In days of yore Celtic would rattle nine goals past the Finnish champions on European Cup duty. That was never going to be on the cards last night but there remains a clear gap in quality between the teams. HJK Helsinki are no better than Hearts, but were clearly sharper.
The tie remains very much in the balance, a ‘Big Dan moment’, similar to what happened away to Sion last season, and the odds would stack heavily against Celtic progressing, and although HJK didn’t impress much, neither did Utrecht, who lost 2-0 at Celtic Park two years ago before wiping the floor with a disorganised Celtic a week later.
I have a few concerns.
Last season it worried me how dependent we had become on Charlie Mulgrew to create goals. His delivery from the left back position, not to mention his runs to the back post, were significant in Celtic overcoming the early season deficit.
Today we are a few central defenders lighter, if not any worse off in that department, but without Charlie galloping down the wing we are immeasurably less potent. Emilio is an able left back, but his performances are several degrees below his Player of the Year form and he is categorically not a goal creator. A double jeopardy is that when Emilio is behind Georgios Samaras on the left, instead of the more defensively minded Joe Ledley, we seem to have a real weak point.
If we are to start with a lone striker and five in the middle next week we’ll need Charlie on the left. This will stiffen up our weak spot and give HJK more to worry about.
The video moment for the players to study must surely be Georgios Samaras cross for the first Celtic goal. In case you missed it, the cross evaded the first defender. In this respect it was quite stunning and contrasted markedly to what was going on across on the right wing for most of the evening.
Early Player of the Year tip: Adam Matthews. Usain Bolt must be relieved our man is not a sprinter almost as much as Victor Wanyama is relieved he’s a footballer.
Our three raffles end at 19:10 TONIGHT! For the sum of only £1 you stand a chance of winning a painting of Henrik Larsson mid goal celebration, Scott Brown inventing the Broony or a print of our manager in his playing days.
It has never been easier or cheaper to contribute to the concept of what our club is all about, go buy a ticket.
Martin Chambers of the Ecuador Trust was in touch this morning. He said, “If you are able to help, the money will be used to fund the Soup Kitchen that we run each day feeding 150 of the poorest children in the shanty town – kids who would otherwise go hungry. Hope to hear from you soon” (he means you).
Feeding kids who would otherwise go hungry. Where have you heard that idea before?
The four beneficiaries are; The Haven, Cancer Respite Centre, Blantyre, Oscar Knox Neuroblastoma Appeal, Martin Chambers Ecuador Trust and Aberdour Primary School Parents Association.
For £1 you can win:
A celebrating Henrik Larsson painting.
A painting of Scott Brown in classic pose.
A Neil Lennon print.
What are you waiting on, do it now, there are only a few hours left! And after you have clicked on ‘buy a ticket’, DON’T FORGET TO PAY, as some people have. Just like social taxes, paying for your raffle ticket is NOT optional!
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Miki67
Did you use StreamPro last night?
SPF
CelticMac.
I’ve made a start with the computer.I lost everything,absolutely everything,pictures were the biggest hit,I hadn’t even a server to start with,that took me about an hour to find out how you go about it,I’ll get there again.
I’m taking the camera to the golf tomorrow and try to replace some of the mug shots I had on the computer.Take a few of Aberdour golf course,I may do a hole by hole tour and take pictures of the golfers,I could even get a shot of a wee kick out of the rough onto the fairway,Naw,I’m thinking of what I would do if no-one was looking.
May see you on Saturday,but with Malorbhoy there,every chance we may be in BBs,you have to pass BBs on the way to Celtic Park.
oldtim67 –
are you playing tomorrow or just along for the nighttime festivities?
I’m new to all of this, you understand
Sounds like a bit of a rammy at Tannadice tonight,Was Neil there?
Malorbhoy.
Changes are,1/ going to the game,2/afternoon drinking session,I usually spill some beer on some part of my body.3/evening,definately spill food over clothes,canny eat with my falsers in.4/Saturday to the game,more spilt drink?.
