The Scotsman did an interesting article today on the fact that recent attendances at Celtic Park have fallen well short of the circa 46,000 paid for tickets, the majority of which are season tickets. It touches on several issues.
Suggestions that a league in which Celtic inevitably process to the title is less attractive to the spectating public than a league with a competitive challenge is not a surprise. It would be bizarre otherwise.
Still, many Celtic fans continue to support the club for a whole variety of reasons: we want to see it prosper, we enjoy going to games with our family and friends, and, unsurprisingly, we enjoy watching football.
Anyone who doubted that attendances would soften after Rangers were liquidated should have widened their survey sample. For most of us, this was a welcome change. The joys of beating Rangers were undeniable, but most of us have a deeper relationship with Celtic.
The Scotsman predict that in the event there was never a “team called Rangers in the top flight” Celtic would endure some serious downsizing. If we remained within the confines of Scottish league football this is undeniably true. So what? There would be little competition, less income, fewer signings and more promotion from the youth team.
In this scenario there would inevitably be fewer Champions League nights too, but in the big scheme of things, would we want it any other way? Of course not. Celtic will be there, in sunshine or in shadow, playing football and paying their bills. I’d sign up for this right now.
There is, of course, the question of how welcome our continued presence in Scottish football would be with the prospect of not just winning 10-in-a-row, which I hear our favourite Sevconian, Ally McCoist, is now discussing as a possibility, but the realisation that 10 would soon become 20, or 30-in-a-row.
All Celtic can do is continue to win football matches, pay their bills and see off all challengers. The game here is irrevocably broken; the consequences of this will continue to emerge in the months and years to come. All we know for sure is that Celtic will prevail, no matter which scenario plays out.
[calameo code=000390171ece27dd9e54e lang=en page=98 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
817 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 22
- »
If jock stein could give young home grown talent a chance at a time we had arguably our greatest team ever & the opposition in scottish football was of a european standard, why can’t Lenny give more a chance when we are a mediocre team in a poor standard league that we will win in a canter. Last season, this season and the next couple of seasons are once in a lifetime opportunities to develop our own players and be successful. Its a chance being wasted by short term thinking and a conservative manager.
Free
Celtic is free from debt but is its heart free and singing?
Celtic FC Mos Def.
Celtic PLC ?
The LOVE of Money is the root of all evil after all.
The Celtic Support and this site in particular (I don’t frequent others but I reckon it would be the same) have a Celtic ethos ingrained within them.
I’ll be happy to see Celtic conquer Europe again before I die and I hope that it is full of Celtic reared kids.
I’d want the Green Brigade, Grey Brigade, Jungle Bhoys and the converts fae the dark side jumping around in unison as we put the £300,000++ a week players in their place by playing pure, inventive beautiful fitba.
SomemaysayImadreamer.csc
Seville 67
Too true.
bournesouprecipe
15:51 on 30 December, 2013
Ice Station Zebra then Mary Poppins on a BBC 2 ridiculous accents double starring Ernest Borgnine and Dick Van Dyjk.
Cor blimey guvnor, Ernest was indeed versatile a Russian spy and a nanny all in the same day.
There were 3 reasons I travelled to Glasgow over the years to watch Celtic and all 3 are now lacking. As previously stated the football is for the most part drab, the thrill of watching, players like Lubo & Henke is gone. Secondly the lack of any real competition has taken the edge and tension out of match days. In previous years every game was a must win, you would invest all your nervous energy into the match day experience, a draw or a loss was a massive downer but a win was a tremendous high, and you thrived on this high. The third reason was the craic, a full house, bubbling with noise, colour and song at the stadium and pre & post match pubs with a similar atmosphere. Political correctness and Focus have sanitised the whole match day experience. In order to crack down on a few Neds they have killed the product.
Doc….
The only league for a team of our stature is in England…..unfortunately it will also involve our ugly neighbours in whatever version they are by then.Alternatively,this Celtic Nation project in Carlisle might well be a Trojan horse full of unrepentant Fenians like us lol.
South of Tunis….
Yes,there was lots of Columbian marching powder being offered in there in the early 80s.
Obviously that auld Orange fecka Arthur Thompson carried out his market research in such salubrious establishments.
afternoon Bhoys and Ghirls,
why don’t we carry out o a survey on CQN to get to the bottom of everybody’s dissatisfaction
for example I would list 5 reasons to choose from and list them in order, first being the most upsetting.
Then Paul could take this to big Pete and drap it intae his lap.
NO 1 Fed up with a non competitive league set up and winning title by 25 points (boring)
NO 2 Disappointed with the football-tactics currently, especially at CP
NO 3 Upset with the treatment of Celtic fans, ie Green Brigade, flag ban, FOCUS etc
NO 4 Upset with the boards silence re corruption and cronyism within Scottish football,SFA, msm
NO 5 Waiting 18 months for a deid team to comeback will sort it all out.
Personally my answers would be
5
4
3
2
1
Take that to board Paul and give them both barrels
Hail Hail from a normally placid Paddybhoy
Have we signed emdae yet?
If Aberdeen,Motherwell or any of the rest were within a point of us at the top – then I dare say that attendances would be higher.
If Sevco were in the SFPL,and lying eleven points behind us – I dare say that attendances would be the same.
They are nothing but an irrelevance to us…They mean nothing.
Nobody can say that they miss them,because they were never there in the first place.
You can hope and pray for a return of the old club,but that’s your problem,because it’s never gonna happen – they’re dead as a duck.
Those that yearn for the new club to play for the first time in the big league – Good for you…we will meet them and we shall beat them.
But please don’t complain about the pure poison that will inevitably follow them.
We are being assailed with an incredible amount of negative propaganda about falling attendances and imminent Armageddon all because a club cheated and is currently in liquidation with a successor entity making friends in the lower leagues. I have absolutely no problem with Celtic dominating domestic football in Scotland for the foreseeable future. There are still milestones to be passed and honours to be earned in proper sporting competition.
However, it is more than likely that there will be further restructuring of European club football in the near future and it should be Celtic’s aim to continue to participate in European club football at the highest possible level. This is the very real upside of the unrivalled spectacle of a competitive Celtic playing to full houses on the main European football stage.
In the event that any such reorganisation takes place then the possibility of Scotland, indeed Glasgow, providing any more than a single candidate club is unlikely. This prospect will be causing fear and anxiety among the Scottish football establishment and mainstream sports media, especially given the parlous state of a Rangers footballing entity. Be assured that if the roles were reversed then Celtic would be buried in the blink of a steely, blue eye.
Celtic need to remain focussed on a positive future and the very real prospect of being Scotland’s sole representative at the highest level of European football. Standing still or slipping backwards to meet and compete with a new Rangers entity in a backwater league is no strategy at all.
Let’s keep winning.
Chris
Silly season about to start…..being inked with every Championship journeyman…no more “projects” please…..how will our Under 20s guys feel. Let’s give tham a chance instead of some unknown from the likes of Huddersfield with a pants scoring record
Paul,
totally agree with you about our game being broken. Don’t know what we as a club can do about that. Hopefully, we are working quietly in the background towards some kind of solution.
Our attendances are quite scary. A lot of people are making the decision not to attend the games. Some, I am sure have that decision made for them by financial realities.
Many (including on here) profess to want to stay away ‘because of our tactics’.
I find this difficult to comprehend. Still, each to their own.
Celtic supporters will continue to attend whenever possible, I am sure.
There just seems to be fewer supporters than we thought.
Dunfermline – second in the league – at 9/1 to beat The Rangers at home. Remarkable odds. Do the bookies know something that we don’t?
Subterranean @ 16.30 ☆;:*:;☆;:*:;☆;:*:;☆;:*:;☆
Bobby Sands loved looking at Birds and looking at one of the creations of the Creator.
Freedom is to be cherished.
I found it ironic that after the Political Banner Celtic got nailed for, Uefa then sanctioned Minute Silences/Applauses for the Great Nelson Mandela.
The Almighty definitely has a sense of humour and his story is just Marvellous. ;))
Seville 67
I personally agree with you about the Newco.
My experience of other Celtic fans and supporters is that many (and I mean many) is that they want to play a team that looks and smells like the Oldco.
CQN is not representative of the wider support.
16 roads…..
The first time we play the Tribute Act, I will be 300 miles away and still wondering if it is far enough.
I admit,like a true voyeur,I will look in and watch hoping for a record scoreline for an SPFL game,but honest mistakes might keep such a scoreline to single figures.
Probably better off to play it behind closed doors at Lennoxtown.It would stop us getting sucked in by their poison.
I don’t agree that Celtic will survive no matter what scenario plays out! There are several very realistic scenarios which would see our demise! Complacency is one of them!
corkcelt- SUPPORTING THE DAM 5
16:23 on 30 December, 2013
There were 3 reasons I travelled to Glasgow over the years to watch Celtic and all 3 are now lacking. As previously stated the football is for the most part drab, the thrill of watching, players like Lubo & Henke is gone. Secondly the lack of any real competition has taken the edge and tension out of match days. In previous years every game was a must win, you would invest all your nervous energy into the match day experience, a draw or a loss was a massive downer but a win was a tremendous high, and you thrived on this high. The third reason was the craic, a full house, bubbling with noise, colour and song at the stadium and pre & post match pubs with a similar atmosphere. Political correctness and Focus have sanitised the whole match day experience. In order to crack down on a few Neds they have killed the product……………………….
