Celtic Challenges Mastering The Three Rs

Those of us who were brought up in the old days of fierce repressive Scottish education were always told that the three Rs were what really mattered – namely reading, writing and arithmetic. Pedants will immediately jump on me, and tell me that there is only one “r” in that lot. Aye, aye, we know all that!

But Celtic now face three Rs as well in Ross County, Rangers and Real Madrid. And I know I am about to pounced on by other pedants who will tell me that I have missed a death in 2012 etc, and that one of these three is actually a T as in theRangers, possibly an S as in S-e-v-c-o, even a N as in N-e-w-c-o, whereas we all know that as a word beginning with H which we are not even allowed to say.

So be it. The fact remains that we have to play them all in the next week. I am going to stick my neck out and say that the most important one is the one at Dingwall. “What?”, I hear you say. “Has he finally, after looking like it for a while, gone mad?

No, I am sticking to my guns on this one. The reason is that a defeat in the Highlands is final. Defeat in the second one will be painful and cause great joy in the bum-sucking, crawling, sycophantic Scottish media – but it does not immediately lose any Leagues or anything.

Defeat from Real Madrid would also be painful but would hardly be the cause of too much gnashing of teeth (they are after all the champions of Europe – 14 times!) – but neither of these two will be fatal. We can and probably would recover from them, but defeat to the hard working and determined Highlanders will have irrevocable consequences. There could then be no treble, and no Scottish League Cup – and we all have the sinking feeling that we know who would win it, if Celtic were to be removed!

The point is stressed, for we must not take this game too lightly. Ross County have twice put Celtic out of domestic Cups in 2010 and 2016 (deservedly so, in both cases) and we can all recall miserable exits to Morton, Clyde and Inverness in the not too distant past.

One appreciates that Ange must and should rotate the squad to keep everyone happy, and there will definitely by a few changes. One would however plead with him to go a little easy on this one and to recall the awful day in early January 2006 when Gordon Strachan introduced two debutants in Roy Keane and Du Wei in a Scottish Cup game against Clyde, and disaster ensued.

I hope that the returning convoys down the A9 from Dingwall have smiles on their faces as they stop for their chips in Aviemore and listen to the radio on the bus to hear who we have got in the next round. I repeat – defeat in the other two games can be made up but defeat in Dingwall changes the complexion of our season. And don’t anyone dare try to tell me that it is “just” the League Cup!

David Potter

David Potter’s new book, Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style is featured in the new edition of the Celtic View which is out now and available from the Celtic Stores. You can also pick up the Willie Fernie book there too or order direct from Celtic Star Books, link below…

About Author

I am Celtic author and historian and write for The Celtic Star. I live in Kirkcaldy and have followed Celtic all my life, having seen them first at Dundee in March 1958. I am a retired teacher and my other interests are cricket, drama and the poetry of Robert Burns.

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