Forgive me for being a bit slow to the party. I’m a bit behind the curve as I’m still on holiday. It does mean that I get to vent whilst sitting in the sunshine though, so I’m not complaining. 

These issues though are vital, and expose an anti Celtic media pile on which has been shamelessly ignorant, deliberately inflammatory and amounted to a malign public influence campaign to have Celtic stripped of a hard won title.

This was fronted by a losing club claiming victimhood status as a deflection from their own manifest failures. However, it didn’t take much to get the anti Celtic media mob onside for a virtual lynching. 

Hearts of Mice, Spines of Amoeba

Let’s just be clear on the instigators and promoters of these scandalous slurs, deliberate deceptions and abhorrent attempts to cheat. 

Hearts chose to release an inflammatory original statement including lies and deflections such as:

• Reports of serious physical and verbal abuse towards our players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing.

• Given the menacing and threatening atmosphere inside the stadium, our entire staff had no alternative but to leave immediately

• The pitch invasion caused a chaotic end and nobody seemed to know whether or not the match had been brought to a finish.

• We expect the strongest action possible to be taken by the footballing authorities in the interests of protecting the safety of players and supporters, and the integrity of our game.

The claims of physical abuse were further embellished by Tony Bloom, who claimed one or two players were assaulted. Bloom made his money in gambling, and he was clearly betting on driving a narrative that could see Hearts benefit illegitimately by pressuring the SFA. 

This claim of course has proven to be utter nonsense. In my view it is not sufficient for the club to leave it at that. Despite the manager doing an excellent, low key job of agreeing that the events are potentially deplorable and actionable, he also made it clear there’s no evidence to support these extremely serious claims. 

The club should be seeking a public apology from Bloom for his public slander of the fans, and attempting to make a much more serious issue out of the events that transpired. 

Whimpering quickly away from  the stadium like whipped puppies with their tales between their legs, had nothing whatsoever to do with the ‘menacing and threatening’ atmosphere, or as objective observers may refer to it, a joyously celebratory atmosphere. 

It had a lot to do with their final day beating from the Champions and their inability to accept it was their recent run of dropped points, and the fact they lacked the spine and composure to take a point at Celtic park.
The epitome of sore losers. A truly pathetic way to lose your dignity. 

And the final claim that nobody knew whether the match had finished, is now exposed by the SFA audio as an outright lie. McInnes not only knew the match had finished, he asked for it to be ended to avoid further humiliation for him and his players. 

Finally, I definitely agree with that last point and would heartily endorse the football authorities taking the strongest action possible to protect the integrity of the game. 

Protect it from liars, who are prepared to destroy the integrity of the game to advance their own agenda by gaining an illicit advantage. Something we’re not unfamiliar with in Scottish football. 

Protect it from cowards, who would create a scandal and a malign, slanderous, fictional narrative, rather than face accountability from their own fans and to deflect from their own failures. 

SFA Forced to Respond

So, not content with their initial slanderous lies and accusations, Hearts then released a second statement. 

It demanded a response from the SFA in respect of points they raised about the premature end to the match. They also accused others of making highly irresponsible comments seeking to defend fans. A dig at the Celtic manager who had asked for evidence of their accusations. 

This forced the SFA to react by releasing the audio from the end of the game. This confirmed (again) that the referee had ended the game, that the Hearts manager was well aware of this, and the time had exceeded the allocated injury time. 

What forced the SFA to react was that Hearts had heard this audio privately prior to releasing their second statement. Bloom gambling, unsuccessfully again, that the SFA would stay quiet and allow Hearts their performative outrage. 

Instead they have been exposed and humiliated. 

As a club, Hearts have revealed themselves as lacking any dignity or class in defeat. They have embarrassed themselves, shown that they have neither sportsmanship nor honour, and have unmasked themselves as grasping, deceptive, manipulative and entirely untrustworthy. 

Succulent Stenographers

The shamelessly compliant media, notorious consumers of anti Celtic succulent lamb, were fully on board the bashing Celtic bus as soon as their favoured winners bottled it and embarrassed them by making a nonsense of their predictions. 

My friend https://philmacgiollabhain.ie a journalist and novelist, refers to the Scottish media as stenographers rather than journalists. Paid to transcribe words into text, not to do the job of a ‘journalist’ and investigate or verify. In fact in the decade and a half or so since Phil first coined that phrase, things have only gotten much worse. 

Budgets have been slashed as print journalism dies, and what is left are a rump of literary and audio shock jocks who are happy to jump on and exacerbate any perceived outrage or grievance, as these are the primary drivers of content engagement on mainstream platforms.

For fan media we find that writing and speaking positively & passionately about the club can also engage a big audience, and we don’t have to pretend to be objective, not that many of the SMSM adhere to that bothersome principle anymore. 

The difference is that the SMSM have far superior access and insider friends who want to them to deliver a message, manipulate opinion or brief against an adversary. 

When they don’t have that advantage, you’re left with passionless scribes, desperate to justify their continued existence, displaying an ignorance of the subject matter that is unintentionally infuriating even before they render a ludicrous opinion. This is why they are being supplanted by the many excellent fan media contributors, who are uniformly more insightful and knowledgeable.

The ‘contribution’ of wage stealing, self hating shills, such as the BBC’s chief sport’s writer, have been biased to the point that they cannot now ever be considered credible. Although that Rubicon was crossed many moons ago. 

Even now, in the face of their week of conspiracy theories and assorted lies having imploded, they are still trying to protect the shreds of their reputations by means of whatabouttery, deflection and gaslighting. 

Still Not Paranoid Enough

Those with an ounce of shame will move quickly onto tomorrow’s game and simply pretend they didn’t get it completely wrong. The more brazen and shameless continue to double down, and rely on our fury to keep themselves relevant. 

When you are thinking of responding to them directly, please don’t. They are taunting the fanbase with nonsense to create that reaction. Block them and use fan media to say your piece. Most fan podcasts and blogs now have wider viewership and readership than these soon to be redundant purveyors of putrid propaganda. 

What has been made abundantly clear these last few days is that the anti Celtic agenda runs deep and is fuelled with bigotry, envy and hatred. 

All it takes is an opportunity and they will see us torn down if they can. They wanted us stripped of this title from the minute their Hearts fairytale imploded and we won 56. A glorious ending for Celtic puts paid to a summer’s worth of ‘the balance of power has shifted irrevocably’. 

Just think of all those lurid, provocative headlines they will never get to write! 

We must never give them an opportunity again, either by proximity or behaviour, but when attacked unjustly we must continue to defend ourselves robustly. 

The manager for one has done so, and now the narrative has turned against its instigators and propagandists, largely because we have the truth on our side. 

Tomorrow we get to make them all squirm if we can deliver a double. 

I have full confidence in Martin’s team to do just that, and I look forward to the celebrations. 

Enjoy your double day.

Mon the Hoops!