Playing Adam Matthews and Emilio Izaguirre as wing-backs with Kelvin Wilson, Charlie Mulgrew and Mikael Lustig as a back three looked a bit clumsy and didn’t last the 90 minutes but that was to be expected. New defensive formations are not supposed to operate as smoothly as familiar systems.
I’m far from certain three at the back is a good idea, or if we have the correct personnel for this formation, but Neil Lennon should persist with the experiment. We will not learn and grow if we don’t take chances, which was one of our abiding frustrations under both Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan.
No experiments on Tuesday, of course!
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Gene…
He’s a Hun. All-encompassing.
ParkheadcumsalfordwhoisNeilLennonand PaulMcBrideandTrishGodman
20:29 on 19 August, 2012
Where is McKenna’s article? I looked on the Observer site but couldn’t find it.
Defensive piece by McKenna on allmediascotland …
Kevin McKenna: Rangers, the mainstream media and blogs
FEW spheres of Scottish society have been left untouched by events surrounding the demise of Rangers Football Club, which now operates as a newco in the Scottish Third Division.
Since the nation’s most august sporting institution went into administration on February 14, Scotland has been having one of those national conversations which end when it administers a right good kicking to itself.
Finance, faith and politics have all been dragged into the Rangers imbroglio, and the Scottish print and broadcast media have attracted among the most scrutiny.
That merry and scrofulous band of cavaliers known as the football journalists, in particular, have all had their little whims, caprices and foibles held up for the world to see, almost all of them accused of having failed to spot – or choosing to look the other way – when it came to the financial unravelling of Rangers that led to their day of reckoning.
The chief accusers of these gentlemen (and a few ladies) of the football Press are what I suppose we ought to be calling the new ‘Citizen Journalists’.
That’s ‘citizen’ as in ‘have never held a staff job on a national newspaper’.
They see themselves as valiant, courageous and remorseless seekers of the truth. Some have shown themselves capable of sentient thought and articulate prose, albeit unbound by the traditional strictures and shibboleths of the ‘old journalism’, which, in the opinion of many of them, consist solely of variations on the theme, ‘Never upset the Rangers’.
Some of their criticisms of the Scottish football Press, and its conduct in providing coverage of Rangers FC, are valid, but some are born of ignorance and pub folklore.
Thus far, I have referred to the sports Press in the third person, but I really ought to say ‘we’ when discussing them. For, in the late 90s and beyond, I was sports editor for a couple of our national newspapers.
As such, I had an excellent view of how football writers operated and was entirely complicit in a few episodes for which the new citizen journalists’ army would have sent me to their correction facilities.
On one occasion, I was happy for Graham Spiers, then the chief sportswriter at Scotland on Sunday, to visit [former Rangers owner] David Murray at his Jersey estate for a few days in the company of a handful of other journalists.
It was on this trip, or one similar, where the Daily Record’s chief sportswriter, Jim Traynor, used the phrase, ‘succulent lamb’, in describing the quality of the comestibles in Sir David’s larder.
In recent years, this phrase has been used gleefully by Traynor’s online detractors to suggest a relationship that was too cosy. Although I can’t speak for the Daily Record, I would guess that their motivation for having their man accept David Murray’s hospitality was the same as mine: to get a decent story.
The demonisation of Traynor on some football blogs and messageboards is obscene. This writer has been putting his name to stories in Scotland’s best newspapers, and broadcasting for the BBC, for more than 30 years. He is one of our best and most experienced journalists and it is ironic that many of those who seek to criticise him do so behind the cloak of anonymity.
At this time, Rangers were the only game in town.
And while I accept that, as journalists, we have a noble, sacred and sacredly noble duty to scale the coalface of truth, we also have a duty to try to sell more papers than our rivals and, if possible, rub their noses in it while doing so.
Thousands of jobs in the industry rely on these principles and more than a few mortgages and turf accountants’ fees. Any football writer who refused to entertain the entreaties of the most powerful man in football simply risked handing a potential story to his rivals.
Such a relationship is no more cosy than the entire Westminster and Holyrood political lobbies taking late phone calls from Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alistair Campbell and dutifully writing up these midnight whispers and stratagems.