Says it all for me………..Dead on mo chara………
Regards & Hail Hail
TBM
Was it the reinstated Mc Donald that refused to book bougyhun who kicked Robbie Keane all over the place?
ryecatcher,my brotherinlaw worked in the barrowland bar his dad ran the place in the mid 60 mid 70 his sister also worked there all good tims by the name of McGee,dont think it was a hun bar.
Jama
I haven’t seen sufficient number of youth games to have a belief, but I do have some hope that we have a couple of players around the 17-19 years groups who may make it.
Watt was a banker last year, but is clearly struggling to adapt to the modern demands of professional football. Atajic is highly thought of. A couple of kids are getting game time on loan, and Twardzic F. looked very promising on the few occasions he has been seen in the first team. Others get a chance or two then submerge below the waves again, McGeouch for example. Perhaps they’ll resurface again, perhaps they’ll play for Derby County.
Of course, we don’t have access to their fitness and conditioning stats – something Rogic I think is struggling with – and we don’t see how they go about their work day to day. Point is, playing for Celtic is a very high standard, and there are myriad influences on the ability to compete and shine at the level we require.
I imagine we will continue to see one or two get a shot each season, and if we’re lucky, one will cut the mustard.
CCB
Yip, relatedly, numbers again. Andy Murray is world class. Chris Hoy likewise. But these guys, however talented, are both singularly one offs, and competing in sports that are less universal than football. You cannot create a strategy for one offs, as the Lawn Tennis Association have found out to painful effect over 40 years, but you can focus on niche events and become World Champs at lesser played sports, as happens with the Baltic countries and Israel in basketball for example, or indeed, in Scotland with curling.
Football nowadays is the number one pro sport on the planet. 40 years ago it was the domain of a dozen countries in Europe and South America, and few players moved outside of their own country. Today, the top teams comprise the cream from every nation on earth, and the international game is truly global. We have 26,000 boys born in Scotland, competing for places at Arsenal and Munich with the 65-70 Million boys born around the world each year, mostly mad for football.
You could throw a hell of a lot of money at youth development, and you would certainly raise the standard of the average player, but you won’t get a Messi or a Ronaldo without the kind of fluke that numbers throw up from time to time.
The issue is getting a lot of coverage in England at the moment where, despite having 10 times the number of boys that we do, less than one third of EPL starting places go to English players, and the majority of those are at lesser teams. If the club that produced the great Beckham, Scholes, Giggs etc team of the 90s can’t produce its own talent, you get some idea of the scale of the challenge and the arbitrariness of the outcomes.
Can we do better? Absolutely. Fact is we are. I see a lot of good stuff going on.
Fact is the rest of the world is still doing better though. Our advantage is that irrespective of how many elite players come out of Africa or wherever, you can only ever have 11 players on the park, and that levels the playing field somewhat. Get 20 players aged 20-30 at elite level and you have a team. That means 2 top boys each year for a decade.
In that sense, investment in elite development, along the lines of Australian swimming, might be the way ahead. That said, even the Aussies couldn’t sustain their remarkable performance for ever. Numbers again…
NegAnon2
16:40 on 30 December, 2013
I don’t agree that Celtic will survive no matter what scenario plays out! There are several very realistic scenarios which would see our demise! Complacency is one of them!
_________________________________________
Belated Christmas wishes, how was the Cricket?
I’ve never been to a Test Match, I can guess it is almost as good as spending a whole day fishing up @ Loch Humphrey with a carry oot, well as long as the Sun is shining.
rascar.csc
Corkcelt…
Nail on head….mo chara.
Political correctness is the route of all evil and a very,very lazy PR tool to boot.
I’d like to see the games back – the players seem to want it too.
I never caught anything apart from a perch but it was just so guid up there.
A lot of Celtic supporters would love to be at Celtic Park on any given day no matter the opposition but hey, get this CQNrs, 28 GBP + ex + ex + ex is a lot of money. Not just for some but for so so many to spend on a ticket for one! ‘Awright kids I am going to the game, will tell you all about it when I get back’……..Really!
‘Naw, ok let’s settle down in front of the box and watch the game and I promise you when things get better we will all go together to Paradise eh!’………….
Homes up and down the country and beyond are in that situation!
TBM
TBB
I agree that it is difficult to tell just how these guys are developing but there is promise in some of the glimpses we have seen over the season. Hopefully we can see some more and give these young lads a better understanding of what it will take to be a regular in the Celtic first team.
Hail Hail
Corkcelt16-23
Bang on friend
Absolutely bang on
BSR,
I hear you. Ice Station Zebra etc. I also know you were being ironic with your Sevco comment.
Mind you it does get down to 18c at night here and I sometimes have to wear long trousers, so it’s no’ all rosy.
