The comment in today’s Telegraph by Joe Ledley confirming that, in the event they win the league early, Celtic have considered giving players some extended rest period before the end of the season has a lot of focus about it.
We have Champions League qualifiers starting on 2 July and hopefully extending six games later in the last week in August, all plans must be made with the objective of being as strong as possible for these games.
Last season APOEL Nicosia got through the Champions League group stages, beat Lyon in the last 16, before being stopped in the quarters by Real Madrid, but their European adventure this season was ended in August by Neftchi Baku. Rangers run to the Uefa Cup final in 2008 was quickly followed by an August elimination at the hands of the mighty Kaunas. We don’t need reminded of what happened in 2005, when the club formerly known as Artmedia Bratislava, and no longer playing top flight football, caught Celtic cold. Five times.
I’m keen to hear from Celtic on policing and stewarding at games. The club have to be attentive to all season ticket holders who feel they have been poorly treated, by police or stewards. Processes to deal with such matters must be open to supporter groups to audit, perhaps even to administer. Delegate thus, and you resolve many concerns.
The Lions Roar event at the Kerrydale Suite on 1 March, with a film of the 1967 European Cup final, will have commentary from Bertie Auld, Stevie Chalmers, Bobby Lennon, Jim Craig, John Fallon, Charlie Gallacher, Billy McNeill, John Clark and John Hughes. Mike Jackson will also be there with Billy. Tickets went on sale six days ago and there are only a few left…..
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Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever? (thumbsup)
Podium
HH
Swwwwwwwept away, by the hoops..
Awww… I could have been a contender…
HH
Bronze medal position …. I m content. ” it’s the taking part that counts” as I said to Lance Armstrong!
Top 10
Agree with you Paul that there should be more transparency re stewarding
The Telegraph has a list of Arsenal summer targets and quotes VW at a value of £12m. Wouldn’t want to lose him at all but if he maust go, I suspect £15m nearer the mark.
lower than 5th is “the podium”
Club Statement….
Pending or bending?
that was too obtuse even for me
Whoops pressed send button before I finished public records of complaints and responses provided.
We’re not finished in Europe this season.
We could win in Turin … a proper ref might give us a few penalties, send a couple off.
And my lottery numbers might come up next Saturday too.
Sitting watching television all morning waiting on Stuart Dougal to appear and try and defend the Bobby Madden penalty award to Dundee United on Saturday, that had two Celtic players booked
Come on Stuart come oot ,come oot, wherever you are
You were all over the television last Wednesday defending Mallenco
Celtic have to at least acknowledge the issue at this stage.
A short statement that they are seeking an urgent meeting with the relevant personnel and will report on the issue would be a start in defusing the tension.
Celtic will stand to lose a lot more than the Green Brigade’s 500 notes each per season if their presence at Paradise is made impossible by some shocking harassment.
Threatening some football fans livelihoods is a disgrace. If the ‘crimes’ these fans are supposed to have committed were that bad why did the police wait until the next Celtic home game to apprehend them?
This is not just a Green Brigade issue – fans coming off flights from Ireland and fans travelling to/from European games this season have been stopped and questioned as to how they could afford it and so on.
This has to stop – this is an issue for us ALL.
HH
Paul, good to hear the club are thinking ahead and looking at what is required to ensure the best chance of a repeat of this seasons succesful qualification to the big cup.
On stewarding the club need to let us all know who is responsible for what areas and what the problem is seen to be with the GB, is it the police who are being heavy handed outwith the clubs control , or are the GB breaking specific rules/laws regarding the stadium. Let us all know then we can make an informed decision.
bmcd48
It was an “honest mistake”. Nothing to see here.
Mort
Our earliest qualifying game would be on 16th/17th July, 2nd Qualifying Round 1st Leg of the Champions Route.
The Celtic Trust statement
http://www.celtictrust.net/index.php?func=d_home_article&id=397
Not sure what’s going on with the Green Brigade but Strathclyde Police sure do seem to have a lot of time on their hands… time they experienced a bit of austerity. (thumbsup)
The treatement of the GB is not a new thing. When the jungle got seated the Bhoys who liked a sing song moved to the rear of the Celtic end and I witnessed many Tims being arrested for jumping about singing. My mates brother and his pal were arrested at that time. They got done for Breach of the peace for singing at the football. Ridiculous charge!
LB
It’s time the CST organised the open meeting forum once more. This time however it must not be allowed to be hijacked by the club. Club officials should be asked to attend at a neutral location and not be driving the meetings as they ended up doing so towards the end of the last sessions.
