It nearly two years ago come Boxing Day when I found myself at Pittodrie with tickets for the Aberdeen end. Celtic won the game, which made life sweet of course, but I was also agreeably surprised at the lack of bigotry and ignorance in the Dick Donald Stand.
All right, there was a little agricultural stuff about “durty Glesca bar stewards” now and again, but most supporters were very quiet, dignified and one or two like me weren’t really Aberdeen supporters at all, and gave the game away now and again by knowing the names of all the Celtic players.
But one comment I will treasure from a man with a red scarf and an Aberdonian accent as broad as the North Sea. He said “Ah’m nae a Celtic fan bit ah fair like the way that Celtic play their football”
This was a comment I will treasure and it has come back to me several times of late. Since Scottish football re-started, I think I have watched about 80 or 90% of it. It has not been great. There has been a paucity of good football and a serious shortage of goals from everyone, including we would have to say, Celtic.
Now of course, it is still early days in the season, and I am prepared to go some of the way down the road that blames everything on no crowds and no atmosphere. We all want that to change of course – and it will soon – but in the meantime, the players must make the best of it. Surely they are used to it? Training games have no atmosphere either and all players must have played at some time in their life for a junior or a school team in front of two men and a dog, did they not?
It is why Celtic must rise to the challenge. We have been telling the world how good they are, quite a few people like my Aberdeen friend reluctantly accept that this can be the case, but we are simply not yet showing it. We have superb players, but they can only really be superb players when they score goals and win games.
Some games, like the St Johnstone v Hibs game, for example, or the Hibs v Motherwell game last week, gave the impression that the players were frightened to try to win the game, that they were frightened to score, even that they weren’t happy to be playing, so timid and half-hearted did they appear to be. There was a total lack of flair and cleverness. The only way anyone was likely to score was through a penalty.
Enter Celtic. Let’s have some defence-splitting passes, some fast attacking football with wingers dashing down the wing and crossing for waiting forwards to head for goal or to smash the ball past defenders and goalkeepers.
Let’s play the game at speed from the start, let’s make everyone sit up and take notice. We do have the players to do this. Let us entertain!
Yes, maybe I am becoming just a little too nostalgic for the old days of Lennox and Auld and McBride and Johnstone and Deans, but for goodness sake let’s try to show the world what a Celtic jersey means. I hate these depression attacks I get when I have to watch inferior football!
We have all had a bad summer. We need something to cheer us up. We look to the green and whites to do just that.
David Potter
