Attitude for Tynecastle

I watched Hearts batter Pat Fenlon’s Hibs into submission at Easter Road last month.  They are not a good team but they have elbows and commitment, often the key resources in a football game.  With our interest in the League Cup and Europe curtailed, and the league title a sure thing, it is enormously important that we remain in the Scottish Cup into the New Year.

Attitude is the most important attribute for Celtic this weekend.

Things you don’t expect to do when you start blogging: I took four calls from journos yesterday asking if I knew a Celtic fan prepared to go on record as an IRA supporter!  I don’t, for the record, not one, so no one else should bother checking.  Lack of support for that organisation and, where support exists, an awareness that representing yourself as such, is not inconsequential, will explain the dearth.  Just as it’s not inconsequential when you represent your club.  I can’t see many inviting the consequences.

I also got a call yesterday and a faxed copy of a contemporary Celtic View (yes, a fax) from a fan who was beside Jock Stein when he went into the crowd at Annfield that day in 1972.  It was all very cordial, of course, no one argued with Jock.

Jock was at the height of his powers.  Five years from the European Cup win, two from his last final and four months since losing a European Cup semi-final on penalties, he had yet to lose a league as Celtic manager.  His comment in the View, “The Wreckers are chanting about things that have nothing to do with football” was respected, Celtic fans went back to football matters.  But this was 1972.  News from Ireland was despairing.  Rangers fans (and according to newspaper reports, Hearts fans) were chanting “UDA” without censure, Celtic fans eventually retorted.

This is all sooo last century, apart from the consequences, of course.

Sharp focus for Sunday…
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