News that fans could be able to attend games from the middle of next month is very welcome. Lots can happen between now and then but Celtic Park with a reduced capacity is better than an empty Celtic Park.
For those attending, the process of gaining entry to the ground will feel onerous; more like being allowed onto a flight than into a stadium. A trial-run next week against Motherwell, even if only for 1,000 of us, will be useful to check processes before more significant numbers arrive.
On 20 February this year, a day after Newco advertised on their website for a kit partner, I told you production runs for replica football kit were such, that getting a deal done and shirts on shelves for this season in any volume was impossible. I wrote, “manufacturing slots are booked in March or early April. These are high volume items, production cannot be arrange doff the cuff.
“Multi-million pound contracts with any serious manufacturer will require scoping and due diligence, this could take weeks, if not longer.”
There are a small number of manufacturing facilities in the world that can produce these garments in volume, the major brands all use them and production slots are booked – to the minute – months out.
When Newco and Castore announced their deal in May and promised to ship in August, two possibilities occurred to me: I was wrong, or they were both flying by the seat of their threadbare pants.
Yesterday, the kit supplier apologised for adding Castore and Newco logos to school sweatshirts (busted as they had not gone to the trouble of changing details on the washing label). They also apologised for shipping top quality replica tops from China to some fans, when they intended to only ship inferior kit, manufactured at a location in Turkey. Yes, really.
Fans are now comparing shirts with a similar quality to any other replica football top, and something that costs the same as any other replica top, but is a very inferior product.
Getting things right in football costs money, takes time and experience. If you think you can breeze into this industry, bang a few heads together and deliver a world-class deal, you have world-class arrogance.
Newco’s commercial director, James Bisgrove, was less than a year in the job when he put an email address on the club website asking kit suppliers to get in touch. To be fair to him, it was a terrible position to be in, but he signed a deal without the scoping and due diligence that would prevent fans suffering this debacle. He does not have the experience required to do the job.
In February, before Castore were even a glint in the Newco eye, I wrote that their new kit deal, “will be a poor contract and it will perform badly for all concerned.” But all of us who have been paying attention for the last 8 years (and the 12 before) knew that.
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Pingback: Back to Celtic Park, CQN prediction from February on Castore deal Paul67 - Celtic FC News Aggregation
AT
Not a problem
Just my personal take
https://twitter.com/tic1967lisbon/status/1296336048583254018?s=12
Top of the Class,young man
NL confirms interest in Duffy…..unusual to comment in these situations….
Sevco and their antics have certainly brightened up my life these last few years. If they weren’t who they are they would have become my “2nd” team. You’ve got to love the wee toerags. God bless em
Good article Paul
I an interested in getting us back to the game
maybe if the club could post suggestions on mapping,pathways and direction of travel etc so fans can travel and feel safe at a game.
hh
I didn’t think I would have been in Paradise again before 2021.
Rangers introduce Castore.
An absolute riddy then and now.
The first three minutes are priceless.
Banter Never Stops.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFgI3NPYx1o&t=671s
Women’s open from Troon is brilliant. Hellish conditions. Golf in its purest form. Women swing clubs far better than men. I’d love to be able to swing a club like them.(Some day I do)
Compared to the blood and snotters approach of that erse de Chambeau this is REAL golf
FECK THEM
Bada
The more I think about it the more Duffy makes no sense to me. Competition for Julien’s position?
KINGLUBO from previous thread.
True story.
HH!
Big W- I think he wants 3 big guys at the back,to play mainly 3-5-2,or there might be genuine interest in Ajer.
Bada
I get the 3 at the back but if we have a Duffy budget (wages contribution and a loan fee) I’d prefer a left sided CH. Julien isn’t for budging as the central CH (despite the bedwetting) and Duffy, for all his old fashioned qualities, is neither pacey or a good passer of the ball.
Is it an Ajer replacement, then I’d still like us to retain the ability of a footballing CH take the ball forward and break lines.
Have to say this kit farce is right up there with anything during the banter years😂
Pedro in the hedge, recycling mccoists suit for stuart McCall etc. Wonderful
You can bet,Gerrard is a shareholder in Castore, a set up from a guy’s garage in Liverpool….
