This is the last day to complete our survey into who we, the Celtic community, are, our thoughts, values and where we came from. It’s a short, anonymous, survey, with questions on the Living Wage, the Offensive Behaviour Act, Resolution 12 and other topics, including your view on last week’s referendum.
Thousands of people have already taken part so we will have an excellent insight into what the Celtic community looks like in 2014. If you’ve not already participated, you can let your voice be heard here.
A European academic has compiled the survey and we’ll publish findings shortly.
It’s refreshing to hear a manager be frank about a sporting forgone conclusion, as Ronny did yesterday, “we are definitely going to win the league”. More importantly, he added “The goal is the treble”.
For reasons which have never been evident, apart from Jock Stein’s first five seasons, and a gloriously sunny day in 1957, Celtic have underachieved on a massive scale in the League Cup, a trophy we haven’t won in the last five seasons.
It’s maybe been seen as too much of a poor-relation when the team have higher targets in mind, but it’s more accurate to say we have been an ill-prepared soft touch since Jock’s five-in-a-row came to an end. Superior performances in the Scottish Cup suggest there is more than the randomness of cup football at play in the League trophy.
I never understood the criticisms of Neil Lennon for his ‘failure’ to win the treble. We achieved this feat only three times in our history. Even when we won the league, the vast majority of times we failed to win both cups was as a result of defeat to someone other than Rangers, so their liquidation in 2012 should not affect the trend.
Ronny is three games away from his first trophy as a Celtic manager; he will be hot favourite for each of them. On paper, the Scottish Cup will present no more danger, but winning two cups takes a level of consistency that even the great [and consistent]Celtic teams struggled to achieve.
Before we consider the treble we need to find consistency in the league and Europa League, starting with wins and clean sheets against St Mirren and Dinamo Zagreb. If we can do this, this could yet be a memorable season.
Remember the survey closes tonight!
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BSR
While making love without taking his deerstalker off. I know his wife told me already.
HH
Sorry to say this but I think our team problems rest with kris commons, he’s our best player by far our top scorer and creator but when he’s part of a 3 man midfield our system becomes 424, which leaves our back 4 exposed we need to play 442 when kris is in
I thought that Celtic would be able to buy, and at a set price, both Guidetti and Wakaso, if Celtic wanted to do so, as that is the way it worked in the past, have things changed? I honestly don’t know.
I also think that Bitton could be the man to thread the quality balls through to our speedy wide men, Forrest and Wakaso would get me very excited about European games, home and especially away.
never mind the ole Ryder Cup- ‘Strictly’ comes back the night.
In the inexplicable absence of Flavia wee Ola will have to put in a good shift.
Tea over –
Efe would be well worth a shot in midfield as he doesn’t look comfortable at right back for me, although the guy needs a rest, first and foremost.
DBBIA
WhooooooooHoooooo bring on the sequins.
gene…
I do indeed!
My favourite ‘daft’ quote ‘tho is still the classic: “Juantorena opens his legs and shows his class!”. David Coleman (who else?!)
HH!!
Strictly no watching it
If Efe’s a bombscare Mikel’s a no there.
I agree Kris needs to look for more assists than goals if we want to improve.
HH
Lovely article in today’s Herald about John Divers:
John Divers 1940-2014: one of a trio of family members who played 1000+ games for Celtic
Michael Tierney
Friday 26 September 2014
The room was appointed with mementos and souvenirs from a past life.
John Divers followed his father, John Divers Sr, and his great uncle, Patsy Gallacher, by joining Celtic in 1957, and during his time at the club he scored more than 100 goals. Picture: Arthur Kinloch
John Divers followed his father, John Divers Sr, and his great uncle, Patsy Gallacher, by joining Celtic in 1957, and during his time at the club he scored more than 100 goals. Picture: Arthur Kinloch
A medal, a cap, some rare photographs, newspaper cuttings, scrap albums filled with the fresh face of a colt, a pair of football boots and some jerseys in boxes.
A few years ago, I sat down with John Divers in a flat belonging to his son, Barry, an Advocate in Glasgow. The flat was the mirror in which the football life of his father was reflected. Tangible reminders of his father’s existence, and proof that, while many others may forget about him, the strong, unbreakable and often flawed bond that exists between father and son will always be there.
