Celtic could have a larger wage budget than before.
Unless the Ibrox club was satisfied to be simply the second best they had to do something.
Then, in an entirely unconnected development, Rangers started to scam the taxman.
In the first decade of the new Celtic Park, the team playing their home games there was up against EBT FC.
Well, you know how that ended.
Trying to keep up with a financially stronger rival ultimately led Rangers FC to self-destruct.
Since 2012 it has been an ongoing financial shitshow with the tribute act.
The Covid year saw everything come into alignment, favouring the ten-year-old club.
Unless an actual billionaire turns up, then the revenue that those extra seats generate is still a clear advantage for Celtic.
In Glasgow, the new millennium has largely been green and white.
I reckon that’s yet another reason to salute the Bunnet.
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I asked a Celtic official a few years ago about the possibility of naming the North Stand after
Fergus and was fobbed off with a reply along the lines that everyone has their own heroes.
Do we have to wait until Fergus dies before there’s proper recognition of his immense contribution
to Celtic? He may not have looked the part, but Fergus was a man of steel, who didn’t shirk to take
on corruption at the SFA (Jim Farry anyone?) I couldn’t see Fergus signing up to a secret 5 – Way
Agreement. Quite the opposite, I would think. Not all Celtic heroes wore the Hoops.
Stadium was completed in 1998/99 I think. Since then celtic have won the title 15 times and not won it 8 times. That’s likely to be a continuing trend, if it doesn’t skew even more in our favour. And of those 8 times we didn’t win, at least 2 were utterly thrown away. And there’s the “non stripped titles” which would probably have the figure at 20/3 without the cheating.
Just staggering
Fergus is a Celtic legend, we owe him so much. No survival lies required for Celtic because we did not die… unlike some.
Fergus deserves a statue in my opinion and may come when he passes on and realisation of great vision and input develops!
As someone who has followed our team through thick and thin,( first game in 1949), we owe a tremendous thanks to “the Bunnet”. After the terrible years of the White\Kelly regimes, he saved our club and built us a stadium that is admired by real football fans the world over. I was absolutely appalled when several fans booed him, thinking at the time of how close we were to loosing our status, and this man’s vision rescued us. The new team across the city have tried everything to get back on level financial parity with us and I hope that without the European money next year, they will crash and burn. The title win this season will be as good as anything we have done since 1967. Like most supporters, I thought that this season would be a struggle, however, it has surpassed my wildest dreams and to have a new manager with the personality and charm of Ange is the icing on the cake. Hail Hail.
It is absolutely beyond me how ANYONE can find fault with Fergus Mc Cann, at the beginning of his tenure,after investing a very large part of his hard earned money, he told us all , upfront, he would be there for five years, during which time he would build us a stadium worthy of the name Celtic, he did exactly as he promised and left us healthier than we had been in years, god bless Fergus Mc Cann.
mccann in the long term done great but tommy burns hated him as he never loosened the purse strings to stop 9 in a row for rfc,he walked away with 40m if he had have gave tommy 10m of that 9 in a row wouldnt have happened
And there we have it. Splash the cash with no account of the consequences. McCann saved Celtic when we owed the bank £5m. He was hardly going to speculate £10m to win a title no matter its significance. You could spend £10m and still not win the title. Bad signings, injuries, players not gelling. A myriad of reasons why it would have been a gamble. Fergus didn’t have the £45m at that point. Shares are only of value on the day you sell them. Up to that point it is unrealised money. How would Fergus have put this £10m in? You don’t just give public listed companies money. It doesn’t work that way. You would put money into a company via a share issue. That dilutes the existing shareholding and devalues the other shareholder’s shares.
In short what you are suggesting Fergus do was exactly what we would never do. Speculate with no guaranteed success. He was adamant the club would be on a secure footing by generating the money it spent and not being in hock to the bank. Other club(s) may have a different outlook. That’s their decision. It isn’t a sustainable model.
