Celtic have two bounce games coming up ahead of the Scottish Cup Final: Ibrox on Sunday then Hearts at Celtic Park on trophy presentation day. One of the benefits of winning the league early is being able to rest players and prioritise ahead of the Cup Final, we should do this now.
Newco will do their upmost to convince their fans the ever-present gap is closing by doing all in their power to win the game. I might feel different on Sunday afternoon, but let them do their worst, this game does not matter.
We have to be fit and ready for Hampden. Whatever ails Kieran Tierney, he should not be risked. Instead, Emilio Izaguirre should be given the jersey and if Leigh Griffiths is even remotely close to fitness, he should play. We like to think of ourselves as being a ‘big team’. If we are, rise above local bragging rights and aim for history.
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Always been a fan of Barca with the history of Franco etc
However given they’re trying to shut us out of the CL and make it a closed shop for the 5 top leagues, I can’t help but think tonight may go some way to checking their arrogance. Or perhaps not.
Despite their fans, I really hope Ajax win this and in doing so keep Europe’s top competition open to smaller leagues.
Big Mik’s legs don’t do walking away…
An Dun
Bang on, hope Ajax do it but as for their fans……..
BSR
Surely your not suggesting Artur Newman!!! He’s even older than Izzy and Mike and Broony \o/
Plus he played for der Hun ?
Nah…. sign hunners ae full backs tae go wae oor hunners ae oor wingers! ?
Hail Hail ??
BSR meant Alfred E. Neuman…
Sign him up…you’d be mad not to…
An Dun @ 11:00 pm – could not agree more.
Everyone in European football out with England, Germany, Spain and Italy should be behind Ajax.
Hope they do it.
Hail hail
As a protest against the closed shop elite, I should be wanting Ajax to win the CL……….but their fans are horrible.
I have no dog in this fight once Celtic are eliminated.
I can admire the game tonight, I can even feel pleased for VVD and Andy Robertson, but there is no real passion in my feelings
Considering how Paradise would have been…given the same result.
Anfield is a very poor imitation.
Hail Hail.
Re Barca “The Eyes Can’t …..” made a good point earlier.
Many young football fans have, since 2006, “adopted” them as their second team.
‘More than a club!’ is now hollow.
‘More and more like every other club’
would be a better fit.
The conveyer belt abandoned and replaced by the splurge.
Since the days of that beautiful vintage of 2009 & 2011 Barca have bought a bus load of players.
In that time, arguably only four – Alba, Ter Stegen, Neymar and Suarez – have enhanced the squad (and 2 of the 4 behave dreadfully on the pitch).
Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Dani Alves, Pedro, David Villa all replaced by inferior players (some at astronomical prices)
Combined fees for Paulinho, Coutinho and Dembele would leave you with chump change from €300m.
Madness.
Hail hail
Can we at least wait until the season ends before we start the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about….
No ambition
Downsizing
Old Firm bigot buck
Heated Driveway
Beancounter
Back of the bus
Blah blah blah
Lawwell Out Now
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 7TH MAY 2019 11:46 PM
They have bought some very average players recently but Rakitic and Umtiti get in most other teams in Europe. Both World Cup finalists and stars in the tournament
They missed Umtiti badly tonight
“Downsizing” is fine by me as it can be done in such a way that we keep a stranglehold on domestic league and cups.
And stop the spiralling cost of season tickets. £625 for each of my two tickets in the North Stand Upper. That had my plastic friend bending over backwards yesterday.
Buying more expensive players guarantees nothing, especially in Europe, and would lead to fans being priced out of attending Celtic Park. Well at least two of them that I know of.
Good morning from a chilly Garngad
Goodbye Stevie Bhoy and thanks for the memories and that goal.⚽️???
My best wishes to the Chalmers family today.?
Someone sent me a lovely Garngad poem about Stevie, I cannot do the cut and paste thingy on here yet, I am sure someone will get it today and post it.?
D. :)
Celtic4me – Agree to a point on Umtiti.
He is quick.
