As news of the goal deluge from the Bernabeu arrived last night it must have caused some reflection at Celtic. Real Madrid thumped Malmo, our eliminators, 8-0. Malmo are not, after all, this season’s surprise packages.
European football is an unforgiving environment, not just for the minnows. Roma, who are currently second in their Champions League group, lost 6-1 in Barcelona two weeks ago. That result came on the back of Bayern Munich taking a 0-5 lead inside 36 minutes in front of 70,000 fans in Rome in last season’s tournament. Bayern went on to win 1-7 in what was supposed to be a game which changed Roma’s ways.
Roma are a good team, currently fourth in Serie A, but their expansive tendencies have earned them humiliating results against teams capable of exploiting them.
Rule No. 1 in Europe is to be defensively disciplined. If you don’t have that aspect of the game figures out, you are as well not competing.
While John Collins was no doubt sincere in saying he could see tonight’s game far enough, he should be relishing the opportunity to test his defence against a European team. This is our last chance before next season’s qualifiers. It is a precious occasion to test tactics.
Thanks to everyone who has bought Winds of Change, and for the fantastic feedback on what was an incredible era to be a Celtic supporter.
660 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- ...
- 18
- »
WHITEDOGHUNCH on 9TH DECEMBER 2015 5:54 PM
‘Heaven is eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets’
Or as Philvis calls it……………..”breakfast”
What a pile of steaming merde, lies and pish.
And this garbage is getting serialised in the scottish msm.
Craig Houston: My thoughts of suicide, battle with depression, fight for my family and crusade for Rangers
Exclusive by Christopher Jack,
HE was the fan in the stands who took to the streets, the lifelong Light Blue who became a figure to rally round for his fellow supporters. From protests to boardroom meetings, legal letters to the director’s box, Craig Houston’s part in Rangers’ recent history will be remembered for years to come. His book, ‘Sons of Struth Demand the Truth’ tells his story during the fight for his club. In part one of SportTimes’ exclusive serialisation, read how his battle with depression almost got the better of him as his personal life suffered, how a chilling message was delivered and about the night his father joined him at the top of the Marble Staircase.
THE pressure I felt under when I was being sued for £200,000 by Sandy Easdale was immense. I was on edge constantly as a result.
In the first 12 months that Sons of Struth was on the go I was probably averaging four hours sleep a night. I would lie awake for hours digesting what had happened that day in the news – because the stories about Rangers at that time were pretty much constant – and thinking about my next move.
The worst time was in the run-up to the AGM. I would go over things in my mind again and again and again. I would say to myself: “What haven’t I covered? What haven’t I done? What more can I do? Can I send more emails? Can I organise more protests?”
I started to think if the vote went against us I was personally responsible for every single person who had held up red cards at our protests. I genuinely believed I would have let down the thousands of people who had looked to us for guidance and had backed us.
I would experience visions of the faces of all of the people who had come to meetings, distributed leaflets and helped us throughout the process. It was a horrible time.
Sandy Chugg saw it and became concerned. I had suffered from depression on and off in the past. It had first happened when I was working down in London for a spell.
I was commuting between there and Glasgow at weekends. That was difficult situation and was probably one of the factors which contributed to the break-up of my marriage.
I went through a bout of depression without realising it. It was only when I came out the other side of it that it dawned on me what it had actually been.
Depression is a terrible, horrible, savage thing. You get to a point where you are convinced there is no way out of the predicament you are in. I would compare it to being stuck at the bottom of the well and reaching for the sky but being unable to scale the walls.
I actually started to think: “Would the world be a better place without me?” It got so bad at one point that I even considered ways I could end my life.
It didn’t seem abnormal to think that way either.
I was in a well-paid job at the time. Money wasn’t an issue. My business partner and I had two company cars at the time. One was a Bentley and the other one was a Jaguar. But the pressures of work, of being away from home, of not being around to help raise my young children, all took a toll.
Managing my own business was a large part of it. I was in charge of a company which was generating millions of pounds a year in revenue and had several staff members.
There were great expectations of me. I got to a point where my head couldn’t cope. I started thinking crazy thoughts which, to me at the time, seemed completely rational.
