David Potter has written on here about the abuse that would be directed at a young Stevie Chalmers early in his Celtic career at the beginning of the 1960s when the team was struggling and hadn’t won anything since 19 October 1957 when the League Cup Final ended with the scoreline Celtic 7 Rangers 1.
Billy McNeill brought a balding Bobby Lennox back to Celtic when he replaced Jock Stein as Celtic manager and the Buzzbomb was also targeted by a small section of the support – the younger ones who didn’t really appreciate the outstanding service that the Buzzbomb had given to the club.
More recently Callum McGregor, James Forrest and Leigh Griffiths all have had times when they have been targeted for criticism by elements of the support.
Over the weekend John Barnes alleged at both Bobby Petta and Stan Petrov were booed by the Celtic support when they touched the ball. This is complete nonsense. The only Celtic player to be booed was Dedryck Boyata after he refused to play for Brendan Rodgers in Athens. Celtic lost 2-1 to be eliminated from the Champions League and Boyata was soon back in the side and had to stand up to a minority of the support at Celtic Park booing him.
However that was not something that the majority of the support accepted and they responded by cheering the Belgian World Cup star every time he touched the ball. Boyata then scored and that was that really.
Stick is something different and it’s pretty much always been there in my time watching Celtic. Samaras used to get it big time as did plenty of others – he might even have been booed when coming off the bench in a Europa League match at Celtic Park during a period of poor form from the Greek striker.
So Boyata was booed and Samaras might have been – can anyone remember for sure?
What didn’t happen was Petrov and Petta getting booed as Barnes claimed. He made all sorts of other additional comments on a podcast (as reported in the media) and on BBC Sportsound, and just seemed to be digging a bigger hole for his own reputation. How did he ever get the Celtic job? He even blamed the Celtic View staff for being biased AGAINST CELTIC!
The most telling points were that he admitted he knew he’d fail as Celtic manager after just one week in the job and that both Petrov and Petta went on to have outstanding campaigns the season after he left when a PROPER football manager arrived at Celtic.
Today the Glasgow Times has an interview with Ryan Christie’s dad Charlie. It’s only natural that any parent of a player at the games would get a bit uptight if their son was on the receiving end of stick. The only time that Christie Jnr has had that directed at him was on his social media handles after he was sent off against Livingston last season. A handful of negative posts, mostly in the heat of the moment, would have been best ignored – sending offs happen as do defeats – but Christie reacted, deleted his accounts and was all over the papers for a few days moaning about the online abuse that had come his way.
Super sensitive it seems, but as Chalmers, Lennox, Samaras, Petta and Petrov all found out, you have to have a thick skin to play for Celtic. Ryan’s dad reckons there’s a comparison to his boy’s Celtic story with Stuart Armstrong who used Celtic as a stepping stone on his way to fulfilling his ambition of playing in the English Premier League but struggled to make an impact early on and had to work to convince the support that he merited a place in the side. Surely all that is saying is standards are high at Celtic?
“I think there are huge similarities between Ryan and Stuart Armstrong,” Charlie Christie told Glasgow Times. “In terms of the way they’ve physically developed, Ryan is a completely different beast from 24 months ago, Stuart is the same. Stuart had to win the fans over and he then went and put in some incredible individual performances.
“There was a period where Stuart was a real goal scoring threat and he got his move down south and he’s had to go through it again at Southampton. He’s a very positive, likeable and clever individual and he thinks about the game. They are two very similar lads.
“I always thought Ryan was definitely a Celtic calibre player but I felt that, when he was signed, some fans wrote him off straight away which was disappointing. The fact that he comes from Inverness and the Highlands, had he been a continental signing from somewhere in Europe, he would’ve been held in higher regard immediately,” Christie Snr said.
Christie player up front for Ronny Delia in his last game in charge against Motherwell on Trophy Day 2016 and scored. He was given plenty of encouragement from the support that day then the new manager put him out on loan to Aberdeen – a move than has widely been accepted as being good for all parties. It’s hardly the fault of the Celtic support that Rodgers shipped Ryan out to Aberdeen and in that season his side went on to become Invincible Treble winners.
Quite simply Ryan Christie was not at the level at that stage in his career to force his way into the Celtic side in season 2016-17 and it would have been hard to argue with that assessment taken by manager Brendan Rodgers, given what was achieved during that campaign.
“In Scotland we don’t promote our players and game the way we should, but I felt he had the tools to be a Celtic player. He’s got that determined streak in him to say, ‘Right, I’ll prove all you buggers wrong’. It was his mindset because he knew himself he had the capabilities to kick on.
“I think he’s turned – not all of them, yet, which bugs me – but the vast majority of Celtic fans, he’s changed their opinions. They know he can do it, now they turn round and, if you pick a Celtic team from last season onward, Ryan, Callum McGregor and Odsonne Edouard would be there every day of the week. They are three, if they’re fit, who are definitely starting.”
This is quite remarkable. Christie is one of the most popular players at Celtic among the supporters but he and every other player is going to get the occasional catcall or insult hurled at them when things go wrong.
Christie eventually got his chance – only after John McGinn decided against joining his boyhood heroes because he didn’t have sufficient belief in his own ability to force his way into the Celtic midfield with players like Brown, McGregor, Ntcham and Rogic all starring for the Scottish Champions. That chance came at half-time in the usual setting of Murrayfield when Christie came off the bench and transformed a tight snuggle of a match against Hearts in the League Cup semi-final into a comfortable 3-0 win. That’s when Ryan Christie finally became a contender at Celtic and he’s never looked back since.
His dad is most proud of his boy’s performances on the European stage. “I thought in the Lazio game, Rennes and even Cluj games Ryan had really good games and I thought he really stamped his authority on Europe last season. It was great because we know Celtic have several comfortable games at Parkhead in the Premiership. European nights are different, you’re playing against a higher quality player and tactically teams are set up differently.
“For Ryan to stand out and score six or seven goals was a real step forward and great to watch.”
And Christie Snr reckons that his boy would have been in with a decent shout to win Celtic’s Player of the Year had the season not ended early with the last game being the 5-0 thrashing of St Mirren in 7 March. By that time Ryan had hit the 20 goals mark for the season having made 49 appearances.
“I think it’s between Ryan and Odsonne. I think Edouard has been tremendous, he’s top scorer and at he has the potential to be top, top notch at any level. He’s a big asset Celtic have on their hands so it’s all credit to their recruitment team for splashing out.
“But Ryan should certainly be in the reckoning. When gongs are handed out I always feel people focus on the second half of the season. That stopped mid-March and Ryan missed four weeks in January with injury, but had the season stopped after six months, I think there would be a strong case for Ryan being player of the year.
“Callum is another who is one of my favourite players and he’s another good example of someone fans might not have been convinced by, he’s gone on loan to Notts County and he’s now absolutely different class. He’s my sort of player. But the fact that Ryan is being mentioned with these players is testament to the hard work he’s put in.”
