Back in the glory days of the fanzine insurgency, I recall that the people at Not The View (NTV) referred to the Celtic Board as the “Politburo”.
Keeping with that Soviet vibe, those rebels with word processors referred to the Celtic View as “Pravda”.
For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t think many of us attending the matches at the rickety old stadium on Kerrydale Street thought that the club’s official blatt was dealing in the truth.
This is one of the ages.
Those days came to mind when the news broke about Tom Allison’s retirement from the current board.
Here is the whole statement, just in case it gets digitally misplaced one day.
I don’t know the man and wish him well in the future.
After hearing about this change, I checked in with a well-placed source to make sure I had my facts right.
My understanding was that sometime late last year, Tom had wanted to stand down and was told by…ahem… a higher authority that he was staying put!
Well, I was reassured that my recollection of that one is correct.
I remember David Low pointing out to me some time ago that most of the current board had been in place for far too long.
As the statement says, Mr Allsion has been in the Celtic boardroom since 2001
Best practice for a Non-Executive Director (NED) is SIX years, usually in two three year terms.
When the Cambuslang fantasy was unveiled, the Parkhead club was fatally dysfunctional.
As we know, because of Fergus McCann and his allies, the club formed by Irish immigrants didn’t die.
A key part of the rebels’ victory was the galvanisation of support against the old, inbred regime.
Today on ACSOM, Paul John and Yogi Jnr explored that rebellious instinct within the Celtic support.
As the lads pointed out, there are cultural differences across the city.
We definitely don’t do deference, and they do walking away.
I’m delighted that John has joined the hooped blogosphere.
You can get his content HERE.
There is no doubt that Celtic are also dysfunctional today, but the situation is entirely different to 1994 and the belief that what worked then will work now is fatuous.
What is undeniable is that the current state of affairs is unacceptable.
Celtic isn’t heading for insolvency as in the days of the Cambuslang fiasco.
However, if the ongoing inertia continues, the disaffection in the support won’t go away, you know.
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Could this be the first of many long time serving board member resignations. For the long term future of the club we must hope so. Most of them bring very little to the table in the modern game.
The support sussed them out and called them out long ago. Their dismissive and aggressive attitude at the AGM opened the eyes of a lot of the doubters in the wider support. Who knows how things will end up this season trophy wise, but the damage the board has done to the relationship with the fans is definitely not going away.