John Divers played for Celtic. As did his father, John Divers Sr, and Patsy Gallacher, his father’s uncle. Three men from the same bloodline, who between them played more than 1000 games and scored more than 400 goals for Glasgow Celtic. All were inside forwards and all were members of a long football family DNA strand that ended earlier this week with the passing of John Divers, aged 74.
While John and I talked, his silver blue eyes and his blend of the stoic, serious and circumspect immediately struck me: a man who never lets football distort life’s other priorities. The kind of man who didn’t have too many sins in the cupboard – except, perhaps, occasionally singing too loudly in church.
Divers, one of the ‘Kelly Kids’ who came up through the Celtic ranks in the late 1950s, eased himself into a comfortable leather sofa. The spring was gone from his step, in its place a stilted gait. His right leg was 2¾ inches shorter than the left. The head of the femur, the thighbone, was disappearing further and further inside him. His hip cartilage was all worn away. His career in football was, literally, consuming him.
Divers was at Celtic between 1957 and 1966, and scored more than 100 goals, including the first goal that put Celtic on the way to their nine-in-a-row success. His father joined Celtic from Renfrew Juniors in 1932; he helped to win two league titles in the 1930s and was also the creative mastermind behind Celtic’s victory in the Empire Exhibition Cup of 1938, when they beat Everton 1-0 in the final. The victory made Celtic unofficial British champions.
The legendary Patsy Gallacher, his great uncle, went on to play for Celtic for 15 years, featuring in 569 games in all competitions and scoring 192 goals. “But Patsy was never the hero,” said Divers. “No. It was all very low-key in the family. Patsy was just my granny’s young brother, who played football. Just a young man out working.” Gallacher died in 1953 when Divers was 12. “I don’t remember much about him. We never had conversations about Celtic. But he did with my father.”
Ask Divers a question and he doesn’t really want to answer it. You have to haul it to the surface. Then again, you can detect a lot more through silence than words.
There were limits, he always believed, to the value of football. It was a bigger deal to have raised children – Barry and Jonathan – and to have made himself a new career after sport. He went to university and became a teacher. We returned, a little reluctantly, to football.
“I can’t honestly say I had big conversations with my own father about Celtic,” said Divers. “I never even saw him at my games when I was younger. Occasionally, he saw me when I was senior. He would just say, ‘how did you do today?’ That was it.”
Divers Sr came from Clydebank. His wife came from Ireland. He was a riveter’s hauder-on in John Brown’s shipyards. When the rivets were being hammered in, he stood behind the metal plates, bracing his body while the hammer battered the rivet in. Physically, it was very hard. But his athletic skills meant he would not always be doomed to hard, manual labour.
The shipyards were where he learned his uncompromising toughness that he used to great effect in the 1938 New Year’s Day Old Firm game, which Celtic won 3-0, with Divers scoring twice in front of the largest ever crowd at Celtic Park – 83,500. He left Celtic for Morton in 1945. He died, aged 72, in 1984.
“It would be easy to say ‘yes, I felt I was in the shadow of my father’, but I didn’t. If I had played against him I think he would have beaten me. I used to wonder if anyone shouted to him, ‘you’ll never be as good as your uncle’.”
Years later, while he was playing professionally, he remembers his father saying, “It’s okay just now but wait till they don’t have any need for you. Don’t get carried away, don’t be a big man playing for Celtic.”
The first game Divers Jr played for Celtic was in 1957, against St Mirren, when he was 17. Just weeks after Celtic thrashed Rangers 7-1.
“I was nervous about playing a first-team game, but maybe doubly nervous because I was playing alongside the guys who had just beaten Rangers 7-1,” he said.
He scored in the 21st minute in a game ending 2-2. “I felt quite embarrassed, to be honest. I didn’t know what to do.
“I was playing with all these legendary Celtic figures – Bobby Evans, Bertie Peacock, John McPhail and Neil Mochan – and scoring a goal. I remember the following day standing outside chapel after mass. People looking at me.” Divers would go on to score 102 goals for Celtic in 232 appearances.
Between 1958 and 1965, just before the team’s glory years, he earned a League Cup winners’ medal and a Scottish Cup runners-up medal and also played three matches for the title-winning side of 1965-66. He would happily have swapped goals for medals.
Jock Stein had arrived back at Celtic in 1965 and the first game Celtic won was 4-0 against Dundee United, which started the consecutive campaign. “It would have been terrific to have been part of the team that won nine-in-a-row,” he laments. “But I scored the first goal that kicked off that season against Dundee United. I’m clutching at straws now.”
