I looked into the world of Scottish football betting yesterday. Betting on Celtic to win the Scottish Premiership is less rewarding than putting your money in an interest bearing account, which, I suspect, is an approximation of what bookmakers will do with any such bets. In short, our league is not so much a sport as a secure investment.
Betting gets really interesting if you meander onto what is referred to as the Without Celtic market, or who will win the league if Celtic are taken out of the equation. Favourites are Aberdeen, closely followed by Motherwell and then Dundee United and Hibs (hmm….).
Can you imagine what a league title like this would do for these clubs? Aberdeen, Motherwell and United actually vying to become champions?
Some hold a notion that Celtic are the great benefactors of Scottish football, which is dependent on you and me for the occasional home game and TV money. This is rubbish. Celtic inhibits Scottish football more than we can imagine. We are a competitive poison making it impossible for historically significant football teams to thrive.
Keeping a clean sheet away from home is an achievement for any team. Doing so twice, in Europe, and winning both games, is outstanding for St Johnstone. Well done. I can only imagine their absence from the top of the Without Celtic betting chart is a result of bookmakers anticipating their run to the Europa League final in Turin will hinder their league challenge.
I have to express my sheer delight at yesterday’s pronouncement by the chief executive of Rangers International FC PLC, Craig Mather. We can be confident of this guy’s credentials and that he is worthy of following in the footsteps of Charles Green, Tommy Cooper and other comedic greats.
Mather issued a statement on the club’s web site noting punishments handed out to Hearts and Dunfermline for entering administration were different from the punishment handed out to Rangers International’s predecessor club (the player registrations and current penalties Newco Rangers were allowed to inherit) – for a completely different series of offences.
Those penalties were imposed for a variety of misdemeanours, including failure to declare the club appointed a director who had been struck off, failure to comply with stock market rules and multiple counts of bringing the game into disrepute. The SFA disciplinary panel responsible for the penalties found that “only match fixing in its various forms might be a more serious breach”.
Would you not feel a wee bit embarrassed by this? Mr Mather asks for clarification but I suggest we don’t trouble him by directing him to the aforementioned SFA panel’s ruling. Better that he operates in the version of reality he is most comfortable with, and that he keeps his followers away from looking into the real issues……..
To that effect, our thanks to all the media outlets who unquestioningly reported the Mather comments without hint of irony, apart from those pesky online types at STV, who had the temerity to address the question. Cease and desist immediately.
Flag Day tomorrow, another historic moment in Celtic history. Get in early, or late afternoon, as it happens. Hoping to see some of our new guys make their claim for a start in Sweden.
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ElDiegoBhoy,
Missed your message last night, do you reckon it will be fine to turn up at the Harp for the bus or is it usually full ?
Cheers
…………I’m sure we all remember the extensive and lavish coverage THAT leased coach got from the national broadcaster………….
Shameful.
With all the internal fighting kicking off again at Poundland, will our impartial and informed press pick up on the fact that the league flag is being unfurled to day by a man who put £1m of his own cash down with the BoS to save the club he loved. An act of faith that is alien to all that has gone on over the last 18 months.
TARANIS
Hood advice from ACGR yesterday. I hope you and yer lad have a fine fine day.
Mailed EDB to let him know you were looking for him.
So if he reads his junk mail…..
BMCUW
Cheers mate. Note sure which one of us is the most excited !!
!!Bada Bing!!
Is that you just out the bath?
Taranis
Spoke to one of the regulars on the bus. He said you’ll get on alright. Also said you would be able to have a pint in the Harp club with your lad. I don’t mean him having a pint:o)
Lots of guys who travel on the bus will be in the Harp.
There’s a couple of buses pick up in the High St.
The Lomond bus picks up across the road from the Harp.
Hope you both enjoy your day.
