Tom English Misses Key Point In Brian Wilson Celtic Response

By
Michael Shearer
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Tom English has questioned Brian Wilson’s comments after the Celtic chairman pushed back on parts of the fallout from the final-day title win over Hearts.

Wilson used his Celtic TV interview to argue that some of the debate after the game became detached from what had actually happened. He accepted that Celtic supporters should not have entered the pitch, but he also said other claims around the match had since fallen away.


That distinction matters. Celtic apologising to Hearts for supporters invading the pitch is not the same as accepting every wider claim made in the days after the game.

English, though, appeared to take issue with Wilson’s tone, pointing back to Celtic’s apology and describing the chairman’s remarks as strange.


The problem with that response is that it blurs two different arguments.

Nobody at Celtic is pretending the pitch invasion should have happened. It should not have. The club accepted that quickly, and supporters going onto the park before the match had fully settled gave others an easy stick to swing.

But Wilson was clearly talking about what came after the pitch invasion. There were claims about Hearts players, questions over how the game ended, and a lot said about safety inside Celtic Park. A few weeks on, parts of that early reaction do not look as solid as they first sounded.


That is where English’s comment feels too neat. An apology for one part of the incident does not close down debate on everything said afterwards. It certainly does not mean Wilson is wrong to challenge claims he believes were overplayed.

Celtic supporters can accept the pitch invasion was wrong and still feel the coverage went beyond the evidence available at the time.

That is the point Wilson was making. English is entitled to disagree with him, but reducing it to Celtic’s apology misses the heart of the argument.