Case for the Defence

 

Case for the Defence

Any vestige of respect the Scottish Football Association had among Celtic fans is melting like April snow. The ludicrous decision to charge John Guidetti for singing a song which contains the term 'Hun' on Dutch TV is small minded, petty and just plain wrong. Those of you reading this don’t need me to explain the semantics involved in the evolution of the word ‘Hun.’ It means in the context of Scottish football, Rangers and/or their supporters and has its roots in their drunken and brutish behaviour at football matches in the 1960s. So desperate are some to drag Celtic fans into the cesspit of bigotry which surrounds Rangers like a bad smell that they have created a mock-shock campaign to rebrand the word ‘Hun.’ Not only have I had to endure a lifetime of triumphalist, bigoted filth being rammed down my throat, I am now told that actually I was the bigot all along. Sorry, I’m not buying this pathetic, revisionist nonsense.

Never in my time following Celtic has the club had a bias against any faith or race. Can Rangers say the same?

Never in all of my years following Celtic have I heard thousands singing vile songs about a given religious group. Can Rangers say the same?

Never in all my years following Celtic have I heard thousands of our fans singing a song telling the offspring of  a migrant group that ‘The famine is over, why don’t you go home.’ Can Rangers say the same?

To try and draw moral equivalence between what went on at Ibrox and Celtic Park is utterly preposterous and insulting. Similarly, the idea that the line 'the Huns are deid' is mocking a member club really is nonsense. If they did indeed die with liquidation then the current manifestation of the club isn't actually the club the song is talking about. We also hear some of those sensitive souls who follow the newco saying the Police should be investigating Guidetti. I take it they also want the thousands singing the Billy Boys and Famine song at Hampden in February investigated too? Thought not. Their hypocrisy stinks. The footballing authorities are really portraying themselves as inept once again and it really is time Celtic Football Club said ‘enough’ and took these people on. Any decent lawyer could destroy the SFA’s case against John Guidetti in 5 minutes. Celtic have sat in silence over the whole Rangers liquidation fiasco and the failure of the footballing authorities to strip Rangers of titles won when they were in flagrant breach of the rules. They said nothing when the media perpetuate the same club myth. Now though they should back Guidetti with all their might because accepting this nonsense is tacit approval of the SFA branding not only Guidetti but thousands of decent Celtic fans as bigots. This is the same SFA who did S-F-A about thousands singing the Famine Song and Billy Boys at Hampden. The same body which said and did nothing during the long dark night of Rangers 'apartheid' years.

Being of a certain vintage I recall Jock Stein signing Alfie Conn from Spurs. The former Rangers man was a thorn in Celtic’s side in the early 1970s and scored against them in the 1973 cup final. Conn was in every sense of the word a ‘Rangers man’ and yet Stein told the fans to welcome him and they did. They even had a song for him which the old Jungle would sing with gusto…

‘He used to be a Hun but he’s alright now, Alfie, Alfie

He used to be a Hun but he’s alright now, Alfie, Alfie Conn.’

That song suggests that being a ‘Hun’ isn’t necessarily a lifelong condition. A cursory five minute trawl of YouTube found fans of six other Scottish clubs calling Rangers or their fans Huns. Are Hearts, Hibs, Motherwell and Aberdeen fans bigots? Of course not, because ‘Huns’ means Rangers, nothing more. Despite the black propaganda and scramble to show the two Glasgow clubs as being two sides of the same coin, the decent majority know the truth. Celtic and their supporters have never, ever inhabited the moral sewer the worst of ‘Rapeepo’ inhabit and they never will.

There is an Arabic saying:

‘Sometime it is good to know the truth and speak the truth. Sometimes it is good to know the truth and speak about the weather.’

On this occasion it is time to speak the truth. We’ve had enough Celtic, defend your player and defend your support.