Celtic is on the brink. The war has recommenced, it will not end until the rebels have won!

I wrote the below article on this day a year ago.

It’s funny looking back on it a year later, and reading what I was saying back then.

We were still a bit shy of Brendan Rodgers’ resignation, but we all had a feeling that things were starting to come to a head.

In reality, the mood hasn’t changed much since this time a year ago.

In fact, if anything, it’s got a lot worse.

Saturday’s attack by Dermot Desmond on the fanbase has galvanised the support to once again push for change at the club.

The vast majority of Celtic supporters are now heartily sick of the Desmond’s and the unbalanced amount of influence they have over our club.

At this point in time, there would be a mass celebration amongst the Celtic support if they sold up and left tomorrow.

We’ve had enough of them.

It now depends on what it takes for them to have had enough of us…

“The war is over, the rebels have won!”, was the famous cry from Brian Dempsey outside Celtic Park on March 4th 1994, after Fergus McCann’s takeover of the club was complete.

It is a lifetime ago now.

I was 18 years of age at the time, but I had already been supporting Celtic for ten years at that point.

I still remember it vividly today.

It doesn’t seem like a lifetime ago to me, but the reality is that its now coming up on 32 years since that famous day.

It was a time when Celtic fans were filled with hope for the future.

We knew it was going to be a long hard road, and there’s no doubting we endured the darkest of days after that, with Rangers 1872 wrapping up their 9 in a row by May of 1997.

We never gave up hope though.

Despite how bad things were throughout the 90’s, we knew from March of ’94 onwards that we were on the right path.

In reality, we began our current period of dominance just over 7 years on from that fateful day in 1994.

It didn’t take long because in the footballing world, 7 years really is a short period of time.

So much has happened between now and then, but I doubt that any of us imagined we’d find ourselves back in such a seemingly hopeless position as we find ourselves now.

In 2025, Celtic is once again on the brink.

Back in 1994, it was a group called the Celts for change who campaigned for change at Celtic.

Today, it is a group called the Celtic Fans Collective.

An organisation that the Celtic board seems to think is rudderless, toothless, and will be quite easy to manipulate and sow division amongst.

I’ve held off commenting on Monday night’s meeting at Celtic Park.

It turned out exactly as I envisioned it would.

In fact, I don’t think any of us involved in the Collective expected it to turn out any other way.

But the board extended the Olive branch, so therefore, the Collective was willing to hear them out.

That is now done.

One thing is now clear though, that Olive branch was extended under false pretences.

It was extended with deceptive intent, and designed to manipulate the Celtic Fans Collective.

The fact that it was nothing more than a vocalised version of the club statement released last month confirms there was never any intent to engage in meaningful dialogue.

Nor was there any intent to agree to any change whatsoever in the way the club operates.

It pretty much boiled down to this; this is how we’ve operated for 20 years, we aren’t going to change.

But we might decide to be a bit more communicative.

In other words, whenever you ask any questions, we’ll answer you, but never expect that the answers are going to change.

No accountability.

No contrition.

A complete inability or willingness to accept that anything is wrong.

And total and utter contempt for the fanbase.

There is no doubting that the people who attended that meeting on Monday walked away utterly frustrated.

We spoke about this last night on the Trinity Tims podcast.

I said that the worst possible thing the Collective could do now was to become completely disheartened by Monday night’s events.

Because this is exactly what the board wanted.

If that happens, then they will have achieved exactly what they set out to achieve.

They now think that they have browbeaten us into submission.

That they have erected an impenetrable wall, and the challenge to the Collective now is to breach that wall.

They are simply saying, “So, what are you going to do now, eh?”

What we do from here on out is critical to this campaign going forward.

Anger is the overriding feeling amongst the fanbase.

But anger always clouds good judgment.

The reality is that we are now the “rebels” once again.

But we don’t have a Fergus McCann or a Brian Dempsey in our midst.

God knows, I wish we did.

The board is playing on the fact the fact that we don’t.

They’re saying, “do your worst, but no matter what you do, we’ll be able to withstand it.”

But their ability to withstand is an illusion they have created.

At the end of the day, they are human.

There is only so much of this they can withstand before they cave.

The withdrawal of financial support has already begun.

They are aware of that, its most likely why they extended their deceitful Olive branch in an attempt to stem that flow.

At the end of the day, it was nothing other than a box ticking exercise from them.

In reality, they sealed their fate with that meeting.

The palpable anger amongst the fanbase is now going to result in further withdrawals of financial support.

Match protests will become more intense.

They will be designed to show this board that this campaign is not going to go away.

It is not going to go away until they are gone.

Until they have vacated Celtic Park, and handed it over to men and women who are willing to help this club realise it’s true potential.

People on my blogs keep asking me who is going replace them?

As if these grey old men were irreplaceable.

I’ve responded by saying it isn’t my job to say who will replace them.

But suffice it to say, I have no doubt that when the time comes, the right people will be chosen for the right roles at Celtic Park.

Just like they were back in 1994.

Once this campaign gathers real momentum, which I have no doubt it will from here on out, men who have Celtic’s best interests at heart will step out of the shadows.

To continue to support this board is to continue to support the decline of this mighty football club.

There is only one way this ends.

And that is with a root and branch clear out of the men currently occupying the Celtic boardroom.

We cannot, and we must not stop, until that is achieved.

No matter how long it takes.

No matter how much pain it brings.

The war has recommenced.

It will not end until the rebels have won!

YouTube: The Empire Strikes Back

You can catch last night’s Trinity Tims episode here. We had Baz from the One Celtic fans view podcast on as a guest, with some great debate and chat about Monday night’s meeting and subsequent fallout.