Fans of Celtic use their muscle

The last stragglers were drifting out of the town's pubs and discos and the chip shops were closing up after a busy night as the first fans got on to the coach. Outside it had started to snow. Just after 3.0 a.m. on December 27th last, 50 or so members of the Billy McNeill Omagh Celtic Supporters Club began a long journey to Glasgow at a time when most sane people were tucked up in bed recovering from their Christmas exertions.

Eighteen hours later they arrived back in Omagh after an exhausting road and sea journey, having seen their side draw 1-1 with Rangers in the second Old Firm game of the season. The extra attraction of Rangers had made this a special day, but for most of them this trip to Glasgow was a familiar ritual. It was also a costly one. On top of the £300 most had forked out for a season ticket at the start of the year, travel to each game with the supporters' club costs an average of £40 each.

There were no complaints, though, even from those for whom money might be tight and this represented a substantial outlay. They were loyal supporters and, so the theory went, their dedication, time and money would be recognised and repaid 10 times over by the football team they had gone to see.

But Celtic's recent traumas have exposed that fanciful bond between fans, players and club for the sham that it is. There has always been the obvious potential for imbalance in the relationship, but the Celtic way has always been to cling to the myth that it is a club which somehow does things differently, that it was a place apart from the harsh realities of professional football. The recent mercenary antics of the same Celtic players have exploded that myth forever.

The events of the past fortnight have been a long-overdue wake-up call for Celtic and its supporters both here and in Scotland. For 20 years they have been paying lip-service to the notion that modernisation was needed if they were not to be left behind by football's headlong rush into the future.

But that has been all about surface show rather than any radical restructuring. The appointment of John Barnes - a man deemed sufficiently qualified to be coach of the fifth-best supported club in the world on the basis that he had been in charge of two or three training sessions at Newcastle United - was the prime example of this.

In this era of easily-digestible news stories, the perception has been that Barnes lost his job last week solely because of the Inverness Caledonian Thistle cup defeat. In reality, that embarrassment was only the catalyst for his removal.

The early seeds of his destruction were sown with what was always a tactically misguided gamble of flooding the central areas to play a tight, intricate passing game. In the utilitarian world of Scottish football it was tantamount to professional suicide.

Barnes's next problem was his perceived lack of passion for or conviction in the path he had chosen. His readiness to move away from a tactical plan he had heralded as Celtic's route to the promised land at the first hint of trouble suggested a lack of faith in his own ability.

The players sensed this and their respect for the manager dwindled to such an extent that two or three saw no problem with challenging his authority during last Tuesday night's dressing-room fracas.

But, more tellingly, the supporters became aware of problems at the top as well. As early as last November John Barnes had become the footballing equivalent of a "lame duck" president.

This suggestion of the influence of the supporters has become the most fascinating part of the fractured jigsaw that is now Celtic football club.

Even before last week's fall-out, the Irish Association of Celtic Supporters had asked for a meeting with the Celtic chief executive, Allan MacDonald. In contrast to the wall of silence with which fans' groups are greeted at other clubs in England and Scotland, MacDonald had readily agreed to the request and a meeting was scheduled for next month.

Events, of course, superseded that. But tellingly, it was also supporters' groups in Scotland who were involved in the final heave against Barnes. One version of events is that the manager's position became untenable because of the effect continued failures would have on the club's share price. It has emerged, however, that the pivotal event at Celtic Park last week was a meeting between Allan MacDonald and a delegation from the executive committee of the Celtic Supporters' Association. The group was unequivocal in its demand that Barnes be sacked, and threatened to include MacDonald and the rest of the board in a blanket condemnation of the way the club was being run if this did not happen.

The next day Barnes was on his way. Supporters at other clubs will scratch their heads and wonder at the speed with which the Celtic chief executive paved the way for a supporters' association to have its wish.

The answer lies in the method chosen by former chief executive, Fergus McCann, to dispose of his controlling share of the club. Wary of the way in which small, self-perpetuating family cliques were able to control Celtic for decades and run it into the ground in the process, McCann was adamant no individual or consortium would be allowed to assume power again.

His solution was a public share issue to the supporters. This was quickly taken up, and it is estimated that supporters could now account for up to 45 per cent of Celtic's shareholding. Within any organisation this is clearly a grouping that must be listened to, and when they fixed John Barnes in their sights the rookie manager was never likely to get a reprieve.

This burgeoning relationship between the supporters and the suits could be the one bright spot on an otherwise dismal Celtic horizon. Even at this low ebb there is the consolation for the fans that for the first time in decades they may have gone some small way towards reclaiming the club for themselves.

Early next Saturday and every Saturday for years to come they'll be dragging themselves out of bed to get on coaches in Omagh, Belfast and countless other towns across the country. If there is now the genuine prospect of getting something back in return, then the past few weeks will not have been a total waste of time.