Chase is on from St Johnstone, data driven policy

Admit it, you smiled when you heard “St Johnstone are now the second most successful Scottish football club over the last decade” on the news last night.  The most trophy-laden period any single club has enjoyed in Scottish football history is over.  It saw Celtic win their fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh domestic treble.

Due to the peculiarities of 2020, we knew the run would end when Ross County eliminated us from the 2020-21 League Cup competition St Johnstone won yesterday, three weeks before facing Hearts in the 2019-20 Scottish Cup Final and winning our 12th successive Scottish trophy.  If you live for another 100 years, you are very unlikely to enjoy (or endure) watching any club match this record.

We deserved every one of those 12 trophies, just as we deserved to drop out of the League Cup and League challenge early this season, the latter could officially be over within six days.  The Scottish Cup is our only hope of silverware this season, although there is every chance the latter stages may be postponed until after the summer.

John Kennedy’s win in his first game in charge together with Motherwell’s win at Easter Road killed off any chance in-form Hibs had of catching Celtic in second place.

“Policy is being driven by the data”, a recurring theme you are being told by politicians and public health officials.  Hmmmm.  We are now in a situation when politicians, backed up by our National Clinical Director, tell this disease was eliminated in Scotland in the summer.  To back his political sponsor, Professor Jason Leitch claimed there was no deaths for an entire month (there were 24, a remarkably low figure considering where we were before and have been after).

At that time (different from now), Celtic ran consultations with fans about safely returning to stadiums.  The club invested in temperature scanning equipment and distances processes to no avail.  It seems the data was not driving policy.  It remains to be seen what data drove the crackdown on Celtic that saw 13 players side-lined in January.

St Mary’s in Calton, the church where Celtic were born, are taking the Government to court on the very issue (you can support their case here).  Like Celtic in the summer, churches are curious about the data informing the decision to close churches in Scotland while they remain open in England and Wales.