Celtic for the Scottish Cup!
And so, in a classic case of common sense, the SFA (bless them!) have decided there will be a Scottish Cup this season. Time for a gloat at those who wanted it all stopped. There was Jim McInally, Jim Goodwin (both good Managers who should have known better), numerous journalists and pundits, and the worst was the BBC Scotland Football website who claimed that all Scottish fans wanted the Scottish Cup to be scrapped!
They based that in a poll in which 38% of the fans who voted apparently wanted the Scottish Cup scrapped. Even I was able to work out that therefore 62% wanted the Scottish Cup to continue, therefore! It was not unlike the way that Hitler seized power in Germany in 1933 on a minority vote! Incidentally, who are that accursed 38%? Why do football fans not want to see football?
Anyway, the Scottish Cup continues. It would have been a dreadful insult to the second oldest competition in the world otherwise, and crucially, for Celtic, there is now the chance of 5 Scottish Cups in a row and 41 overall. It may still have to be in front of an empty stadium and that is damnable, but what can we do about that? “Football without fans is nothing” said Jock but the Cup final will not be “without fans”. There will be millions of us watching on TV.
So there is now the excellent opportunity to make it up (to a certain extent) for the deficiencies of this horrendous season. It will not in any way alter the fact that next season is a new beginning, but it will give John Kennedy and the players something to aim for. It is an opportunity to join the glorious Scottish Cup history that Celtic have. It will not be easy, but opportunity and destiny are now beginning to beckon for Celtic yet again. It is something that we surely deserve after all we have suffered this season. Let’s get behind them!
People who see me walking my dog round the park are sometimes perturbed to hear me reciting “1892, 1899, 1900etc” all the way to 2020 with occasionally 1904 Jimmy Quinn, 1965 Billy McNeill, 1972 Dixie Deans, 1989 Joe Miller, 2020 Connor Hazard thrown in. Fellow dog walkers look at me pityingly and shake their heads. It would be nice to add “2021 David Turnbull” on May 22… but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Falkirk or Arbroath on 3 April comes first!
David Potter