O.G.Rafferty on 2 August, 2012 at 21:42 said:
Long way to go indeed, I hope Mr Thomson keeps his interest in the whole debacle, keeps it in the eye of the public south of the border, if it drops out of the MSM outside Scotland the MSM within Scotland will sweep it under the carpet, the Internet bampots and the few MSM journos with integrity need to keep on this.
2 August 2012 Last updated at 20:37 GMT
Friday
Weather
Angus
Sunny Intervals Max: 18°C Min: 13°C
Trouble has broken out during Dundee United’s 2-2 draw with Dynamo Moscow at Tannadice Park.
About 150 fans of the Russian club had travelled to Dundee for the Europa League qualifying third round match.
Violence flared in a stand in the first few minutes of the game, before police and stewards managed to separate the two sets of supporters.
Several men – who appeared to be Dynamo Moscow fans – were seen climbing up into the top tier of the stand.
BBC Radio Scotland’s match commentator Jim Spence told listeners that fans of both clubs appeared to have been throwing punches.
He told listeners: “There’s a real scrap going on in there. There’s a steward trying his best to get in among it and there’s about five or six policemen in there trying to stop it.
“I can see United fans in there and I have to say they are throwing plenty of punches and the Russians are throwing plenty of punches.”
Co-commentator Allan Preston added: “It seems to be the corporate end – it’s all shirts and ties. There are about 30 or 40 people involved, standing trading punches”.
The match was able to continue while police and stewards restored order.
Speaking at half time, BBC Sportsound presenter Richard Gordon said: “I have to say I cannot remember the last time I saw fighting like that inside a Scottish football ground.
“We are up in the commentary gantry which is above the fans in the main stand. The Russian fans are in what used to be the old enclosure, down below at pitch level.
“There were clearly some Russian fans who were also up in the main part of the stand. I’ve no idea what happened but it all kicked off. There were certainly Russian fans in there but there were most certainly United fans. There was punching, there was kicking.
“There was one guy – someone had gone down and he was obviously absolutely determined to give him a right good kicking. He was pushing stewards out of the way.
“I saw some Russian fans climbing up onto the barriers and the walkways, trying to get up towards the fans there. I hate to say it, but United might well be in bother”.
Jobo Baldie.
I’m an early riser,I’ll be there about mid-day,Forecast is sunny all day,I better put a pair of wellies in my bag then. See you tomorrow,Have I met you before?.
Tried to get on ssb tonight to confront guidi abt his statement. Realy arrogant choob!!
Could any of our East Kilbride CQN’s who find it worring that South Lanarkshire council feel that it is appropiate to hire out Alison Lea community hall to an Orange flute band to practice on a thursday at 6:30pm please get in contact with them.
Derry Journal
Where did it all go wrong for Rangers?
By Eamonn McCann
Published on Thursday 2 August 2012 06:16
It’s hard to believe now that for most of the last century, Scotland was dominated politically by the Conservative and Unionist Party. Throughout the same period, Rangers were the major force in Scottish football.
Now the Tories have to scramble and scrape not to get into double figures but to get into figures at all. And Rangers have sunk like a stone into the depths of Division Three.
“This is a big club,” newco chief executive Charles Green continued to insist last week, even as he laboured to secure entry into, er, Ramsden’s Cup in time for a clash with Brechin City at Glebe Park at the weekend.
Rangers’ fall from financial grace has been so precipitous that, on the witching day of June 14th, the club was reduced to making its creditors an offer they couldn’t accept – three pence in the pound and no further questions asked.
The details of the downfall – tax fraud, phony contracts, false accounting etc – have been recounted often enough to be embedded in the minds of millions of football followers: some Celtic fans have total recall of every jot and tittle. Mickey McDaid has even mastered the basics of company law and accountancy, the better to savour the flavour of the saga.
The fundamental reason for Rangers’ reduced circumstances, however, has nothing to do with company law or accountancy but with the fact that the club was able to sustain its status as a footballing colossus for only as long as the ideas and ethos which it encapsulated held hegemony over its area of operation. It is because the roots of the problem run so deep that it may take more than honest new management and a succession of mea culpas to rescue the fallen giant.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, Scotland was the most Protestant country in the world, and probably the most literate. The immigrants who then began to drift in from Ireland – first in a trickle then, after the Famine, in a torrent – were sharply differentiated from the society they were joining – or at least intending to live alongside. They were Catholic, many of them Gaelic-speaking, as big a proportion semi-literate at best. To an extent that was never true south of the border, Catholicism in Scotland emerged as a specifically Irish phenomenon – now presenting cut-price competition for a disciplined Protestant working class with, already, a well-developed sense of its own place and entitlements.