I had even gone so far as to contemplate crashing my car as I was driving back to Glasgow on the M6 and killing myself. That seemed rational to me in the appalling condition I was in.
I would think: “If I don’t drive up the road with six cans of Red Bull and the air conditioning on full blast this Friday as usual I’ll get really tired and it’ll be easier to crash my car.”
To a normal person, that seems utterly insane. But you get so down that is how you can think. You don’t think: “Jesus Christ! I’m thinking about doing myself in here!” It is like having a heavy rucksack on your back weighing you down.
Thankfully, I came out of that situation after getting a fright on the road home when the wheels of my car started to hit the rumble strip. It was only then that I realised I must be depressed.
The next time it occurred, when my marriage finally broke down, I could see it coming and I sought help. I made an appointment to see a doctor.
Even before I went to the chemist with a prescription the dark cloud that was hanging over me was lifted. Just speaking to somebody about it was like taking a drug in itself.
You don’t speak to people about these things. At least, men in Scotland don’t.
You don’t share your feelings when you are depressed. But just getting it off your chest is a help.
The doctor asked me about my sleeping, about my diet and various other things. Then he told me: “You’re clinically depressed.” It was almost a relief.
You can differentiate between depression and reality and you can do something about it. Once you accept you’re unwell you can take affirmative action.
I could see the same signs in the run-up to the AGM. Instead of a number of things in your life taking up my energy, focus and time, just one thing dominated my every waking hour. It became all-consuming.
I started to think I couldn’t cope. I was getting panic attacks. I was waking up after being asleep for an hour or two covered from head to toe in sweat.
When I was getting sued I hit another real low. I started to think: “I can’t cope with this. I’m never going to get out of this.” I realised how much this whole campaign had impacted on my life.
I don’t own much, but I could have lost everything. Just because I had stood and voiced my disquiet about how my football club was being run.
I also started to think of my personal life. My relationship with my girlfriend had ended because Sons of Struth had become my life. That started to really sink in at that point.
But by then it was too late. I had also gone weeks without access to my son and daughter. I genuinely believed that those relationships, the most important in my life, were in jeopardy.
My son was a teenager and, like most teenagers, he was embarrassed by his da’. When his old man was plastered across the front and back pages of the newspapers every other day and was popping up on television and the radio I’m quite sure he didn’t think: “Good on you pops for standing up for the Rangers!”
I don’t think he got ridiculed for it. Most of his pals are Rangers supporters and I’m sure they must have thought it was quite cool that I was giving it tight to the board.
But he decided he wanted to stop coming to see his dad on a Sunday and stop going to the football with him. His mum was concerned too.
She thought we were going to games and ripping up stadiums. I am sure she put pressure on him as well.
Going to Rangers games with my son was always a nice experience for me. I lost that for a long time. For a long time after Sons of Struth started I didn’t go to one match with him. If my son didn’t want to come and see me then my daughter wouldn’t come either.
When all that happens and you are feeling down you do ask yourself if it is all worth it. Your relationship is breaking up.
Your business is suffering. You aren’t seeing your children.
I definitely fell down to the bottom of that well again. It was hard to see a way out at times.
Craig Houston: The pile of ashes and chilling messages that sent out the warning ‘we know where you live’
ONE day there was a pile of ashes a couple of feet away from the bottom step [of the back door my house]. It was quite a considerable size. It was really strange.
I looked at it long and hard and racked my brains. I wondered: “Why the hell’s there a pile of ashes at the back door?”
Tracy came into the kitchen and noticed it immediately too. She asked: “What’s that?” I didn’t want to distress her so I dismissed it.
I said: “It’ll just be from the barbecue. The wind will just have caught it.” But it definitely wasn’t. I am convinced it was a message, a warning, from somebody. To this day, I have no idea who.
It wasn’t the only unsettling thing which happened. We lived in a quiet little cul-de-sac. One day I was coming back and I met our neighbour who had been out walking his dog.
He said: “Who were the guys up looking for you at four o’clock this morning?”
I replied: “What are you talking about?
“There were three transit vans here early this morning. I got up because the dog was barking. There were guys pointing at the house. Who’ve you upset?”
