As the dust settles on the Celtic AGM, I can't help but feel there is still a distinct lack of respect from the board towards the fanbase

Yesterday at 01:25 PM

A few weeks ago, on a mild Saturday afternoon in Glasgow, I sat in the upper tier of the North stand at Celtic Park for the home tie against Aberdeen.

My mate and I were in section 409, almost right at the top of the stand.

I have this abiding thought in my memory of that particular day which I’ll come back to later on.

Being someone who has to travel overseas for games, getting to Celtic Park for a game is a costly endeavour.

Three trips to games for me would cost double the price of a season ticket for someone living in Glasgow.

I suppose I don’t really think that in depth about it, because for me, it’s an experience I cherish every time I’m there.

I went through a period for a long time from the mid noughties, up until only recently, where I couldn’t afford to attend games due to losing our family business and livelihood during the crash of 2008.

We lost our business through no fault of our own.

Before the crash, it was sustainable.

When the crash hit, trade collapsed, and it became unsustainable.

It was that simple really.

We were left with two choices, keep losing money in a futile effort to retain the business, or cut our losses.

In the end, we made the choice to cut our losses.

The bank had turned dirty, and forced us into this position, but that’s a story for another day.

We were left with crippling debts, and no choice but to declare insolvency.

It took until January 2023 before we were debt free.

But because the insolvency took every spare penny we had, trips to see my beloved Celtic became something I could only dream about.

So believe me when I say it, I’ve cherished the trips I’ve been able to make to Celtic Park again since January 2023.

It felt like I was returning home when I first got back.

Right now, you’re thinking where is he going with this?

But if you stick with me, you’ll see there’s a moral to my story.

Every single Celtic fan has a story to tell.

Every one of us.

In fact, one of my regular commenters, Tommy McQuillan, was waiting to have a biopsy taken today which will confirm whether he has cancer or not.

Tommy is in limbo now while he awaits news on his biopsy.

What I’ve gone through pales into insignificance in comparison to what he’s going through.

I would take financial strife any day over what Tommy is going through.

There is no truer statement than health is wealth.

I wish Tommy the very best, and he’s in my thoughts and prayers.

I know the entire Celtic family wishes him the best too.

Like I’ve said, every one of us has a story.

We are real people, with real lives, we feel, we cry, we laugh, we hurt.

But we are one huge family, and we form the basis of what makes Celtic football club so special.

We are the living breathing entity that breathes such passionate life into the club we love.

The club we love.

We only want the best for this club.

The very best, and we feel we deserve it because of what we inject into this club

After Friday’s AGM and what went on during it, I can’t help but feel that the Celtic board treats us with disdain

That there is a distinct lack of respect for the lifeblood of Celtic.

I hate to sound cliched, so I won’t say it, but we all know what Jock Stein said.

Some people would do well to understand that.

Some people would do well to recognise the effort we make to support Celtic.

I wrote in Friday’s article that it turned out, as predicted, to be a slapstick comedy show.

Michael Gannon of the Record clearly read my article, based on his article this morning, where he also referred to it as a slapstick comedy.

Everybody who attended clearly knocked some great laughs out of it.

I understand that the majority of people inside the Kerrydale suite last Friday were happy with the way Celtic is run.

That is their prerogative.

They are shareholders, and the club’s performance is a source of great satisfaction to them

Joe McHugh is a shareholder too.

He is a lifelong Celtic fan, and he cares deeply about the club.

In fact, there are few people I know who care about the club as much as Joe does.

He dedicates his life and his talent, which is his ability to write, to Celtic.

Joe cares deeply about the Celtic youth academy, and he wanted to make that known last Friday.

When he attempted to do so, those happy, satisfied shareholders in the Kerrydale suite felt it was appropriate to jeer him.

For caring about Celtic’s youth set up.

And for having the audacity to question those who run our club about it.

Who no doubt, sat there smugly while Joe was roundly jeered, full of their self importance.

The Untouchables.

They, who will not be questioned.

The fact that our CEO could not name the last youth player to start for the first team speaks volumes.

The fact that this did not embarrass him, or anybody else in the room for that matter, shows where people’s priorities really lie.

Completely within the mindset that most Celtic fans are really just a source of revenue.

Instead of what I’ve described them as.

Joe McHugh spoke for the majority of us last Friday.

He sought the answers to the hard questions we all want answers to.

The board felt he was not entitled to the answers to those questions.

Peter Lawwell felt it was more appropriate to act in a wholly unprofessional manner, and accused Joe of having an unhealthy obsession with him and his son.

Michael Nicholson spoke about personal attacks.

When somebody spends £20 million of the club’s money for very little return, then you’d better believe that the fans should be entitled to answers, regardless of who’s son he is.

When the going is good, it’s easy to forget the bad times.

But when you support this club for as long as some of us have, we remember everything.

And we remember the things that went wrong because we never want to see a repeat of them.

We question the things that went wrong because we want those in power to know we haven’t forgotten about them.

We want them to know we hold them accountable.

To dismiss those questions out of hand, and to accuse the person who has the courage to ask them of being obsessed…..

Well, that shows us that in your unwillingness to meet those questions head on, you know that there was something fundamentally wrong about appointing someone to a position they weren’t fit to fill in the first place.

Otherwise, you’d answer the question honestly and truthfully.

You would say that mistakes were made and lessons have been learned.

That one short line would be enough.

An answer like that would garner respect.

Instead, I’m sure Peter Lawwell is fully satisfied with the way he answered the question Joe put to him about his son.

That, in and of itself, shows how disconnected he really is.

Which brings me full circle to the point I made earlier on in the article, and the memory I have of what my mate said to me during the Aberdeen game.

He said, “I can actually see Peter Lawwell from here.”

60,000 people inside Celtic Park, and he was only looking for one.

We are all obsessed.

We are all Joe McHugh.

But we are not obsessed with the man.

We all obsess about the day when we are not looking for Peter Lawwell amongst 60,000 people in Celtic Park.

The day when things will really change at Celtic.

And the moral of this story?

Those 59,990 people who surround the board at Celtic Park on a sold out match day?

They put everything they have into supporting Celtic.

They want the very best for Celtic.

Each and every one of them has a story to tell.

It is they who are Celtic.

And is they who make Celtic what it is.

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