The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Year has officially started. Celebrity Celtic fan Sir Rod Stewart feels that she has been “a wonderful example of how to conduct yourself with integrity and grace”, and says that we should all “look forward to acknowledging her magnificent service!” Many supporters take a different view to that of the man whose version of Grace is played at Paradise. Indeed, for most Celts this year marks the 69th anniversary of the club’s Coronation Cup triumph… and there’s a fitting song for the occasion.

The Coronation Cup Song celebrates a great triumph in Celtic’s history – being crowned champions of Britain for the third time, having won the British League Cup (1902) and Empire Exhibition Cup (1938). It was as much a triumph on the park as it was over imperialism, and one of symbolic irony at that.

The political and cultural identity of the majority of the Celtic support is most certainly at odds with the monarchy. Although, Sir Rod managed to overlook this fact by recording the beautiful Irish ballad ‘Grace’, about Joseph Plunkett and his wife. Plunkett was of course executed for his lead role in the Easter Rising, when volunteers proclaimed an Irish Republic based on equality. For those unaware, a republic is a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

The Coronation Cup Song is a fitting Celtic anthem to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, as Sir Rod wishes. It would be great if he could record a version of it. After all, it was an event to mark the crowning of Her Majesty The Queen.