McGEADY

AIDEN McGEADY'S spew of bile over the dear green place which is my native city, was as predictable as it was preposterous and pathetic.

According to the Moscow bound former Celtic player, he had to get away from Glasgow because he was a hate figure who had been subjected to death threats.

Yet, according to one senior source of mine within Strathclyde Police HQ ,there is no record of McGeady ever making a complaint to them, or of them ever investigating any such  serious threat against him.

He also says  he was fed up with Glasgow and wanted to leave, and that it was nothing against Celtic, but Glasgow was the problem.

However, it is when he delves into murky waters that the situation becomes - as you might expect - muddied.
For he claims some fans hate everything Celtic stand for, and  - and I quote McGeady directly - ''Everything I stand for as an Irish Catholic, playing for Celtic.''

He went on to mention some of the places where he says the abuse is at its highest, these being, Ibrox, Tynecastle, Motherwell and Falkirk.

But it is the fact he mentions what Celtic stand for, and what he, as an Irish Catholic stands for, which has me baffled.

After all Celtic, as their Mission Statement, makes clear, hold no truck with any sort of discrimination. Does McGeady think Celtic stand for Irish Cathlolics? It will be interesting to see whether or not chairman John Reid and chief executive Peter Lawwell move quickly to dis-associate Celtic with their former player's inflamatory remarks.

I also wonder just what the reader who took offence at my light hearted reference to my granny being a Presbyterian, thinks of McGeady citing religion in such a way.

Funnily enough in the last quarter of a century I have never been aware of a greater intensity of abuse directed at Celtic players at Ibrox, Tynecastle, Motherwell and Falkirk than that hurled at Rangers players at Parkhead and the homes of those other three clubs.

Though when Rangers visit Easter Road the vilification from the Hibernian supporters usually exceeds all they have to suffer elsewhere, with the exception of the east end of Glasgow.

Not for a moment do I doubt that McGeady has met some uncouth and unpleasant types - whether they be Rangers fans, who abuse him because he played for Celtic, or members of the Tartan Army, who give him stick for turning his back on the land of his birth, and electing to play for a foreign country.

In this respect I sympathise with him. Just as I sympathised with Nacho Novo when the death threats he received were of a serious enough nature for him to call in the constabulary.

There was also the gutter chant from Celtic hordes directed at the Spanish player, which went :''I hope you die in your sleep Nacho Novo, hope you die in your sleep, I pray, Hope you die in your sleep Nacho Novo, with a bullet from the IRA.''

LOVELY!

Then there was DeMarcus Beasley, an Afro-American from the south side of Chicago - which as Leroy Brown tells us is the meanest part of town - who had his car firebombed, while Allan McGregor's motor was trashed too.

Mo Johnston - remember him? - was at such a risk from Celtic fans he had to have bodyguards, and go and live in Edinburgh. That's some price for any Keelie to have to pay.

On the park too it is Rangers players who have been more in the Old Firm hate firing line. Witness what happened in front of 60,000 people and a television audience of a couple of million to then Rangers captain, Fernando Ricksen when his face was cut and needed stitching after being smacked by a missile hurled from the Parkhead stands.

More than five years on and the culprit remains at large, perhaps even sitting in the same seat at Parkhead. Maybe the guilty man or woman is the same thug whose aim was good enough to fell referee Hugh Dallas at the Celtic shame game in 1999.

Put alongside all of that, the abuse McGeady was subjected to from the stands was pretty small beer, while what he may or may not have suffered  on the street - and I don't doubt he had some pretty hairy moments -pales into insignificance compared to what at least three Rangers players have had to put up with on and off the park in the last couple of years.

We have certainly moved a long way since the 1960s when Jim Baxter could you out on the toot in safety with Paddy Crerand, Mike Jackson and Billy McNeill.

Or since the late 80s and early 90s when I shared many a bottle of bubbly with Paul Elliott, Jackie Dziekanowski, Paul McStay, Ally McCoist, Stuart McCall and Dale Gordon in the upstairs piano bar in Victorias.

But back to McGeady. And in the arena where he should be judged - football - Celtic won't miss him. And if you don't want to take my word for it, then how about verdict of Giovanni Trapattoni?

The veteran and highly decorated Italian coach, now in charge of the Republic of Ireland ,no longer sees McGeady as a first choice. With no goals in McGeady's more than half a century of international appearances, you can see where Trapattoni is coming from.

ENDS