I’m a bit confused at the chat this morning of reintroducing the sale of alcohol at football games. Alcohol is available for sale at games at Celtic Park, you just need to have a ticket for an expensive enough seat. If you’re in the cheap seats, you get to queue to pay for some cola. Is people’s ability to pay an indication of their likelihood to behave in a dangerous or criminal way with some alcohol in their blood?
This implication has always troubled me.
Alcohol, wherever it is sold, inevitably leads to over-indulgence and potentially dangerous behaviour, and requires strong stewarding, whether that is at a night club, or in the No. 7 restaurant. Scotland’s licenced premises have changed beyond recognition in recent decades. They are increasingly well-lit, family friendly and safe places to be. They now sell better beer too, but our nation’s problem with alcohol remains acute.
Society needs to be educated on how to use alcohol responsibly; good venues are part of the solution.
While we are on the subject of facilities at Celtic Park……. I go months without buying food or drink in the North Stand, Upper, for good reason. Last week (pestered by one of the boys), I left for the kiosk with 40 minutes on the clock, didn’t get served until the second half started, only to be told there were no hotdogs or pies left.
You know me, I’m not one to get angry at Celtic, but the sheer frustration pushed me over the top, and I didn’t have a drink! If you’re charging circa £4 for something that’s costing less than £1, make sure stock is sufficient. Have two people serving each side of the kiosk, not two on one side, with a single person making hardly a dent on the queue at the other.
Needed to get that off my chest.
The ‘news’ this morning that Rangers International are trying to sack commercial director, Imran Ahmad, is more curious for being news than in itself. Is it even possible for this news to be anything other than a leak from a director against another director? These newspaper people don’t do irony, they just take careful notes and go write up their story.
This whole episode is beginning to feel a bit like sitting out the back when the neighbours don’t realise their bedroom window is open. You can hear the noises and you looked up and caught a glance at something horrific looking. It’s something you’ll laugh about later with your friends but these people really need to acquire some dignity.
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I mentioned yesterday that we have a few extra advertising pages available in the new issue of CQN Magazine that is out next week. We got a few bookings from this and would like to entice a few more in!
There is a big discount on offer and this covers not only this edition but also the one out after the Cup Final – so this is excellent value!
Anyone interested please email Paul at celticquicknews.co.uk and he will forward.
Thanks
Che
16:17 on
26 April, 2013
Enhance the match day atmosphere and experience by re introducing alcohol? yeah that’ll entice or encourage the younger generations to the stadium. Rather than ask why not be able to have a drink at the game, maybe we should ask why the need to.
———–
You know some of those I sit beside.
Che
Do you not think all the guys on the board are fans?
I like the thought that they want us to blootered to remember what we wanted and we will love the football every week because we are all blitzed!
LB
Celtic, to use a horrible term, is a responsible corporate citizen. It is many things more besides; a tempestuous mistress for example.
I think PL has a point in relation to the sale of alcohol at Celtic Park.
There exists substantial regulation surrounding the sale of alcohol in Scotland. My view is if the Barrowlands can sell alcohol for some of its more rumbustuous crowds, then there is no continiuing public order nuisance which justifies the prohibition on the sale of alcohol within the main concourse of the football stadium.
There are public order concerns surrounding the combination of alcohol consumption and the playing of football matches (witness Sunderland/Newcastle a few weeks ago) but I am not convinced that there is any evidence showing that consumption within (as opposed to out-with) the stadium is in any way proportional to the risk of public disorder. Put shortly, guys can get blootered before and after the game, and may be encouraged to do so more quickly and artificially before kick-off where there is an enforced, arbitrary, prohibition for the duration of the game. This also can tend towards later arrivals at the stadium, giving the club (and John Law) a perfect storm at bigger matches in terms of the public disorder/alcohol axis they seek to undermine by preventing alcohol sales at the stadium.
The commercial benefits to celtic and the improvmenet in the match experience need hardly be explained.
I say more power to the club on this one.
Am sure Celtic outsource their catering, though I could be wrong. If they do, they need to be reviewing the service level agreement. If they don’t, someone needs a nudge.
Incidentally, Rangers, Hearts and the SFA used to use the same mob. Sodexo, I think they were called. That all went very well, it seems.
By the way the alcohol proposition the club are backing is for a pilot phase – how you can even be against a trial run is extremely strange, especially considering the club stand to make money.