“I haven’t upset anybody.”
“Well, they weren’t here looking for me.”
It was quite worrying. I didn’t know who it was. Somebody we were shouting abuse at on match days? Fans who didn’t like what we were doing? Somebody whose job was under threat? Heavies who had been sent to put the frighteners on me? I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t as a result of anything else I had done in my life. I felt at the time it was done to scare me. It was somebody saying: “We know where you live.”
I have two old friends who have associates who are, to put it delicately, slightly off-centre Glasgow businessmen.
They each revealed to me independently of each other that my name was being bandied about in some fairly serious circles. By all accounts, the message being put out was: “This boy should keep his mouth shut or he’ll end up getting a doing.”
I was told: “People have been asking questions about you. The sort of people you don’t want to be getting on the wrong side of.”
That made me sit up straight with a jolt. It wasn’t as if I was wearing a bullet-proof vest and looking over my shoulder as I walked down the street.
But I was certainly told: “People are asking about you, wanting to know where you lived.” It just verified what I suspected at the time. That certain individuals were unhappy.
Craig Houston: My memorable night in the Blue Room with Rangers legends, and my dad
I HAD always said that all I ever wanted in return for what we did was for my father to get a seat in the directors’ box at Ibrox for one Rangers game.
On the Sunday after the EGM I got a phone call from the new director Paul Murray inviting me to be a guest at the game against Queen of the South with my dad. Somebody must have let him know that was important to me.
It was a fantastic night. There were a lot of friends and well-known faces. At one point Walter Smith came over to me in the Blue Room, grabbed my hand and said: “Craig, you’ve played some game son!” I was so honoured.
Dave King also made a point of speaking to me. He said: “Craig, I’ve not had a chance to speak to you, but thanks very much for all of your help and everything you’ve done in the last couple years.”
I introduced him to my dad and he said: “You should be very proud of your son for all the work he’s done and the effort he’s put in. Not only has he fought for longer than most of us he’s actually led us during this.”
I was quite touched that a guy who has invested millions of pounds in the club should speak like that. A lot of people with Dave King’s sort of wealth let it go to their heads. But he isn’t like that at all.
I have always found him to be down to earth, grounded, humble and a straight-talker. You can see the Castlemilk in him when you meet him.
John Greig, who had only been back at Ibrox once, when the Govan Stand was named in honour of Sandy Jardine, since resigning from the board during the Craig Whyte era, returned that night.
He came over at one point and I asked him: “How does it feel being back? It must be very emotional?” He said: “Aye, son, but to be honest with you, there’s a lot of faces in here I don’t recognise.” I said: “Oh, I’m very sorry, I’m Craig Houston from the Sons of Struth.” He said: “I wasn’t talking about you. Everyone knows who you are.” It was absolutely mind blowing.
Most importantly, though, my dad had a great time. The highlight for him was getting his half-time pie in the Blue Room. He told me they were the best he had ever tasted.
When the second half kicked off he stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled one out and started eating it. I said: “Da! You’re no’ sitting in Section J anymore!”
‘Sons of Struth demand the truth’ is released on December 11 and available from http://store.sonsofstruth.co.uk/products/sons-of-struth-demand-the-truth-pre-launch-order
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/14132305.Craig_Houston__My_thoughts_of_suicide__battle_with_depression__fight_for_my_family_and_crusade_for_Rangers/
Turned on the Barca game, major disappointment as the fat gardener is co-commentating…
Coneybhoy: not going in tomorrow night as I’ll be attending school concert. However, I’ll probably go in after Christmas and will leave a message here if I am. There wasn’t many in two weeks ago and I’d say it will be a small crowd tomorrow night, less than twenty probably.
Levandowski 20/1 to score 1st goal of the night, betvictor
West end,
If he’s any worse than some of ex players I’ll be surprised.
HH
QUONNO
Exactly, it’s not good to see, we’re starting to hope for 2nd place in the Europa League ffs. No-one fears us anymore . Our reputation in Europe has been severely downsized .
HH
West end,
If he’s any worse than some of our ex players I’ll be surprised.
