Bitter Herald hack launches fresh Celtic attack

Matthew Lindsay of the Herald finds the SPFL punishment of Celtic for the pitch invasion against Hearts as appalling.

The incident took place on May 20, the SPFL punishment was delivered on June 11.

The Herald reporter has been kind of quiet on the assault of a Celtic staff member at Ibrox on March 8. Much like the SFA.

When violent thugs from the losing team invaded the pitch with the intent of being violent. Fans aged 18 to 56 have since been charged with assault.

Police Officers and club stewards were attacked.

The Herald preferred to tag it as O** F*** trouble. The usual lazy opt out.

Back in 2011 Neil Lennon was physically attacked standing outside the dug-out at Tynecastle.

Hearts received no punishment for allowing that to happen. Thousands of fans cheered as Lennon was attacked while coaching his team.

The Herald wasn’t outraged. Two years later SPFL clubs rejected strict liability.

Celtic have been fined £7,500 – a trifling amount for a club whose last audited accounts showed they had £77.3m sitting in the bank – and told their capacity at a Premiership fixture at Parkhead will be reduced by 1,000 seats if there is another significant pitch incursion at one of their home league matches before June 30, 2028.

That is the result of hundreds if not thousands of their fans flooding on to the playing surface to celebrate after Callum Osmand had scored in the eighth minute of injury-time in their Scottish title decider against Hearts in the East End of Glasgow last month.

Debate about whether any of the visitors’ players were assaulted as they tried to make their way off the field has raged since. Major Tynecastle shareholder Tony Bloom and many others have wrongly claimed they were. Parkhead chairman Brian Wilson and kindred spirits have hit back at those false allegations.

But that argument detracts from the fact that what took place was absolutely appalling, put the personal wellbeing of those who were wearing maroon jerseys at serious risk and should never have been allowed to happen.

No Hearts players were touched.

It was a narrative pushed by Pat Nevin and BBC Scotland. Others such as Lindsay and the Herald happily jumped on board.

THE HERALD IS HURTING- HURTING BADLY

They knew by mid afternoon on the day of the match that no players had been struck. If they had it would have been shown on a loop by Sky Sports News.

In tandem the story of the missing minutes was created and pushed. There wasn’t any.

Callum Osmand scored towards the end of the eighth minute of stoppage time.

Referee Don Robertson consulted with Derek McInnes about finishing the match.

Celtic fans were on the pitch for less than three minutes. Five minutes after Osmand’s goal the Hearts players were on the team bus back to Tynecastle.

The pitch invasion was a blight on a great day for Celtic but nothing more.

Lindsay, the Herald, Newsquest, the BBC and others were overcome by grief at Celtic’s title victory.

This season they thought that they were getting respite from their never ending grief.

They emotionally invested in Danny Rohl. Then McInnes.

Both failed and they were left listening to a 74-year-old Irishman discussing Celtic’s success. A flashback to 25 years ago when more than 10,000 people were buying the Herald.

Today you can get three months access to the Herald for £1. Some might say that Craig Whyte got better value for his coin.