SOUND OF SILENCE BROKEN AT LAST

FOR the past three weeks Lord Reid and Peter Lawwell have been doing a fair impersonation of Simon and Garfunkel. The sound of silence from the Celtic boardroom has been deafening.

Now, at last, the statement issued by Lord Reid, the Celtic chairman, about his club's latest running row with the Scottish Football Association, has broken that silence.

What that pillar of the British and Scottish Establishment - he is a fomer member of the British Cabinet as Home Secretarty and Secretary of State for Defence - had to say on the Dougie McDonald, and the wider refereeing issues, was released to the media late on Friday afternoon.

By which time manager Neil Lennon had already been drawn back into the controveresy by answering media questions at his regular Friday lunchtime press briefing.

Lennon is the man I sympathise with most over the position he has been left in during this whole affair. Now, I am well aware this may not be a popular view with a section of my regular readers.

However, I would ask them to step back and try to view all that has gone on, in a calmer way than is normal.

The immediate aftermath of that Sunday afternoon at Tannadice called for an equally immediate reaction from the Celtic manager - in much the same way as the Nani goal for Manchester United against Tottenham Hotspur led to Harry Redknap's outburst.

However much anyone may disagree with Lennon's comments, only someone on the fring of sanity would deny him the right to make them, or would fail to understand his ire.

The affair then moved on to linesman Steven Craven's allegations against referee McDonald and  wild bullying claims aimed at refs' boss Hugh Dallas, taking TannadiceGate into uncharted territory.

At which point the focus moved and became a matter for the club - Celtic - and the authorities - the Scottish Football Association - to sort out at the highest level.

At the SFA, chief executive Stewart Regan acknowledged this as he entered the fray and made a number of public statements as well as facing he media. He was also willing - if  reports are correct - to actually go to Parkhead to talk to his opposite number there, Lawwell.

What followed was Regan's next statement when he made what I believe to be his unwise comment about how he, as a recently arrived Englishman, was carrying no political baggage and had no hidden agenda.

It was only the day after this appeared in the nation's newspapers - of every political hue - that Celtic, in the shape of chairman Lord Reid - SFA president George Peat's counterpart - and not chief executive Lawwell, Regan's opposite number, who issued the first official Celtic public comment from the boardroom.

Throughout all of the time when the sound of slilence ruled, my impression was that the Celtic board were actually failing to offer Lennon any protection. Remember too that he is a young manager, and however streetwise and bright he is, he was walking through a mine field.

The sort that, during his long career at the top of British politics, governing this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as a member of the British Establishment, Lord Reid has had a great deal of experience in handling.

There was also the drip drip of anti-SFA  statements and allegations about refereeing bias against Celtic going back half a century, which came from almost everyone with a Celtic background, short of those within the boardroom, who, with a quiet word, may have been able to have halted it in a minute.

The culmination came when Gary Hooper crazily claimed referees were against Celtic because they are one of the biggest clubs in the world, finally setting the alarm bells a-jangling within Parkhead, and phone calls were made to media outlets - as revealed by Radio Clyde - begging for the interview to be withheld.

Then came Lord Reid's statement, which has been interpreted by the Daily Record, as meaning the Celtic war with the SFA is over, though the extremely well-connected within Parkhead website, Celtic Quick News, has appeared to suggest the opposite to be the case.

Whoever - if indeed anyone is - may have  been briefing the Record and Celtic Quick News, on what Lord Reid's statements means, may well be seen as spinning selectively, leaving some observers with the impression they are telling different organisations what they want to hear.

It is indeed a tangled web which has been woven in the last three weeks, with many reputations - and not just those of Craven and Dougie McDonald - having been damaged.

My belief is, in some ways the man to emerge with the most credit from it all - and there is not much to be gained by anyone - is Lennon, who has been honest and up front, and, until late on Friday afternoon, all on his own.

I wonder if he listens to Simon and Garfunkel's the Sound of Silence as he drives in to Lennoxtown for training every day.