What Brian Wilson said in his political, watered down ‘apology’

Apparently Brian Wilson issued an apology, a correction at yesterday’s Celtic AGM.

Last month the non-executive Celtic director provided the Guardian with an obituary to Walter Smith. Rather than cover his life events Wilson decided to use the occasion to promote the Continuity Lie, feeding the paranoia of Rangers fans in denial about their club going into liquidation following administration in 2012.

Wilson, who had a ring-side view of events at that time claimed that the old club was demoted for going into administration. They weren’t, they had 10 points deducted from their SPL total. Failing to get Her Majesty to agree to a CVA in June 2012 the club went into liquidation, never to be seen again. Dead, just like Gretna and Third Lanark.

In the original Smith obituary Wilson claimed:

However, by this time, the club was caught up in a bewildering series of intrigues and takeovers as well as having been punished with demotion, in 2012, for having gone into administration. Smith was a man of great probity and not even his loyalty to Rangers or to his friend Ally McCoist, who had taken on the role of manager, could persuade him to stay in an Ibrox environment he did not recognise.

This now appears as:

He retired in 2011 as Rangers’ financial troubles started to manifest themselves, returning as a non-executive director the following year and then, briefly, as chair in 2013.

He didn’t return, he became a non-executive director of the new club formed by Charles Green in 2012. The club that was given a helping hand into the Scottish Football League ahead of audited clubs in the Lowland League and Highland League.

Wilson could have commented on Smith wishing the new club formed by Green every success. Wilson chose not to.

The club that played in the 2012/13 SFL Challenge Cup, and started out in the first round of the League Cup and Scottish Cup.

Yesterday, choosing his words just as carefully as he did in the original obituary, Wilson told the Celtic AGM:

The answer to the question is I would like to respond to that because it is something that troubles me.  It was an error on my part, I apologised for it. And I corrected it immediately it was drawn to my attention.

In my mitigation I can say it was an obituary I was writing. I have been writing obituaries for a long time in the Guardian. Nothing to do with Celtic, my Celtic role. I was asked at short notice to write one for Walter Smith.

No matter who I am writing about my focus is to do a respectful and fair obituary of the man or the woman I am writing about. The audience I am particularly concerned about is those who are most closely bereaved by the loss. I tried to put it in context, summarise in a very limited number of words.

On this occasion I simply got something wrong, I don’t know why I did but I did. I corrected it, I apologise and all I can say is it was an obituary I was writing, not any type of statement.

I am very well aware of the legality of the issues you are referring to. I have apologised before, I apologise again, I can say no more on that.

There was no correction for the claim about demotion, instead the troubled years of 2011 to 2013 were glossed over, pretending that Smith ‘returned’ to the same club.

With his initial error in his tribute to Smith and watered down ‘apology’ Wilson has demonstrated why a Unionist Labour politician is of no use to Celtic in 2021, he is of course perfectly entitled to share his fantasies with readers of The Scotsman and The Guardian while they still maintain a readership.