Another Brendan Rodgers v Steven Gerrard battle would be box-office | OneFootball

The Covid season will undoubtedly go down as the strangest time in footballing history. For Celtic supporters we can only wonder what might have happened that season under normal living conditions…

Leigh Griffiths of Celtic celebrates with James Forrest after scoring his team’s second goal during thePremiership match between Celtic and St. Mirren at Celtic Park on March 07, 2020. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

In early 2020 a pandemic hit the entire world, and it would change the way we operate our day-to-day lives.  It was a pretty scary time for everyone.

Sport like everything else was hit for the worse as life literally came to a complete standstill, unless you happened to be categorised as a ‘key worker’ as many including myself were viewed, and we had to continue to plough on regardless.

Football wasn’t considered as a ‘key’ industry at first, and the season was brought to a temporarily standstill with Celtic leading the pack as they closed in on a club record equalling nine championships in a row, and a remarkable quadruple treble was still very much on the cards.

Unfortunately the Beautiful Game much like the rest of the world’s sports ground to a halt, much to the dismay of the majority of football supporters including the Celtic supporters who were on the cusp of witnessing their side create yet another piece of history.

In the end it was decided that runaway league leaders Celtic, would be champions thus becoming the first club record of nine titles in a row on two separate occasions, with Jock Stein’s Celtic side having done it first between 1965-74.

Although Celtic’s 2019-20 title win was fully deserved, the supporters felt cheated by being denied the right of celebrating the famous achievement from the stands. Celtic had a commanding league in the title race and although it wasn’t mathematically settled it effectively was all over. You see, theRangers had just lost to Hamilton Accies at Ibrox in the league and there were calls from their disgruntled support to sack their manager, at that time, Steven Gerrard.

Fast forward to the current situation and yet again the Ibrox support is once again revolting, this time trying to remove their current manager Russell Martin.  Online Casino and Sportsbook Betmaster are already taking strong wagers of a possible return for Stephen Gerrard to one again come back to Glasgow and go head-to-head with his former Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers for the second time. That would be box-office stuff for Scottish football so bring it on!

theRangers manager Russell Martin during the Scottish Premiership match between theRangers and Hearts at Ibrox on September 13, 2025. (Photo by Steve Welsh/Getty Images)

Back to the covid era, and the following season was eerie to say the least, with all fixtures being fulfilled in empty stadia, it truly was a strange time. Celtic were looking to make it ten titles in a row and of course, such is the rivalry in Glasgow, theRangers were desperate to stop that happening.

It turned out to be a torrid season on the pitch for Celtic with so much going wrong on and off the park. The biggest problem was perhaps the lack of supporters at games. The Celtic support would have roared the team on and with that backing Neil Lennon’s Celtic side could have been good enough to win that league title. We’ll never know.

What we do know is that without the support Celtic failed to win a trophy that season. St Johnstone went on to lift both the League Cup and Scottish Cup – a remarkable double for a club with such a small fan base, and more painfully for the Celtic support, theRangers benefited from the absence of their own demanding support to stroll to the Scottish Premiership and in doing so stopped Celtic winning ten titles in a row.

Photo by Luke Nickerson//Shutterstock theRangers Manager Steven Gerrard Celtic v theRangers

Stephen Gerrard was still the manager, ironically after the pandemic came along the demands to sack the former Liverpool captain subsided as instead they focused on getting a null and vote vote through on that league campaign. Talk about being bad losers!

Gerrard and his side took the acclaim mostly online as the stadiums were empty. But it was the first Scottish Premiership title for the phoenix football club formed by founding father Charles Green back in 2012 after Rangers FC – who had won nine titles in a row themselves back in the 1990s – went into liquidation with unpaid debts of around £80m.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers beside the trophy after the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and St Mirren at Celtic Park on May 17, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Since then theRangers have failed to win another title with the Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers now aiming for five in a row this season and his side are currently top of the table with a nine points lead over theRangers who are currently third bottom, much to the delight of the Celtic support.

Strangely enough, Celtic did win the previous campaign’s much delayed Scottish Cup Final against Hearts at Hampden in December 2020, a triumph that secured an unprecedented quadruple treble, something that has never been done in world football and is unlikely to happen again. Yet it was won inside an empty Hampden stadium and the joy was substantially diluted for the Celtic support watching at home on television screens.

Callum Davidson, St Johnstone manager with the Scottish cup. Photo: Alan Rennie

Celtic can’t have any excuses or complaints about failing to achieve anything in that Covid season. St Johnstone deserved their cup double while the latest Ibrox club were worthy champions.Celtic got exactly what we deserved which was nothing at all and Neil Lennon paid the price by losing his job.

We can only wonder what the outcome would have been if there was no pandemic and Celtic supporters were present that season. A great man once said “football without fans is nothing” and that season more than justified those wise words.

The Celtic Board at Rugby Park, Kilmarnock v Celtic, 14 September 2025. Photo Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The current Celtic Board, who have just had a round of no confidence votes from all the various Celtic supporters associations would do well to remember that because Celtic without fans is also nothing.

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