Liverpool have pace up front. Strange decision to go with much slower Lenglen?
Not a huge fan of Rakitic. Some great moments but flatters. Anonymous last night.
Hail hail.
My friends in Celtic,
Emotionally attached or not, the Liverpool game was what top level football should be about.
Anticipation, excitement and skill.
Well done Liverpool a wonderful achievement, but still want Ajax to hoist the ” Big Ears ”
Wonder if slippy-G is thinking ” I’m a toss#r , get me out of here ”
HH.
morning bhoys from a cold wet Cheshire, thoughts and prayers with the chalmers family today.
Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
Good morning friends from a dry but grey East Kilbride.
Well done Liverpool, not really a fan of any WEPL (Welsh,English Premier League) but I love good football and seeing cheats overturned.
The mighty Barca are reduced to a one man,( all be it, the best player in the world) team.
I’d like to see them win it out for four reasons.
1. Klopp has been getting a really hard time for not winning a trophy, despite going so close.
2. The owners of Man City, can only watch with envious eyes. The once proud working class club reduced to a vibrator for disinterested egotists .Their corrupt Petro Dollars unable to satisfy their inflated ego’s.
3. Any fraternal feelings I had for Ajax died when I seen them attack defenseless Celtic fans in Amsterdam. Celtic fans are known for their friendliness and always use away games in Europe to enhance friendships with fellow football clubs. Those animals deserve nothing.
4. My lovely young friend, is an ardent Liverpool fan (Celtic being her second team). As we speak she is heading down to the maternity ward to give birth to her third wee baby.
” A place man for a Manager and a one man team .. Just like watching Argentina . Poor UEFA -no beloved Barca or Real in the Final . All they’ve got now is the prospect of an English Derby or a hooligan party in Madrid ”
Fitba pundit -Sicilian radio 8 5 19
Ladies and Gents,
FYI. Link from BRTH, CQN/ Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/307379026542/permalink/10157311918146543/
For those who don’t have FB, BRTH eulogy for Stephen:
WARNING LONG POST
STEPHEN HOUSTON – MURDOCH AULD AND HAY.
I can’t log on to post on the main CQN site and so I have decided to post Stephen’s Eulogy here in the hope that someone else can post it on the main site.
Months ago, when Stephen realised that his diagnosis was terminal, and that it was likely that no solution would be found, he started to make preparations for his own funeral.
Out of the blue, he asked me if I would deliver a eulogy. This was a surprise but clearly a great honour and something that I agreed to with mixed emotions.
Over a number of weeks we discussed what he wanted to say and have said, and in the main he set out his thoughts in some e-mails which I then turned into a sort of open letter (though addressed to me) which was then read out – with some difficulty it has to be said – last Friday.
He wanted various people, including his friends from CQN to hear this and, indeed, read it.
Accordingly what follows below are in the main Stephen’s words.
Hopefully, I have captured his mood and message. He was, and always will be, a special man and hopefully the words below convey just how special he was.
———————————————————————————-
I was born on 31st January 1961 in Elderlie Maternity Hospital next to Johnstone which was always home wherever I went in the world and it is the place where I was always most comfortable.
My immediate family comprised
Father – Peter
Mum – Eliza Jayne
Older Sister Anne
Older Brother Jim
Myself
Younger Sister Frances
Later there were sister in law Joanne, and brothers in law James and Edward.
I loved this family unconditionally and with every breath and it was their love that helped me through the dark times of addiction. In my immediate family we were six, but in my Grandfather’s and my wee Grannies house there were 15 if you included uncles and aunts and it was a house full of love and compassion.
Now, I look at my nieces and nephews of whom I am really proud – Kenneth, Jayne, Ralph, Philip, Calum and Alana and Jayne and Ralph’s gorgeous children Dylan and Eliza Jayne and see that same love and that same compassion.
Jayne was the first Houston to go to University (she got a first class honours) – We all shared in Jayne’s triumph but of all of us My granny would have been the most proud as when she arrived in Scotland she couldn’t even write.