When Divers was 19 he nearly had to give up the game after he was diagnosed with an occlusion (narrowing) of an artery in both legs, but particularly in the left.
“I remember the surgeon brought me along to his office and put up the X-rays. I can still remember him saying to me: ‘What age are you? 19? You may be 19 but your legs are 70. I have never ever seen anything like this in one as young. I hope you have another career’. Dr John Fitzsimmons, the Celtic club doctor, said to me at his surgery, ‘That’s dynamite. No-one at Celtic Park is to see that [the medical report]’. It was like going about with heavy divers boots on my legs. ‘Ach, Divers is too slow’, people would say. That was the reason. But, like my father said before me, ‘far, far greater people have suffered more than I have’.”
In May 1966, he left Celtic under little fanfare for Partick Thistle. “Quite honestly, my career had ended. The last two years at Celtic Park, I played a total of 20 games. I played 12 games in the season before Big Jock [Stein] came. I was struggling for fitness.”
He talked of the end of his career with a sense of relief. Even decades later, it felt like a weight had been lifted. “You look at all the Celtic players who have achieved great things. They did it. I have done none of that. Therefore you feel a wee bit, in the football world, that you didn’t achieve. I suppose I was part of it, I know people that did it and I was around.”
I asked him about highlights. “The day I got engaged,” he said, with barely a pause. He got engaged to Elizabeth Kennedy and married her on June 26, 1963 at St Peter’s Church, in Hamilton.
It was the same day as Billy McNeill married his wife, Liz. In those days, Robert Kelly, the Celtic chairman, did not allow players to get married during the season. John Hughes sang This Is My Special Day at Divers’ wedding.
He remained powerful friends with McNeill, Mike Jackson, Hughes and Paddy Crerand. The wealth in his life from these friendships was originally forged on grass pitches.
He played football for 12 years, nine with Celtic, before a career in education beckoned and he went to Strathclyde University. He’d been a teacher for more than 30 years, much of that time at Our Lady and St Patrick’s High in Dumbarton, formerly St Patrick’s High and Notre Dame High, where he was principal teacher of guidance and economics – “And nobody ever wants to talk about that time.” He was also a member of the Bronte Society, along with Elizabeth, and a regular visitor to Yorkshire. Life was sweet and the crises were small.
When John Divers talked it was with words that hinted of autumn. Nothing boastful, just old, quiet memories of games and the thrill of the grass. That’s all football is, really.
John Divers played for Celtic and not everyone remembers. But, sometimes, the best memories are always whispered.
BSR
both have suffered under the new regime but I still rate them both. Effe needs a rest.
Our Israeli players frustrate me. Hence my earlier suggestion. Dropping Mc Gregor for a holding MF is easy but how to accomodate both Scepovic and Guidetti is the headache I hope.
HH
Bawsman yeah you are right wrong response – apologies , having a bad day. Hail Hail Hebcelt
Paul67
consistency in selection and consistency in tactics may help also.
as far as the survey is concerned i would have added questions relating to how you (one) watched Celtic – attend games and how often or like me an armchair supporter.
Awe naw.
I didn’t get you wrong. I like wee mcgregor too.
Maybe I’m judging him against what I know he can do. No tears from me if he’s benched tomorrow.
I have this sneaking funny wee feeling in ma watter that JG might just stay for a bit. ;)
Barring a sudden change in the game it looks like lancs will be relegated to div 2, surely cricket needs a strong lancashire.
Awe_Naw
Kayal’s not a 90 minute man for sure, don’t know about Biton he tends to play too square in the holding role, and neither seem to fit Ronny’s consistent formula.
Efe isn’t a right back, he may not be a CB, but if I was a manager and had to choose who would serve me in a long battle ( say over three seasons) I’d pick Ambrose over Lustig everytime, even if I thought Mikel the better player. It’s just a personal thing, agree Efe needs rested.
So does McGregor, but he’s an autopick in RD’s eyes, much like the very much missed James Forrest was for NFL. I can’t understand even with Ronny’s rigid plan why we can’t have paired strikers in the centre i.e. Guidetti and Scepovic.
Even Stokes is now playing wide, to accomadate the lone striker.
