The Crimes Against The People – From Boruc blessing himself to Broony over-celebrating

SCOTT BROWN raised his arms in celebration at the final whistle on Sunday and turning to face the 800 visiting supporters he showed them 8 fingers, signalling to them that Celtic had just secured eight in a row with the 2-1 win over the Rangers that has pushed Celtic 13 points clear of the Ibrox side.

For Brown it was also pay-back for the abuse he suffered at Ibrox on 29 December with their players and fans taking particular delight in rubbing in their 1-0 win over Celtic – their first ever league win in a Glasgow Derby.

That of course took them level on points at the top of the table although Celtic did have a game in hand. There was unquestionably a title race on as the sides went away for the winter break. Since then Celtic have dropped two points against Aberdeen and won the rest of their games and the Rangers have been consistently inconsistent, dropping points to the likes of St Johnstone, Dundee, Kilmarnock – twice , Hibs and of course Celtic. They have not won in their last five games, hardly the form of title contenders.

So Broony celebrated, big deal. Callum McGregor, who was speaking to the media to promote the summer festival that Celtic are staging, cannot understand what all the fuss is about regarding his captain celebrating an important victory.

“There’s been a lot said about it, but as a football player, and especially playing in a Celtic v Rangers game, you are entitled to celebrate,” Callum said.

“I don’t think anything was over the top.

“John Kennedy mentioned the other day that the game actually finished over in that corner. Nobody ran to anywhere else in the stadium.

“I think if you look back at the December game, Rangers deserved to win it and they celebrated on the pitch just as much as we did on Sunday. But the difference is we took it. We just put our heads down, we took our medicine and we got up the tunnel.

“So in terms of that, the conduct of the Rangers players maybe was not great. But you can’t tell players that they can’t celebrate big victories. That’s part of football.

“Rangers deserved to win on the day back in December. They were the better team. We accepted that and we are not going to shout about it and make noise and try and deflect from the actual result. We took it on the chin. We were not great on the day.

“On the flip side, we deserved to win the game on Sunday, so we celebrated that.

“That’s up to Rangers, the way they want to conduct themselves. We always try and do it with humility.”

Social media has been full of images of players celebrating towards opposing fans – including Steven Gerrard, Lafferty when scoring for Hearts and many more. Yet it is only a problem when Scott Brown does it.

The Celtic captain, who was assaulted twice in the match, was also reported to the Fiscal but Police Scotland for alleged goading offences – only in Scottish football. File this beside a footballer getting cautioned by Police for blessing himself at Ibrox as a Breach of the Peace, because it so enraged 40,000 bigots.

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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