Dear Friends, I always enjoy your site. Football, to me, is about fun and passion, a magical thing. I'm 54 and went to my first Celtic game at Airdrie's old Broomfield in 1957 with my Papa and my Da. Until my early 20's, I was lucky enough to watch the team most week's, travelling with the local supporters bus (Phil Cole's, Coatbridge). I was part of the great Stein years, I was blessed to have watched, Ronnie Simpson, Iain Young, Willie Wallace, Bertie Auld and Tommy Gemmell. I learned everything I could about Celtic, the miracle of a club that mirrored the miracle of a people - they survived against all odds. I was proud, like you, to be a Celtic fan, dreamed of playing for the team, can still reel off the line-ups I watched. I sang about John Thomson's tragic death. I made a few trips away to European games but I never got to Lisbon. A big crowd watched the game outside in the back court where we lived, on a telly rigged up by the man upstairs (Mr McGill). The men drank bottles of Pale Ale and the women screeched and screamed throughout the match. It was fantastic! Even a Rangers' supporting family joined in – and although they weren't as ecstatic as us, they were gracious enough and agreed it was a great achievement for a Scottish team to win the European Cup.

It was a privilege to watch Kenny Dalglish and Danny McGrain. Ally Hunter was a great 'keeper.

By the 1980's I was married and shift work curtailed a lot of my games. But Celtic is in the blood. "Family" is an appropriate term to use for the Celtic fans. Murdo McLeod and Davie Provan played their hearts out for Celtic, and Tom McAdam, Alan Sneddon and Graeme Sinclair might not have had the top teams spying on them, but they earned their wages. Responsibility and 3 daughters (all Celtic mad) meant a wee bit more careful choosing of the matches, but I still went to lots of games. Billy Stark did us a turn and Gordon Marshall tried hard, as did David Hannah. Simon Donnelly never managed to make the next step up which was a shame. In 1996, I became a season ticket holder; the weans were up and I had a bit more time and cash available. We all sensed the new era was on the horizon! They were good times and bad times. McCann could be a frustrating wee man, I considered not renewing my book after Tommy Burns was sacked as manager but stuck with it. There were some great players and attractive football, Andy Thom springs to mind while Craig Burley was always solid. Paul Lambert became a great player and Celtic captain. If you have read this up to this point, you will note that every single PLAYER I mention is a non-catholic. I considered turning in my book when Jock Brown was appointed, not for any other reason than Jock Brown is a self-promoter, one of life's opportunists, a man who did not have the type of profile or personality to be a trusted servant and public face of the Celtic fans - WHO ARE THE CLUB, a man who was completely ruthless in the pursuit of his own progress in the world and I believe was and would have been an even bigger disaster for Celtic had he not moved on.

In 2002, I had spells of illness and was forced off work, eventually being referred to a neurologist. I missed loads of games. Then I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. I knew Jimmy Johnstone had this illness but when I learned more about it, what the future held I was shattered. So now, I am an armchair fan (or a wheelchair fan if you like). I've enjoyed the past 7 years, Martin O'Neil, regular big European games, Henrik Larsson (of course) and all the other great players. But the announcement that John Reid is the new Chairman of Celtic is a black dolt on this great club whose ethos, history and traditions are unparalleled by any other football club anywhere in the world. The similarities with Brown are uncanny. This man, Reid, is a vainglorious egomaniac. His record as a senior politician is disgraceful. This man supports internment without trial or even redress to a lawyer. He helped whip up and sustain the ignorant, bigoted bias and racism against people who don't look the same as him. He is a liar and ruthless operator who puts his own interests before the common good. He promoted and helped prosecute the illegal invasion and occupation of another land in order to help his new-found friends, the multi-billionaires and global companies.

Reid long ago, divorced himself from the values with which the vast majority of Celtic supporters identify. Everything Reid has done in his professional life has been for the good of John Reid. It also involved joining a gang of unscrupulous robbers and thieves whose main interest is making money. As a result of his participation in the Iraqi fraud, over 1 million Iraqi's have been murdered, most of them women and children. Your photo beside the article on Reid speaks a thousand words. And while Reid sits in the Chairman's room at Celtic Park, his swollen head even bigger at his latest "achievement" the kids from our housing schemes are being sent abroad without proper equipment and being paid poverty wages for the ideology of this skunk. As Health Secretary, Reid rammed through Foundation Hospitals forcing the NHS to compete for services and further privatise the health service. When the local health board announced Monklands (in his own constituency) was to close its A&E, Reid was at the demo, wiping his crocodile tears, claiming to oppose HIS OWN POLICY!

Celtic fans should be very concerned about the appointment of Reid as the Chairman of Celtic Football Club. He is a self-serving sycophant, a liar and a key figure in the decision making process that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. My Papa, with his lovely Sligo tilt, told me what he had personally witnessed in Ireland, as a result of British imperialism and the determination to cower and demoralise a people in the interest of controlling them and their land. He told how the Black and Tans rampaged drunk through Irish towns and villages. Sacred statues or religious relics were gleefully smashed to bits. Women were assaulted, family pets shot. He saw 2 youths kicked to death in Donegal at the fair-day by a unionist mob who had been bussed in to teach the taigs a lesson. Men were lifted and put in jail without ever seeing the inside of a court. They lost their jobs (if they had one), their families went hungry, and they were evicted from their homes. Then many months later, they were released without so much as a by-the-way!

There was a John Reid in the British cabinet then too. Celtic fans and Celtic would have had nothing to do with such a wretch then, and they should have nothing to do with such a wretch now. If I still had my season ticket, I would definitely now return it.

Best regards,
Barney Higgins,

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