Final preparations for today:-
Scarf
Season Book
Camel coat
Train ticket
Top 10 Sid the Sexist chat up lines in case I bump into a Swedish physio or two
£20 for a quick pint in the Kerrydale Suite
Credit card in case I buy a round in the Kerrydale Suite
Lyrics of songs for the new Bhoys (courtesy of The Boy Jinky)
Ready made excuses for missing the last train home
Have I missed anything?
BMCUW
Just got it mate. Thanks for the kind words.
Neil will want to field the same back 4 as Wedenesday, swap Joseph for Beram and Derk if James is injured Ross County have had a turn round in the team , however I suspect they will be the same big bruisers guarding the back and flooding the midfield.
We owe them big time for last season , so expecting Izzy and Mikal to be more adventurous today and stretch County at the back.
Hopefully we can get a few goals and get Derk and Amido on to stretch their legs.
Fraser
Mikal Izzy Kelvin Izzy
James Scott Joseph George
Kris
Tony
Troontim – hankies, for when John Keane unfurls the flag.
Top of the morning to you all from a blustery Fife.
I had the privilege of being privy to the fact that John Keane had stumped up a million pounds to save his beloved Celtic at the time.
I would never have found this out from the man himself, as he didn’t mention the fact and remained quietly in the background as others took the limelight. But the big man didn’t need to speak. His actions spoke for him.
At the time there was every chance that he could have lost the million and he knew that but stumped up just the same.
If the difference between us and them could be epitomised in a man and his actions it is in the actions of this selfless, self-made man from Mayo.
Raise the roof for this quiet man from Mayo today bhoys.
H.H.
EKBhoy
Celtic quartet Georgios Samaras (toe), Kelvin Wilson (shin splints), James Forrest and Mikael Lustig (both stiffness) are all doubts.
Can’t see any risks being taken ahead of Wednesday.
Boerrigter in squad today, but Sammi, Forrest, Lustig not……being rested ..? ….. Need to be patient today…… Big one on Wednesday
kayal33
10:40 on 3 August, 2013
That’s what I said …..copycat…..hahahahahahaha
Richie ,
excellent news on Kano’sGhirl.
I know Martin will appreciate that people still think of him and also that you are donating from the winnings to The Kano Foundation – thank you.
TroonTim , could you squeeze a small 50p donation to The Kano Foundation ? :-p
We’ll have bucket collectors all round the ground today – if everyone attending could put 50p in a bucket we could safeguard the kids attendance for the next few years .
Hail Hail
Sanna
ElDiegoBhoy
Appreciate your help mate. Will get you a St Mungo’s in the Tullie one day !!!
Taranis
Happy to help.
it makes me laugh when I hear bhoys on here talking about speculate to accumulate and the board doing a poor job when you look what happened to the southsiders by following that well used strategy (lol)
anyone know when the old London road school and 1st phase of celtic triangle is starting???, all with our money of course
Kayal33, re John Keane and the Sevco blitz in the media.
Yes they cant handle it.
Jim McColl an astute businessman may advise and support the Sevco groupies. He will never become directly involved on the board or as major investor. He knows the zombies will hound him and his family until every cent of his money is gone chasing the BIG CUP. He is too cute for that.
Glad Chuck is back as he will play
up_over_goal
10:04 on 3 August, 2013
££££££
CG was the purchasers agent, he paid D&P for the assets, the IPO did not raise £22m, that figure is based on the share price of 70p. Chuckles (and others) paid 1p for their shares. That money was most likely fronted from the company that CG returned a portion of his shareholding to when the price started to nosedive.
It was CG who outed himself as having a habit if using racist epithets in relation to his ‘friend’.
The independent investigation into the links between chuckles, Ahmad and Cw found, after not consulting CW, or considering any of the information disclosed by Charlotte, that CG was innocent.
Mather has not gone on a spending spree, as Swally pointed out to his arch enemy Jabba, he hasn’t spent a penny!
All the trialists may hope for a contract next month but, if the easdales, Jabba and chuckles get their way, they may find that their dealing with a new manager who is less gullible than the Gregg’s poster boy.