The accusation that the mainstream media were slow off the mark in reporting the progress of the ‘tax case’ against Rangers and their subsequent descent into financial ruin does carry some merit. But before the current inquisition risks becoming a witch-hunt, let’s look at some inconvenient facts.
As early as 2003, Graham Spiers, writing in The Herald, and Bob Wylie, reporting for the BBC, were beginning to ask serious questions about Rangers’ finances.
The quality of writing in the best of the football blogs has, at times, been exceptional. Yet the whiff of sanctimony and self-righteousness is never very far away either.
I have been known to visit Celtic Park not infrequently over the years and so I can state with absolute authority that we have a tendency to glory in sanctimony and puritanism. We also do a nice line in victimhood…despite our 43 league titles, 35 Scottish Cups and European Champion Clubs Cup.
Unfortunately, what passes for debate on many blogs is nothing more than nameless individuals hurling illiterate profanities in response to an opinion that is merely disagreeable.
The new citizen bloggers have a few luxuries that are denied a newspaper journalist. None will ever be sued for defamation and none will risk being forced to carry an apology by the Press Complaints Commission for getting the facts wrong.
There have been some excellent blogs that have sprung up amid it all. Among the sharpest and most vibrant have been Celtic Quick News, Rangers Tax Case and Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, a Glasgow-born writer who now lives in Donegal. Each has carried revelations and cold analysis that have sometimes eclipsed the efforts of the mainstream media.
As far as I can tell, with the exception of Mr Mac Giolla Bhain, none of the blogs are written by working journalists, requiring to earn a living from their writing, so that it doesn’t really matter how many or how few people read their blogs. And they write eternally on only two subjects: Rangers’ finances and the gossip surrounding their own football club. They have no deadlines and no duty lawyer striking a red pen through their copy just before the presses roll. They are under absolutely no pressure to deliver and they are responsible to no-one but themselves.
It’s a nice and interesting pastime, all this blogging and tweeting and facebooking, and I’m sure we’d all be diminished without it. But it resembles newspaper journalism in the same way that a skateboard resembles an aeroplane.
Kevin McKenna is a columnist on The Observer and the Scottish Daily Mail.
Just got apology from stv grant for Sammy’s penalty claim being left out from SPL you tube clips.
On mobile so not easy to copy over from twitter but the lad is genuine
ki to athletico ?
hh
The proof that the right thing was ultimately done is when 22 of their trophies are rescinded.
4-1 Pedro 41 min
Auld Neil Lennon heid 20:39:
What’s your twitter name?
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
bt
at hime?? Beddy bye bye time!! :0)))
jude
no good at spanish..
solpadol 30/500 and macallan…. o))
leftclicktic,
thank you, very well said, you never missed a point
auldheid\ttt, pecker up lhads that was only a battle, this is the end game, we cant let our heads drop.
hail hail
must off but,
a pal said, do you think if we kept the numbers traditional 1 – 11
the players would have more respect for the jersey
offski
hail hail
Gene
C W = cheat!! Ok?
But to be fair to him. The company he works for might have a big asbestos job coming up.
From the McKenna article
“It’s a nice and interesting pastime, all this blogging and tweeting and facebooking, and I’m sure we’d all be diminished without it. But it resembles newspaper journalism in the same way that a skateboard resembles an aeroplane.”
Just like honesty in Scottish journalism is as rare as hen’s teeth
as Ghandi said “Truth never damages a cause that is just.”
Auldheid, – copy of your conversation from Twitter.
Auldheid
@STVGrant widnae mind seeing the Celtic penalty claim again ;)
Grant Russell @STVGrant
@Auldheid Just seen it isn’t. Can only apologise, absolutely no idea why it is not on the edit. Pressed for time the only explanation.
Reply Retweet Favorite
17m Auldheid @Auldheid
@STVGrant no problem. I had not seen it was missing myself but it was mentioned on CQN & frankly I doubted it. Will try to copy your reponse
@STVGrant: @Auldheid Just seen it isn’t. Can only apologise, absolutely no idea why it is not on the edit. Pressed for time the only explanation.
@STVGrant:Pressed for time= following orders.
Big Nan,
Thanks for printing that. Traynor must have something on McKenna for him to print such obtuse verbiage. Like the Nevins of this world, he must find it hard to sleep at night, writing what he knows is false. Then again, maybe he doesn’t do Catholic guilt. Sad stuff for someone who wants to be taken as a serious journalist. Is that an oxymoron?
