Of all the players signed for Celtic by Ronny Deila, Nadir Ciftci was the strangest. He faced us for Dundee United after news leaked we were interested in him, so I paid close attention. After the game I was convinced he would not sign for Celtic, such was his languid performance.
More than any other Celtic manager, Ronny valued movement. Stefan Johansen was his architype player, always covering ground. Nadir was the exact opposite of this that evening for Dundee United.
Maybe Ronny thought he could build on Nadir’s touch and perform an engine and mind-set upgrade, whatever the reason behind this particular raid on United, the player was never going to cut it at Celtic.
He reminds me very much of Charlie Nicholas (although Nicholas had heaps more talent). Charlie was irrepressible in his first period at Celtic, but the game changed under Charlie’s golden feet. When he returned to Celtic, he looked lazy. In reality he was the same player, but shiftless brilliance was no longer enough.
I hope Motherwell get a turn out of Nadir during his six month loan. There’s talent buried there, if they can make it move around a little.
The CQN Podcast: A Celtic State of Mind (EP28) with former Celtic director Tom Grant
Paul John Dykes and Kevin Graham are joined by Celtic’s ex-director, Tom Grant, who offers a fascinating insight into the running of the club in the 1980s and 1990s.
Tom Grant explains exactly why Celtic refused to complete the Mo Johnston transfer in 1989, and lifts the lid on audacious efforts by Billy McNeill to recruit Peter Beardsley and Steve Bruce.
Tom Grant also dissects his relationship with Fergus McCann, and the impact of the ‘Celts For Change’ movement in overturning the ‘family dynasty’ board in 1994.
Jim Craig made two of the three goals in the 1967 European Cup Final. There’s a great wee video below for you to enjoy. Get Jim’s new Lisbon Lion Diary – Right Back to 67 from CQNBookstore.co.uk and you will receive a signed copy from the man himself plus a FREE copy of That Season in Paradise – Ten Months of Celtic Heaven signed by fellow Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld! Simply order Jim Craig – Right Back to 67 and the second book will be sent automatically.
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Good morning from a dark and dank Green Valley!!
East Devon. Jeez.
From last night – that Shy – I was in the old Sellick end behind the holy goalie and saw the whole thing from Jim projecting the ball, Billy not getting control of the ball and Pratti latching on and slipping it past the outrushing goalie – it was like a slow motion train crash – I still see it, in Sime dreams I make it across the track onto the pitch and slide tackle the invader, saving the world for us Tim’s- then I wake up sad, think of Sevco and laugh,
The two best teams I ever watched is when the big team played the wee team in preseason friendlies I think they were charity games
The big team wore the hoops and the wee team wore the away strip with the shamrock on it
Great memories
Goodnight 12:30 am here
jinkyredstr
“in Sime dreams”
Have you been having dreams about referee David Syme again?
Was it the one where he sent off Tony Shepherd instead off La Petite Scheidt?
Morning all
On bus to work and read back overnight.
My best players seen would correspond with the team honoured by the club in 2002 except I would have George Connelly instead of Paul McStay. My two subs would be Hay and Moravcik
Now , I would wish to give a team of players I wish I had seen:
Thomson, McNair, Fallon, Evans, Lyon, Peacock, Delaney, Gallagher, McGrory, Fernie, Tully. Subs: Quinn and Malky McDonald.
As for Charlie Nick I think we allow the memory of his ,mostly dismal, second coming as well as his losing battle with the English language and general tw*ttshness to cloud our judgements. Well in my opinion he was, first time round, the best player we have produced from our own youth ranks since the Quality Street Kids and by far the most exciting player I watched in the period between Dalglish leaving and DiCanio arriving. 82 goals in 2 1/2 seasons suggest he was pretty effective too- the one striker to match that rate in the 80s was the more prosaic McClair. Charlie was not a great Celt but he was a great Celt to watch. Just do not make me have to listen to him.
Jimbo67
No East Devon again ? Mods….? :)
SFTB – you don’t want to know about the one which involves Mcurry and Dallas!
A warm good morning Ianbhoy 929.
” They come from Bonnie Scotland, they come from county Cork, they come from dear old Donegal and even East Devon.”
HH.
First they came for the East Devonians….
SFTB/ Jinkyredstar
The manager blamed the keeper for the McNeil incident
No surprise there☘️☘️☘️
BT
No surprise, as you say, but I don’t think any of the fans were fooled.
BLANTYRETIM IS PRAYING FOR THE KNOX FAMILY on 11TH JANUARY 2018 8:59 AM
did he blame him again for BIG YOGI’S miss in 1970 EURO FINAL tae.
