Cringe-worthy SFA, pundits and fans don’t lay eggs

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You wouldn’t announce an event, encourage others to sell tickets, without booking the venue. You just wouldn’t do it. These things have an order: book the venue, then announce the event. It’s a matter of courtesy to all involved, not to mention being an operational necessity.

Why then, do we have the unedifying scenario of Hamilton Accies releasing a statement to say New Douglas Park is unavailable for the date the SFA advertised a Scottish Cup game between East Kilbride and Celtic would take place? It’s just remotely possible that Accies have reneged on an earlier commitment given to the SFA, but the tone of their statement suggests otherwise.

This is for a game which is scheduled to take place one week on Sunday. Fans have to acquire and distribute tickets, travel arrangements have to be made, police and stewarding have to be booked (by East Kilbride, who are the home team, remember).

This should be a great day for the young club but it’s shrouded in considerable commercial uncertainty: how much will policing, stewarding and stadium rental cost? Who at East Kilbride will guarantees these bills and how? The police and host club may take a lax view on credit, but the stewarding provider won’t. What revenue can be expected? None of these issues can be known until a venue is found.

I’m not going to support Pat Nevin’s views, which offended Dundee manager, Paul Hartley on Sportscene at the weekend. I didn’t hear his comments, so cannot conclude if he was talking “absolute garbage”, or if Nevin had verged into the kind of territory which saw him issue an apology under threat of legal action last month. But I’m not convinced the scope of Hartley’s comments are appropriate.

Dundee lose goals. Lots of them. Their only clean sheet since 12 September came against Hamilton Accies last month. The objective facts suggest their defensive strategy is an appropriate subject for criticism. This season they lost 6 in one game against Celtic and 8 over two matches against Ross County.

Analysis and criticism is the domain of pundits and fans, even those, who Paul Hartley notes, have “never coached or managed a team”. Attacking the pundit (or the programme) is easier than explaining a (subjectively) poor defensive record, or keeping clean sheets, apparently.

Paul said “It’s not what it used to be like, away back in the 1980s when you wanted to sit up and watch Sportscene on a Saturday night”. Back then Archie Macpherson fronted the show. Archie told me about a similar run-in he had with Alex Ferguson, who angrily disagreed with the commentator’s view of a defensive infraction.

Archie’s view on his opinion being irrelevant due to his lack of coaching experience was memorable, “I’ve never laid an egg, but I know when I taste a bad one”.

The Foundation Zip Slide in Paradise takes place on 26 March, bookings are now being taken.  This time the slide is higher and longer, leaving the very top corner of the North Stand seating at the Lisbon Lions Stand end, diagonally crossing the pitch to land at the bottom of the Jock Stein Stand, at the South Stand end.

You don’t have a lot of time to get booked and start your fundraising, so get onto it now.  Sign up here.

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402 Comments

  1. sixtaeseven - Gardez la Foi on

    Anybody got a working link to Phil’s post today (or a copy of the content) ?

     

     

    Original link no longer works……….. must have been good info !

  2. Joe Filippis Haircut on

    JMCCORMACK. If we think that is bad wait until next season and they are struggling in mid table you can bet your mortgage on it that it will be off the scale. H.H.

  3. thomthethim for Oscar OK on

    In his reply to JC fromSFM, Broadfoot left himself plenty of wriggle room.

     

    He mentioned “legal advice” not ” legal judgement and more or less implied that the SFA were stuck with that decision, in spite of what they think to the contrary.

     

     

    This means whenever the SFA are forced to make a definitive statement, which they still haven’t done, they can use the excuse that they were given wrong advice.

  4. The SFA at their best…….

     

     

    Charity Forced To Cancel Match As SFA Screws Up Scottish Cup Venue Again fb.me/14fDldSre

     

     

    HH

  5. Stairheedrammy on

    So the SFA are asking for proof that fitba is losing fans before they will even consider that Sevco are a different club. Boycott cup semis and finals. Simple

  6. Expat Celt

     

     

    It might have been your goodself that mentioned the holding midfielder from our own ranks..I agree

     

     

    I think we have two young men on our books who could be shaped and coached to play that role

     

     

    Janko, has the power, speed and technical ability to do the job

     

     

    Fisher, another with decent pace, can tackle and reads the game well…I just don’t know if a Hmf is what Ronnys after.

     

     

    I don’t think Celtic (clubs in general) will lose significant enough numbers to make them think about how they deal with the Rangers/SEVCO situation whenever it arises.

     

     

    One thing for sure when they are in our league it will be devisive. ;(

  7. glendalystonsils on

    They have been given licence to perpetrate sporting fraud by the very bodies whose moral and professional duty it is to prevent such activity. They have sympathisers and apologists in every sphere of influence whose aim is to airbrush out the truth and replace it with lies.

     

    Why?

     

    Because they are not simply a football club, they are the embodiment of a supremacist ideology. They decide what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what is lies.

     

     

    Don’t agree with them?

     

    Tough. “I AM the SFA”

     

    Let not the sterling work of brothers Sir David, Campbell, George, Jim, Hugh and their ilk be in vain.

  8. eddieinkirkmichael on

    voguepunter, DR is running same story online. Surprise though is that in the top 5 read today is a promoted story dating from about march 2015 about a 20yr old Celtic Ladies player who got sack by Celtic for a sectarian tweet.

  9. Lennon n Mc....Mjallby on

    stairheed

     

     

    Boycott every single game of football being played,an adults conscience should be doing that anyway if the SFA are taking that stance.