I remember having a conversation about four years ago, with my Uncle a season ticket holder at a deid club. I told him what we all knew, you’re bye…. he laughed and said no chance, but would you really want to just be winning the league and we aren’t in it.
Eh aye, I can think of nothing better than chanting 35 in a row, 35 in a row….
Not amused he was…
I don’t want them, we dont need any new teams.
I support Celtic and no one else and that will never change.
Ayrshire is Green and White
HH
Celtic67n68……
I didn’t know it as I was too young back then but used to drop in early 80s when big Peter Ferguson the Maryhill Carpet Hun owned it (he didn’t really own it or anything else as the businesses were all a laundering operation for scumbag Thompson’s drug money).
Place was full of bent cops,drug dealers,prostitutes and Huns in the 80s.
Only reason we used to drop in was I had a couple of mates,at the time , who needed some recreational stuff before we went up the toon at weekends.
It was deffo full of Huns back then because I knew some of them.
There was a young man from Stranraer
Whose late strike went under the bar
Fat Sally sighed MY
As he choked on his pie
This is taking things that bit too far.
That young man’s brother plays for Dunfermline……9/1……got the winter fuel allowance on it !
HH.
seville67 @ 16:07 on 30 December, 2013
“For example Darnell Fisher has been excellent. A youngster breaking through, enthusiastic playing for the right to play in the team. However as soon as the favourites are 70% fit out goes the excellent youngster and in comes Adam Matthews and James Forrest. Now I know neither are old, but the message is wrong. To Fisher – no matter what you do I won’t keep you in the team. For Forrest – no matter how inconsistent you are you will get in, and I will shuffle the pack to make it happen.”
I think this is an unfair reading of the situation. Darnel Fisher wasn’t dropped to let Matthews or Forrest back in.
Fisher played against Hearts and Forrest was on the bench.
Both Fisher and Matthews played against St Johnstone on boxing day. Forrest replaced Mathews, not Fisher.
Forrest and Matthews started yesterday because Fisher was unwell. Forrest was hooked.
Greenpinta @16.15 “Scottish football is dying, we must escape”.
I’m probably in a tiny minority, but I don’t see it like that. What I see is a giant (Celtic obviously) generally wading through a league of lessers at the moment. But, these lessers are already on a road to development and growth (based on what I’ve seen at Celtic Park over the last couple of seasons) as clubs that previously tried to keep up with cheats but didn’t have the resources to do so and ended up in debt because of that, are well on the road to adjusting to the new status, namely they are adjusting to competing at a sporting level without worrying about a massive bully in their midst.
Therefore we have ‘smaller’ clubs like Motherwell and ICT under Terry Butcher punching steadily above their weight as they are run in a very robust fashion; we have Hearts undergoing radical restructuring after suffering from the rigours of their own self-imposed ‘cheating’ from Lithuania, but at least they are doing the resructuring the proper way, taking their medicine and surviving as the entity that has been known as ‘Hearts’ and likely to be able to build on that next season; we have Hibs already showing the advantages of relying on an experienced SPL (sic) man who knows how to work within budget; and furthest along the line are of course Aberdeen and Dundee Utd who are doing today what their predecessors did in the 80’s, ie. run the club sensibly, bring in ‘better’ players from outwith Scotland, but only if they are affordable and, of course, develop home-grown talent.
The down-side to my viewpoint is that such development, in terms of true challenge to Celtic, is going to take time, but I think that Scottish football, without the terrible anchor of a cheating institution, is on the up and up. I’m no idiot, I can see everything that has been and is being done to fast track a club, linked to a liquidated club known for cheating, into the top tier of our football. But I would argue that if and when the phoenix club makes it into the top tier they will face an environment that, in football terms, is decidedly more hostile than any faced by the deid club that preceded them.
The deid club is at the back of our minds daily, thanks to their supporters in the MSM and Scottish football organisations. We can only be thankful that they have attempted to resurrect as close to the poisonous entity they had been before liquidation, including if not especially by hanging on to a greedy, narrow-minded, grasping incompetent as a manager. I personally have nightmares about what might have happened if a new administration taking over in that place had not tuped the whole management/coaching staff, but had instead allowed them to leave and had then offered Terry Butcher the chance to do what he had done at ICT, with the pauccity of resources there, to repeat the feat at Mordor, where there were greater resources.
That truly is the stuff of nightmares.
Time for a World Class Signing
It’s time to : raise the bar , reach for the stars, go another mile, raid the bank, show some ambition, speculate to accumulate, send a signal to the world.
Yes – I call on the BBC, STV, Radio Clyde, Record, Sun, Herald, Scotsman to sign a world class football journalist.
How was the cricket?
Pomnishambles! [lifted from cricinfo]
Hrvatski jim…..
Unfortunately,most world class journalists pay with their lives eventually.