Like him or loathe him, Peter Lawwell didn’t deserve yesterday’s abuse

I mentioned briefly in my last article about the video most of us will have seen by now where Peter Lawwell was confronted by a group of fans outside The SMISA Stadium, either before or after yesterday’s 3-0 win against St Mirren. Since then there has been plenty of discussion amongst Celtic supporters regarding whether the abuse he received was warranted, with many fans believing it was, while others found the whole episode embarrassing.

I have to say when I watched it the first thing I did was cringe. I thought it was hugely embarrassing and shouldn’t be celebrated or laughed at by any Celtic fans.

Now I know many will disagree with me but I’ll tell you why I reacted like that. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that this reminds me of something you would see happening at theRangers.

Confronting the chairman of our club in public and calling him a rude insult is honestly like something we would add to our ‘banter years’ collection if it was happening across the city. You only have to quickly check any of their forums to see the glee that they have got out of that video. Their club is in the absolute doldrums yet a simple video like this has left them giddy at the thought of conflict between our fans and the men who run our club.

Now firstly I want to put out there that I’m no supporter of Peter Lawwell. In fact I actually don’t have a clear opinion on the man as I don’t know him. Most base their opinion on him on the fact that over the years he’s been the man with his hand on the tiller at Celtic Park and most of us fans have been frustrated that during that time Celtic have failed to speculate to accumulate.

We have been the dominant club in Scotland but never really pushed the boat out to get to that next level and of course this has led to some bitterness between our fan base and the man we all believe is responsible for hoarding our money.

I have spoke in my previous articles about the fact that I think we are in a difficult position with regards to recruitment in the fact that we are a huge club with massive appeal but we are stuck in an unattractive league, whether we like it or not. Yes we have money to spend (and I still believe that we will) but we will never go gung-ho in pursuit of reaching that next level.

I believe the reason why is because although everything is unbelievably positive at the minute with regard to our finances, things can change quickly, especially due to the league we play in. We are no longer guaranteed direct entry after this season to the Champions League so that huge bounty every season isn’t guaranteed.

Then we have that basket case of a club across the city who seemingly bounce from one financial crisis to the next. I genuinely believe our club looks at them and feels like they could implode once again at any moment. Where then does that leave us? No matter what we think of them, most interest in our league revolves around the now extinct ‘Old Firm’ idea.

The rivalry between the two clubs is what brings eyes to our game outwith Scotland, and as we know from the last time, if they die once again it also hits us in the pocket, as hard as it is for us to admit.

Peter Lawwell, like him or loathe him, has been at the club for over twenty years and during that time we have absolutely dominated Scottish football. We have never had a period of success like it and for all we can moan about being miserly, we have done enough to continually hoover up an incredible amount of silverware over the years under his stewardship.

That video I saw yesterday just didn’t coincide with the reality of where our club is currently at. Again I will say it, yes we are all frustrated we haven’t done more business this summer but now isn’t the time to be unravelling over this. If this time next week we still haven’t brought anyone in I’ll be fuming myself but give the club time to do it’s business. We all know most of the action takes place in the last week.

As I touched on earlier, I feel like the reaction from those handful of fans yesterday just didn’t match where we are at the moment. It’s like something you would have seen had we lost our first three matches of the season. Instead we have won our first three league games convincingly and also progressed in the league cup. Our team looks to have come on leaps and bounds compared to how we looked this time last season. We have a Champions League draw to look forward to later this week. Why are we letting this transfer stuff bring a negative vibe around the club?

As I said, judge them come the weekend when the transfer window is slammed shut. Until then Keep The Faith and remember things could be a lot worse. Just look across the city for a prime example.

Conall McGinty