     

     

    simples

  10. glendalystonsils on

    They will HAVE to finish in the top 6 next season. SKY will have stipulated 4 games against us or no deal.

  11. eddieinkirkmichael on

    beatbhoy, I too enjoy my Celtic “fix” and tbh we’ve all known for long enough that the game has been rigged but continue going regardless of this fact.

  12. eddieinkirkmichael on

    tonydonnelly67 on 26th January 2016 7:17 pm There we go again bringing CFC into it again, it’s all about scottish football fans, not one individual club, thats stupidity in my point of view ,that what the Huns the SFA and the SMSM want, it’s not a Celtic FC thing, it’s scottish football fans, that’s what Broadfoot said, the fans, not CFC, not any other particular club, just fans, get it?

     

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

     

     

    Broadfoot only mentions 2 sets of fans, Celtic and Rangers.

     

     

    Only one person as far as I’m aware has mentioned that this is only an issue of one club(Ernie L).

     

    You continue to say it’s up to the fans, well I would hope the club chairmen/women and CEO’s of every club up and down the land were also football fans so why are they not representing the views of those that pay through the nose to watch our game week in week out? Or are you saying Bankier and his ilk aren’t fans?

  13. Delaneys Dunky on

    Eddie

     

     

    There are a few of us go to the fitba, with a feeling it is rigged. I have had that feeling since their 9 in a row. I have always gone to support Celtic with a sense that I am helping to beat the cheats. Still have that feeling.

  14. You may as well giggle than greet. Hunbelieveable guff from wee Dawwle.

     

     

    “I AM THE SFA!!!” was the cwy.

     

     

    I wouldn’t be as hasty to cry that yin fae the rooftops. Being a small business owner myself (not a creditor of the defunct and deid, mind you), I’d be out of business in a week if I was as inept and unprofessional as the SFA. Their administration of the game is certainly “shambolic”, fair play non-existent and their PR laughable.

     

     

    You really have to feel for EK.

  15. I’m not sure about the fans running Celtic, but the idea certainly gains traction for the SFA when you consider that bunch of incompetents warming the seats in the Hampden offices.

  16. sixtaeseven - Gardez la Foi on

    The SFA seem to have scored a massive own goal today.

     

     

    Why?

     

    Simply because for once they had a wee quick look out of the bunker!

     

     

    Every sports journalist worth their salt should be asking Alan McCrae to confirm or otherwise the position presented by Clovenhoof.

     

     

    Time the whole lot were kicked out and a new federation set up.

     

     

    The only way that can happen is by FAN POWER like in 2012 !!!

  17. Glen Whelan fae Stoke could do us a turn for a couple of seasons sitting in front of the back 4,getting on a wee bit,and the rate Stoke buy players,he could be out the picture next season.

  18. Delaneys Dunky on

    Weefra

     

     

    My son just told me that the charity game has been switched to East Kilbride’s park.

  19. The ONLY weapon the fans have is cash.

     

    Withhold it, they will do whatever we ask, it’s really that simple.

     

    Give them your cash, and you are condoning the corruption.

  20. EDDIEKIRK, club chairmen and committee/boards are there to keep the club operating by whatever means. The supporters feelings come last if even considered. Thats from my experience as a board member for a lower league English club.

  21. prestonpans bhoys on

    If memory serves me right Phil’s pulled blog was about some loan going back down south who was relating stories of sevco’s cash problems e.g. Hotel bills etc

  22. Bwodfoot is crafty………..he’s pivotal to the formation of policy and the conduit to his boss. As his boss was and is an oootsider, his boss soon realised that his horrible dangerous, almost impossible job would be made that bit easier and safer if he had a popular placeman as gatekeeper to the kingdom, especially if that aplogist and former cheer-leader was already a paid-up member of scoddland’s good ole boys club……….

     

     

    He knows he’s the gatekeeper but his hun hubris might just get the better of him.

     

     

    It takes tipping points to beat this mob tho’.

  23. Delaneys Dunky on

    Paul67

     

     

    Weefra just texted me to say that he is locked out the blog again.

     

    He is requesting your assistance please. :)

  24. Jungle Jim Hot Smoked on

    Why has Phil`s earlier article disappeared? It was about the Spurs loanee returning to his Club and Phil was suggesting that aspects of the return were good indicators as to the shaky finances at Ibrox.

     

     

    JJ

  25. Delaneys Dunky on

    JJ

     

     

    To suggest that hotel staff take bribes for stories is scurrilous rumour.

     

    Deserved to be pulled. ;)))))

  26. OG

     

     

    He’s the polar opposite of smooth…….but he knows the ropes and behemoths like Jabba will sufffer him gladly.

     

    What he is tho’ is a dyed-in-the-wool teddy and there’s nothing he won’t do for his klub.

  27. Jungle Jim Hot Smoked on

    DD

     

    Did Phil suggest something like that or was that a view expressed in one of the comments?

     

     

    JJ

  28. JJ-the comments came from the player allegedly at a Spurs Q&A,he got moved hotel 3 times,and he got charged for a meal

  29. Jungle Jim Hot Smoked on

    I am trying to think of current players rated as at least quite good by EVERYONE on CQN. Would anyone argue with any in the following selection:

     

    Gordon;

     

    Lustig,

     

    Tierney,

     

    Brown,

     

    Rogic,

     

    Bitton,

     

    Griffiths.

     

    or would anyone add any to that list?