I’m Rod Hull and you Jocks can only tell me to f*** off when you become an independent country

If you don’t remember, I had been trying to fix the outside aerial to watch the Man United game when I slipped, tumbled off the roof and smashed through my greenhouse. Thankfully, Emu wasn’t with me at the time. They are flightless birds and the fall would undoubtedly have killed us both.

God, however, had a plan. Upon my rather abrupt arrival in Heaven, he honoured my sacrifice – making me the UK’s patron saint of football. Yes, I may have missed the match that fateful night, but I’ve seen every game that’s taken place on British soil since. For my omnipresent transdimensional essence now hovers over every UK fixture – reporting any trouble back to God.

The Scottish leagues may not always fall under my remit, however. According to God, independence is inevitable – and I admit I wouldn’t feel comfortable working in a country that’s rejected the hierarchic dominance of your English superiors. And also ungratefully turned its back on Her Majesty’s matriarchal devotion to this great nation’s wellbeing – an unconditional love which exceeds that of our own mothers.

God only knows

OF course, your nation’s lack of reverence for the authoritative tiers of privilege and inherited wealth isn’t the only reason I hope to be relived of my duties in Scotland.

You Jocks have no idea how embarrassing it is for an English gentleman like myself to report back to God and have to repeat the colourful language favoured by your supporters – particularly at “Old Firm” matches. It’s also exhausting having to google all the countless references to religious sects, ancient battles and subsequent grievances to understand what the hell is going on.

For the record, I can confirm God is especially displeased at how His favourite song – Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline – has been reborn as a blasphemous hate anthem by aggrieved Presbyterians. He’s particularly infuriated at never being able to listen to the chorus’ sweet descending horn melody again without hearing a suggestion of illicit fornication with the spiritual leader of Catholicism.

Yet, that’s nothing compared to how infuriated He is over a rather unsavoury incident which took place last Sunday afternoon at Parkhead. As usual, I was idly floating over the stadium, keeping a particularly close eye on the famous North Curve section, when I spotted a large banner which boldly exclaimed “F*** off Rod” in a strange retro-futuristic font.

Now, I was under the impression that I was carrying out these duties under the auspices of anonymity. Surely God would have told me if the Pope had announced to the world that I had been canonised?

And even if supporters knew the Eurosceptic spirit of Rod Hull was watching over them, I was under the impression Celtic was a club which took pride in its historic “open for all” stance. So I looked again. No, there it was – “F*** off Rod”. And to add insult to injury, a second banner pronounced, in the same queasily homespun Blake's 7 font: “Tories not welcome”.

Now, that’s taking it too far. Sturgeon did well last week whipping up your ingrained inferiority complex but for the moment, Scotland is still just a whipping boy bleeding oil to grease the wheels of the English Treasury.

It seems the SNP’s failed education policies have left you with a generation unfit to shove their hand up Emu’s a*** never mind run a country. I mean, these days the Clyde’s last remaining shipyard struggles to make rubber ducks float and you even had to get the Germans in to bring trams back to Edinburgh. Winston Churchill would bloody weep.

Rod the prod?

NOW, I was a much-loved entertainer in life – so did not immediately assume it was me being told to “F*** off” when I saw the Celtic supporters’ banner. Yet, what other Rod could it possibly be?

The only other famous Rod – apart from Jane and Freddie’s pal – is Rod Stewart. And it certainly couldn’t be him that the Green Brigade were telling to f*** off!

I mean, they’ve known for decades that Rod’s a shameless unionist who almost broke his knees with the speed he got down on the palace floor to accept a knighthood. And let’s not forget Maggie May explicitly described a young Rod’s erotic liaison with The Iron Lady above her parents’ shop.

So, of course, it had to be me they were telling to f*** off – because the fans who held that disgusting banner aloft have historically had little issue with Rod Stewart’s multifarious affiliations. And, I mean, they themselves have indirectly supported the Tory party through purchases of season tickets, strips, scarves and Bovril – with Celtic’s majority shareholder billionaire Dermot Desmond being a generous Conservative donor. And then there’s former director Lord Ian Livingston, who voted in favour of Tory tax credit cuts.

