Keevins gives an honest assessment of Celtic’s visit to Ibrox, but once again fails to address the elephant in the room

For a while there, I thought that Hugh Keevins might be about to properly address the one subject that every Celtic fan wants addressed.

It seemed that for once in his article this morning, he was aiming towards a completely balanced report on last Sunday’s violence at Ibrox.

Before I go any further, though, I need to ask one question – what is the media’s fear of talking about the billy boys or the famine song?

You will note that I’m not willing to give either title capital letters, such is my disdain for both.

It seems to me that both abhorrent songs get little or no coverage in the media.

Despite the fact the singing of both is deemed to be a hate crime.

People might think that I’m beginning to sound like a broken record on this subject.

That’s fine, then that makes me the same as the broken record at Ibrox that keeps playing the same soundtrack over, and over, and over again.

The same record that nobody seems to have any interest in removing from the turntable and smashing to smithereens.

Along with “Fuck the Pope and the IRA” in the middle of Simply The Best.

There is a certain irony in continuously playing a song that celebrates the successes of a team that entered it’s death throes over 14 years ago now.

That irony is certainly not lost on the Celtic fans.

We all know what that song relates to.

We know it certainly does not relate to the current entity playing out of Ibrox.

If ever there was an apt description for that entity, its that it is a zombie club.

A zombie, by it’s very definition, is a dead and rotting corpse that has risen from the grave to wreak havoc on the living.

Everything about this club is rotten to the core.

And last Sunday was a perfect example of how it wishes to wreak havoc on everything around it.

I’ll ask you a simple question?

Was the dead club ever as vile and vicious and the current one?

Now we know that the dead club was a nasty piece of work in it’s own right, and that takes some beating.

But I think its fair to say that the current entity has thoroughly managed to supersede the dead club with it’s hatred.

It supersedes it because it is hatred driven by vengeance.

A vengeance borne out of a belief that Celtic was somehow responsible for the death of the old club.

Its always been about deflection for that club.

Its never their fault, always someone else’s.

Just as they pretty much blamed the Celtic fans for their fans’ behaviour last weekend.

Which brings me back to Keevins’ article in the Sunday Mail and the Record today.

Keevins points out that most of the Ibrox offenders arrested last week were men in their mid forties to mid fifties.

He seems to miss the point of why that is.

Men in that age group are the men who hold Celtic responsible for the death of the old club.

They carry around a level of hatred that festers in the fact they firmly believe that we are responsible for the previous entity’s demise.

They are the fathers of the next generation.

And they are bringing up the next generation to hate Celtic more than the previous one ever could have.

What you saw last weekend on the Ibrox pitch was a manifestation of everything they’ve been teaching their sons.

I’m not being sexist by not adding in daughters because I sincerely doubt there were any females on that pitch last Sunday wearing Marvel Superhero masks.

Don’t get me wrong, Hunettes in are special in their own right.

But I don’t think they’re daft enough to partake in such bollocks as we witnessed last weekend.

So, when Keevins said this:

It is not a case of: “What have we become?” It is a hatred like no other. Then. Now. Always.

He’s missing the point completely.

I’m telling you what they’ve become and why.

Yes, he’s right, its a hatred like no other, but it has morped into an ugly, putrid, zombified hatred since 2012.

And the worst thing is that it has been allowed to fester and grow unchecked.

The current generation of Ibrox fans probably doesn’t even know that singing the billy boys and the famine song is a hate crime.

Simply because nobody has ever told them it is, and nobody has been arrested for it.

In fact, I don’t think they even understand what the billy boys is about.

I posted a clip for the Trinity Tims podcast on the Read Celtic X page, where we were discussing the billy boys.

The Trinity Tims discuss the billy boys, and why its considered a hate crime… pic.twitter.com/QIPNEs5Qrq

— Read Celtic and The Trinity Tims (@ReadCeltic) March 11, 2026

Ibrox fans had plenty to say about it.

One even came on and said the song was about King William of Orange.

I found it hilarious that I actually had to explain to them that in 1690, King “Billy” couldn’t have been up to his knees in Fenian blood because the Fenians didn’t exist in 1690.

So its clear quite a lot of them don’t even know who Billy Fullerton and the billy boys were.

As I said at the outset, I thought while reading Keevins’s article, he might finally tackle that particular subject.

I should have known better.

The below statement is about as far as he would go:

The answer is ‘Yes, probably’, because sectarianism, the root cause of the trouble, is a lifestyle choice in the West of Scotland.

The way that is written leaves it open to interpretation – and the interpretation – by design, is for you to think it is an Ibrox and Celtic problem.

In fact, when you look up the definition of sectarianism on Google, you are presented with a picture of two boys, one in a Celtic kit, and one in an Ibrox kit, having a tug of war with two club scarves.

In the world of the internet, we are perceived to be the very definition of “sectarianism”.

That is then adjoined by the media’s obstinate adherence to the “O** F***” tag.

Something nearly every Celtic fan wants nothing to do with.

I’ll be doing an article on that subject later too.

The O** F*** is dead, and anybody with half a brain knows that.

It is now a term that is also zombified.

One that the Ibrox club desperately clings to because they feel it gives them relevance.

Back in Fergus McCann’s time, the Bhoys against bigotry campaign was designed to educate people properly on this subject.

It was an attempt to get kids from both sides of the divide to understand what it was all about.

Somewhere, in the midst of the death of the old club, it was seemingly lost forever.

Ibrox fans were blinded by the hatred derived from the death of their club.

The blame of which they laid firmly at our doorstep.

Maybe Sunday’s events should be the catalyst to re-education?

I wouldn’t hold my breath, though.

If the media won’t touch this, then who else would be willing to?

Our board?

Cue hysterical laughter.

I’ll leave it at that.

Choose Read Celtic as a “Preferred Source” on Google News for quick access to the news you value.