Why Celtic were never going to be allowed to celebrate this title win the way they deserve…

Three minutes. That’s how long we got before the story stopped being about football.

Saturday afternoon, Callum Osmand rolls a third goal into an empty net at Celtic Park.

Champions again.

After 38 games, after watching Hearts sit top of that table from August all the way through to the 87th minute of the final fixture, Martin O’Neill’s side finally knocked the leaders off their perch.

In our own ground.

In front of our own support.

You’d think it doesn’t get much more dramatic than that.

You would certainly think a story like that would write itself.

You’d think.

But no.

Give me a f*****g break.

By the time Callum McGregor lifted the trophy, the Stenography Corps were already drafting the next morning’s headlines.

And not one of them was about Martin O’Neill, Callum Osmand, or the small matter of a Celtic side that won its last seven League games on the bounce when it absolutely had to.

Make no mistake – this was always how it was going to play out.

Celtic simply aren’t allowed to enjoy moments like this…

Hearts didn’t waste any time releasing their statement, and the SMSM didn’t waste any time amplifying it.

Here is Hearts’ statement in all its glory.

Heart of Midlothian utterly condemns the shameful scenes at Celtic Park this afternoon which have, once again, embarrassed Scottish football. Reports of serious physical and verbal abuse towards our players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing… Given the menacing and threatening atmosphere inside the stadium, our entire staff had no alternative but to leave immediately, without undertaking post-match media duties.

– Heart of Midlothian FC

“Menacing and threatening.”

“Serious physical abuse.”

“Embarrassed Scottish football.”

Let me get this straight.

A club whose own manager spent the entire run-in claiming everybody was out to get them.

Releasing a statement within minutes of the final whistle accusing Celtic supporters of “serious physical abuse”.

Without a single piece of footage to back any of it up.

And the SMSM ran with it.

Of course they did.

Keith Jackson was up first thing on Monday morning with his “Operation Arse Covering” effort, painting Frankie Kent as “blood spattered” and Lawrence Shankland as a man under siege.

Frankie Kent.

Photographed at Tynecastle later that evening, still in his clean maroon kit, no mark on his face, no blood on his shirt.

Yet he was bloodied and battered?

But hey – perception becomes reality, doesn’t it?

Especially when the perception is being engineered in real time by a press pack that had its angle locked in before the trophy was even handed over.

The fairytale died on the home straight, and somebody had to pay for that.

For nine months, the SMSM had its fairytale teed up.

Derek “Siege Mentality” McInnes, the underdog manager.

The Gorgie men, the plucky challengers.

The neutrals’ favourite.

The team that was going to deny Glasgow’s “duopoly” – the side Scottish football deserved to see crowned.

Then the Gorgie men dropped points at Almondvale.

Onto Fir Park, and another 2 points dropped.

Then Celtic won seven on the bounce.

And then, on the final day, the team that had led the table for nine months collapsed in the 87th minute under the weight of its own siege mentality.

So what does the SMSM do??

Do they write the obituary on Hearts’ run??

Would they ask the obvious question of how a side that led from August got caught on the home straight??

Do they give Martin O’Neill and his players one solitary moment of credit for the run-in they delivered??

Of course they don’t.

Because that story doesn’t sell.

And it doesn’t fit the agenda.

So instead we get “Operation Arse Covering” – only it isn’t the SFA who need their arses covered, it’s the media.

The script was written months ago.

If the Gorgie men won the League, it was the greatest story in Scottish football history.

If Celtic won the League, then by God, something had to be wrong with how we did it.

A penalty on a Wednesday night.

A pitch invasion on a Saturday afternoon.

A statement reeking of sour grapes from a manager who couldn’t get his side over the line.

Pick a stick.

Any stick will do.

As long as the headline isn’t “Celtic – deserving champions”.

Because they can’t have that, you see.

That doesn’t fit.

That doesn’t sell papers, generate clicks, or feed the running narrative that the only way Celtic ever win anything is through some combination of refereeing assistance, fan misbehaviour, or biased authorities.

Make no mistake – that narrative is pumped out over and over and over again.

It was ever thus.

Do I wish the pitch invasion hadn’t happened? Of course I do.

I said it on Sunday, and I’ll say it again here.

The pitch invasion shouldn’t have happened.

Full stop.

But let’s be honest here – anyone who felt the emotion in that stadium when the third goal hit the net knew exactly what was coming.

This wasn’t just any title.

To a generation of Celtic supporters, this one was up there with stopping the ten in 1998.

A title won in the 87th minute of the final game.

Against a side that had led the table for nine months.

With Martin O’Neill back on the touchline.

Do you think a press pack that’s spent nine months grooming the Gorgie men as the people’s champions was ever going to give that story a fair hearing??

Really??

I’ll wait.

In 1998, when Henrik Larsson and Celtic stopped the ten-in-a-row, Celtic Park had a pitch invasion too.

Nobody wrote a sermon about “mindless thuggery” then.

Nobody invented “Operation Arse Covering” then.

And nobody, I mean nobody, was writing op-eds about “embarrassing Scottish football” then.

Because the narrative was different, and the protagonists were different.

The bottom line is this – Celtic were never going to be allowed to celebrate this title the way we deserve.

Not after nine months of being told the Gorgie men were the story Scotland needed.

Not after a season of refereeing controversies the SMSM filed away under “honest mistakes” and moved on…

And certainly not after a board that’s spent the year loading the scatter gun – as Keevins would say – and aiming it at its own support.

The story was written before the trophy was lifted.

We just had to live through the reading of it.

Sad, but true.

But here’s the thing they can never take back.

The number they can never take back.

82.

The table doesn’t lie.

Celtic are champions, the most successful club in Scottish football history, and no statement, no Keith Jackson exclusive, and no “Operation Arse Covering” by the press pack is going to change a single f*****g column of that table.

Long may it stay that way.

And then some!

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