Five months after its first appearance the mask is back in pre-season training.
Back in the depths of January Callum McGregor suffered a serious looking facial injury during the Scottish Cup tie against Alloa. Yosuke Ideguchi was also on the receiving end in that match.
The captain missed Celtic’s next two matches, away to Hearts followed by a home win over Dundee United then something unexpected happened.
CLICK HERE for Celtic’s training pictures on Twitter
Facing a Glasgow derby that offered Celtic the chance to go to the top of the SPFL Premiership, McGregor turned up wearing a protective mask as Ange Postecoglou’s side stormed to a 3-0 victory. Once in front there was no stopping the relentless Celts as they followed that up with a win at Ibrox on route to reclaiming the SPFL trophy.
The mask remained. Last month it briefly gave Scotland hope against Ukraine before Scotland crashed out of the World Cup on a 3-1 defeat.
Clearly the facial injury has long term consequences, five months on McGregor still requires protection from that brutal night at Alloa.
Ibrox noise and FF giving it Ronaldo please come home.
Looking back to that game against Alloa where both Gucci and MacGregor were badly injured, it really highlighted a never-ending jealousy and bigotry from Barry Ferguson. It also typified the hun mentality instilled into them.
Ferguson even admitted that he sent his Alloa players out to “leave marks” (his own words).
How embarrassing for the SFA and SPFL to ignore these remarks and the attempted career-ending tackles, just be ause they all think the same way!
Regardless of old club or tribute act, the envy of never being able to catch the lions they’ve chased since 1967 is only becoming worse.
One thing they can hang their hat on is that they will NEVER catch those lions! They never were and never will be the top club in Scotland.
The real problem of course is that this anti-Celtic, anti-Catholic mentality is fully endorsed by the SFA and SPFL as well as the Scottish government.
Joe,
I honestly don’t think the Scot Gov endorse it per se, I think they are just terrified to face it head on as is needed.
It’s not just a ‘football’ or ‘West of Scotland’ thing as many, the conflicted SMSM especially, use as a deflection to the scale of the problem.
It’s a problem within Scottish Society at all levels. As such the scale of the effort needed to change these attitudes is enormous and generational. It requires input through the Education sector, strict enforcement of existing anti discrimination legislation and a root and branch clear out of those within the Scottish Police Force and legal profession who enforce and prosecute the laws but are the misguided stalwarts of the Unionist, Protestant cause.
The starting point here needs to be the outlawing of membership of the Masons, & O.O. and similar organisations for any Public Servant. The oath for a Public Servant should be to the Scottish People not to any Monarchy or clandestine groupings. The aims of these organisations are not consistent with the concept of equality as in equal opportunity and treatment before the law.This is a big task for any Government to undertake and it may, paradoxically, be easier to attempt after Independence from the UK is achieved.