IMO There are also way too many support of our club who trust our PLC board and officials implicitly. That for me is an extremely dangerous position to take.
MWD
So we win the league early, some of team have early break, so who plays in the Cup Final?
Good statement from the Celtic Trust.
We all await a statement from the club now.
Pretend your on ‘Bargain Hunt’ by wearing a brightly coloured fleece
and bump about your local charity shops, looking for bargains.
The fact that we will have to navigate through THREE CL qualifying rounds next season just to get to the group stages, says it all about the standard of the SPL.
I still expect us to lose at least one of our prized assets during the summer, but if we can keep the nucleus of the squad together – and a couple of additions as well as promoting some of our more talented youngsters – there is no reason why we should not be able to make the group stages again.
Also hope that the GB will be there!
HH!!
Green Brigade statement. Scroll on if already seen, but clearly some posters are still unaware of what the issues are. If the statement below is accurate, then no wonder these guys are crying enough is enough.
“Towards the end of 2012, the Green Brigade announced a two-match boycott of Celtic Park due to the continued police harassment of our members. We hoped to highlight the extent of our ill-treatment and perhaps force the police into a re-think regarding their bully boy tactics. Sadly the harassment has actually worsened since then, leading up to the events of yesterday which left the group with little choice but to leave the stadium before kick-off.
It has reached the stage where our very existence is under serious threat as fans will not continue to pay £500+ to be treated like criminals.
After the disappointment of Tuesday night, we had made it our intention to thank the team for their efforts and once again back them to the hilt. However, it was clear that the police, and indeed club officials, were not going to allow this to happen.
Even before we had even got near Celtic Park, the police had tracked us down at the CSA on London Road. They took our merchandise off of people who had recently purchased it and questioned the staff as to why our members were allowed in the building.
As we approached the stadium and began to enter, some members were told that they were to leave as they had received a football banning order. No warning or explanation was given. Others were greeted by a message at the turnstile after swiping their card that read “suspended for one game.” Again, without any warning or explanation as to why this was the case. These ‘’bans’’ were at the behest of the club and not the police, for reasons still unknown.
We were then approached by a Celtic steward who advised us to be wary when entering the section, as he was advised by Strathclyde Police that they intended to arrest some of our members, and that they were in possession of a ‘wanted’ list with names and pictures of the unfortunate fans who were to be singled out. It was at this point that we decided that we were putting our own members at risk by entering the stadium. As we made our way to the exits, one Focus officer, Tommy McCrindle, was grinning from ear to ear, goading the group into a reaction that fortunately he never got.
It would seem that the police and indeed the club have upped the ante even further in recent weeks. The facts are;
– We are now 10 members down since the turn of the year.
– We have had two members arrested and charged over the ‘zombie’ banner that was unfurled at the Norwich friendly. One of those members was arrested at a busy airport in front of family on arrival from holiday.
– The first of those charged had his first court appearance last week. This was laughed out of court but not before the stress and inconvenience of telling family members, taking time off work and missing big matches.
– Numerous members’ have been harassed at their homes in recent weeks, another clear tactic of intimidation.
This is all done under the say-so of Strathclyde Police’ FoCus unit. Celtic supporters have the same police officers following them week in, week out. This allows them to become familiar with the names and faces of our fans. It would appear that they use this familiarity to try to intimidate us even further. Simple things like name-dropping partner’s names or family members’ names has become an all too common theme. It’s all part of the bullying nature of this unit. The aforementioned McCrindle actually has on his social networking site that his job description is “full-time Fume-a-pest & termite control.” McCrindle was also in the midst of controversy following the Juventus game, as three members were arrested to be charged with a minor breach of the peace which quickly became offensive behaviour at the football, leading to banning orders being made a part of said members bail conditions. McCrindle even went as far as to attempt to pressure the Procurator Fiscal in to ensuring that one of the accused would not even be granted bail. The sad thing is that it’s our money that pays this man’s wages, whilst also affording this unit countless ‘’working holidays’’ to places like Amsterdam, Barcelona and Moscow.
After the last boycott, Peter Lawwell and Neil Lennon publicly expressed their desire to meet with us to iron out any issues we may have. We decided that this was something which we should try to use, so contacted them via a private email about this almost immediately. Sadly, they were ‘too busy’ but would contact us when they were ready. We’re still waiting on them getting back to us about that particular email, although we did receive one prior to the Juventus game with an agenda that in no way mentioned any of the concerns that we outlined. We advised that we weren’t prepared to discuss anything any further with them until our initial request was granted. We are still no further forward with that and as a result, any relationship with the club has completely disintegrated. Since this relationship has broken down the ticket office has become entirely uncooperative with us whilst the chief steward with whom we had a good working relationship with has been moved post.
