Sometimes, people tell us things which are supposed to be taken as a fact. Most of the times, these things are utter rubbish.
“A watched kettle never boils.” It does, I’ve tested this theory and while it’s not the most exhilarating way to spend time, it proves that the saying is wrong.
“The customer is always right.” Anyone who has ever worked in a customer facing job will know that this isn’t true either.
“Any publicity is good publicity.” And that’s the one that I’m thinking about when writing this blog.
Recently, I have been reading a lot of screen shots of newspaper headlines and links to various media reports which are written about Celtic, none of which are particularly positive stories. This isn’t a new thing either, going back a while now, there was the famous or infamous “Thieves and Thugs” headline which turned out to be untrue.
We had another caption below a photo “Big Jock Crew”, I don’t need to say anything else about that.
More recently, we’ve had a guy who was employed by a national newspaper, all be it, on a freelance basis, implying that all ‘tims’ are ‘paedos’ so I would like to know why the club continue to allow these people back in to the club and give them access to the players and managers ?
This is only a few examples and I could come up with many more. It’s possible that anyone who disagrees with me could come up with some positive stories about Celtic which were only written to provide a feel good factor but I doubt it.
In recent months, I have been reading a lot about what needs to be done to stop Celtic getting a treble this season and how people who are affiliated with one or both of the teams who have played from Ibrox can’t handle the thought of Celtic winning ten in a row.
Why would a neutral publication care if we win a treble or if we win ten in a row ?
At the same time, there’s been a load of guff with the cardigan himself or ‘Walter’. Why on earth is he deemed someone that is going to give an insight into Scottish football ? Ultimately, he’s achieved almost nothing in football. He was a manager at a club who were found guilty of using players that they were only able to use because they breached the rules of the game. Oh and he manged a few relegation battles with Everton.
Compare our stories to the stories about Ibrox, they’re going to sell their main players for a fortune and that will allow them to gather the funds required to get “back” to the top – a place they’ve never been before.
We’re going to sell our best players because there’s no reason that they would want to stay at Celtic, they’d much rather go and play in a different league.
While Ally McCoist was the boss of both Ibrox teams, the press were very unlikely to give him anything like the treatment that players or managers/coaches of Celtic have had.
Last season, while most fans will admit that the football wasn’t up to much, look at the negativity that surrounded Ronnie Deila and compare that to what is being said and written about ‘Warbs’ over at Ibrox now. The ‘Warbs’ thing is something that I have commented on before, players or mangers who work there tend to get given a little pet name.
Clearly, some (not all) of these reporters have a strong dislike for Celtic while some of the people who run websites and do podcasts would give anything to be able to chat to the players and manager. Is it about time that Celtic stopped giving so much time to the newspapers and allowed fans access instead ?
It wasn’t so long ago that Peter Lawell had an exclusive interview with The Sun newspaper, why was that interview not conducted with Celtic TV or with the Celtic View or with some fans ?
I know that the normal counter argument to my point is that the club are contractually obliged to give interviews to the media but Rangers, or possibly Sevco, banned the BBC from Ibrox so could Celtic ban certain journalists or publications from Celtic Park?
I’m not sure if it’s true but I have read that Celtic use the Trinity Mirror group who own the Daily Record to print the Celtic View, do we need to keep them “on side”.
Could we perhaps tell reporters and their editors that they will be given no further interviews or time if they don’t stop writing such negative garbage about our club ?
Or do we allow the free press to continue to do their thing and just disagree with it when they do ? If we’re going to do that, then the club should have someone in place to counter the garbage that is written about our clubs. Or a video / transcript of the full interviews should also be published so that we can see if our players words have been twisted in any way.