Home with my mum and dad was a really loving place. There were times when thrift was required due to lack of money but we never went without – my wee mammy saw to that. She was a wee woman but a real force and we all loved her dearly – only to be loved ten times more in return.
Sport was a big thing in our family. My dad had played football in the Highland League and was Celtic daft. He was determined to pass this passion on to myself and brother Jim and so he took us to Celtic Park on the supporter’s bus and that was the start of a love affair that has lasted all my life.
If my dad believed in Celtic, my wee Mammy believed even more in the church and so she would send us out to Mass and St Margaret’s – a lovely little chapel which played a huge part in all our lives. Births, Marriages, Death’s, Baptisms, Communions – St Margaret’s was a constant in our lives. It was there I received and took in the basics of Catholicism and the ways of the church. I might not always have followed the teachings very well but this gave me the grounding for all that I came to believe in my adult years and it is where I learned how you should behave and how you should treat other people.
I have always loved my sisters. They inherited all the goodness and love of my mother and they gave me that love all my life and a thousand times over. They nagged every now and then – but that’s what sisters are for – I think.
Growing up, my hero was my older brother Jim who I really looked up to. We both shared a great passion for sport and we would talk for endless hours discussing every sport under the sun but with football and Celtic always being our main interest – though we would also talk about Athletics, Tennis, Boxing, World Cups, The Olympics and we would test our knowledge against one another with facts about previous champions and winners. This provided endless hours of entertainment.
Jim always knew more than me by the way – at least that’s what he said anyway. Don’t tell him but he was right!
I was quite good at sport and had a trial for Scotland at under 15 level and I was on the books of St Mirren when Alex Ferguson was manager – but he didn’t fancy me. I always meant to tell him that I didn’t fancy him either!!
I also won cups in Basketball, Athletics, Volleyball and played for loads of local teams whenever I could during my teenage years and in my football days I played with some quite well known players such as Joe McBride junior, John “Submarine” McDonald, Sydney Devine’s son, and the best of all Murdo Mcleod’s brother – Alistair?
I loved to travel, especially with my dear friend Karen with whom I went all over the world – we even went to visit Elvis (he wasn’y in) but Johnstone has always been my home and the town, its people and St Margaret’s have always meant so much to me.
Do you remember the night in Lisbon when we sang Sinatra songs …. for hours?
Regrets? Yes I have had a few but then again too few to mention.
Alcoholism nearly killed me – yet it actually saved me and, in the end, was important in giving me, and I hope my family, a better life.
I was seriously addicted to alcohol for around 15 years and these were my darkest days. Those days were a nightmare of horrific proportions. I embarrassed my family and really disliked who and what I had become.
Yet that family were always there for me and stuck with me through thick and thin.
I was drinking myself to death and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t find a way back. I tried many times to stop drinking on my own but couldn’t find the way. Then I was referred to The Alcohol Problems Clinic and it was there I found ….. Hope.
Hope is the most precious of things. Hope and the belief that things can change – you can change.
My thinking and learning changed and I learned to live without alcohol and it gave me a chance to live a life again.
I grabbed that chance with both hands and over weeks and months I found I was a new person and was able to enjoy so much that I had been missing.
I was on the road to recovery.
20 years down that road and what a life it has been!
20 years sober and no relapses – not even the thought of one.
For the past 5 years I have been chairman of the Sunshine Recovery Café in Paisley and this has been a great success in helping others on the road to recovery – the café has been running at record levels. I am really proud of that.
We provide hot meals, writing groups, walking groups, poetry classes, photography classes, arts and crafts groups and all sorts of other things which help people recover and go on their own journey back to health.
We can have 60 or 70 attend the café in any one day and if we get the funding we could move to bigger premises and make it the hub for addiction services for Paisley — we hope to be named Recovery City in 2021.
The recovery community in Scotland is flourishing and we can help the local community and the local people to get over the stigma that normally attaches to addiction.
All that came about because of another new venture for me which was volunteering which I found I loved to do.