And if it doesn’t go well, then fine- we don’t take the proposal any further.
We have to give fans the choice though, like they get at all other live events.
And I understand some of you are older and have had your fun, but why not give other people the choice? People wont be allowed to drink themselves stupid in the ground- having a trial run is the way to go.
HH
Greggs style catering at those kind of prices is not hard to do. That should be the way ahead.
As for the beer – people cram in to bars in the vicinity of the ground anyway. Why not give them beer in the stadium instead? I don’t see the difference.
I think to avoid fast drinking there should be no drink at half time but before and after – why not?
goldstar10 16:32 on 26 April, 2013
My shoe came off after someone in the Jungle stood on the heel while celebrating a goal against our former rivals (McAvennie’s first in the New Year game).
Someone help it up about 20 minutes later, it was in a right sorry state, but not as bad as my left foot which I had attempted to keep off the ground. Impossible on such occasions with the pish flowing freely down the steps.
It was a bad moment on an otherwise great day. How our former rivals must dream of 2-0 defeats to Celtic.
goldstar , aye those were the days, especially when they missed the can and warmed your leg up for you , !!!
If I was a regular attender at CP, i would be against the sale of the Pat Lally. It reduces your enjoyment of the game to the behaviour of the lowest common denominator in your immediate vicinity.
Which, on occasion, might well be me :-).
Cannae Hiv Them Sellin’ Alcohol…..
Tae The Hoi Polloi In Parkheid…..
Oan The Matchdays…..
Jings..! Crivvens..! Help M’Bhoab..!
The Gazebo Gang Wull Get Washed Away……
By The Yellow Torrents Comin’ Streamin’ Doon The Slope…
As They’re Much Too Portly Noo-A-Days.
Tae Perch Oan The Empty Beer Cans….
Bearing The Heavenly Images….
Of ‘Senga’,’Heather’,’Isla’….An’ ‘Poppy’..
LiviBhoy
It’s highly likely that many of those who pour into CP minutes before, and after, kick off have been boozing in local hostelries.
I don’t see what the problem is if they’re having the same amount of booze ahead of the game but purchased in CP in the couple of hours leading up to the game.
Livibhoy
Yep, the Brox really will be like a sewer this evening.
Avoid like the plague.
None of that vermin better cross the border into Burghland.
That really would spoil my weekend.
The Brox will be honking for weeks
Drunkest I saw Celtic fans was Verder Bremen. I remember seeing one guy with one of those aerosol diesel horns in his mouth, blowing the sound out through his nose. Don’t know what the propelant gas was but he might have been more than drunk.
Ntassoolla
Saw your post yesterday Re Henry Healy but couldn’t reply at the time.
I worked there 1976-1979 on Saturdays and occasional days during the week whilst I was At Strathclyde Uni.
What branch were you in? Did Pat come from the Coatbridge area and did he have a sister called Margaret?
My boss was called Jim Main a mad Celtic man and huge Rolling Stones fan-a great influence on my adolescence.Unfortunately he died in the early 80s of a brain tumour.
Remember us both getting the aftenoon off to go to The Scottish Cup Final in 1977 against The Zombies-don’t quite know he he wangled that one!
TRADITIONALIST88
Some moniker to have then describe some of us as older!
dixiebhoy69
15:19 on 26 April, 2013
Paul
I had no idea alcohol was banned in the first place. A bottle of MD 20 20 lying underneath a seat in block 104 at the last home game….Forget queuing for a pie or coke, that’ll be the least of your worries….can you imagine the queue for the toilets at half time after serving beer to 20,000 or so middle aged men for two hours before the game? Given that only around half of men wash their hands after the using the loo….we’ll all be in hospital with all sorts of ailments from the door handles unless they install swinging doors! And lets face it….who washes their hands properly anyway with a push down tap set at 15 bar ‘fire hose’ pressure, temperature at 2 degrees, with no hot water tap, dodgy soap and usually no paper towels….and even if you survive all of that….the second hand smoke will get you in the long term anyway…..
dixiebhoy69 ,you have saved me writing a longer post,agree with every thing you say,I am in 114 lower the nearest toilet is used by large numbers who have missed their toilet training must have all been at smoking lessons that day,very little attempt to stop smoking in there.And as for food it’s a joke most weeks I take my coffee back as it is cold to be met with the kind of look that says,oh did you want it hot,And alcohol forget it it would be nightmare as much as I would love a beer.
