THAT was an emotional week for the Celtic Family and on Saturday Cesar provided us with a never to be forgotten afternoon when 60,000 members of his extended Celtic Family gathered to pay our respects to our Greatest Ever captain.
We are running two Polls on The Celtic Star and hopefully you will cast your votes on these – the first asks should the North Stand be renamed The Billy Mcneill Stand, the Hail Cesar Stand or should remain as The North Stand while the second poll asks should the No.5 jersey be retired.
The results so far are pretty conclusive and this morning we asked Celtic’s SLO John Paul Taylor to have a look at this and pass on the results to the club. Voting only opened yesterday evening so please add your votes today.
Here’s where to vote on re-naming the North Stand…
Loading ...And vote here on whether the No.5 jersey should be retired…
Loading ...Yesterday Hearts fans disrespected the Minutes Applause for Billy McNeill by chanting ‘The Lisbon Lions won’t see Ten in a Row’ throughout the sixty seconds. Earlier in the season they did something similar at Fir Park when the Motherwell fans asked them to join in an applause for a young supporter who had lost lis life.
This should give Celtic added inspiration for BOTH games against Hearts next month – the final league game of the season and then the Scottish Cup Final.
Later at Ibrox, there was also a Minute of Applause for Billy McNeill and as the television cameras focused on the the scenes around the stadium it was clear that while there was no offensive chanting, not all supporters joined in the applause, preferring to abstain from the tribute. It has to be noted that this was mostly Rangers supporters – they had 95% of the crowd – but there were even a few Aberdeen fans who weren’t applauding, despite Billy McNeill being a former Aberdeen manager.
Little or nothing was made of this yet had it been an interrupted silence by some idiots then it would have sparked headlines. In November Celtic fans have to face the Poppy Silence Test every year. Not any more.
The 100th Anniversary for the ending of the Great War has passed and Celtic should now insist on applause and not silence for any future Remembrance Day tributes. This weekend allowed those who wanted to pay their respects to do so by applauding. Those who didn’t feel that they wished to do so were allowed to abstain by deciding to keep there hands apart and while their reasons may be dark they did not become a news story.
Only the evilness of the section of that horrible Hearts support did and the Edinburgh Evening News has picked up on this and is condemning them – see HERE.
@Meishas_mammy: “Hearts fans showing their sheer lack of class there.”
@CiaranHeadridge: “Hearts fans singing over the minutes applause for a Celtic and Scottish legend, Billy McNeill. Absolutely disgusting football club.”
@Jordan_Scott_17: “Disgusting from some Hearts fans singing and not taking part in the minutes applause for Billy McNeill”.
Hibs fans did participate in the applause and roundly booed the visiting Hearts support at Easter Road yesterday.
So let’s have no more silences, only applause, especially in November.