That came about, at least partly because one day I logged on to a football website called Celtic Quick News – and for want of a better phrase became addicted.
I was really glad I did because I have made some terrific lifelong friends through the site. Suddenly I was involved in bucket collections, raffles, charity quizzes, dinners, auctions – all to help people – and I found a way to meet fun people who shared a similar outlook to me, and who just wanted to help others who needed a helping hand for whatever reason.
We had some great successes, and sadly, some real disappointments.
We started with the appeal for Martin Kane (Kano) and I became involved in the Bringing Martin Home campaign to get Martin home from hospital so that he could live the rest of his life in the specially adapted home which he needed and which we helped to raise money for and have adapted.
Although it seemed impossible at the start, Martin did go home and I even managed to get out to Australia to meet him and his family in that home. I was the first person from CQN to do that and I now look back on that with real pride. The Kano foundation which has looked after thousands of kids at Celtic Park followed.
Another great trip was the one to Belfast where I led the St Patrick’s day parade along with the lady mayor and Wee Oscar Knox who we all got behind as best we could. I got involved in the cycle for Oscar from Cairnryan to Celtic Park. Me- cycling in driving snow? Crazy stuff.
Sadly, Oscar didn’t make it and he succumbed to his cancer but the fight to save others from Neuroblastoma goes on.
Yes, I have had some great trips and adventures when volunteering and raising money I can honestly say this was the happiest point in my life. Volunteering and doing good for people and being around really fun folk helped me so much because I felt I could really help. All this gave me my pride and respect back. My life had meaning and I could use my talents for the benefits of others. Yet at the same time I had found this new big happy family.
Then came Lisbon – a trip to celebrate a game that had taken place 50 years before! The trip to the stadium, the beautiful Mass in the Basilica dos Matres, – Fatima! Who could have imagined such a thing? What a trip! What an experience.
One regret I have is that I remained single, never married and never became a parent. I would have loved that but hey maybe you can’t have everything? I was just too busy enjoying the work I was doing and going to dinners, and on trips, working in the café and hanging out with people like you who could tell great stories — By the way you know you talk too much!
I remember the night we talked about great speeches and I told you that my favourite ever speech was Bobby Kennedy’s affirmation of Hope speech in 1966.
And that speech contains the message I want to leave especially to the young folk like my nieces and nephews.
Some men see things the way they are and ask — why?
I dream of things that never were – and say Why Not?
Cheers – and all the best.
Stephen.
P. S. – Make this funny!
———————————————————————————-
Stephen was the embodiment of the Good Samaritan – he was always willing to go out of his way to help others.
He believed passionately in social justice, that you should stand up for your fellow man and that you should do your utmost to make a difference to and for others.
He was, and always will be, one of the most inspiring people I have ever met.
He was funny. His sister Anne told me that to celebrate his 57th birthday the family went away for the weekend and because Stephen was losing his hair because of Chemotherapy he insisted that all family members should join him in wearing a wig – no matter how ridiculous they might look.
He took the name Murdoch Auld and Hay on Celtic Quick News – but only after he had ditched his original posting name of – Lou Macari’s Betting Slip!
He travelled extensively, but his ability to get lost in a phone box was legendary. If he was in a shop and it had several doors to go in and out of, Stephen could be in there for hours!
That Kennedy speech he referred to is often known as “The Ripple of Hope” speech because at one point Kennedy talks about how if just one man or woman stands up and says or does what is right in the face of what is wrong or incorrect or immoral – then that creates a small – maybe a very small – ripple – of hope. If that one person is joined by someone else, and then another and yet another than that ripple becomes a wave, a river, a tidal wave and an unstoppable force for good.
It was Stephen’s favourite speech and he adhered to that belief all his life.
And so he asked me to say to all the people from the Sunshine Café, From CQN, From Johnstone and St Margaret’s — never ever be afraid to Dream – and Dream big in good times and in bad.
There is always hope – there is always belief and faith in each other and yes one person can make a difference to someone else each and every day.
Some people look at the way things are and ask why.
Stephen looked at things the way they should be, could be, and how they could be better and asked – why not?
God grant me the serenity and peace to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
God bless you Stephen, we are all much the poorer for your passing, but it is nothing in comparison to how rich and how privileged we were to have you with us.
Jim
DONTBRATTBAKKINANGER on 8TH MAY 2019 8:28 AM
Positive interpretation – as the Beatles meant it.
Negative interpretation – you are under the thumb. If so, i do hope that it is not being done scrofulously.
Either way – a great chance to listed to Emmylou’s version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQYMQJrUOO4
The Sunshine Cafe,could be a recipient of the great charity stuff on here……..
BACK TO BASICS – GLASS HALF FULL on 8TH MAY 2019 8:03 AM
Barca looked bewildered by the pace Liverpool played the game at from the start. Too many old slow players in their line up who aren’t used to playing against that sort of turbo charged energy for 90 minutes. It’s a game for athletes at that level now, not pure technicians
Bada –
Nice idea. A special commemorative bench for MAH perhaps?
Cafe Quick Nosh.
HH
BB-I like it …..;}
@ SUPERSUTTON on 8TH MAY 2019 7:16 AM
At a time when we have been incredibly successful both on and off the park, why should we not push on in Europe?
The advantage Celtic currently have over our rivals stems from European participation: it adds prestige; it enables us to attract players; it enables us to sell our players for a higher fee through performing on a larger stage; and we are given a huge bundle of cash for participation.
Furthermore, if you are able to perform to a good or even moderate level in Europe, then domestic football should take care of itself.
We need to strengthen our position from a position of strength.
Good shout Bada.
Pog-Stephen was well liked on here,I didn’t know him or his story,but he did some great work obviously with the cafe,a donation/memorial type gesture from CQN might be good HH
Has Izaguirre signed yet?
Bring back Stokes, Mulgrew and Commons. Maybe big Dan Majstorovic at the back.
A seriously pacey team for Europe. CL qualifiers will be a cakewalk
Bada,
When I spoke to BRTH last week he was/is having real difficulty on logging-on to this site, hence the C&P of the eulogy.
I think BRTH could give us the info we need to get this up and running but he needs access to this Blog.
Paul67 if you are about could you contact BRTH and sort out his log-on issues?
Read a wee bit re: MAH, but couldn’t read the full eulogy – can’t be seen greetin at my desk in front of everyone!
Wee BGFC is, as we speak, in sitting his English Higher – fingers crossed – hope they ask him about “The Crucible” – great play, and the wee man knows it inside out.
I see the rumours are already happening re: Tom Rogic. I know a guy, that knows a guy, that knows a guy that cuts TR’s hair who said that TR said that he would leave if Wee Lenny got the job, and that he’s always loved Leicester.
So – that’s settled – Lenny is already appointed and TR, and JF, and CMcG, and KT, and everyone else, is for the offski.
HH
BGFC
SummerOfDiscontent(TheyWish!!!)CSC
The Crucible? Brilliant drama, although John Higgins didn’t enjoy it.
Georgios Samaras has nicer hair than Gary Hooper.
Samaras and Hooper .
Some things stick in the old bonce .
Rubentus 2-Celtic 0 (2013??)
Sat beside an elderly middle class Torinese couple . The lovely dears gave me a cup of hot chocolate from their flask and some mighty fine vanilla wafers at half time .
While Hooper failed to take a chance given to him on a plate by Samaras – she shrieked with anxiety and he calmed her down with an authoritative — Calm down Dear -he’s too fat and too slow ..
Some advice needed,please.MRS WF and I will be back on holiday from Perth WA next week and have tickets for the Hearts game.Heading to EK after game (hire car).Best parking spot?Also,would love an invite to Coia’s for a late brekkie. add smiley thing,
The following week will be in Toronto for Scottish Cup Final.Bramalea CSC.Would love to buy MIT a Molson.Thanks in advance. HH.