I watched Real Madrid outplayed by Chelsea for most of last night. The visitors performed exceptionally well to take a three goal lead and could have put the game out of sight before Real got a foothold in the game.
Chelsea won twice in Spain in last season’s Champions League, scoring five without reply at Sevilla and Atletico, before taking a draw at Real in the semi-final, they know how to compete in this competition. No team, however, knows more about winning in the Champions League than Real Madrid.
Real win this tournament when they are well below par domestically, they find an assured calmness to their play, even when, as last night, they were 0-3 down and the obits were being written about coach Carlo Ancelotti. This is all down to corporate memory. More than any team in football, they know how to perform under intense pressure on the big stage.
You have witnessed this on a smaller scale in Scotland. Celtic’s 36 game unbeaten run in domestic cup competitions, from 2016 to 2020, defined credulity. Form varied during that run, the only consistent was outcome. Celtic won so many knockout games, they knew most of the pitfalls and prepared thoroughly.
If anything, form at semi-finals and finals is even more impressive. Celtic are on a run of 18 successive wins on these Hampden occasions, without once going to extra time. Others must reach the National Stadium and start work on blocking out so many bad memories. When you go up against Real Madrid in the Champions League, or Celtic in the Scottish or League Cup, you have a chance, but whatever you have in your locker, you cannot match the winning attributes of persistent champions.
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I hope Pep comes out and nails Simeone and his Gang
Saint Stivs on 13th April 2022 8:36 pm
THE TOOMEBRIDGE WOMAN WHO OWNED CELTIC: HOW A CRUCIAL DEPARTURE CHANGED THE COURSE OF HISTORY AND ULTIMATELY SAVED THE CLUB FROM LIQUIDATION
Thursday evening was a night on which the weekly meeting of the Celtic directorate was held for many years. Thursday 1 February 1940 was the last to be attended by Willie Maley as manager of the club. He had sat in on almost every meeting for the last half a century but the time to retire had eventually come.
Another departure was announced at the same meeting. Indeed, Mr. Tom Colgan was absent as he now resided in Ireland, but he had already sent notice of his resignation as a director of Celtic. Colgan had replaced founding father John O’Hara on the Celtic board in 1905, so he was another long-term servant to depart the club. His decision had been made on health grounds, but a short while later he joined the board of Belfast Celtic FC as he couldn’t stay away from the game.
Colgan was a prominent member of the Home Government Branch of the Irish National League in Glasgow and as well as serving as a Celtic director, he had a keen eye for a footballer. By no means were his expertise limited to the one sport though, for he was excellent on a links golf course by all accounts too.
By leaving the club, Tom Colgan altered the course of its history in a very intriguing and complex way. Tom had married the daughter of fellow Celtic director, James Grant, in 1906, whose family roots were in Toomebridge (Co Antrim). Miss Grant, or Mrs Colgan as she had become, died upon giving birth to the couple’s daughter (Mary) a short time later. From a young age, Mary lived at Toome House in Toomebridge with her aunty and uncle, Neil and Felicia Grant, both of whom were not married.
When Tom Colgan retired from business in Glasgow and as a Celtic director, he moved into Toome House with his daughter and the Grant family. He died in 1946 and his shares were left to his niece, Felicia, who thus became, when the transfer was completed in 1949, the holder of 1103 fully paid, and 1150 part paid shares making her the third force in Celtic behind the Kelly’s and the White’s!
Readers may have heard of the reference to the woman in Ireland who owned Celtic. That claim is in relation to Felicia Grant and it is almost true, in the sense that she was the major individual shareholder in the club. Over the years, Bob Kelly, and latterly his descendants, kept Felicia sweet and would visit her during Celtic’s trips to Ireland, often when playing against Belfast Celtic. This action meant that Felicia, who had limited interest in football, was happy to back the Kelly’s and the White’s in whatever they decided to pursue in the boardroom.
When Felicia passed away, her shares were split six ways amongst her brother and five children. One of those children was based in the North of Ireland, whilst the rest resided in Canada.
Decades later, to oust the old board, Fergus McCann needed to acquire the Grant shareholding. John Keane played a monumental role in tracking these down and eventually purchasing them. Without doing so, it may have been impossible to complete the takeover that ultimately saved Celtic from liquidation!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Toome = home from homer! Thank God for DD!!!!!!!!!!!!
BTW What the Feck is Cananmalar going on about? – stop taking the drugs!
George Szamuely – Bombs for Peace, try it.
BB
Seem Simple Minds in Barrowlands a couple of times. amazing.
Jim Kerr, the best front man I’ve seen
Genuinely, off to ‘ma ‘cot
Brian
Canman…I admire yer scepticism and yer questioning of the popular narrative, It’s healthy…but you’ve swung so far that yer now promoting propaganda in an effort to dispute it. You really need to come out of the internet rabbit holes and breath ;-))
H.H.
