Step forward Billy McNeill.
Celtic's Greatest Ever Captain.
Celtic's Greatest Ever Keeper of Open Secrets.
Celtic's Greatest Ever Supermarket Car Park Job Interview expert.
In today's Sun - don't buy it and if at all possible don't give them the hits on their website - he gives a keen insight into those who were truly affected by the signing of Mo Johnston. Those who were tortured by the acquisition of the Scotland striker. Those very men and women who to this day have never forgotten, will never forgive, and will remain thus until the day some of them can celebrate his death from old age: assuming the litany of threats toward the player and his family are never converted to reality by the most diseased and demented of the Celtic family.
McNeil admits that he was humiliated by the whole affair. But more importantly, and most tellingly, he is confident enough to admit to, some may say boast about, the following:
Tapping up the player.
Threatening the Scotland manager and disrupting a squad meeting he had no business in attending or participating in.
Threatening the player.
Speaking to FIFA and pleading with his own board in an attempt to exclude the player from football, and to terminate his career.
Admitting that persecuting the player was more important than his duties as manager or his rank within Celtic Football Club.
Billy concludes by informing us that he has uttered barely twenty words to the player since, and setting up the case that he will never be forgiven and the Celtic support can never forget the disrespect shown.
In many ways McNeill is bang on: the threats, extending all the way to the boycott of a charity game and the implied threat to the very person of the American-based Scot should he even show face in Glasgow, have not and will not diminish. They are embedded in the psyche of the Celtic collective, offered legitimacy by the values of the inquisition.
For Billy, the biggest upset in the whole matter was not that Johnston signed for Rangers, but that Celtic gave in so easily and did not move forward with the manager's wish to treat the player like a non-human.
Celtic deserve a man like McNeill. But we should be thankful, too.
He knew the deal to take Johnston to Ibrox was the biggest GIRUY in Scottish Footballing history. He knew it was a statement that we were the bigger and more important club. And he knew, and knows, that the bitterness felt by Celtic fans is one of the strongest and most revealing displays of their hatred and institutional rage toward those who dance with the enemy. Johnston's signing certainly showed the strength of poison within the central belt and beyond, but now, as then, it is those of McNeill's hue who are suffering the most.
And perhaps those charged to report on it, including those who write for the very organ where Billy McNeill's words are reported, may be honest enough to reflect that.