Miracle on Kerrydale Street

Dear reader, all the right people are hurting today.

Martin O’Neill coming back for his second interim stint is the stuff of Hollywood.

Some were quick to dismiss his impact.

This is a surprisingly bad call for a rugby chap who is usually on the money when it comes to assessing matters Celtic.

The turning point yesterday was Celtic’s second and ultimately title-winning goal, which was initially ruled offside.

Without the intervention of VAR, it is almost certain that today, Hearts would be champions.

For sure, the technology currently operating in Scotland can be improved.

The EPL version is a level above.

Moreover, the officials operating it can improve.

What it DOES do is open up the officiating process to scrutiny after the fact.

Therefore, I’m not with the idea that VAR is “killing football”.

Quite the opposite.

Without VAR, the match would have relied only on the contribution of admittedly excellent officials like this one.

Last night I suggested to a pal across the Pond that this title win was possibly the most consequential for Celtic since stopping the original Rangers from doing Ten In A Row in 1998.

With that miraculous last day win, David Murray looked to European Glory to soothe the seething klanbase.

He also had to contend with a rebuilt Celtic Park that had 10,000 more seats than the stadium that John Brown was, at that time, playing for.

The year  Paradise was completed to the Bunnet’s precise requirements, the first episode of tax creativity started at Rangers.

You know the rest.

So, how is this title win especially important?

Well, it’s been Celtic’s self-harming season.

A confluence of interlocking bin fires.

Yet despite that, we’re still champions.

A damn close-run thing, but the title is still at Paradise.

If we weren’t before, we definitely are now in Bayern Munich territory.

That means that the Parkhead club is the default champion at the start of every season.

For the nativists from Gorgie, this was their Leicester  City moment, but they Hearts it.

The spirit of 86 remains.

Now, 40 years later, with three minutes remaining, Celtic delivered a fresh psychic wound to the Maroon ones.

Lovely stuff.

When I remember what defines some of their klanbase, I cannot feel any sympathy.

Always believe people when they reveal themselves.

Nativism 101.

That his team were bested by a club formed by Irish immigrants, where refugees are welcome, makes it doubly sweet.

Today, across my island and in the global diaspora, we remember the genocidal crime committed by Britain, not just England, that killed a million of us and scattered our blood to the ends of the earth.

Thanks to the efforts of stalwarts in Glasgow’s Irish community, there is now a suitable memorial, a place for remembrance.

As your humble correspondent is a novelist, I often look for clues in the cultural output in any society.

Therefore, I think that it is entirely appropriate that in Trainspotting, Mark Renton, Spud, and Sick Boy are of the Hibby persuasion.

Yesterday, as Parkhead partied, there was sunshine on Leith.

Fair play.

At the start of Native Shore, Gerry O’Donnell travels to Celtic Park with his Colombian wife, Maria.

It’s her first time in Paradise, and she is off the scale excited.

I took some time to create a match report.

My book editor thought it was too long, but I asked her to trust me.

Thankfully, she did.

The visitors were Hearts.

Spoiler alert for ye who haven’t yet taken that trip into Native Shore,  despite going a goal down, the Celtic fought back and won 3-1.

What would be too beautifully contrived for a novel would be Flag Day in August at Paradise for the visitors to be Sevco’s low-calorie cousins.

I’m sure, in the spirit of British fair play, they would give the club formed by Irish immigrants a guard of honour.

Miracles should be applauded.

I’m smiling here in Dún na nGall.