Celtic was founded in 1888 with a conscious perspective of giving expression to the sense of identity of the Catholic-Irish community. Within five years the club had, astonishingly, established itself as the leading side in the – admittedly still semi-organised – Scottish football set-up.
The underdogs, or at least the underdogs’ colour-coded representatives, were suddenly top of the pile. Celtic’s first honorary president (jointly with the archbishop of Glasgow), Land League leader Michael Davitt, exulted: “The Celtic club is the pride of the Irish race”.
Small wonder that many in Scotland who associated themselves with the kirk, the Queen and the Tartan establishment felt a jolt of angry disbelief at what seemed the overthrow of the natural order of things. It was inevitable that any side which came forward to put a halt to the upstarts’ swagger would become a focus for Protestant loyalty – and Loyalism. Rangers stepped up to the mark.
The club had been founded in 1872. It was now, 10 years on, that the “no Catholics need apply” signs were erected around Ibrox. The establishment of a Harland and Wolff shipyard brought a fresh influx of Belfast Protestant shipyard workers, hardening attitudes and helping give Glasgow sectarianism its razor’s edge. The ideological character of Rangers which was to persist for more than a hundred years was set by the material circumstances of the time.
Competition between the separate sections of the working class for jobs, status and access to resources constantly replenished resentments and reinforced division. There was nothing ersatz or merely symbolic about the howls of hate exchanged at Parkhead or Ibrox on Saturday afternoons. The social function of football was to give unrestrained raucous expression to the underlying tensions of workaday life, the champions of each tradition going out uniformed to do battle on their supporters’ behalf.
And thus, with the occasional, soon-corrected stumble off the narrative line, things were to remain until the 1960s when, the world over, old certainties began to fragment and fade. Traditional industries declined, dragging down old elites. The Conservative and Unionist Party went into its free-fall phase. The role of religion receded. The influence of the Orange Order on business, the professions, the civil service, the judiciary etc began steadily to weaken. Rangers “constituency” was shrinking.
Celtic’s triumph in the European Cup in 1967 and the completion of the nine-in-a-row run of League titles brought the football dimension of this harsh new truth home to Ibrox.
Donald Murray took over the Club in August 1988, with a stated perspective of transforming it into a major force in Europe.
That meant ditching some at least of the old baggage. Continuing to keep Catholics out would strike virtually everyone in the game in Europe as quaint, disgraceful and flatly unacceptable.
Within a year of Murray taking control, Rangers signed Catholic ex-Celt Mo Johnson. As the radical commentator Michael Lavalette observed at the time, detaching the club from its sectarian history – at least in terms of its official persona – was not necessarily reflective of changed attitudes but, rather, a necessary element in “re-branding Rangers for the European market”.
It was pursuit of European success which also prompted Murray to borrow massive sums from the Bank of Scotland using the assets of the club as collateral.
The money helped lure top-flight players to Ibrox. For a while this seemed to work.
Rangers re-established themselves as number one. Nobody apart from Murray and a tight-knit coterie around him – as well as, presumably, account managers at the Bank of Scotland – knew that the club was meantime sinking ever deeper into what Americans might call the doo-doo.
The arrival on the scene of Sky TV marked the definitive end of an era, by no means only in Scotland. The game was now to be presented not as a passionate sport reflecting real rivalries but as a form of light entertainment to be packaged for a mass audience vulnerable to advertisers.
Another aspect of the same transformation saw Margaret Thatcher using the Hillsborough disaster as an excuse to insist on all-seater stadia and the banishment of donkey jackets, Bovril, reverence for the proletarian origins of the game and so forth.
Ticket prices soared. The target audience was the upwardly mobile, the city slickers and politicians on the make. (Is there a minister in any jurisdiction in these islands who has not discovered a devotion to one club or another?)
