I’ve seen how fans can react if expectations are not met... and it can be truly frightening
THE unacceptable scenes outside Celtic Park on Sunday made me think back to the most volatile period in my own career.
A line was crossed. That’s clear from the fact Celtic had to release a statement revealing players had been left shaken by missile-throwing from a section of fans when they left the ground after losing to Ross County.
Regardless of the disappointment felt, those actions cannot be justified.
I know how it feels to face that kind of anger. And it’s not pleasant. All it does is make a very difficult situation on the pitch become even worse.
It won’t be much consolation to them, but at least the Celtic players didn’t have to climb into the boot of their own car as I did with Fiorentina in 1993.
The scenarios I experienced in Italy were frightening. Worse than witnessed at Parkhead. Sometimes much worse.
Obviously, the two situations are different overall, given that Fiorentina were relegated from Serie A. I do feel they have one similarity, though. And it’s about what can happen when fervent expectations are upset.
To me, part of the problem in Celtic’s current circumstance is that, for a long time, all the hype has been solely about ten-in-arow — not the process of how you get there and what you have to do to win it.
It has almost been viewed as an event that will happen rather than an achievement to be earned. The relentless nature of that talk has really got to some people.
There was hype in season 1997-98 when Rangers were trying to win ten-in-a-row. Of course there was. And we didn’t do enough to get over the line in the end.
However, the situation with Celtic this season feels different. Perhaps it’s the social-media age, I don’t know. But the fact they have fallen behind in the league — even with so long left in the season and a chance to recover — seems to have l ed to an implosion. One that has taken in the manager, the players and, j udging f rom the scenes on Sunday, some supporters.
That’s what brings back memories of my season with Fiorentina. Just as with Celtic now, things went from very good to very bad in the space of four months. And the anger was huge.
Fiorentina have only ever won two league titles but, in the summer of 1992, owner Mario Cecchi Gori told everyone it was time to become kings of Serie A. People in this beautiful, but very intense, city really bought into it. They felt history was coming.
Gabriel Batistuta was there. Stefan Effenberg and I both joined from Bayern Munich. It was a good team. Expectations went through the roof even though Fiorentina hadn’t been champions since 1969.
We were second in the league on January 2 when we played Atalanta. We lost 1-0 and the owner’s son came into the dressing room and sacked the manager in front of the team. It became a disaster. We had another manager, then another one, then another one.
When things began to turn bad, we had protests outside the stadium. Fans were allowed in f or training sessions and they were throwing tomatoes and eggs at us.
I remember coming back from an away game and understanding enough Italian by then to realise the older players were expressing concern about what could happen at our own stadium.
At first it seemed quiet, but suddenly hundreds of people emerged from cars, bars and side- streets, screaming at us and throwing things at the bus.
The police had to actually drag Effenberg into one of their cars to make sure he was safe. Being a footballer shouldn’t be like that. There was no fun in it any more.
A f action of Fiorentina’s hardcore Ultras would be at the team hotel and we had to sit down and listen to what they told us about honouring the shirt. There was a little bit of a threat in their words. I took some of that onto the park. We all did.
This kind of situation has to be stopped quite quickly. If it escalates then, as a team, you just can’t perform.
It all came to a head at the end of the season. We had gone from second to 15th and ended up relegated. Incredible, really. There was an underground car park at the stadium and rumours began to circulate that fans were waiting where the cars would come out.
The advice was to get on the team bus and be driven outside of Florence, where you could be picked up by your wife, girlfriend or whoever.
I chose to take my own car. My father told me he would drive and for me to get in the boot. I climbed in and we drove out.
There were really hectic scenes. People with baseball bats, cars on fire, police in riot gear. Scary. We drove home and I left the club after that.
Clearly, what happened on Sunday was not on the same scale. But players at any club do start to look at each other when they end up in the middle of chaos.
You can get cliques. It could be foreign players and home players. Or older players in one corner, younger players in another.
You want to go out and be successful, but the anxiety is always there. The cycle becomes
All the hype has been about ten-in-a-row and not how you get there
If it escalates then, as a team, you just simply can’t go and perform
more difficult to break. I do wonder about Celtic’s unity.
There have been rumours about players wanting to leave and others are clearly not playing to the best of their ability, even though they would always want to. You think of Odsonne Edouard, who is such a gifted striker but having a very difficult season.
New players have come in and struggled in different ways, be it Shane Duffy or Albian Ajeti. You don’t see leadership on the pitch. Even Scott Brown, who has been a huge captain, looks a little lost.
I was quite shocked by their performance in the Old Firm game but those same problems — no creativity and defensive fragility — have gone from bad to worse.
You can get a bit spoiled when you win so many trophies. It can happen to players and certainly to fans when success has been so constant.
Maybe that was always a danger for Celtic, but surely no one would have predicted in August that this would be the situation at the start of December.
But here we are now, with Neil Lennon’s job on the line. Celtic’s directors will have to take some big decisions to plot a path back towards harmony.