MAF ....... Welcome to Celtic.

And welcome, too, to a great big dose of Reality.

We are a bigger club than Hull, than West Ham, than Portsmouth, than Nancy, Utrecht or West Brom. Our fanbase is bigger than all these clubs put together .... and a lot more fickle. Already, on a night where all should be wishing you well, the sniping has began and your record is being pored over as though the secrets to the Universe itself were in there somewhere.

I prefer to examine your scoring record, not in terms of goals scored by in context. For years you've been with struggling sides, sides not expected to accomplish much, sides operating in the bottom half of leagues or toiling mid-table. You have never played at a club built on attacking football from top to bottom and with the players to make it work.

You've never had a McGeady to feed off, or a McDonald to partner. You've never played in front of a midfield firing on all cylinders at the top half of the league, never combined with a Maloney to devastating effect.

You come to us without the reputation of a Jan Venegoor. That's no bad thing. Henrik Larsson himself arrived as what some would have termed a virtual unknown, and without a hint of the glories to come. Having recently examined John Hartson's career stats, this was a man who had scored regularly but never set the world on fire until he arrived at Celtic like a wrecking ball, a man with everything to prove and nothing to lose.

Like you. Except you were being head-hunted by other teams.

That makes more interesting reading than your scoring stats, that three clubs in the "biggest league in the world" were willing to take a punt on you. Those guys, at least, know that fifteen goals in a season in their league is a precious thing indeed, a total certainly not outwith your capability.

Fifteen goals in that company, with a mid-table struggler, could EASILY be twenty-five or thirty as part of an attack minded Celtic team playing the Celtic way.

In all things, context is king. If there is not exactly delirious joy at your signing, try and remember that. This is a support bitterly disappointed by the end of last season, looking for a saviour, looking for the finished article, perhaps forgetting that the Dutchman was supposed to be that, that Gravesen was certainly supposed to be, that with his top-level experience Jarosik definitely was meant to be that.

Records can hide a multitude of facts; indeed, if they were looking for a proven, natural goalscorer they might do well to consider the strange tale of another striker who arrived at our club on a scoring record which puts the word phenomenal in the proper context. 94 goals in 100 games, including a number against the cream of Europe.

His name? Harald Martin Brattbakk ...... who's time at Celtic was considered a waste of time by many, who managed a mere 12 goals in 44 games.

Yet his career stats appear grounded; take this one, for example. In 75 matches in European competition, over the course of his career, he scored 32 goals.

Better players than HMB would be proud of such a record.

Context is everything, then Marc, and as such I pay little attention to the so-called stats and await your first game in the hooped jersey of Celtic, where you will be joined, it is to be hoped, by other exciting talent and play in an exciting and adventurous team.

I have no doubt the stats of your time here will make far better reading than those which have come before, because as part of New Celtic your true potential as a player will be realised, and your talents unleashed.

Welcome to Celtic, and success.

Somewhere, out there, a lot of Huns are gloating. They believe their time has come. They believe this is their year for snatching back the league flag. Maybe they are right. Perhaps four-in-a-row can and will be halted; on Sunday we will find out.

But there is nothing to gloat about here.

Celtic may still win this, but because of our poor form that will be nothing to gloat about either. In my opinion, our club has a larger task now than trying to halt something that is not presently in our hands. If we beat Hearts and Rangers drop anything at Tannadice, we will be champions, and we would be consigning Rangers to a long, dark period in the football wilderness. If that happens, if the End of Rangers moves closer to reality, I will be as happy as anyone, but that will be no reason to gloat either. It was Rangers’ folly which caused their collapse; we did nothing to speed it up.

No, gloating should be left aside after this.

Besides, as I said a moment ago, there are far bigger issues at stake for Celtic, and indeed for Scottish football, in the weeks and months to come, for there is something deeply, manifestly wrong about the way football in Scotland is run.

As some of you may know, I am a bit of a political animal. I spent a good many years as an activist, and I am not ashamed to say that it was as a member of the Labour Party, but that was before Iraq, before cash-for-honours, before Ecclestone. In fact, my disillusionment dates back to the debate on single parent benefits, when Peter Lilley stood in the Commons corridor and waved Labour MP’s into the Aye lobby with the shout “This way for the cuts!”

The reason I mention this is twofold; first, I intend to return to politics as soon as possible, following the next general election. The heart and soul of the Labour Party will, again, be up for grabs and the fight may actually be closer run than many think; certainly I will not advance my case or my cause by sitting on the outside.

Celtic, it seems, have taken the opposite view when it comes to reform of Scottish football. Content with a back seat role, we have never pressed our case in the manner we should have.

In 1996 when the Blair-Brown axis of New Labour was at its nadir, in the short time between their assuming their roles and their taking of power, when the arguments and blood hatred was put aside with the aim of taking power, they forced a number of changes through the party structure, the first of which was the National Policy Review. We all knew what it meant; it meant sacred tenants of the faith were going to go, and probably for good.

Yet resistance was minimal. The left was too eager for power, and we sat back and we did nothing, or were bought up by feeble half-baked promises of influence and access, only to find the Ecclestone’s of this world were ahead of us in the queue.

What were Celtic promised, to allow what has become of the game? Or, like the sleeping giants of the left, did we just not make enough of an effort, or even just enough noise to trumpet what we must, surely, have seen coming, as we did in 1996?

In 1996 New Labour took over the Labour Party without a fight, and it was transformed, and not for the betterment of the Movement, nor for the country as a whole. It was transformed for the betterment and the advancement of a select few. Over the last few years the same thing has happened in Scottish football, as a small, insidious group has taken over, with an agenda of its own.

Once again, the rest of the game does not matter. The advancement of one club has been elevated above all else.

From September the 11th 2001, a vast tract of the political landscape in this country changed forever, as the governments of the West came to grips with the startling realisation that the end of the Cold War hadn’t resulted in the victory for capitalism everyone had assumed; in fact, a new global movement had come out of nowhere to counter the west and the Judeo-Christ

I am happy to join with you tonight in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration of Celtic mindedness in the history of our team.

Five score years ago, a great man, in whose symbolic figure sits outside the ground we call home, brought this club to life. This momentous event came as a great beacon light of hope to thousands of Irish immigrants who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their suffering.

But over one hundred years later, we trial and torment. Over one hundred years later, we see a society still sadly crippled by the manacles of sectarian hatred and the chains of discrimination.

In a sense we've come to this place of ours to cash a check. When the architects of our board wrote the magnificent words of the last AGM and our financial glory, they were signing a promissory note to which every Celtic fan was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all Celtic fans would be given success, and flushed with that we could enjoy "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that our leaders have defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as doing their utmost for us all is concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, they has given the Celtic Family a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds spent.”

But we refuse to believe that the Bank of Celtic is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this institution. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of success and the security of The End of Rangers.

We have also come to this hallowed place to remind our fellow fans of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquillising drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of Celtic. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of despair to the sunlit path of future glory. Now is the time to lift our Club from the quicksand’s of tired helplessness to the solid rock of Hope. Now is the time to make Celtic and a successful future the reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the Family to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of our legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of renewal and confidence. 2009 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Family needed to blow off steam and will soon be content will have a rude awakening if the Club returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquillity at Celtic until the Family are granted that which they were promised. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Club until the bright day of renewal emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for tomorrow by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into mindless fury. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of good fellowship and respect for our fellow Brothers and Sisters point of view.

The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Celtic Family must not lead us to a distrust of all board members or to mistake all of our players as unworthy of the Greatest Football Shirt on Earth, for many of those who played there today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their success is inextricably bound to our struggle.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahea