Serial sore losers, cheaters and liars. This is what differentiates Celtic from the Ibrox side, we are none of the above

If you had the misfortune to be a young man in his teens and his early twenties during the 90’s, and a Celtic supporter, then you will understand the pain of consistently losing to your arch rivals.

It was a decade of extreme lows for Celtic supporters.

With the exception of the 1997/98 season.

Stopping the ten for Celtic was the ultimate high in a decade of lows.

But my abiding memory of that decade was consistently losing to Rangers 1872.

It was a regular occurrence.

What was so much harder to take was when we performed really well, but still came away with nothing.

November ’96, the night of the Fox, is one that really sticks in my mind.

Look at it on Youtube if you haven’t and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

YouTube: Celtic 0 – Rangers 1 – Nov 1996 – Laudrup Outfoxes Rivals

In those days, nobody ever spoke about a gap.

Because unlike those across the city now, we were realists and we understood that to compete with Rangers 1872, we needed to spend millions that we just didn’t have at that time.

What we did have, was a new stadium still under construction, and a huge amount of finance was going into that.

Being young and naïve, I couldn’t see the broader picture at the time, and what it would lead to today.

Instead, I just saw us being serial losers to Rangers 1872 as they romped to 9 in a row.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but even then, I understood we didn’t have the finances they did.

Little did I know, it was all because David Murray had the support of a bank which provided him with a limitless overdraft.

Even then, other people’s money was what sustained them.

Murray was obsessed with toppling every record we had set.

But he fell at the last hurdle with the ten and he never really came near the European Cup, despite the story they tell about nearly making the final.

Ultimately, his obsession killed his club and there really is a certain irony in that.

Last Saturday’s result has shown us what sore losers the Ibrox side are.

They cannot handle defeat against us and they can never lose with grace.

In the 90’s, I can never recall us being sore losers.

We knew we always gave it our best shot and most of the time, we felt extremely sorry for Tommy Burns, because his sides played a beautiful brand of attacking football, which deserved so much more than it got.

The 3-1 loss in January 1997 was a particularly hard one to stomach, especially for that offside decision against Jorge Cadete.

YouTube: Rangers 3 – Celtic 1 – January 1997

Everybody knew it wasn’t offside, but then everybody knew afterward that the Linesman was an Ibrox supporter.

The bias that we speak about today, was blatantly prevalent back then, and there was no internet and no bloggers to call it out.

We had to just suck it up for the majority of that decade.

I won’t even go into the infamous “Shame game” in May 1999.

Today, the old saying, what goes around, comes around, really comes to mind.

Watching the Ibrox side lose the way they did on Saturday reminded me of us in the 90’s.

They are now going through that exact same feeling.

They are experiencing the pain we went through during that decade.

It gives me a certain sense of satisfaction to watch that, as I’m sure it does many others of my generation.

Many of us bloggers are from that generation, so we have an acute understanding of it.

The difference is, though, that at that time, while we endured that pain, we were building something.

We were laying the foundations for Celtic to become the powerhouse that it is today.

Rangers 1872, on the other hand, were lying, cheating and spending their way to oblivion.

I never, in a million years, imagined that an even more hateful institution could rise from the ashes of the old club.

But it has and with it, came all the hatred, bigotry, sectarianism, and supremacist behaviours multiplied by ten.

The aftermath of Saturday has shown what a vile and warped club and support it is.

Kevin Clancy has been subjected to threats after someone managed to post his personal details online.

The peepul are trying to make comparisons to us complaining about John Beaton a few years back, after he was spotted fraternising with Ibrox supporters at a well known watering hole of theirs.

The reason for the threats?

Clancy was caught on camera smiling while walking out of Celtic Park.

The audacity of it!

And of course, he went to a Catholic school.

The ultimate offence from any referee.

They just cannot look in the mirror.

They just cannot accept that they’re shite and I make no bones about saying that.

They are shite.

On Saturday, we were far from our best, yet they still could not beat us.

Did we ride our luck at times?

Yes, we did.

Did we get away with one when Morelos’ goal was disallowed?

That’s open to debate, let’s just call it their Cadete moment, as I’m sure they’ll never forget it.

But this is our time.

The old club rode it’s luck so many times against us back in the 90’s.

They played absolute tripe and then just sucker punched us on the counter.

Now they’re getting a real taste of how that felt.

They don’t like it and they’re lashing out in the only way they know how.

It’s all coming full circle.

But what differentiates us from them is this, when we lost to them, we lost with dignity.

For a club that supposedly prides itself on dignity, they really need to learn the meaning of it.

Don’t expect it to happen any time soon.

In the meantime, we’ll just go from strength to strength under Ange Postecoglu.

In the last decade, we had the chance to keep them down, but we didn’t.

It doesn’t look like we’ll make the same mistake in this decade.

Financially, they’re in trouble as well.

They’re in for a prolonged period of pain.

Whether they survive it remains to be seen.

Third Rangers anyone?