Scottish football has found the going particularly tough in this new environment. Sky’s money, naturally, flowed mainly to the most profitable areas so that, as in the capitalist world at large, the rich grew richer while the poor were pushed into relative penury.
This process was to reach its apogee, or nadir, last season when Sky handed Wolves, who finished last in the English premiership, almost twice as much as Celtic, champions of Scotland.
It was in a desperate effort to escape this contradiction and keep up – or catch up – that Rangers compounded their already unsustainable burden of debt by deploying Employee Benefit Trusts – devices for dodging tax. Between 2001 and 2011, no fewer than 60 players were signed on this fraudulent basis.
At every stage, the stance and behaviour of Rangers’ bosses has been largely in line with the attitudes and practices of the economic elite around them.
As we know now, the banks, including the Bank of Scotland, were up to their oxters in chicanery. And Sky’s biggest shareholders, the Murdoch crowd, indulged every variety of villainy that they thought they might make money from.
The devious schemes devised at Ibrox inflicted great damage on football. But, for many ultra-respectable individuals and institutions, Rangers’ way has been the rule.
It is evident that while the ideas in which Rangers are steeped – and the ideological content of the Celtic-Rangers rivalry – may have arisen not from football at all but from the condition of Scottish society, they operate in the modern era not as mere expressions but as among the main sources of sectarianism in Scotland. Marx referred to this phenomenon as “the relative autonomy of ideology”.
It provides the key to understanding why Rangers came to grief and why the task of restoration is likely to prove beyond the best efforts of those who have come forward to shoulder not only a daunting debt but the heavy burden of history
Hoops_Neil_Lennon_diditagain-Email in the morning,and will spread the word.HH.
BRTH
Yes, that last insult was an insult too far, though philvisreturns might have seen as a compliment! Bit sceptical about the new Sky contract, as reported, and like yourself have to ask the question, cui bono? Not the Celtic support that is for sure, and not the Scottish footballing polis either, Glasgow excepted. Now I realise the new TV deal may give some stability to the SPL over the next five years but whatever way you look at it, and the Battered Bunnet has, the benefit, economic welfare in old money, in the main goes to Sky Sports. I mentioned the other day that the BBC were using fifty channels (25 in HD) broadcasting the Olympics, the capacity is there, the technology in place, and that is just one, albeit major, medium. All accessible and available.
Villa Website saying Stan seems to be in remission ,and responding well to treatment.
Sorry for swift post but was all the its fans ok? Currently in the sticks with shocking net connection! On tyneside no.1 charity walk.
Should post link too! http://www.everyclick.com/tynesidecelticway
Also, completing the walk Saturday from George square to Celtic park around 10 if anyone wants to join us??
@celticrumours on Twitter
MT: Rumours Tennents will announce tomorrow Celtic will be the focus of new deal, with some ‘presence’ for Newco.
(Ian58 as was. Time for a change.)
Hard luck Dundee United. A sore one but not over yet.
Enjoyed St Johnstone’s brave attempt. Maybe another go next year? Who knows.
Even wished luck to Motherwell, despite my intense dislike of their current manager.
I think we could be in for a very refreshing SPL this year despite what the doomsayers and assorted vested interest may want us to believe.
I’m even hoping to get along to a Partick Thistle game with my die-hard Jags supporting chum in the next couple of weeks.
It’ll give me a chance to keep an eye on Glasgow’s Second Team.
Hope they do well. It would be nice to have a derby again sometime soon.
I won’t miss one this year.
I also won’t miss playing our previous city rivals again. Ever.
We don’t need them.
And I don’t think it will take long before the rest of the teams realise they don’t need them either.
Indeed, I reckon pretty soon everyone will be wondering why they ever thought they did.
Did big J D score for Utd tonight?? Just askin like. <o))
This is my first post,I’ve been following cqn and other sites for quite a while now.would like to say a big thank you to Paul 67 and all other posters for keeping me well informed as being a mechanical engineer and outnumbered 6-1 (yes its still rife) in a workforce of nearly 200.
jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/ on 2 August, 2012 at 22:24 said:
Naw no the night…
Flood and Watson
jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/ on 2 August, 2012 at 22:05 said:
Tried to get on ssb tonight to confront guidi abt his statement. Realy arrogant choob!!