As for someone else saying the VAST majority of fans booed Fergus, I was there too. There was a significant runt of people booing. However, not the vast majority and capitalizing the word doesn’t make it true. And also, 3 trophies in 5 years not being enough? How self entitled. 1 trophy in 10 years since coming into being seems to cause a frenzy in one part of the city. I would suggest the trophies we are collecting now are in a large part down to Fergus. He built the foundations. Others came along and put the house up and decorated it.
JS
Interesting stats about Celts fifteen league championship successes throughout this millennium. Also ten Scottish cups. Not to mention ten league cups. Pretty impressive for a team dealing with dodgy officialdom, and devious men in blazers.
All those trophies & you’re still moaning about dodgy officials ….. pathetic 💥🇬🇧
Be totally honest if after a Celtic rangers game a photo was to emerge of the referee ( confessed Celtic fan) standing smirking in a Celtic pub how would you react?
Your slant on things are pretty obvious. Judging by the ‘Butchers Apron’ flag symbol. Maybe what you’re really implying is ‘we should get to the back of the bus’.
Pathetic is being the establishment club but still claiming that you are the victims.
All those trophies playing against blatantly biased officials,remember the semi-final against Inverness Caley Thistle?
How many would we have won with honest,unbiased officials?
Although I did not boo McCann that day in 1998 I still remember why the VAST majority of Celtic fans did.
There is no disputing the financial success and prudence of McCann, his problem was the meddling in team affairs which led to so much unrest and low moral in the dressing room and the constant undermining of managers Tommy Burns and Wim Jansen.
I have a long memory and cannot forgive him for the damage done to the team itself – 3 trophies in 5 years was not great!
I was there – long before and since – and it was a small minority who booed McCann that day because those of us who’d followed ( in my case since the Coronation Cup on 1953) knew McCann had moved us on from the White/Kelly regime. For years they had finagled the crowd numbers, kept Season Tickets as available to a chosen few, and paid themselves, the only significant Shareholders before Fergus, 30% plus Dividends throughout the great Jock Stein years!
So Fergus McCann had to wrest the club from the ‘family’, and rebuilt the Stadium, and made the Club great again. He deserves our admiration and respect, not your carping criticism!
“He deserves our admiration and respect, not your carping criticism!”
Exactly.
It was the VAST majority of fans who booed or you were not listening. I was there too.
I gave McCann the credit for his financial prudence and I also give him credit for taking on the SFA – and winning – putting the current and recent directors to shame.
I am not carping, just stating some facts and I could go through the many reasons why the VAST majority of Celtic fans booed him and how he deserved some criticism.
Come on all you out there – why did you boo that day?
Don’t you remember?! I do.
I also remember the flag day and there was an amount of Audible booing that I did t agree with . My clear memory is the way that a much larger amount t of people ,like me and my brother joined the throng in outcheering the booing . There was a distinct vocal vote and the ayes had it in a remarkable moment of democracy and respect . The bunnet won the election that day 😇
I was there when a bunch of entitled knuckledraggers ruined the celebrations around raising our first flag in ten years. It says everything about them and their sympathisers that they thought – and it would appear – still think that their minority opinion was shared with the tens of thousands who were embarassed by their lack of class.
McCann invested in, managed, profitted from, and then departed after the susccessful rescue of a club that was headed for oblivion. Is THANK YOU not what you should have written in capitals?
NO!
You know you don’t have a proper debate when you resort to petty name calling.
Shame on you.
Simple but apposite description is not ‘name calling’.
You should be more concerned at the blatant and repeated misrepresentation of “VAST majority”.
If I may indulge myself in capitals for a moment: DELUDED.
I recommend you re-read the post from Justo above.
I have reread it and your posts too.
Your use of the words ‘knuckle draggers’ and ‘deluded’ are insulting so maybe you should reread or rephrase.
Is it not possible to have a different viewpoint without being insulted or being described in derogatory terms?
I know it would cost money but have there never been plans to increase the capacity at Ibrox? They can’t enjoy the fact that Celtic Park is bigger.
The issue there is one of ROI. No, not that one – Return On Investment.
How much to take the roof a stand and build another tier to add 10,000 seats?
How many existing seats will be disrupted during construction causing reduced income?