TLT,
I batter every wall of the rabbit holes to make sure I don’t miss a burrow.
Sometimes accepted knowledge is just the lie thats been repeated enough times.
There is a difference between reading extensively and challenging yourself.
Canman…our team for Sunday?
Hart
Jura CCV Starfelt Taylor
Calmac Hatate
Jota GMak Maeda
Abada through the middle if GMak doesn’t make it…with Kyogo last 30 mins.
H.H.
Canman…this abbrasiveness is new, am not gonna bite…if yer looking for a fight try elsewhere ;-))
H.H.
Obviously we have to play everybody else in the SPL top six sometime after April 23, but even so the timing of the fixtures illustrates the contempt both the League and Sky Sports have for football supporters generally and Celtic supporters especially. Not one Saturday 3pm kick off. Or even an early evening kick off as we ease into the early summer. The midweek slot available, Wednesday May 11, prime time for fans attending and for all football supporters at home (and not just Celtic) for which could be a title decider, relegated to Dundee. Dundee? And the final fixture, against Motherwell at home, when we could be getting awarded the SPL trophy, another Saturday lunchtime kick off when it could easily have been arranged in advance for say 5.30pm mid May in Glasgow, a great time of year for the dear Green Place. To whose benefit? Not us that is for sure.
CelticMac…am pretty sure you’re preaching to the choir re Sly Sports contempt for Scottish football. Personally, I can’t wait for the day that Celtic takes control of all our broadcasting rights…I suspect the financial gains over any current TV contract would be massive
H.H.
I’ll take Simeone and his methods over sports-washing human-rights flouting oil-state-sponsored cheating all day every day
City’s owners are the worst of the worst and have no interest in football. When they or PSG win the CL it’ll be a dark day
thelurkintim
I know, I know. Just think that the latter part of the League run could have been promoted so much better, and not just to our advantage. Missed opportunities, again.
Hope things are well family wise.
canamalar @ 10.23
Sure you didn’t disappear down one?
whiterabbitcsc
MODERATOR1888 on 13TH APRIL 2022 5:54 PM
Lets chill with the political Russia/Ukraine posts pls
They are overtaking the blog again
~~~~~~~~~~~~
With all due respect, the role of a moderator should be to delete posts that break the blog rules, not to determine which subjects should be discussed based on your personal preferences.
Maybe ask Paul67 for guidance?
Hail,Hail
CelticMac…thanks for asking….they ain’t great but they are what they are…we’re all dealing with it as best we can. Hope spring eternal ;-))
H.H.
Today so far seven pages and how many on politics, no wonder this blog looses posters😕
fourstonecoppi
Reading back, condolences for the loss of Pat. The suddenness of the loss does not help.
Great tribute, and glad that you mentioned that manual and physical work had contributed to his wear and tear. True for many over the years, and not just Celtic supporters.
RIP Pat
Atletico out…..which is nice
Remember again and jinkys bruising
Still amazes me the fans kept their head
Still think we should have withdrew,integrity eh.
All history now
HH
Fourstonecoppi,
What band were you in, or who were you touring with?
An Tearmann…we always think that “money trumps everything” is a new concept. Ask Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid about it…money hounded them to the ends of the earth and had them murdered. Why…not because they robbed the rich…but because they embarressed the rich. Pretty sure I meant some correlation when I started typing this post. ;-))
BawbawsCSC
H.H.
That Atletico game.a few players comment.Years later I met the polis who controlled Ayala by his hair.sore thinking bout it
https://twitter.com/DeclanRMcC/status/1514359899513364485?t=xmtnnAjHYlB6XmvqYILOkQ&s=19
HH
Lurki
How is your mum doing?
Hope all good mate.
HH
Cana … @ 9.42
Apologies in advance — I don’t have the time to follow up every point.
However — edited highlights:
Base point — you read too much and understand too little.
Your understanding is very one sided / simplistic — a law degree does not a king make.
Geopolitics is not something you learn from RT Media or games of Risk.
Plus economics extends well beyond Quantitative Easing.
Scrap tanks at the side of the road are Russian.
They are T90’s and T80’s rather than the T84s used by the Ukrainian Army.
The shape and positioning of the reactive armour tiles are the giveaways.
Plus the shape of the turret on the T90.
The tank tactics used by the Russians are straight out of 1941/42 when they thought that quantity would have a quality all of its own — cavalry style charges straight at a dug in enemy did not work out well then and they haven’t worked out well now
And remember the Ukrainians didn’t put convoys of tanks onto a road to defend Kiev — they spread out what few they had and tried to do defence in depth.
Russia and its economy is like Aus in that it currently pays the bills by selling itself tonne by tonne to the highest bidder from whatever it can dig out of the ground.
OK strategy for a country of 25mill.