Hail Hail.
Stringer Bell
I may be wrong but I think Celtic used Sodexo at one time but binned them a few years ago and took catering back in house.
Would help the traffic after the game if some guys stay for a non alcoholic lager shandy,watching highlights/interviews etc.
ElDiegoBhoy
I don’t have any problem with it either. Glass of beer before a match would be ideal for me. Watch some racing or other football on the telly. Much prefer giving my money to Celtic rather than the 5 ways. Celtic have got smart on this one. We have rakes of guys on our bus who go to the pub before games see it’s raining and not bother going at all. That may not change but if they drink in the stadium pre-match they will be more likely to stay for the match. It’s up to the players to keep them in the stadium.
LB
If they started selling bevvy at Paradise the Burgh bus would leave at 9 in the morning.
I reckon a great idea and CP should open at 11
Apologies if posted already.
Craig Whyte stands to make £8.5m if he wins lawsuit in battle for Rangers’ assets
The custodians of Rangers – and alarmingly few of their identities are known – will face a legal challenge from a company connected to putative former owner Craig Whyte for the right to claim the club’s assets.
It is a move which could earn discredited venture capitalist Whyte over £8 million, depending on whether or not the forthcoming court action is successful.
Last week Worthington Group plc purchased 26 per cent of Law Financial Ltd, one of Whyte’s companies and one which, crucially, claims to have Sevco 5088 as one of its subsidiaries. Included among Law Financial’s assets is the legal action instigated by Whyte against Charles Green for the claim on Rangers’ assets.
Whyte claims that Green, who resigned as Rangers chief executive on Friday, had acted as a front man for him – through the vehicle of Sevco 5088 – so that he could retain control of Rangers.
The club’s administrators, Duff & Phelps, who were appointed by Whyte in February of last year, revealed in the CVA proposal lodged with the Court of Session in Edinburgh three months later that they had signed an exclusive agreement with Sevco 5088, which would see that firm own the club’s assets – including Ibrox and the Murray Park training complex – should the CVA fail, as it was bound to do.
Whyte recently released documents bearing Green’s signature, confirming Whyte and his associate, Adrian Earley, as directors of Sevco 5088.
Green insisted, in a television interview, that neither man was connected with Sevco 5088. A statement on the Rangers website on April 12 stated that Green was the sole director of Sevco 5088 and that he had resigned to become the founder director of Sevco Scotland Ltd, the company to which he transferred Rangers’ assets once the CVA had failed.
Yet he was still registered as a director of Sevco 5088 on Monday, according to Companies House, in spite of instructing his lawyers, Field Fisher Waterhouse, to have the company struck off.
Indeed, in a statement to the AIM Stock Exchange on Monday, Rangers admitted that they had omitted to include a total of 21 directorships held by Green and the club’s finance director Brian Stockbridge in the admission document they produced prior to the share issue late last year.
They also claimed that Sevco 5088 was a subsidiary of Rangers International Football Club, the holding company which owns the assets.
This brings us back to Worthington Group plc, which has the option of purchasing a 100 per cent stake in Law Financial Limited, which also owns Whyte’s recently founded companies Law Capital Ltd, Litigation Capital Ltd and Media Litigation Ltd, by Oct 31.
Should they choose to trigger that option, they are contractually obliged to pay Whyte £1 million in unsecured convertible loan notes,
Whyte would also be due one third of the proceeds of any assets, claims or rights owned by his companies, including the legal action against Green.
Worthington Group Ltd is a professional litigation company and, if its court action is successful, it will either end up owning Rangers or the consortium will be forced to pay £22 million.
The original investors – Green, Ahmad, Stockbridge and the rest – exchanged their ownership of the Rangers subsidiary for shares in the plc worth £22 million.
That is what Worthington Group value the club at and, should they acquire the assets, then Whyte will collect another £7.33 million.
Further, if Rangers lose to Worthington, then everyone who invested in the share issue will end up with nothing.
As well as the document signed by Green, Whyte has also leaked tape recorded conversations between himself, Earley and Green in which the latter told Whyte: “You are Sevco, that’s what we’re saying.”
Green later claimed that he had told Whyte what he wanted to hear in order to gain control of his shareholding and boasted of having “shafted” the Scot.