How quickly will any of those seats turn a profit?
And you will of course have noticed that none of this addresses the herd of elephants currently milling around the room – securing the finance to do any of this in the first place.
The original stadium rebuild was based on the Dortmund ground, but with one key difference, in Germany they excavated so that the pitch is dug out and the stands don’t start on the flat, meaning they could go higher. You can’t really do that at Ibrox because of the proximity of the river.
Can’t go higher. Can’t dig down. Can’t do much with the listed building at the front.
Could they not just fit huge mirrors ?
Doubles the attendance!
And if your ‘boat’ appears in mirror, charge them double.
They could even add some smoke, that should do it down £1brox broom a loan way.
When the new stadium was designed contained in the plan was a facility to cantilever the main stand and add another 7 thousand of future crowds justified it.
The scorn heaped on the Bunnet by some at the time was a disgrace though. I remember him being booed by some so-called fans as he raised the league flag at Parkhead after stopping their ten asterisks in a row. He was ultimately proved right though and this season has so many parallels with the late great Wim the Tim’s one and only season in charge. A new manager is brought in late, who was not the household name everyone wanted and who many thought was a bad/desperate/downright weird appointment, with a whole squad to rebuild and no time to do it. We lose the first few games and it all starts to look bad. Then the wins start. Then we get the League Cup. Then we overtake them, with a couple of derby wins to boot. Just glad Dunfermline aren’t still in the SPFL to see up another nervy last day finish. Just hope we keep Ange longer than we kept Wim too!
Fwiw,I ever need another reason to salute Fergus Mc Cann, he saved our club, that’s a debt we,as Celtic fans, can never repay,thanks Phil
I am not counting any chickens yet but this will be the sweetest title win I can remember since stopping oldco’s financially doped 10 IAR
Given the chaos Ange inherited and the start to the campaign-losing three matches early on-I thought that this would be a rebuilding season.
The turnaround has been epic.
Remember what the Malmo fella said last August…
As you say Phil, follow follow the money.
They went all in this year fully expecting to win the league and collect on the champions league cash pot.
Time will only tell on how idiotic that decision was.
Their fans are happy at the mo because they can see a uefa cup win. I sincerely hope Seville is spared their hatred, can you image the destruction they will reap on that fine city.
Aye we should all have eternal gratitude for The Bunnet for that advantage, an advantage that WILL always keep us as Scotland’s biggest, and of course, best club.
I say always because they’ll never get a decent upstanding investor, never.
All Hail! Hail! The Bunnet, the man with the big stones and the nerve to make it all a reality.
YNWA🍀💚✅
Still think the Bunnet deserves a statue on the Celtic Way.
Totally agree Mikey. He could have spent a pound but instead put in £5m of his own cash to retain Celtic’s proud history (compare and compare!!!), allowed many of us to become shareholders in a Family we love and built a new stadium therefore laying the foundations for future successes. Every leader / businessman has to make difficult and unpopular decisions so some fans resented him looking after the pennies…did they realise what the consequences were of trying to match Original Rangers? See 2012! I had no qualms about Fergus exiting with £45m as he, as a fervent Celtic fan, stood up as and when required and saved our Club – risk/reward. Hail hail to The Bunnet, a great man deserving of a statue……and now rather than later. COYBIG!
Sounds like it’s about time to redevelop the main stand and really ram an advantage home!
I’m told that there are two development plans for the South Stand in existence.
The difference is in the size of the capacity increase.
Please elaborate….
Fergus did exactly what he said he would, end of.
Ange and his team are on the cusp of a double in their first season together.
It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that the team will improve next season and beyond.
The money from CL Group Stages will be a dagger to the heart of the money men in charge at Ibrox.
Despite the wishful thinking of many in the Scottish media there will be no Celtic collapse over the run in. In fact victory or even a draw on Sunday will put an end to that nonsense, though no doubt Keevins will have his calculator out quoting mathematical possibilities……..aye right.
We can still actually lose this game and the league.So lets not get cocky
Hoping this is true as the stadium would be properly updated and finished. It would also help with the corporate incomes