What did the sleekit wee creep say?
Evening Guys,
Nice to get a winning start in the first leg last night. Dare i say it will be down to Neil Lennon to get the right team selection and tactics in the return next week. I must say that i do agree with comments that Victor Wanyama should be in midfield alongside Joe ledley as they give us a solid look in the middle. Lustig or Rogne to play alongside Mulgrew in central defence. I have also said for a long time now we need a quality goalscorer at European level. Hooper and Stokes are not good enough in Europe against better teams. I pray for a good result in the return leg and hope we do not get another Sion, Ultrecth, Braga or Ajax result. Over to you Neil Lennon. GET IT RIGHT NEXT WEEK.
Hoops Neil
Id be more concerned that one of their staff at SLC retired at 50 with a £500.000 nest egg after being suspended on full pay for 2 years. Eff the fluters!!
sipsini on 2 August, 2012 at 22:26 said:
Welcome to the blog, there is a tradition to call a new poster a Hun, but as they are dead I think we should leave it, I never liked it anyway, post and have fun.
Jobo Baldie.
I’m cosidering playing next year.
Believe it or not someone came to my house 2 days ago and he had a couple of golf clubs with him,I had a look at the and they were a 3 wood and the other a seven wood what was interesting was they were l/handed clubs and good condition,I asked him where he was going with the clubs,he’s always wheeling and dealing in golf clubs,and he asked me if I fancied them,”they may be a bit dear for you”what do you think they’re worth,£40 – £50 I said,He said,do you want them,I said to him I haven’t played for 15 years,but they’re interesting clubs,He came back with “give me £2 and they’re yours,and we’ll go to the driving range” I knew there was a catch,but I’ve agreed to go to the driving range a few times with him.That’s a true story,hense Me saying I may have a bash next year,If I get into the swing of it,I may come in and do a bit of Bragging, like Jonniebhoy a few years ago.
Paul67 et al
I think it is fair to say that this site, your site, has achieved many great things. Even so, a new landmark has been reached tonight, CQN being the very vehicle, via Mrs Lennybhoy if I am not mistaken, which organised Oldtim67’s carryout for tomorrah! Great days indeed.
Jobo Baldie.
Forgot to mention they were Ping clubs.
Scottish Football ins and outs
Outs
Rangers
Ins
Sevco 5088
HH
ftsfa
Never got on. I also wanted ask Delboy if he cut Stephen off on Tuesday thru embarrassment at Mc cold and daz sniggering in the background.
Awe Naw
Brilliant
http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/?p=10006&cpage=5#comment-1515084
As is this from……..
Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan supports Kano 1000 on 2 August, 2012 at 21:31 said:
Great news on the media rights, the mind boggles at the potential returns for the club.
HH
Celtic Mac.I must have a case of beer in the house,but I wasn’t kidding about the big parcel and bag.Glad I’m meeting Malorbhoy in Edinburgh Haymarket,he volunteered to do a bit of Carrying.
Hoops_Neil_Lennon_diditagain on 2 August, 2012 at 22:06 said:
I am about to text a man I hope can speak with a counciler.
Cheers doc,I will for every arguement the huns put forward I’ve been able to shoot them down,thanks to the information I get from cqn.thers no duckboard low enough they won’t crawl under to avoid eye contact.
Sipsini – I won’t call you a Hun…..I’m sure that it’s difficult enough being a Clanky!! :-)
HH
TTTT
Right, off to bed to dream about birdies (as usual!)
Big day tomorrow!
Jobo
Oh before I go.
Congratulations On Johanne Murdoch on winning a golf tournement,You lot kept that secret well,it wasn’t a Masonic Golf Tournement by any chance.
That makes Johanne favourite to win tomorrow
sipsini on 2 August, 2012 at 22:42 said:
For every crime they have many excuses.
They have no history now, the future for Sevco is gloomy at best, hard life being a Tim;-)