Did the Castore brother’s used have a stall in the forge market about 10 years ago? I seem to remember getting a cracking deal on 7 emerald green strips and a goalie top for the five-a-side team! Excellent quality and ready within a week of ordering.
No Bobby Does It Petta at 12.20
The link is comedy gold. It’s almost like watching The Office, except this is real. Read the comments section as well, proper laugh out loud stuff.
A kit deal with a start up. What a bunch of roasters.
garngad to croy
Don’t you mean ready within a week of the Celtic shop being broken into? -))
Do they really expect circa 5,000 Celtic fans ( actual number to be quantified) to sit quietly when we play the huns. ?
HH.
PS : At least there will be no huns there. At last.
Be interesting to see if castore can survive financially.
If they are to put things right, by refunding or replacing the school kit and dodgy holiday knock offs, it’ll cost them.
Does a company such as theirs have the reserves / credit line to do this?
Sevco could be playing in Bukta by the seasons end.
Following the Trustpilot reviews just gets funnier, Castore removed all yesterday’s reviews by reporting them for breaching the site policies.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/castore.com
AN TEARMANN
Re yesterday’s talk of the tunnel tigers , Thee is a lovely memorial behind the chapel in Dungloe, all the guys who lost their lives and where , very sad how many. Also if up my way Big John who runs the Commercial in Muthill is a bit of an expert on the tigers , he has lots of pictures and Info about them . He also wrote and sang a song about them and I’m sure he would give a rendition to anyone who asked.HH
Fieldofdrams
I ken, the comments section is gold. Wonder what these peepul are saying now 😂
“Over the moon with this deal castore is a premium brand maybe be pricey but I’m willing to pay a bit more for a quality British brand rather than a run of the mill product”
“First Major step in years!! 55 is coming”
“Got a few Castore garments and more ordered since the rumours about Castore becoming Rangers new kit supplier, it’s outstanding quality, you need to see it to believe how good their garments are”
“Dont mind paying a bit extra for a British brand instead of foreign brands like Nike, Adidas etc”
“Really impressed by Castore and guys behind the brand. Quality all the way”
“Bisgrove has a great reputation throughout Europe and the Castore deal will be superb”
“This will make us bigger than Real Madrid”
The kit farce, like everything else that goes on at Ibrox & the avalanche of crap that pours out of SNP Holyrood day in & day out, generates only a light touch from our cowed & compliant Scottish media.
We return to league action this weekend with our fingers firmly crossed that we are not punished again by the leader of our devolved assembly.
I think back to when we were ‘in the teeth’ of fragmentation of the original Ibrox club. Stewart Reagan commented that if an acceptable solution wasn’t found, we faced Armageddon in Scottish football, and serious societal upheaval in the country.
Is the prospect of 10iar now beginning to play on the minds of some in positions of power – would it, in their opinion, bring serious societal upheaval in the country?
The curtailment of matches involving Celtic & Aberdeen for misdemeanors of individual players handed an immediate advantage to the Ibrox club, whilst ignoring that club’s previous conduct after returning from France.
I must add that the shutting down of Aberdeen was a vindictive, spiteful & unnecessary act – is it because it is a NO city? The subsequent offer of £1m compensation was a ‘slap in the face’ to the city – of course a carefully delivered insult is an expression of power.
Nonsense! It’s the most lucrative kit deal ever in Scottish Football and worth £25m, don’t you know?
‘Fans are now comparing shirts with a similar quality to any other replica football top, and something that costs the same as any other replica top, but is a very inferior product’.
The kit fiasco is such a great metaphor for all things Sevco.
At the end of the season they’ll also have to compare teams and realise their replica Klub is a ‘very inferior product’.
Before we start slagging off Castore, some the Adidas gear isn’t the best, £38 for a polo shirt with plastic badges. As for that abomination on the north stand…🙄
There are a number of things have happened to that club over the last number of years that I sometimes sit back and wonder did I imagine it… such as the now infamous tweet looking for a kit manufacturer
By the time that tweet had gone out, poor wee Sevco had no choice but to accept the first offer that came in. They had become that desperate
It was either Castore or have no kit whatsoever
We knew it would be funny but it’s gotten to such hilarious slap-stick comedy proportions now that if we didn’t have social media no one would believe it is happening
The Banter Years continue and better than ever
B-)
Genius post from twitter
All castore have done is taken the idea from rangers themselves , use a completely different top . Stick the same stickers on and same badge and say it’s the same top , yet there’s outrage at this ? 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️🤦🏻♀️
@EmmaEmm21
FT @ 11.58
JC offered hope and a new direction in 2017.