Are we not men ?
No, we are Devonian.
Fav Uncle
No but he must have blamed him for Benfica as he didn’t play v Leeds or in Final..
Never mind East Devon -here’s way down south -clear blue sky , big sun and a nice 18 degrees at 10 am .
Jozo Simunovic gossip –11/1 /2018
Lazio have given up on trying to hang on to Stefan de Vrij — he is of interest to Barca, Inter , Man Utd and Liverpool . . . Lazio want at least 35 million euros for de Vrij ..Good player !
If de Vrij goes , Lazio will try to replace him with Rodrigo Caio ( Sao Paulo ) or Jozo Simunovic .. Rumor mongers have Caio being first choice but bigger Clubs than Lazio have their eye on him . Burnley and Crystal Palace are said to be keen on Simunovic and Lazio might attempt to get the deal done quickly in order to avoid a bidding war with 2 EPL clubs
R.I.P. Tommy Lawrence ex Liverpool goalkeeper.
Not sure whether Tommy played v Celtic in 1966 ?
god rest his soul.
YNWA Tommy
Your morning choon —
https://youtu.be/XoEYEHSMoBs
BLANTYRE TIM
Hope you are over that Flu mate…I aint..its STILL on me….get aff !
HH
Big Jimmy
Sure he did play
Zenit ?
Italian media have the Club Captain / left back -Domenico Criscito -not being a happy bunny at Zenit and returning to Serie A — rumored destination -Genoa or Inter
Reading back from last night best Celtic team made up of players I have seen would be:
4-3-1-2
Fraser Forster
Jackie McNamara
Johan Mjallby
Alan Stubbs
Kieran Tierney
Stillyan Petrov
Paul McStay
John Collins
Lubo Moravcik
Henrik Larsson
Jorge Cadette
Honourable mentions to a couple few guys who went close but I couldn’t get them in the team:
Craig Gordon
Didier Agathe
Tosh McKinlay
Andreas Thom
Paul Lambert
Craig Burley
Scott Brown
Pierre Van Hooijdonk
Chris Sutton
Oh and Shinsuke Nakamura who would have made it if Lubo wasnt Lubo
Tommy Lawrence
My addled ole bonce thinks he played both legs of the ECWC semis v Celtic in 66 . . Very good save early in the game at Celtic Park
RIP
As is only right with our Club`s history, many differences of opinion re Celtic`s Best . That being so, this post,summed it up for me,:
” BLANTYRETIM IS PRAYING FOR THE KNOX FAMILY on 10TH JANUARY 2018 10:24 PM
I honestly couldn’t pick 11″ ( and SFTB didn`t !!).
John51
….and what about our best eleven V Brechin? :-)
On a personal note.
a) Living in England, I didn`t see Paul McStay play but many comments do suggest he was special.
b) My first footballing `Hero`was Pat Crerand so that may have won him the spot over the wonderful Bobby Murdoch.
c) I think there is a tendency to don the ol` rose coloured spectacles on occasion . I tried to imagine how supporters in future years will recall Broony. That, as well as his superb contribution on and off the field, persuaded me to include him.
Anyway, an enjoyable wee exercise which helps pass the time in a relatively pleasant way until Brechin.
JJ
Looking at some of these best 11s makes you realise what we’re missing a little at the moment. That bit of flair/genius/flamboyance, call it what you like- that came with a Lubo, Di Canio, Cadete, and which seems to be harder to find these days.
Amazing to think we would have had Ginola too if wee Fergus hadn’t put a spanner in the works.
We function well as a team for the most part but our priorities really ought to be getting a solid defensive partnership in place and adding a bit more flair to the team. Getting Roberts on a permanent deal would be a good start.
HH
Seanp1916
As always on these matters, there will be a great variety of opinion. I predict, though, that yours will be the only selection to include Craig Burley !
I hardly saw Burley . My comment above is based on his rather negative view of Celtic as a pundit.
It speaks well of you that you can ignore that and judge according to his ability as a footballer.
JJ
Replies back from two MSPs so far – Mark Griffin and Richard Leonard – both confirm they will be voting to repeal the OBAFA.
Nothing back from the utter buffon that is my local MSP – Alex Neil.
My reply to them is as follows:
——————-
Dear Mr Griffin / Mr Leonard
Thank you for your prompt and supportive reply – I greatly appreciate your efforts.
I still go back to Christine Grahame’s attempted justification for the then-proposed bill when she explained that part of the need for the bill was that the then existing legislation could not be used to arrest Celtic fans singing ‘political’ songs but could be used to arrest Rangers fans singing ‘sectarian’ songs – therefore the existing arrest statistics for ‘anti-catholic’ hate crime were artificially higher than for ‘anti-protestant’ hate crime.