The fans were certainly raging at Ian at the time, with a 10,000 strong petition urging him to f*** off, so surely any cancellation of Rod Stewart would have happened years ago too? The bagpipe solo in Rhythm Of My Heart alone justifies lifelong exile, but what about the time Rod shamelessly performed at Sun City in South Africa during apartheid? Or the countless times he’s played Israel? Or persevering with hairspray and straighteners at 74?

Blonde ambition

NO, I don’t believe Celtic fans were at all shocked that Rod would favour Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn. They’ve surely grown used to Rod’s non-partisan personality and wouldn’t be surprised when he congratulated Boris on his electoral landslide. Yet, we can’t judge a man by the company he keeps, can we?

We all have our flaws and Rod likely has a word when this fellow millionaire Londoner skewers the Scots, Irish, the working class, the Muslims, the disabled, the LGBT, the hairdressers and the people of Liverpool.

And Celtic fans were certainly aware that Rod was also an acquaintance of toxic insanity bucket Donald Trump. Of course, he says he doesn’t really see eye to eye with him on politics, but surely that just leaves two other sides of his personality – misogyny and madness. Still, I’m sure Rod is disgusted when his pal mocks, demonises and locks up society’s most vulnerable in the relentless pursuit of the almighty dollar and elevated societal status among fellow demons.

So it seems pretty clear to me that it couldn’t have been Rod Stewart who invoked the Green Brigade’s wrath. It begs the question, however – of both Rods, why choose Rod Hull to f*** off? I mean, the only thing we have in common is that we both like having a bird on our arm.

Hierarchy of hate

AT LEAST the Tories aren't as bad as Trump – I mean, they refused to let UKIP’s former token Jock MEP David Coburn join them last week - with their Scottish leader Jackson Carlaw essentially telling him to “f*** off” Parkhead-style by revoking his shiny new membership card.

Like Rod, David congratulated Boris and assumed his assimilation to the Tory hive mind was a mere formality. Carlaw, however, stressed that historical comments made by Coburn were "incompatible with membership” and red-carded him. Unlike career antagonist Tommy Robinson, who claims he was enthusiastically welcomed to the fold last week, along with thousands of Britain First members who were urged to join up – by their own party.

It’s fortunate for Carlaw that he’s never put a foot wrong himself and can make such character judgements without hypocrisy. Unless you’re counting such trivial discrepancies such as his support for the "rape clause" policy on child tax credits, that time he made fun of Chinese accents, his singling out of Muslim MSPs to demand they condemn anti-Semitism and, famously, his loathing of Gaelic road signs.

Of course, it could be said that he is a minor, inconsequential Tory henchman in comparison to his boss Boris, a congealed blockage in Billy Idol’s drain who himself has left no minority group unmocked.

So, if Coburn was deemed morally unfit to join Team Boris, surely that means he must be some kind of irredeemable puddle demon? Then again, perhaps not. We must remember this is a man who quit UKIP over extremism – reminds me of how Ken Livingston was thrown out of Labour for being anti-Semitic!

And finally...

WITH all those photos taken of him in Rangers strips, Rod Stewart clearly wise enough to understand life offers more than binary choices.

And although it would put a few of his establishment pals’ noses out of joint, maybe only a non-partisan luminary like Rod could inspire harmonious mass solidarity to overcome the oppressive rule of a small minority of parasites who have spent centuries cultivating power and fortune by feasting on our blood, sweat and toil.

But is Rod destined to be the Ghandi-esque figure who unites all disparate tribes as one? Likely not. I thought they'd maybe just heard Rod's American Classics ballad album, but God assures me it’s near impossible to wake folk up to the real enemy when binary division is all they’ve known since they were dressed in a football strip as a baby in the cot.

Yet, God has also informed me that any historical religious hijacking of sport has always been a manufactured polarisation of the proletariat – and that Scotland’s hard-won independence will be pointless if it fails to tackle the issue decisively. Perhaps a more valid target of any fans' suggestion to "f*** off" should be the billionaires who pay millionaires to kick sheep stomachs around rival temples to divide, conquer and profiteer from their lucrative monetisation of manufactured hate.

Merry Christmas!