Come 2019 and he was just phoning it in with a manifesto that was a wishlist not a programme for government — and the rest as they say is this shambles we have all around us.
My choice is to stay in the UK and fight for progressive politics.
Tough gig given the media bias and the Brexit bounce that has enlivened the hard of thinking.
However it has been done before and it offers the most complete solution to the issues we face.
The EU is not the complete answer — what they did to Greece was a disgrace and Frugal Four / Five are a warning of what lies ahead. Factionalism / racism / social superiority will trump solidarity which is my worry no matter if we are in or out.
It would be better if the UK was in but we have more pressing issues closer to home.
I do not support Scotland being independent.
It is the politics of identity over ideas / place over people.
Gravity will not go away if we become independent
The financials at the moment do not support it and the gap is growing due to the failures of the Nats and their lack of vision / delivery / purpose apart from a desire for more division.
I also think that we lack the social and societal depth to be a successful small country.
Too many people know everybody who is anybody in Scotland — no rocking the boat / groupthink / old uni pals act.
Plus we are acting very immature at the moment and it is getting worse.
We cannot face up to our mistakes and our failures — we just want to blame someone that isn’t us.
We have a very small political gene pool that is shrinking by the day — we do seem to play better on a bigger stage and Holyrood is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.
We cannot make the most of our national sport because of division / stupidity / laziness / insider dealing.
MMcK would never have been given a job at the FA because of his past comments.
He was practically carried over the threshold by the SFA because he was one of the boys.
This is the challenge we face — and I don’t think we are up to it.
TFOD1 would not have been put into administration by the “HMRC” in an indepenedent Scotland — Wee Eck would have used his contacts in the “Rabbie Burns Appreciation Society” to arrange a settlement that would have kept them alive at the expense of substantial tax revenue being lost.
SDM only got found out when the BoS tied up with the Halifax.
Marriage of equals so the rein was only made shorter.
He got removed from the scene when the LBG took over and said enough.
Please note how much of a comeback he has been afforded by the Auld Reekie business clique.
In other counties he would have been facing jail time.
We allow him another go to build on the Auld Reekie greenbelt.
In an independent Scotland he would still be living of hos BoS tick lines.
So I do appreciate that things are not looking good — but it is global.
Plus we are not making a good fiist of the levers of power we do have.
It is folly to think things would improve if we managed to get more.
JHB on 21st August 2020 1:14 pm
Rule Britannia!! Mon the Unionists.
Only a matter of time fella.
21-5-79 🍀 on 21ST AUGUST 2020 1:27 PM
I actually sent back my £63 training top.
Looked great on Jullien in the pictures online.
Reality was it looked and felt cheap and was wafer thin (the top, not me!)
HH jg
31003
Second team? God bless them?
Not for me even in jest. They are a cancer.
Re the Golf, i loved the US women saying that she has never played in conditions like that in her life. Ms Balfour said welcome to Scottish Summer.
It is real Golf. The first 4 holes into the wind are impossible
JG
I sent back the polo shirt, £38 for sticky back plastic on a cotton top, looks terrible, I got the tracky top, that’s nice.
An Tearmann
I see that Crossrail will not now open until 2022 at the earliest. It was originally due to open 2018, indeed the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan even announced the fares that he would charge. The thing is the tunnelling, by the Donegal Bhoys was completed on time and pretty close to budget. Track was also in situ a few years back. Tunnel fit-out, software, and new station build all delayed. especially at Bond Street. Pandemic has not helped.
AT @ 11.51
That was pure gold frontier gibberish and then some.
Base point still stands — what party have you voted for and what party do you intend to vote for?
Don’t be shy — I am sure the micro Marxists / tiny Trots would love the publicity.
So who do you support politically and who do you vote for.
21-5-79
I thought it looked great.
Still quite happy with my green Nike one from a few years back. Nicely retro.
You may have temped me!
HH jg
https://m.jdsports.co.uk/product/green-adidas-celtic-fc-identity-track-top/16010923/