THE SILLY SEASON has started early this summer.
Those gurus of guff, those connoisseurs of claptrap, those doyens of drivel have gone onto overdrive as they continue to fire out a seemingly-endless stream of absurdities with a fair old verve and gusto.
The loudmouths hit the ground running the moment John Beaton, following a VAR review that took fewer than twenty SECONDS, unhesitatingly pointed to the spot after a clear handball offence and the iceberg in boots that is Kelechi Iheanacho nonchalantly swept in Celtic’s third and winning goal in stoppage-time against Motherwell at Fir Park.
That decision was made NINETEEN days ago.
And still the cacophonous din from imbeciles inside and outside football is reverberating far and wide.
Who knew the North Lanarkshire team had so many supporters worldwide?
Makes it fairly incomprehensible when you consider their average home league attendance is 8,025 – and I am reliably informed that is a 40% increase on the previous season.
SEEING DOUBLE…Martin O’Neill with Celtic’s 56th title.
Their loyal band are creating a bit of a clamour with their enthusiastic sabre-rattling not to mention their boisterous gum-chattering indignation over the judgement of the match officials.
Donning my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker and seeking out my trusty magnifying glass, I might just be persuaded to accept that more than a few of the senseless comments have come from irate followers of other clubs.
Possibly one across the River Clyde and another in Edinburgh (and I’m not talking about Leith)?
And what can we say about the uproar that followed Celtic’s silverware success three days after the Fir Park fiasco?
Muhammad Ali, the greatest sportsman who ever lived in the opinion of your humble scribe, once claimed he possessed “a phantom punch” that he delivered to the jaw of Sonny Liston to drop the challenger to the canvas on the evening of May 25 1965 in Lewiston, Maine, when the legend successfully defended his world heavyweight title.
It appeared to be an innocuous right-hander, but it was enough to demolish an opponent once believed to be impervious to pain. In just one minute 44 seconds of the fight, Ali made the connection with the man he labelled “the big ugly bear”.
Liston fell on his back, rolled over, attempted to rise and failed, tried again and briefly succeeded before the referee indicated he had not made the count of 10.
Even ringside observers admitted they didn’t detect the knock-out delivery that plunged the muscle-bound Liston into oblivion.
SEEING DOUBLE…Martin O’Neill with Celtic’s 43rd Scottish Cup.
Could it be some of the more unruly among the Hoops support who encroached on the pitch at the conclusion of the triumph over the Gorgie club at Parkhead have somehow perfected the art of Ali’s famous “phantom punch”?
There were accusations of those pitch invaders “punching” the defeated Hearts players, but no evidence exists of any such assaults. Odd, that, don’t you think?
In this day and age of just about everyone on the planet possessing a mobile phone with a built-in camera it seems highly implausible that no-one managed to capture an image of such violence. Not one.
Sky Sports covered the action live and none of their sophisticated state-of-the-art equipment managed to catch any such malevolent acts.
I have no intention of getting involved in a witchhunt, so I won’t identify the former Scotland international player – I’m sure you know who I’m talking about – who was among the first, if not the first, to tell BBC radio listeners that fans were “attacking Lawrence Shankland” and “two or three have punched him”.
Strange, then, that Police Scotland admit they have not received a formal complaint from the club or the player.
It’s a pity the excitable fellow with the microphone wasn’t ringside in Maine all those years ago and he could have enlightened the world’s viewing audience of how he, apparently one in many millions, detected Ali’s ghostly punch that landing with the venom of a wrecking ball that brought a mysterious early conclusion to the bout.
We could go on ad infinitum about the fall-out in the midst of the lamentable ongoing saga involving Derek McInnes’ also-rans that threatens to rival Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap for longevity.
If the hysterical backlash was intended to overshadow the fact Celtic had just won their fifth successive title, their fourteenth flag in 15 years, their twentieth championship this century and a record 56th crown in their esteemed history, then I commend them on their endeavours.
The wild-eyed detractors were successful. And the pile-on afterwards has been simply pathetic with dullards jostling for air time or space in print to spew out their nonsensical bile.
You would have thought they would have got used to losing by now, wouldn’t you?
ALEX GORDON
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