Dermot Desmond and a load of balls

As the tennis balls heroically arced towards King Dermot on the 15th hole at the Alfred Dunhill Links golf tournament in St Andrews, I was reminded of an observation imparted to me when I was an ardently politicised teenager half a century ago:

“Theory without practice is sterile, and practice without theory is blind”.

Dear reader, allow me to clarify.

When the event at St Andrews levitated my phone, my first thought was:

What do they think they will achieve by this?

This post on X from the Celtic Way at 7.11 pm contained a safe enough prediction.

That is, if “erage” was meant to be “enrage”.

I’ll bet on the latter.

1 hour and 58 minutes later, THIS arrived on the club site.

Just in case it ever gets lost, here it is in full.

 

Unlike the statement this time last year, when Brendan Rodgers was…err…resigned by Desmond, this one wasn’t signed.

However, it clearly had the imprimatur of the man Martin O’Neill refers to as “the owner”.

It is certainly laced with the same fury in every paragraph.

Of course, this now tees up the impending AGM rather nicely.

The Celtic Trust has three motions for shareholders to consider.

Lots of worthy stuff contained therein.

Best of luck with them, especially the third one, which DEMANDS an apology from “the PLC” for letting Fredo out to play last year.

As one fictional billionaire patriarch might have put it:

“I love you, but you’re not serious people”.

Conversely, this from the folks at the Celtic Underground is clearly the work of grown-ups.

Here is the key message in the piece:

If the objective is specifically “Get Dermot Out”, people need to stop dealing in slogans and start dealing in arithmetic.

For the avoidance of doubt, throwing tennis balls isn’t a strategy for anything, even if it does make the thrower feel, momentarily, important.