Not a great look for a country of 140mill.
The SU was a technological superpower just a case that it was mostly one time use stuff that sat around and scared the US MIC fartless — over cooked the investment put into heavy industrial production and was a bit light on personal use / consumer stuff.
As an aside the SU and its satellites missed a trick with Big Auto.
Lada was a global phenomenon and was ripe for expansion.
If they had started the next round of new designs in 1977 rather than 1982 they would have done well.
That and being more open to outside engineering.
The trick with resources is to do something with them — not just sell them on in an unfinished / semi finished state. I can assure you that Russia was a go go place up until 2008 for new factories and new sources of production but this has all slowed to a trickle before the troubles in Ukraine.
Selling raw materials is easy and it makes the elite a lot of money.
Making stuff with the raw materials is harder and usually the plebs want a good wage.
Quantitative easing vs billionaire greed — coincident not causal.
You could argue that stock trading aka middle class betting has made Tesla the powerhouse that it currently is — fan boys used the cheap money on offer to bid up the price of the stock to Black Tulip levels and everybody shouts economic miracle as EM skims off the cash to take a trip to Mars or buy Twitter..
The bubble will burst but that is the fault of investor irrationality not quantitative easing.
Videos with all the dodgy comments / statements you mention — I would love to watch them so that I can appreciate the flow / the editing / the context.
Please remember nobody is 100% right — you seem to attribute that to VP / Russia but that cannot be the case as the only person who never makes a mistake is the person who does nothing.
So either you have a partial view — highlights reel — and you do not realise it.
Or you are partisan and prefer not to discuss the failures and hope no-one will bring them up.
Or you are a VP fan boy and do not have the bandwith to deal with the possibility that he has made mistakes — which he obviously has.
Yugoslavia — very interesting viewpoint.
Dirty war it turned out to be — and yes Serb partisans had a go at ethnic cleansing.
Regarding the charnal house tactics in B/H — I blame Hitler.
Before WW2 the Serbs were the dominant group — twice the size of any other.
After WW2 the Serbs had been reduced to minority status similar in size to the others.
They always thought the province was theirs but the numbers didn’t add up.
Consequently interesting points put forward but I would mug up on the analysis if you want to be more credible.
If you have time I would love to get your thoughts on the causes of WW1?
Three or four main strands out there but still a very tough gig — for me anyway.
Çeltic 3 deidyins 1
https://twitter.com/tirnaog_09/status/1514145403524030467?t=qYVahLz0PSSiCDFOIw8nLw&s=19
HH
Lucy in the sky with Diamonds. Beatles
https://youtu.be/naoknj1ebqI
HH
If it wasn’t a crying affair- this would be a funny joje:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfRKTrST_rw
Fair play Canalamar for highlighting an international view
News outlets favour the middle of the natural distribution, both in terms of intellect and increasingly , the paying customer
The violence perpetrated by NATO members for years had been sanitised by Western media- of course
The violence perpetrated by Russia is being sanitised by their media, of course
The dead are still dead, a shame of course
Politicians cause it all
We can only control out own governments though our votes, but most people vote for personal gain so why are they outraged about foreign confrontations. They won’t be when gas prices rise
Point of Order on the article, Mr Chairman. Celtic are on a current run of 17 unbeaten games at Hampden.
One or two CQN posters will be old enough to recall our fabled Wizard of Inverness’ one man demolition of Hearts at Murrayfield in 2018, when the dump was unavailable to us.
It was a performance which allowed young Ryan to dream he might some day grow up and play for Bournemouth.
or joke
The only Prime Minister that has been accused and found guilty of criminality whilst in office
Thankfully he’s a man of moral integrity and will do the right thing….yep….ignore us plebs and retain the support of his sycophants…what a world we live in ;-((
Thelurkintim
Is the fine tax deductible?
Coneybhoy…Lol….probably seen as an unavoidable business expense…nae wonder am so cynical…but not rabbit hole so…yet ;-))
Moderator1888…you need to recuse yourself…either you’re apart or you’re not
H.H.
Good morning all the good guys from a grey damp underfoot Garngad
Come on the Braga.
Atletico should face fines or be thrown out of europe for a year, their antics last night were a disgrace a total disgrace. From the first whistle they were at it.
D :)
David66
Totally agree with you, just look at the reaction of their faces towards the ref. Total disrespect!
Good morning from a damp, grey and brisk village.
Enjoyed a night at the opera. Missed all the CL stuff. Sounds like Atletico up to their old tricks.
Nerves a-jingling again pre-Sunday. Here’s hoping for extra-time at Ibrox tonight and an exhausting and mind-sapping defeat for Old Firm FC.
Tom,
Queen album or Marx brothers film?
😀
I’ve never really listened to opera but there’s a show on NTS radio that plays some and it can be spine tingling stuff. I need to go some day.