We have never met with Neil Lennon before but have had numerous dealings with Lawwell in recent years. At almost every meeting, he has made promises that were never kept so this is nothing new. He met our members to discuss the fall-out over the “Let’s go to War banner” that depicted Lennon setting fire to Ibrox and had “Huns FC” written on the stadium. This led to charges and court cases which lasted 18 months for 3 of our members. We had met with Lawwell to discuss this and to see if he could lend his support to the case. Lawwell advised us that he thought the charge was ‘a joke’ and it was his opinion that the term ‘huns’ was in no way offensive. Furthermore, he went onto say he’d be happy for the club to defend us in court. We were clearly delighted with this. However, when our lawyer contacted him about this a few weeks down the line, Lawwell denied all knowledge of the meeting and refused to comment any further. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a senior member of Celtic security, David Brannan, was used as a prosecution witness.
We have heard in the last couple of weeks of meetings involving Lawwell and other Celtic fan groups. At these meetings, Lawwell has made no secret of the fact that he intends to see the end of the group sooner rather than later. He was quoted as saying that he would “give them enough rope to hang themselves.” We were told that Lawwell used CCTV footage of the section to pinpoint who he felt the ringleaders were and picked out a member as someone who ‘had to go’. We have also been informed that other fans groups may have attended similar meetings with Peter Lawwell and if this were the case, we would find it extremely disheartening that we were not informed of the club’s intentions by other Celtic fans. At this stage however Celtic’s agenda seems clear – They are intent on finishing the group off.
Our decision not to attend yesterday’s match was not something that we had planned. We simply felt that it was a decision that had to be made purely to protect our own members and those within 111. It has now gotten to the stage whereby members of our group live in constant fear of the police showing up at their homes or workplace with a trumped up charge, or to be told that they are banned from football matches as they approach the gates of 111. Now, more than ever, the continued support of the rest of the Celtic fans is appreciated immensely. We cannot stress enough that if things do not change for the better, the group will be unable to continue to attend matches to support the club that we all love.”
your = you’re
Livibhoy
Mibbe they were bad singers!
Like me!
:-)
Jay Dubya –
Re: the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act that’s being used as a harass and criminalise Celtic supporters.
The SNP introduced it and voted unanimously for it.
Every Celtic supporters who votes in the “independence” referendum should remember that. (thumbsup)
“used as a” should be “used to” of course. (thumbsup)
Celtic have made clear their views on the fans.
Payment, not participation, is their role.
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Celtic break their silence by denigrating GB members on a personal level, using the club mouthpieces to do so.
Celtic might already have deployed their considerable resources to dig the dirt on those targetted.
I still think we can make the last eight.
I did think 10 weeks ago that the Celtic backroom bhoys would have been able to have all our players fit and fresh for the Juventus tie.
I could understand 10 yrs ago the playing of a half fit Lubo Moravcik. But we don’t have anyone who falls into the category of a half fit Lubo right now.
Gordon J @ 13 20 .
Napoli blew the chance of getting to within 2 points of Juve but Juve don’t have the title in the bag yet . Juve play away to Napoli on the weekend before the Celtic game . Juve’s priority is Serie A . They won’t bust a gut in a tie where they are 3 -0 up at half time . That might be to Celtic’s advantage.
twists n turns @13:30 thanks for posting the GB statement.
My point in my posts regarding the GB is that if they do have any dirty laundry they must pre-empt their enemies and air it themselves.
Incidentally the GB banned me from their website and deleted my posts without explanation.
Philbhoy – It’s just the beginning!
They certainly weren’t the best chanters!
LB
Philvis @ 13:31
Could not agree more once you tick the yes box in the referendum. You should ready yourself for the first election ,where the people of scotland have the chance to vote for the party they want to govern them.
One for the anoraks!
I’ve seen people posting that we can win the league at home to Aberdeen on the Saturday of St Paddy’s weekend. Unfortunately, some Hoops will be en route to Belfast that Saturday!
If we continue to win all our games, is that the earliest that we can win the league? What if the teams closest to us drop more points, which is quite likely?
Cheers,
T4
Trophybhoy – If you want to live in Alex Salmond’s couthy and braw wee police state, good luck with the “yes” vote. The Scottish Parliament has limited powers and has already abused them horribly – personally I wouldn’t grant them any more. (thumbsup)