Whyte’s argument is that he and Earley never consented to the subsequent transfer of Rangers’ assets to Sevco Scotland Ltd and that Green had no right to assume ownership of them.
Ironically, Green, although he is no longer chief executive, remains a director of RIFC. While he is also technically a director of Sevco 5088 (which Rangers on Monday told the Stock Exchange they owned), he would inadvertently appear to have a foot in both camps.
In yet another twist, in the most recent set of audited accounts published by Worthington Group plc (for the year ending March 31, 2012) lists the company’s solicitors as Field Fisher Waterhouse.
Probe into owners’ links
Rangers have commissioned leading London-based law firm Pinsent Masons to probe alleged links between Craig Whyte and Charles Green and his associates. International law firm Pinsent Masons will work in conjunction with financial experts from Deloitte.
140 years of… Oh! that was another club who are now deceased.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS
haha – knew that’d smoke some of ye out;)
HH
Burghbhoy
Where does your bus leave from?
LB
o.g.rafferty
Craigy bhoy needs a lot more than that to pay Ticketus.
Lets start a Greggs campaign. Add that to the ideas of pre-booking/online booking and pick up at half time and we’d be laughing.
The current situation is not just poor to the fans but also fails to realise the possible income we could raise from better quality provision
ASonOfDan, 16:54
Yes, only £10m shy.
And they aren’t the only ones looking for money from him either
Livibhoy
Winchburgh mate, we have a few stops.
Take a lead from Feyenoord. This is what will entertain the fans at HT :)
Feyenoord fans at a halftime rave in the stadium! You have to see this! #Ultras http://youtu.be/NgZoGJLD6IA
Steinreignedsupreme/DougC- Aye the youngsters don’t know they are living these days!!
O.G.Rafferty
I expected that yesterday.
The shares will plummet.
LB
O.G.Rafferty
16:52 on 26 April, 2013
Was that your nuclear news?
Livibhoy
St Philomenas hall
Livibhoy
If u are ever stuck for a lift to Paradise we pick 1 member up at Deer Park.
No problemo mate, hail hail
Paul67, I had the same experience in upper Jock Stein and wrote with my observations to the club who to be fair were very quick to reply, seems like they had large numbers of staff absent! We left 5mins before half time and just got back up a few minutes before the first goal, again stock wasn’t available. Catering must do better….
67 Club is Closing Down (maybe)
I got a letter in today from Celtic Park regarding my seat in the 67 Club (Jock Stein Lower):
“…the forthcoming season will see significant changes within the Corporate and Premium areas at Celtic Park this includes investment, and possible relocations.
As a 67 Club member we value your commitment to the Club and would like to discuss these changes with you in person…make an appointment to come into Celtic Park…”
I called today to ask what was happening and was told that: “the 67 Club is closing down for financial reasons and would be even quieter next season because the Celtic Rewards deal with MBNA would no longer be in place; therefore we will relocate you to the North Stand, similar seat but near the half way line.”
I told the sales assistant that I wanted to remain in my seat: if I wanted a seat in North Stand I would have bought one in that area as there are plenty of free seats.
Would my existing seat now become a standard adult seat?
“Yes, I think so, maybe…”
Would the seat be getting changed out from a padded one to a hard plastic one?
“No, they’ll be keeping the padded seat”
So, it’s not a standard adult then… What about the Kerrydale Suite is that going to be closed completely?
“I don’t know it‘s up to the catering division they’re in discussions with..(trailed off). It will be open on Champions League nights.”
So, we – 200 corporate season ticket holders – in the 67 Club are getting turfed out to make way for an open bar?
“Maybe, it’s not finalised yet. It’s got a capacity of 500; so we’re not making enough money from it.”
So what is finalised? All I’ve been told is that I’m losing my seat; you want to move my seat to the North Stand, which is unacceptable, but have no information to give me regarding other options.
“Well it is maybe shutting, I don’t know for definite; but you could move to the new Café 88 in the south stand, that’s an option.”
So it might not be closing then? I want to remain in the seat I’m in.
“Eh, you’ll need to discuss that with someone else, they aren’t in today, and I’ll pass your concerns on to them to call you soon.”
I’m a bit pee’d off about it all. Does anyone else have to deal with this “possible relocation”?
Burghbhoy
Used to stop off at the Tall ho in years gone by. A sad loss.
LB