Happy 135th birthday Celtic

During my post-graduate psychotherapy training, a common retort among my colleagues was, “a childhood lasts a whole lifetime”.

It is, of course, undeniably true, and there is substantial academic and clinical literature to back up that assertion.

As I consider the 135^th birthday of my club, I’m minded to revise this therapeutic axiom:
A childhood can last many, many lifetimes.

Andrew Kerins was born on 18 May 1840 in Baile an Mhóta, Contae Shligigh.

This means that he was seven years old when An Gorta Mór came into his young life.

Unlike one million other Irish people, he survived that British-engineered holocaust.

It is, therefore, no mystery worthy of therapeutic inquiry that as the man history would remember as Brother Walfrid, the Sligo native would burn with a mission that no child would ever go hungry again.

This was written into the DNA of the club from the first meeting.

Indeed, it was Celtic’s raison d’être from the get-go.

Sadly, as sporting and commercial success came in the door, there were hard-faced men in the board room who lost sight of this early vision.

When Fergus saved the club in 1994, this re-connection with the vision of the founding father was one of the things he re-introduced.

It was a case of the Bunnet bringing Celtic back into alignment with the values of the supporters.

Sadly, the dinner tables of the 19^th century have been replaced with food banks in the 21^st century.

When An Gorta Mór devastated Ireland during the childhood of Andrew Kerrins, Britain was the global superpower and the biggest economy in the world.

The neighbouring island grew fat on the plunder of the empire as Ireland starved.

Throughout the Famine, Walfrid’s native land was a  net food exporter while the unburied bodies piled high.

Lest we forget…

Today the UK is the 6^th biggest economy in the world.

That isn’t a place where ANYONE should go hungry.

The juxtaposition of food banks and bonuses for bankers tells a tale of a broken society.

Thousands of Celtic supporters who roared on the Bhoys to a late victory yesterday saw the Hoops get an early birthday present.

I was brought up watching iconic centre forwards in the Hoops.

The footie experts of my childhood saw that the focal point of the attack was either being rapier or broadsword.

Yesterday it was a Katana that cut open the Dundee United rear-guard.

Kyogo’s darting zig-zag into the box, and deft glance was pure, beautiful, inventive football.

As the younger generation would have it, what followed could be summed up in one word:

Scenes.

The wee lad from Japan is one of our own.

A club with very distinctive ethnic Irish roots has been open to all since that day 135 years ago.

Of course, a cynic might say that it is Celtic’s ethnicity that has given it an interesting relationship with the governing authorities and the wider society since it was founded.

That reminded me of a sort of birthday present I gave to my club on this very day 12 years ago.

Just as the final whistle blew on a nine-nil trouncing of Aberdeen, I published this exclusive.

In the subsequent weeks, my subsequent reporting after my original scoop, the position of Hugh Dallas as head of referee development was untenable.

The Guardian saw the importance of the story and commissioned me to write this piece.

Unsurprisingly the Stenography Corps ignored the Fenian who had broken the story.

There is no need to explain that to anyone in Celtic Park who punched the air when wee Kyogo stuck the nut on the Amazing Raldo’s flick-on at the front post.

Neither would they be baffled by the creative interpretation of the handball law that gifted the away team a chance to equalise from the spot.

Alexandro Bernabei looked outraged at the decision.

That’s because he doesn’t yet know the special rules on Planet Fitba.

For the past 135 years, Celtic has existed in a hostile environment.

Scotland’s greatest living historian Tom Devine has stated that in the Victorian era, the country was

“A centre of excellence for scientific racism”.

Victims of such prejudice often internalise the narrative and accept that they’re getting what they deserve.

It is no coincidence that Celtic’s greatest era commenced when the club appointed a manager who was not from the community that had given birth to the club.

Jock was outraged at the…err… subjectivity of match officials and the local media.

He set about them!

Today the Grey Brigade in the Parkhead Boardroom exhibit all the troubling signs of the debilitating Back Of The Bus Syndrome.

If they can get in touch with the real spirit of Walfrid and look at Jock Stein’s pugnacious approach, then recovery is possible.

However, I think we’re going to need more sessions.

Happy birthday, Celtic.

I love you.