It’s been a long slow week for Celtic supporters with every day dragging by waiting for Sunday’s kick-off.
Gordon Strachan might not be a fan but the internet has been an incredible lifeline to football supporters worldwide with The Lost Bhoys providing a great service to Celtic supporters in various outposts and also closer to Paradise.
With the benefit of the internet our transatlantic supporters are no longer left in a time warp and are as on the ball as supporters anywhere.
Building up the passion for Sunday’s match another Joe expresses his feelings, hopes and dreams for the match, carried into action by Neil Lennon and his squad.
HE SAID: “I remember taking a bus trip from Fort Lauderdale to Tampa in 2000. Martin O’Neill had brought the team to Florida for a winter break training camp and the South Florida CSC, then stationed in Dicey Riley’s, had booked a party bus to take us all to the game against the Tampa Bay Mutiny.
We gathered in the pub from 7am on a roasting winter Friday morning. The place was buzzing. Friends among friends and new friendships formed in the five plus hours that it took our disco on wheels to get to Tampa. One guy fell through the big screen TV and landed in Stefan Klos’s penalty area during the 6-2 game.
We got to meet players, we got to see a decent draw and Carlos Valderramma running the midfield while in the twilight of his career. We drank the bar dry and lead an impromptu march from the pub to the university stadium.
We even crossed a main highway and brought traffic to standstill as we marched. I also got off with some wee Scottish bird. All in all it was a glorious day and still remains a fine memory. I’m still friends with most of the people I shared that trip with.
Why am I telling you this?
The past few weeks have been a very positive time for Celtic supporters. I’m not a man who gets to spend too much time in the company of proper Celitc supporters. My wife couldn’t give a fiddlers about football, my eldest daughter’s interest is fleeting – unless the ‘Dreamboat’ is playing – and my youngest is showing the early signs of a condition commonly known as ‘Bat Shit Crazy.’ I get plenty of time to reflect on my own personal feelings on what being a Celtic man is and in the past few weeks I’ve had much to savour.
I grew up in a terraced house on the Falls Road and I have a lot to thank my childhood for. Had I not grown up where I grew up I would possibly not have the determination or resolve to survive the tests that life has thrown at me.
I believe that my love of Celtic would not be as strong had I not had contact with the passion that flowed through the men I would see climbing off buses at the top of the Grosvener Road on a Saturday night.
Those men worked hard during the week in whatever jobs they could find and they did it so they could subsidise a love affair they had no intention of ever ending.
They fanned the flames of the fire that burnt in them with the money they earned doing jobs that most likely don’t exist today.
As a kid, seeing something like that was amazing to me. We were a simple family, we didn’t have a lot and the finance to support a football club wasn’t in the budget. But that’s one of reasons I love being a tim. It’s what you feel, not what you can give.
The past few weeks have brought a change that has long been called for. Not only have we a team that wins, but we have a team that plays with style and fights for every inch. A team that can hear the noise coming from the stands and responds in kind.
A team that has delivered us a reason for being proud. We no longer use each others shoulders as a weeping cloth. Now we cling tight to those shoulders in viscous anticipation of what delights we will be handed next.
I have many friends that don’t get my devotion to Celtic. Those people lack something in their lives that I could not live without; faith.
Not faith in a religious sense, for I’m not a religious person. But faith in the ride I climbed onto many years ago. A ride that has plunged me to the darkest depths I have shared with strangers and the most euphoric risings I’ve had the pleasure of celebrating alongside brothers and sisters.
Glasgow Celtic has grown it’s own nerve endings in all of us and not even we can put it into words. That’s part of the mystery, that’s part of why we can’t walk away. Not last year, not in the 90’s, not ever. No matter how you managed to find yourself aboard this ride, you’re on for the entire journey. No room for neutrals, no time for naysayers.
I know this blog is a bit out of the ordinary, but in the past few weeks I’ve thought long and hard about Celtic and every time I do my breast swells. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not success that feeds my pride. I’m always proud.
But when you are in the midst of what I believe is something very special, you’re faith finds itself magnified. Nothing is beyond you, nothing can deter you from positive thinking and no one can tell you that it’s ‘just a game.’
Rangers arrive on Sunday in what I believe is a big game for them. If we put mathematical distance between them and us the meeja will have a hard time spinning the figures for the benefit of Walter’s ego.
It’s a good time to be a tim. I have faith that we will look back on this year as a turning point in the history of Celtic Football Club. We can thank Neil Lennon for that. We can thank Neil Lennon for a lot. As for us, the supporters, we don’t require thanks, we do it for the love. We do it because we must.
I had the incredible experience once of getting drunk with Laurence Fishburne – The Matrix, What’s Love Got To Do With It, Boyz N the Hood etc. A great guy and a fantastic actor. I spent a few hours alone with Laurence before the sunrise shook our senses.
We spoke about life at length and got really deep. I asked Laurence why he got into acting. I was expecting him to say, ‘it’s all I know how to do.’ He looked at me and he said ‘because I have to; I have to do this.’
Before he left the pub he gave me great advice, which I’ll try and paraphrase.
‘Only get into something if you’re passionate about it. Don’t waste your time worrying about what people think of your choices. Do what feels right and do it sooner rather than later. Because the dawn of your last day is getting nearer. For all you know, it just got here.’
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Cracker letter. Hail hail