The deputy chief sports writer at the Scottish Daily Mail is a horrible, bitter little man.

There, I said it, and I stand by it.

He decided to open his article on yesterday’s game by dragging us back to the end of last season, and what he wrote stinks. It reeks of bitterness of a sort that is difficult to credit from someone occupying a senior position at a national newspaper.

Talking about Hearts and the end of last season, he wrote:

“What happened towards the end of last season was a travesty, given some of the refereeing calls that went against them.” Then came this: “The final day debacle against Celtic and subsequent pitch invasion will forever be a stain on Scottish football.”

A stain on Scottish football.

Think about that language for a moment.

Not chaotic. Not controversial. Not regrettable. A stain on Scottish football.

That is how he chooses to characterise the day Celtic won the league.

We have all had our say on what happened at the end of last season. Martin O’Neill put it well when he pointed out that pitch invasions are not normally greeted with anything like the hysteria which followed ours.

But the bitterness of some people when they talk about that afternoon is still completely off the charts.

Celtic supporters came onto the pitch for less than three minutes after one of the most extraordinary title victories we have managed in many, many years. It was an outpouring of euphoria, relief and disbelief all rolled into one.

I have never known a season like last season.

I have certainly never experienced one with that kind of emotional effect on all of us. It was the ultimate roller coaster, and going into those final five games there was still a chance we could win the title, but it was only a chance.

Everything had to go right, and everything did.

We had to win every game. We won every game.

In each of the final three matches we fell behind and still found the strength, character and quality to come back and win.

That is how Celtic got over the line. The emotion afterwards was entirely understandable.

From my own perspective, I was standing at the bar in my local pub with five minutes to go, with Paulina sitting at the table in front of me. I got into an argument with another guy at the bar because both of us were stressed out of our minds.

On another day it might even have come to blows.

A few minutes later we were hugging each other and dancing around the pub.

That was the tension. That was the release. That was the beauty of it.

And it still makes me sick to read garbage like this from people whose bitterness simply will not allow them to get over what happened.

His contention about the refereeing decisions that supposedly went against Hearts is equally preposterous. Which ones? Is he talking about the two incidents at Motherwell? The one involving Hearts and the one which did not?

Because the one which did not involve Hearts has absolutely nothing to do with them.

And I genuinely do not know how many times this needs to be said.

However Hearts supporters feel about it, however disappointed Derek McInnes was, however anybody wants to dress it up, the penalty decision involving Celtic was correct.

That is the end of it. If he is referring instead to something which happened in the Motherwell-Hearts game, that is another argument altogether.

But perhaps Hearts should spend less time bitching about refereeing decisions and more time looking at their away record, not just this season but last season as well.

Because that is why they did not win the title. I am tired of reminding people that Hearts came to Celtic Park on the final day needing a draw. One point. That was all.

So, there was no travesty. There was no conspiracy.

And there was no final-day debacle either. Celtic went a goal down in that match and still did enough to win it. Professional journalists should be capable of accepting that reality, however painful they find it.

I am not even sure whether this particular writer supports Hearts, but something about what happened clearly wounds him deeply. Fine. Football does that to people.

But surely you should be capable of getting over your own pain sufficiently to write an honest account of what actually happened.

This is not an honest account.

And there is another reason why language like this should bother people more now than it did a few months ago.

We saw ugly scenes outside Celtic Park yesterday involving supporters of both clubs. Nobody with a functioning brain should pretend that a newspaper columnist caused people to throw punches, and I am not suggesting that for a second.

But words matter. Framing matters. Repetition matters.

I am going to cover that subject later on.

But for months, Hearts supporters have been repeatedly exposed to a narrative which says they did not merely lose the league, but were somehow deprived of it. That refereeing decisions robbed them. That Celtic benefited from something improper.

That the final day was not one of the most dramatic conclusions to a title race we have seen in years, but a “travesty”, a “debacle” and now apparently a permanent “stain on Scottish football”. How much of that rhetoric do people think they can pour into a football rivalry before it starts changing the temperature around the fixture?

Most supporters will hear it, argue about it and go home. But media organisations should understand better than most that repetition legitimises ideas.

Crowe is entitled to dislike Celtic winning the title. He is entitled to dislike the pitch invasion. He is entitled to criticise refereeing decisions. But when a professional journalist presents an entire championship outcome as some sort of injustice inflicted on Hearts, he is contributing to precisely the grievance culture which was allowed to grow around this fixture.

And that is why this is not merely some harmless bit of bitterness from a columnist who cannot get over last season.

It feeds something. It adds to something.

Celtic are the current champions. Anyone who wants to take that title from us is going to have to do it on the pitch.

They are certainly not going to do it through attempted character assassination of our support or our club in the media.

The attempts to turn last season into some great conspiracy against Hearts are pitiful.

I said before this weekend that Hearts were coming into the game with people still pushing Scottish football’s dumbest conspiracy theory on their behalf.

And here we are again. Another person trying to keep it alive.

Their pain is beautiful to me. I will not pretend otherwise. But it is also infuriating to read garbage like this in a national newspaper.

Do you know what actually is a stain on Scottish football?

Pretending that one of the most dramatic and exciting conclusions to a title race in the history of the Scottish game was somehow tainted because the result did not suit you.

Pretending that supporters pouring onto the pitch in a moment of uncontrolled celebration amounted to some kind of mass outbreak of violence.

Pretending that Hearts were somehow cheated out of something they had every opportunity to win for themselves.

That is dishonest, and this dire excuse for journalism from people who cannot hide their hostility towards Celtic does far more damage to the credibility of Scottish football coverage than three minutes of supporters on the field celebrating a championship ever could.

Last season is in the history books.

Celtic won the league. Hearts did not. It is over.

I suggest these people finally get over it and move on.

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