Sevco on a Conference bawl tonight

Two European nights with very different emotional starting points for your humble correspondent.

Last night: trepidation.

So many failures at this stage.

The scratch teams of the Lawwellball era dispatched with ease by opponents with a fraction of Celtic’s budget.

Now, it’s halftime and three goals to lean on.

Not there yet, but so far so good.

Tonight, the initial emotion is one of Schadenfreude that the visitors get anything from the game.

Then I was tutored by a more strategically minded buddy.

His take was that he wanted the 14-year-old club to progress in the Conference League.

His main reason was that he wanted them on the Thursday/Sunday treadmill, playing catch-up in the SPFL.

Fair point.

He also added that it was hardly the glamorous end of UEFA’s club competitions.

Another valid point.

After all, it’s about the Dollars.

Always the Dollars.

Consequently, he couldn’t see how the Delaware Crew could charge a premium price for those third-tier games.

I then pointed out that IF Celtic concludes business in Austria next week, then it will be the first time that there has been such a stretch in European revenues at both ends of the city.

The club formed by immigrants will be at the top table, and the nativist neighbours will be subsisting on Euro crumbs.

As has been stated here many times, all that Celtic has to do is operate the football department at a level of basic competence to be untouchable domestically.

If that happens, then Sevco can only be simply the second best.

The fifteen-year thing seems to have landed for quite a few of the dignified classes across the city.

Finally, the Penny Arcade has dropped that three major honours since 2012 might be a hint.

Even so, the denial part hasn’t entirely gone away, you know.

They cling to the hope that this is cyclical and, in time, will turn in their favour again.

For the avoidance of doubt, it isn’t a cycle; it’s structural and has been since Fergus rebuilt Celtic Park in 1999.

In an entirely unrelated development, it’s the same year the original Rangers started getting creative with their tax policies.

Dear reader, you know how that ended in 2012.

Moreover, not only is Celtic Park considerably larger than the stadium that John Brown played for, but the land around it is also of a different order.

Tomorrow, Glasgow City Council’s “City Development Plan 2” opens for public consultation.

You can view it here.

I’m sure that Dermot Desmond, real estate guy, has some of his people all over this.

Any further developments to the Celtic Park footprint that generate revenue outside match days will consign the nativist neighbours to permanent subordinate status.