….PFayr
09:51 on
3 August, 2013
‘John Keane ….a prime example of the difference between us and them’
###
I don’t dispute that there is a qualitative difference between us and them.
We are all products of our environment, us and them.
‘Circumstances make men, men do not make circumstances’.
But let’s not run away with the idea that our situation when we were on the point of going bust was in any way similar to their’s.
Our debt was comparatively modest, theirs, potentially, enormous. We had a huge earning potential, which entrepreneurs like Keane and McCann could see. The huns were, and remain, a washed out rag. Their potential is spent.
Wading in with a few million would have been an oat to a donkey in terms of their debt. I’m not surprised it didn’t happen.
up_over_goal 10:04 on 3 August, 2013
It’s very murky environment in the black and blue room.
Thieves and shysters have been added to the usual mix of yes men and chancers – to be honest, it seems pretty apparent that none of them know what they are doing.
It is simply not good business practice at any level to be haemorrhaging £1m a month when you have no banking facility.
What hasn’t dawned on many people is that Sevco are heading towards the same fate as Ex-co.
Soon the Zombies will be comparing hedges at fourth-tier football grounds supporting yet another football club and living in denial about their status.
bada
Re your router, I had an issue once with mine, and the Sky technician advised me to never switch the router off. Hope this helps.
Weefra HH
Phyllis Dietrichson 10:38 – almost forgot them, now packed
sannabhoy 10:42 – of course, some of my Kerrydale money has found a new home. One less Magners for TT.
Glasgow ranger are deid, long life the rangers, soon to be followed by the the ranger, aye ready hehehe!
WEEFRATHETIM
Aaaaaargh!!!!!!
Everyone knows that’s how they spy on you…..
TinfoilCSC
‘crushed nuts?’ ‘Naw, Layringitis!’ 10:54 on 3 August, 2013
Ally Absolutely is going nowhere. It will cost a fortune to pay him off and he is earning too much to quit. Question of Sport can’t possible complete with the ludicrous contract he is on at Ibrox.
Same applies to Myth. These jokers are bleeding Sevco dry. Fair play to them – true, blue and stinking rich…
I beg to differ Ernie.
Fergus was a shrewd entrepreneur who saw possibilities, but John Keane was not and acted from the heart with money he had worked a lifetime to accrue and could have lost.
In fact John went against all professional advice in doing what he did.
The man is a Celtic legend.
Good morning Bobby. How was the night shift? Just about time for me to get ready to go up to Linwood for the bus agm then off to the match. That’s what I call a great saturday. :))
Weefra HH
Here we go then.
Flag day.
Probably about 10 hours on the sauce.
Be slipping out the house shortly, before Mrs Burghbhoy realises it is a 5.15 KO
Obi live in Herald; “I feel I’ve been totally up front about it,” says Ogilvie. “I had an EBT at Rangers, and the bulk of it was to do with me leaving the club in 2005.”
My recollection is that CO said nothing about until Alex Thomson pursued the story. Chic Young was fed the story that CO did not have an EBT and it was duly broadcast on BBC.
The next day it was revealed that this was not true. Subsequently, Young came on the BBC and uttered his memorable phrase about a good night out !
“I feel I’ve been totally up front about it,” says Ogilvie. Aye right,
Ogilive not Obi live …….I am now about to chastise my iPad.
Big Nan
11:05 on
3 August, 2013
I’m not decrying John Keane.
I’m saying that our situation was in no way analogous to that of the huns.
WEEFRATHETIM
Nightshift pleasantly brief and deskbound-I wish they were all like that!
Enjoy the flag day-strange we don’t get Aberdeen on such days-and say hi to yer Mum.
SRS
I think the idiots believe the BS ….he’ll mend them
Hell even
Bobby
Cheers for that. She really is a poor wee soul. I think the pneumonia has done her in. But we live in hope. Will give you a ring next week.
Weefra HH