Her ill-informed, and frankly astoundingly ignorant, views expressed in discussion with Tom Devine in her role as Justice Committee Convenor should have raised sufficient red flags at that point to kill an ill-conceived piece of legislation in its tracks, but alas – here we are.
As a regular and law-abiding attender at football every week, home and away, my son and I have had to endure some completely unacceptable, aggressive, highly obtrusive and – yes – offensive behaviour – the problem is this has come from Police (and I do stress, a minority) who seem over-zealous, enjoy thrusting cameras in the faces of our citizens and appear to actively seek confrontation with people who are simply attending football games.
There is undoubtedly offensive behaviour at football, as there is in many walks of life – the legislation that exists for handling such behaviour more generally is sufficient for the football arena.
Again – thanks for your efforts, and best of luck.
Kind regards – BGFC
HH
BGFC
SOT
my 3 memories of the home leg are
The 80,000 crowd
David Coleman getting a bit of abuse climbing to the TV gantry in the jungle and Stevie Chalmers missing a few chances, one from virtually under the bar. He did redeem himself in 67.
For what it’s worth –
Forster ( a fit and up for it Boruc was better(IMO) but that didn’t last long )
McGrain
Gemmell
Connelly
Murdoch
McStay
McClair
Moravcik
Dalglish.
Larrson
Johnstone.
Subs —
Willie Fernie / Bobby Lennox / Joe McBride / Shinsuke Nakamura / Paolo Di Canio / Brian McLaughlin
Attack Attack Attack CSC -way down south
HOT SMOKED on 11TH JANUARY 2018 9:59 AM
Thanks very kind of you to say!
I am unfortunately too young to have seen some of the really “true greats” of the past so had to base my selection on the guys I had real knowledge of.
I couldn’t quite squeeze Craig Burley into my top eleven. Petrov, McStay & Collins just too good. The later 2 must be the unluckiest players that they were around at the time they were. Imagine either of them in Martin O’Neills team?
Back to Burley though I will never forget his performances against THAT LOT especially that New Year 2-0. No question in my mind he was a critical factor in me seeing Celtic lift a league title for the first time and for that I had to give him an honorable mention. In my opinion if it hadn’t been for John Barnes and his total ineptitude Burley would have went on to be a great at Celtic over many years.
Another guy I couldn’t get into my best eleven that deserves a mention for his contribution is Kris Commons
GENE @ 10 07 .
Liverpool 66
Home leg -huge crowd .Celtic were profligate . I was disappointed by Liverpool . Really negative . Smith a dirty B.
Away leg — my first European away game . Hitched it from Glasgow . Bad decision from a Ref . Blootered twerps throwing bottles .. Mate got hit on the head by a bottle . He never went to another football match.
SOT
5 goals would not have flattered us that night – robbed at anfield
I sent the pre prepared email to about 7 or 8 MP’s on Tuesday.
On Wednesday Labour MP Johanne Lamont emailed back with support as did another Labour MP Pauline McNeill yesterday.
Still waiting for reply from my local SNP Guy…canny remember his name right now ?
I won’t hold my breath for his support !
HH
I am glad at the support of anyone from Labour…however
over in the Scottish Parliament they really SHOULD be attacking that Tory Nutter Ruth Davidson and her Tory mob a whole LOT more than they usually do.
That is a serious let down for me by Labour.
HH
Funny how the interest in Wee Paddy has cooled somewhat.I the summer everyone was screaming for him to be signed.A couple of Hamstring injuries,and it seems he is now forgotten.Amazing just how fickle fans can be.
I think we have a real chance to get him permanent this year.We have missed him.
Get him signed ,Celtic.
BIG JIMMY on 11TH JANUARY 2018 10:24 AM,
Jimmy,when was the last time you heard any Labour MP attacking the Tories?.Scotland or England.Welfare,Pensions,should have raised riots,but are meekly accepted.The present lot,and their predecessors since Blair,I have said before,are a disgrace to the greatest Political Party ever formed.
TURKEYBHOY on 11TH JANUARY 2018 10:47 AM
Unfortunately its been a very stop/start return to Celtic for Roberts but as you alluded to ironically this could make it easier for us to get him on a permanent deal. The biggest problem is that I believe he is contracted to City until 2020 or 2021 and I think it can be certain there will be no more loan deals for him at least to us, what with the more difficult CL route and the chance for City to showcase him elsewhere on loan(France, Spain) or decide to sell him.
HH