It’s fair to say that the National Clinical Director Jason Leitch has seldom if ever delivered positive news in his regular briefings and media appearances. Hardly his fault in what must have been a stressful and difficult job for the medical professional.
He did have much better news today for everyone in Scotland who has an interest in attending football matches and that includes 60,000 Celtic Supporters who have been away from Paradise since early March 2020 when the Hoops beat St Mirren as they marched towards a nine consecutive title.
Today Leitch confirmed during his appearance on the BBC’s Sunday Show that football stadiums can return to welcoming fans at full capacity from 10 August, news that will delight Celtic CEO Dom McKay and everyone associated with the club including around 45-50,000 who have already renewed their season tickets and those on the waiting list who are about to get their chance to snap up any remaining season tickets.
Hopes of a fans return to football had been raised by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s recent announcement that all legal limits on social restrictions would be removed on 9 August but it was unclear whether this would mean a partial or a complete return of fans to grounds. Today National Clinical Director cleared up that uncertainty and for a change it was good news he was able to deliver. Asked if stadiums could be full as a result of these changes to the social restriction rules Leitch answered:
“They can from August 10th.
“But we’ve had to learn that new word, that indicative word. So we have given advice that says with a fair wind, the trajectory we’re presently on with vaccinations…remember, we’re vaccinating 300,000 people every 10 days. That’s a lot of vaccines. These six weeks buys us quite a lot of vaccine time.
“So if we can get that in and people come, then yes we hope August 9th/10th can happen.”
This means that the first scheduled match as things stand at Celtic Park will be on 21 August and it’s ironically enough against St Mirren again. At the end of that 5-0 win in March 2020 The Bhoys were up in their corner of the Jock Stein stand chanting “the cornona virus won’t stop ten in a row” – they got that one wrong but at least the end of this nightmare that has kept us away from Paradise is almost over. Delighted off the scale and he might even have a European game before that St Mirren match to look forward to at Paradise.