Has the STV got a media deal with the new daft wee division 3 club same as they had with rfc?
Green. Uv got to admire the audacity of the man as he tells the untouchables we have 10million and not a word about the millions they owe to all and sundry or the millions they stole via PAYE!!
A we bit of Creedence C L R JUST COZ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEY8clFcm2E&feature=related
@STVGrant:Pressed for time= lazy journalism
now where have i seen that before?
VP
:))))
As always
voguepunter
20:57 on
19 August, 2012
@STVGrant:Pressed for time= following orders.
Last orders.?
Auldheid
STV may only have 2 mins of highlights.
BBC showed the Samaras penalty in 5 min highlights but it’s not in SPL’s 8 mins extended highlights, as fan-a-tic pointed out.
Did something happen in the shankhill (bellshill) last night? So a bit a earlier but couldnt catch the main story.
The Band it makes no difference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0We41T7TAx4&feature=related
Good night all MAY YOUR DAYS BE BLESSED
HAIL HAIL
Any Labrador breeders out there??
castleferrykiosk@jerseymail.co.uk
Looking for a white/cream dog.
Thanks in advance.
Until we meet again…
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
McKenna’s problem is that he knows his trade is obsolescent.
That’s why he’s a bit narked.
ernie lynch
McKenna’s problem is that he knows his trade is obsolescent
—————————————————————-
he also knows his profession has been found out
jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/
bigdanistheman away home to Sweden but says no to newco
22:43 on 18 August, 2012
Good evening fellow celts! I don’t post often but feel that I need to tell you all what I witnessed earlier this evening. I happened to be out in the garden when I heard that all too familiar sound of drums being beaten,( at this point I must include the 2 teenage girls & 1 boy who had been out on the park having a kickabout for about a half hour before our peace was rudely interrupted)I headed into the house to escape the pollution, I noticed 1 of strath clydes finest approach the youngsters as the hoardes
Came into view & stand beside them till it had passed, at this point I went over to ask them what plod had said.they were asked if they stayed in the area & told that it was a bit stupid of them to be wearing that the day (2 of them were wearing the hoops
PaddyG
now I know why you have ignored my emails
you have changed your address….
or do you no like me anymore? o))
night cqn..
pain killers kicking in… zzzzzzzzzzzz
How many marches are these scumbags allowed? Any word on the committee being set up to “review” said marches?
blantyretim
NAW ya big bampot, same email G ….@jerseymail.uk
Senor Estadio
Freedom is a quantity based on degrees the full 360 all encompassing freedom is a dream but it is not a myth so therefore it’s a possibility but while the vested interests of big business and government run the show the individuals freedom of actually saying what he/she wants without retribution are limited.
The limelight people who spoke so openly in defence of the Pussy Rioters have not much to say about Assange nothing to say about his expose and the peoples right to know the truths they don’t want us to know
Of course Russia is easy to chastise those who had plenty to say about the pussys freedom of speech don’t make many dollars in the rouble economy
At home right on their doorstep on the big issues they have lost their tongue
Nothing like the thought of a depreciating wallet to silence those so called champions of free speech
Hail Hail
WG
No wonder you don’t post these days.
Regards.
EDB
bigdanistheman away home to Sweden but says no to newco
07:08 on 19 August, 2012
big georges fan club
00:56 on
19 August, 2012
bigdanistheman away home to sweden but says no to newco
==============
Bellshill Tesco – like walking through a ludge meeting!
Was perusing the fresh meat aisle with ma wee bhoy Gabe, aged 9, who was wearing the Hoops.
Orc wearing nornireland top (grubby) with ugly orc female walked past behing us. Orc wummin snidely whispered “sh!te, sh!te, sh!te” as she (it) walked behind me and wee Gabe (wee man never heard it, and I never reacted out of disbelief).
The vileness of a middle aged female sneakilly cursing at a wean really turned my stomach. What sort of upbringing must these people have? Breaks your heart to think that she was once a wee innocent babie, who has been turned, through her upbringing, into such a foul and sickening adult. Really sad.
Ah good old tesco bellshill, where they think it’s acceptable to invite the local flute band to do the official opening!