Espanyolification complete. Ibrox fans begin to accept what they are, as Celtic now casts a dark shadow over their club

Whether you think it or not, Sunday at Celtic Park was a seminal moment in time where things changed utterly in Scottish football.

You might just look back on that day in the not too distant future and say, “I was there when that happened.”

In order to fully understand what I mean, you need to examine a few of the things that have happened, on the day, and in the aftermath of the match.

A lot of people have spoken about the atmosphere at the game against the Ibrox side.

Not in a negative way, in fact, its very much positive, but in a different way to before.

To explain this, I need to give you a comparison of sorts.

Way back in the deep, dark mists of time, I attended a Scottish Cup game against Rangers 1872 at Celtic Park.

It was a quarter final, and it was on March 6th, 1997.

Prior to this game, the last time we had beaten Rangers 1872 was at Ibrox, in August 1994.

Up to this point, for quite some time, we had been running them ragged in previous contests, but somehow, we always managed to conspire to lose games we should have won comfortably.

The League game in November 1996 of that season was a prime example of this.

“The night of the fox” will go down in infamy.

Tommy Burns admitted that Andy Goram broke his heart that night, and in reality, it was really only Goram that prevented them from losing these games.

As I alluded to in yesterday’s article, these were the dark days, but despite their darkness, we never stopped backing the team.

And in return, they never stopped trying.

In every game they played against Rangers, they gave it their all, they left everything out on the those muddy, torn up pitches of the 1990’s.

When they walked off, defeated, we applauded them wholeheartedly for their efforts.

We did not wait outside Celtic Park to berate them, or call them losers, shite, and wasters.

We knew they were the better team in these games.

At times Celtic played scintillating football in those days, it got pulses and senses roaring.

I often think if Tommy Burns had got the rub of the green more often against Rangers 1872, how different things might have been for his managerial career at Celtic.

Going through the 1995/96 season only losing a single game, and still finishing second, sort of epitomises the kind of rotten luck he experienced during his tenure as Celtic manager.

I’m rambling a bit, almost re-living those moments, so let me get back to the night of March 6th, 1997.

When I walked into Celtic Park to take my seat that night, the tension in the air was palpable.

You could almost reach out and touch it.

Weighing heavily on the shoulders of every Celtic fan was the knowledge we hadn’t beaten them in two and a half years.

And it hadn’t been for the want of trying.

Did we think that night would be the night?

Speaking for myself, I think it was ingrained in me that we just had rotten luck, and that was our lot.

But something did feel slightly different about that night.

It wasn’t a league game, it was a cup game, so the approach was going to be different anyway.

We had Van Hooijdonk, Cadete, and Di Canio available up front.

Think about that.

Van Hooijdonk was an unused sub, but I think he was left out due to his penalty miss that previous November.

The pressure seemed to get to him in those games.

The players came out of the traps like men possessed that night, driven by the hurt and the pain of previous losses against Rangers 1872.

The atmosphere was off the scale.

My ears were actually ringing.

Within the first five minutes, my voice was gone.

By the tenth, when Malky McKay opened the scoring from a Celtic corner, I was spent.

I still remember it vividly.

The only way I can describe it is to liken it to one of those scenes in a movie where the main protagonist is in close proximity to an explosion.

You get that scene after where he is stunned, he can’t hear anything, and his ears are ringing.

That’s exactly how I felt.

I was stunned, deafened, voiceless, ecstatic, and high on adrenaline, all rolled into one.

Eight minutes later, Jorge Cadete was hacked down in the box, and shockingly, Jim McCluskey pointed to the penalty spot.

Paolo di Canio made no mistake in despatching the spot kick.

He went mental afterwards, driving the crowd on, gesticulating to them with his hands to get louder and louder, and we did.

It was absolute mayhem.

And the players fed off it, but because the atmosphere was insane in the first twenty five minutes or so, I think by half-time, the whole crowd had emptied themselves.

We were emotionally exhausted.

To this day, I’ve never experienced an atmosphere as intense as that.

Never.

And while the second half was a quieter affair, and Rangers 1872 never really threatened us, the release at the final whistle was off the scale.

It was as if we had exorcised all of the demons of the previous two and a half years in those 90+ minutes.

As you can imagine, I’ve never forgotten it.

Or the celebration afterwards that night.

I only wish I was there for the 6-2 win in August 2000, because I think the atmosphere in that game was identical to the one I have just described.

Having described this atmosphere to you, I’ll fast forward to last Sunday’s game.

As I said earlier, people have spoken about Sunday’s atmosphere positively, but it was different.

I think the best way I could describe it is to say it was a party atmosphere.

I often measure a derby game by the decibel levels when we score against the Ibrox side.

When you watch those matches back, its the main thing you focus in on.

But on Sunday, I honestly don’t think the decibel levels were any different to those we experienced when we beat Hearts at home towards the end of last season.

There are obviously a couple of contributing factors to this.

The first one is that we expected to beat the Ibrox side easily, and we did exactly that.

The second, and I alluded to this in yesterday’s article, is that to us, they are now just another average Scottish Premiership side.

Which is why Sunday’s atmosphere, while brilliant in it’s own right, was a party atmosphere.

We are not playing Rangers 1872 anymore.

We haven’t done in 12 years.

Therefore, the tension, and atmosphere we experienced at those games is now a thing of the past.

Fans are not tense going into these games any more.

They don’t have pent up emotions and anxiety like we used to in the 90’s.

So therefore, you don’t get the kind of atmosphere that I described earlier in this article.

The Ibrox fans are now storing all of those emotions.

It has come full circle.

If they ever beat us in the near future, and that’s a big if right now, you will see what I mean by their reaction.

However, they do not vent their frustrations in a positive way, and we’ve seen the fallout of that over the last few days.

The complete meltdown that is now ensuing amongst their fanbase is off the scale.

The Espanyolification of the Ibrox side is now complete.

And it is complete because they accept this is now what they are.

See the below clip from one of their recent podcasts in the aftermath of Sunday’s derby:

Our Big Phil will like this @Pmacgiollabhain 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/RPCObZHShS

— JoeBhoy (@JoeBhoy16) September 2, 2024

But it is only the sane section of their fanbase that is seeing this now for what it is.

The insane section, which was on full display outside Ibrox on Sunday evening, is only getting started.

This is only going to get worse and worse for them.

We’re talking about really going back to the dark ages here.

Think of Ibrox before Dave Murray bought the club off Lawrence Marlborough?

Half empty.

With Aberdeen, Dundee United, and Celtic dominating league proceedings.

This is their reality.

This is where they are headed now.

As the old saying goes, acceptance is the first step to recovery.

Slowly, but surely, they are starting to accept what they now are.

The Espanyol of Glasgow.

With the behemoth that is Celtic, just like Barcelona, casting a deep, dark shadow over them.

But there’s one huge difference.

Celtic is built on it’s own finances.

Not other people’s money.

We will never rely on unlimited overdrafts from our friends in the bank.

We will never resort to an EBT scheme to stay ahead, let alone, keep up.

Celtic will continue to grow, and grow, as they shrink further into the shadows.

In the not too distant future, a young and ambitious board will take over at Celtic, because make no mistake, age catches up on all of us, and it will catch up with our current board.

We will remain untouchable, and Europe will then hopefully become our bread and butter.

The future is bright, the future is green and white.

Espanyolification complete…