‘Yer club’s deed mate, beat it!’ All Christie needed was a Griff style retort to the Troll

RYAN CHRISTIE is in the papers this morning talking about quitting Twitter for good after his sending off at Livingston last Sunday. He apparently received some stick on Twitter from ‘so-called Celtic Supporters’ and de-activated his account.

Let’s review this shall we? The sending off was not something anyone really blamed Christie for, the player he lunged at, the Livi manager, Neil Lennon, the Celtic Supporters at the game, no-one really. It was a mistimed challenge. There was no malice. Collum got the decision right (only his enthusiasm for the task was highlighted, no-one said he got it wrong) and then there was ONE tweet that anyone has been able to find – that is clearly a fake Celtic supporter account, a ‘Thimposter’ as the expression goes, who sent a tweet to the Celtic player, criticising him for the challenge and for costing Celtic the game.

Christie is very well paid. Better players than him have worn the Hoops and were not as well rewarded, the midfielders who played in Lisbon like Bertie Auld and Bobby Murdoch for example. They perhaps didn’t have to put up with ONE rogue tweet after putting in a tough tackle – and if they had Bertie would have had his answer ready – and they certainly wouldn’t have got their dad to go on the radio to have a go at the trolls, or unless there are others that we missed, the troll.

Scotland got pumped 4-0 in Russia, our fourth successive defeat as a nation. Christie came off the bench and actually had our one and only shot at their goal. Ahead of the bottom of the table clash with San Marino on Sunday we’re hearing from Christie again today and he’s talking about the nasty stuff directed at him on Twitter last Sunday.

From one account who is generally accepted not a Celtic supporter at all.

Twitter provide the option to mute or block. It takes one second to do. That social media platform is far from being perfect. But as far as Ryan Christie is concerned he’s had very little to concern himself about from what the Celtic support say about him. It’s 99.999% positive, he’s the front runner for the Player of the Year awards after an excellent start to the season and at the games I’ve never heard anyone criticise him or get on his case. Maybe they’re worried that his dad is watching?

Come on Ryan, give it a rest. You made ONE late tackle, you got a red card, you are going to miss a few games, someone else will play in your position, maybe Olivier Ntcham or even Tom Rogic, then things will go back to normal for you.

Plenty of players have had stick from the support. James Forrest is one who has had to come through less than positive vibes from sections of our support for significant periods. It’s always been that way, even some of the aforementioned Lisbon Lions had to take it at certain points in their career. I remember Bobby Lennox, at the end of his time in the Hoops, when the hair was receding, taking severe stick from the support. Bobby Lennox!

Ryan also had an issue with the Aberdeen support before he went to play for them on loan from Celtic after an earlier ‘sheep worrying’ tweet he had made came to light. To their credit the Dons fans saw the funny side of it all and Christie became a hugely popular player in his season and a half playing for Derek McInnes’ side. He did NOT receive any abuse from the Aberdeen fans on Twitter, even when they had a reason to ‘get even’ with him for his own earlier tweet insulting them.

So maybe Twitter isn’t all that bad after all Ryan. If it’s not for you that’s fine but a little perspective please is required. Have you noticed that the online versions of the papers have NOT embedded the offending tweets directed at Christie? They usually gleefully do that in these circumstances. not on this occasion tough? You can be pretty sure that they looked.

If there are other nasty messages directed at Christie last weekend we couldn’t find them. Yet the media are claiming that Christie was “Twitter’Public Enemy Number One” last weekend. They show the embedded deleted account that belonged to Ryan Christie but there’s none of the nasty tweets to go alongside it.

One of the things that really annoys me is when the clickbait sites grab a handful of posts after a Celtic game to trash a player, even after a win. Jack Hendry got it regularly. Lustig’s legs were always gone. Forrest, Armstrong, Roberts (after THAT miss), Bitton, Griffiths, often Broony, various goalkeepers including de Vries all would get this treatment and these negative articles would be seen at the Top Stories (most read) on the news aggregator sites. The click-bait sites know it works, it’s a well established formula that only alters if Celtic fans stop reading, which they won’t.

There is even some evidence that these clickbait sites have some of their own fake twitter handles so that they can set their own agendas and jump on the bandwagon of a poor performer or a player involved in a controversial incident. The next time you see this, check the accounts that are quoted and you’ll see that they have 13 followers or something like that – like the fake Celtic account that attacked Christie last weekend.

Incidentally the MSM are actually quoting Celtic fans from Twitter who are critising the other so-called Celtic fans who allegedly abused Christie after his red at Livingston, yet do NOT quote the criticism itself. Come on!

Here’s what Ryan Christie has been saying about his decision to leave Twitter for good.

“There was a good side and a bad side to the international break coming up after last weekend. At one point after being sent off, I just wanted to bury my head in the sand,” Christie told the media after Scotland’s thrashing in Moscow, as reported by Scottish Sun.

“But then, it was also nice that the suspension didn’t count for the Scotland games and I could get a chance to bounce back.

“As my club gaffer has already said, that’s the most important thing at a time like this — how you bounce back and how you learn from it. You need to find the line between controlled aggression and going over the top.

“Hopefully I will, but I’m over what happened now and it helped getting back on to the park in Russia, even though the result wasn’t what we wanted.

“As for the other side of it, the social media, for me I think it’s best just to call it a day.

“I don’t have the Twitter app, but even if you are not on it there’s still a kind of word of mouth thing. Your friends and other people can’t help but show what this person and that person has said.

“If you’re looking at it at all, it’s basically impossible to stay away from the negative stuff. It always gets back to you.

“Sites like Instagram are better in a way because you can set it so you can’t really see these sorts of things, but Twitter’s hard. As soon as someone mentions you, it’s straight onto your timeline and everyone’s into it.

“At the end of the day, I’ve realised it’s maybe just a platform for people to come at you and the quicker you get rid of it the better.”

In the circumstances, Christie’s decision to remove himself from Twitter is probably correct, but hopefully one or two of the other players – Broony or Griff for example – will point out to him that last week’s Troll was no Celtic fan. Griff famously told one of them, ‘Yer club’s deed mate, beat it!”

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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