Message forBMCUWP-.Left done in golf club.Off line till Monday:-)
message for cosy corner bhoy
when the seagulls fly east watch out for the blimp
hebcelt
15:33 on
26 September, 2014
Bawsman yeah you are right wrong response – apologies , having a bad day. Hail Hail Hebcelt
===============
No probs mate
I agree with Marky68 that KC may not be suited for the type of game RD wants the team to play…. but I think his play and goals over the last few years have earned him the right to a fair run in the team to see if he can adapt.
So, I would like to see JG and SS play together up front, so I might play KC behind them, with SJ, NB and SB in a three man midfield.
Otherwise, you could start with JG or SS up front alone.
Seems a bit harsh on AS who played a great game last time out, but, he’d get a run out as a sub for sure.
Once the players understand RD’s system, and have a bit of time to gel, and we get some pace back on the wings (Wakaso and JF back), I can see this squad scoring a hatful.
Gene’s a Bhoy’s name
15:38 on 26 September, 2014
Paul67
consistency in selection and consistency in tactics may help also.
as far as the survey is concerned i would have added questions relating to how you (one) watched Celtic – attend games and how often or like me an armchair supporter
——————————
Likewise. I would also have liked to see more questions that perhaps explore generational differences. For example, my Celtic journey started with Lou Macari. My view of Celtic and our team is bound to differ from those who started watching Celtic under Stein etc. I think that’s an important factor in how we perceive results, performances and behaviour.
Then again, maybe not.
Lou Macari as manager btw – I’m just a whipper snapper in comparison to you lot ;)
Morning/Afternoon/Evening all
Hope youse are ALL having a great day.
Am I right in thinking that Gleneagles was the course that Peter Alliss used when doing his “A Round with Alliss” tv show many moons ago.
Ryder Cup golf is like having a regular golf game – just replacing the normal crowd with a football crowd.
HH
Davidopoulos,
Good point.
I have a few mates who started going/supporting under Mon.
The ones who went now don’t.
And the ones who picked up interest are very hard to please. I’d love to send them back to 1990. (evil laugh)
Summa,
Nice chattin also.
A small world indeed!
Work finished,lookin forward to Strictly..eh the golf I mean!
HH
Geordie Munro
16:02 on 26 September, 2014
Davidopoulos,
Good point.
I have a few mates who started going/supporting under Mon.
The ones who went now don’t.
And the ones who picked up interest are very hard to please. I’d love to send them back to 1990. (evil laugh)
—————————-
Exactly, those who started following under O’Neill are spoilt.
A couple of years ago I met Archie Knox at a party – he was very nice but I informed him that he helped ruin part of my childhood.
That’s not to say that the views of Celtic fans who started following during more successful times aren’t valid – they are just different
If you know the history.
100 years ago today Sniper & Patsy earned the points at Dundee and the UVF welcomed Lady Carson to Belfast.
http://www.thecelticwiki.com/page/1914-09-26%3A+Dundee+1-3+Celtic%2C+League+Division+1
H.H.
davidopoulos
my early games had evans and divers on the team sheet – but only a whipper snapper at heart.
BMCUWP
Sir, you are a legend.
Embarrassing as it may be for you –
Take a wee bow.
Good..
Now get the drinks
HH
Just to re-iterate what i said last week,
Free the Henderson 1!
C’mon Ronny,Liam’s a much better midfielder than Stefan,Beram and Nir…gie the bhoy a runout soon.
Golf.
I no likeee.
Yawnfest.
Gene’s a Bhoy’s name
16:11 on 26 September, 2014
davidopoulos
my early games had evans and divers on the team sheet – but only a whipper snapper at heart.
——————————–
Yer only as old as you feel….
This morning I woke up feeling positively middle-aged for my young frame – very much looking forward to a holiday next!
The golfing fuds wearing the light blue jumpers appear to be faring a little better than the golfing fuds wearing the dark blue knitwear.
A victory for fuds will be inevitable.
Roberttressell,
You say that but you have never witnessed me taking on Hamish “Mulligan” McGregor at the tpc Sawgrass.
TigerWoods2003 csc
When I watch Celtic on TV I’m always resplendent in some sort of Celtic jersey.
When I watch golf on TV I’m always resplendent in some sort of Golf polo top.
I need to grow up at some point.
Did anyone spot Jim McGuinesss in shot following the Garcia: McIlroy match this morning?
It looked very like him, whoever it was.