HH
WE of EE: Straight to mute:-)
Geordie Munro – You can say that again ….:-)
West end,
Lol. I typed it out and noticed I missed out a word and I tried to correct it but once that ol ‘post’ button is pressed there ain’t no stopping it :))
HH
glendalystonsils
that would be superbe
Don’t think we’re going to see a typical Barca possession stat tonight, been all Germans so far….
GEORDIEMUNRO
You can sometimes switch off your device before the message has gone. I’ve done that once or twice-sadly,not often enough!
Bobby,
That has never worked for me.
I always have to go down the ‘loadsa explaining route ‘ :))
HH
QUONNO on 9TH DECEMBER 2015 7:37 PM
Only just catching up on the Carmichael result so can’t comment yet.
===========
Sandy Bryson embarrassed by the legal gymnastics performed by 2 Law Lords.
so the guy who canny sleep at night didnt hear next doors dug barking because transit vans rolled up outside with a team of heavies.
strange yin that
Carmichael lied about his part in leaking the dossier.
Was Sturgeon truthful about what she said about wanting a Tory victory?
The BT goals show is the best on the box, always liked James Richardson from his days C4 Italian fitba plus it has actual journalist/pundits talking sense unlike what we are used to with Sky or even worse up here…..and goal by goal or chance by chance as they happen
Anyone else listening to the Sleekit Gardener commentating on the Barca game?
Funny how you never hear him ( or PLG) mentioned in the SMSM
Some goal by Lyon against Valencia.
SAINT STIVS on 9TH DECEMBER 2015 8:16 PM
so the guy who canny sleep at night didnt hear next doors dug barking because transit vans rolled up outside with a team of heavies.
strange yin that
————————-
Stivs…twas the ashes blawin oot the barbie what got me :O)
BMCUWP IGNORES THE BORES,SCROLLS THE TROLLS on 9TH DECEMBER 2015 8:16 PM
Was Sturgeon truthful about what she said about wanting a Tory victory?
=======
She said she did not say that and amazingly all the other people at the meeting agreed.
In fact, in time, Carmichael also agreed and apologised to Nicola Sturgeon for saying otherwise.
IKI
Really?
I didn’t know that-I thought the French fella’s aide had backed up the contents.
That being the case,Carmichael should have been turfed out for lying about the entire episode.
Hamiltontim from earlier about the midweek game at Pittodrie. If you have the time. Andy Murdoch has highlights of our league cup game there in 1986, when we beat them on penalties and we were down to ten men. To round it off, Willie Miller missed in the shoot out. The midweek one nil win in 1988 when Andy Walker scored was a terrific night up there.
Hamiltontim I meant say Andy Murdoch had uploaded that league cup game on YouTube.
My friends in Celtic,
I really, really hope that The ” magic hat” dissapears down to South Wales.
Would be nice to have a certain bread back on the shopping list.
HH.
Ps : talking about politicians telling porkies. Just clock the teacher numbers and the class sizes in Primary schools. Do they think we can’t count.
The exiled Tim I wonder if Craig Houston has any empathy with his fellow sufferer from depression, Neil Lennon
BMCUWP ignores the bores,scrolls the trolls on 9th December 2015 8:34 pm
=====
Just for further info.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/588068/nikileaks-alistair-carmichael-sends-letter-nicola-sturgeon-apologising/
DD
What do you think ?
I doubt he is being truthful, or a feckin liar in other words, he is a nobody wanting to be somebody, scum through and through.
Sad when you think scum like him are being heralded all over the smsm, but that’s scotland for ye.
HH
The exiled Tim, uber sticky buns and honesty don’t normally go together. If he was such a successful businessman, has he contributed any dosh or his business skills to the tribute act
DD
He has organised lots of protests :-)
HH
Wait till his house or car gets torched….
Monsieur Giroud…
The exiled Tim, yer man Houstie, is a king among kings lol
“A lot of people with Dave King’s sort of wealth let it go to their heads. But he isn’t like that at all.”
——-
Belter!
Greenpinata on 9th December 2015 8:49 pm
Coming from a family full of teachers, up and down the generations, I know that they cannae count…. and I cannae spell.
Some of these young barca players will need to learn how to dive with conviction or they will never become good players.