‘For Peat’s Sake, Rangers had the opportunity to put it to bed,’ Strachan

FORMER Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has hit back at former SFA President George Peat regarding the row he has started this week about the title run in back in 2008.

Peat, who on his watch allowed the Ibrox club to cheat on an industrial scale through Dodgy Dave’s EBT tax scam, claimed that he had received a call from a club Chairman asking him NOT to extend the season to suit Rangers.

Peat and the blazers ignored this and the season was extended with the final fixtures taking place on the Thursday night – the league was scheduled to be completed the previous weekend.

So the know facts looking back in 2008 are as follows:

1. Rangers were involved in an illegal tax scheme and had a team made up of ‘imperfectly’ registered players.

2. The season was extended to suit the Rangers cause i.e. to help Rangers and so logically to hinder their opponents.

3. A call was made (if we take Peat at his word) from a Chairman asking him to play by the rules.

Looking back it is point 3 that still disappoints Peat after all these years.

Gordon Strachan was the Celtic manager at the time and yesterday he had his say on the events that so disappointed the former SFA President.

“I have never given it a thought and I’m still not going to give it a thought now. This is 10 years ago. Where have you been George?” Strachan asked.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know there was a debate about it at the time. I was totally focused on what we had to do. I seriously couldn’t tell you a thing about it.

“We had bigger issues on our plate at the time, like dealing with Tommy’s situation. I can honestly say I never gave Rangers’ fixtures a thought.

“It was never put to me and I never discussed it with Peter Lawwell or anyone else for 
that matter.

“Wasn’t that the season when Rangers had two games against us and they just needed to draw one of them to wrap up the title?

“We had to play them twice in the space of a couple of weeks at home knowing they only needed to take a point away from our place but we managed to beat them twice.

“They had the opportunity to put it to bed with a draw but we won the two games, with big Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink scoring a last minute winner in one of them.

“Before those two O*d F*rm games we were beaten 1-0 by Motherwell at home and no-one was mentioning extending the season at that point because I think Rangers were something like seven points ahead of us.

“I wasn’t looking at what Rangers were doing, I was too busy trying to stop the Celtic fans booing over the last eight games of the season when they were all shouting for my head.

“It wasn’t a fixture pile-up they were bothered about.

“They might have been hoping I’d be involved in a pile-up of a very different kind,” Strachan joked.

About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

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