The players would have had a light training session at Lennoxtown today as muscles continue to refill after Wednesday night’s exertions. Expectations of Celtic in the Champions League are not high, and were exceptionally low when this group was drawn, but even so, these games have a huge financial, physical and even emotional impact on every area of the club.
One argument suggests the last thing we need is a cup semi-final four days after a Champions League outing. An alternative thought is that this is the perfect game for Celtic right now. Memories linger of sitting stressfully at Fir Park days after Celtic beat the reigning European Champions, Milan, as (subsequently liquidated) Grenta held onto a lead until the 87th minute.
While playing (subsequently liquidated) Rangers away 64 hours after winning a Uefa Cup semi-final 1200 miles from home in 2003 proved to be the perfect game to instil steel into the legs.
With what passes as a fully fit squad, Brendan has choices to make for Sunday. Did Patrick Roberts do enough off the bench against Borussia to justify a start? Perhaps. He’s a player who owes us one at Hamden too.
Callum McGregor will also fancy his chances ahead of Nir Bitton, who didn’t have a great Scottish Cup semi-final against the same opponents in April.
It would be a huge surprise if Moussa Dembele didn’t start as the lone forward, despite Leigh Griffiths itching to get on alongside him. Brendan will not change formation for this game, while Moussa will fancy his chances against a defence he punished to ruthlessly last month.
For me, our two most important players on Sunday will be Scott Sinclair and Tom Rogic. They are the epitome of the modern footballer, strong, skilful, intelligent and difficult to defend against. If we can get them on the ball often enough we’ll score a lot of goals.
Pretty much every Celtic fan I know expects Mark Warburton to have learned a lesson from his Celtic Park whipping and for him to deploy a more defensively-minded team this time. My Newco pals don’t expect this to happen. Warburton hasn’t varied his game-plan since arriving at the club and is apparently reluctant to start experimenting now.
He took his team to Hampden to face Celtic against similarly long odds last season. Within minutes we knew we were in a game, and despite the clear chasm between the teams, it was Newco who faced Hibs in the Scottish Cup final.
A repeat of the 5-1 win at Celtic Park is possible, but you’ve seen enough football to know that nothing can be taken for granted on Sunday. Remember that Newco came close to levelling that 5-1 game at 2-2 early in the second half, and the latter part of their collapse came after going down to 10 men.
I’m off later to meet those from the Tyneside No. 1 and friends, who have walked (yes, WALKED), from Merthyr Tydfil and will reach Doherty’s Bar in Hamilton this afternoon. They’ve pretty much walked a marathon a day for 13 days and will make the final journey to Celtic Park tomorrow.
This herculean effort has been made to mark the memory of Jonathan Thomas, who aged 30 lost his biggest fight one year ago tomorrow.
We’re lucky as Celtic fans that we get to meet and read about people who do these things in our name. It’ll take you 2 minutes to let them know how inspiring they are here.
It’s also worth marking the events in Aberfan, the village a few miles from Merthyr Tydfil which was visited by unimaginable tragedy 50 years ago today.
John Humphrys: What we owe the people of Aberfan 50 years after tragedy struck the village, and why it shows authority must be challenged. pic.twitter.com/OdjyaAGTsQ
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) October 21, 2016
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GORDYBHOY64
Thanks!
Paul67 et al
Many Scottish towns, in Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Stirlingshire, Fife and the Lothians had ‘Bings’ not far from the coalmines. We used to play on ours as young children, like being on the moon if my memory serves me well. Used to gather bits of coal to to take home. Nowhere near the miner’s rows, or any other housing for that matter, and certainly nowhere near a school. Not alone there and feel sure, (like bobby murdoch’s…) that there are more than a few here who remember not only the bings but where they were that day back in 1966. For some of us almost certainly at school. The thing is Aberfan was not only a disaster, it was an avoidable disaster, perpetrated not only by the NBC but also by the local authority of Merthyr Tydfil. They knew Tip number 7 was dangerous, they had been told, they had been warned, they ignored those warnings, they are and were responsible for every death, and for every child who died that day. From as early as August 1963, (see The Observer 09 October 2016) DCW Jones, the Merthyr Borough and Waterworks Engineer wrote to the NCB and to the local Town Clerk, of the ‘Danger from Coal Slurry being tipped at the rear of the Pantglas Schools’. The schools! He signed of with the line that “if they were to move a very dangerous position would accrue”. That was in 1963, and it was not his only warning. He received a reply in March 1964 from the NCB, that would not like to continue tipping beyond the next 6-8 weeks where it was likely to be “a source of danger to Pantglas school”
They were still tipping on October 20 1966…….
HAMILTONTIM
The warning to check answer to Q1 of the Consultation Paper re OBAF is timely. It is so long ago that I submitted my response that I thought that I should send Mr. Kelly a reaffirmation of my opposition to OBAF as I couldn’t be sure that I had answered Q1 correctly.
It took several attempts for my internet provider to accept the e-mail until I discovered that it preferred the title msp to be lower case.
James.Kelly.msp@parliament.scot.
It might be worth reposting the warning at regular intervals. HH
CELTIC MAC
I was at St Thenogs Primary School in Garthamlock in the 50’s.
From our classroom we could see a bing. Think is was attached to the mine at Cardowan .
It always looked a bit scary to me. Never went near it.
The Masonic Arms in Partick was a fine place to see a Man about a Dog ..Handy if you didn’t fancy a jaunt to The Scotia or The Red Lion.
THOMTHETHIM FOR OSCAR OK on 21ST OCTOBER 2016 1:34 PM
In my young days, it was always called Parkhead, or Parkheid.
*I still call it Parkheid, all my family including aunts, uncles, cousins and later on in-laws called it that, the only one that called it Parkhead was my mother as she being a civil servant spoke polite.
BTW what’s with this “parkers” scheitd?
HAMILTONTIM on 21ST OCTOBER 2016 2:12 PM
Philbhoy/Timhorton Pretty sure the Masonic Arms in Condorrat is predominantly a Celtic leaning pub.
*Yip was in it many moons ago when visiting family in Seafar.
” Parkers?” FFS. Heard it all now. Pass the prawn sandwiches Farquhar.
vfr800a8 on 21st October 2016 10:53 am
PETEC on 21ST OCTOBER 2016 4:00 AM
I got tickets for a couple of German guys; what area were you in?
FAC the Act
KTF
………………………………………………………..
415 and the last row. Aptly named FF.
https://publicaccess.glasgow.gov.uk/online-applications/files/9112FD318ABE03CD1F1FF181BFDAD641/pdf/16_02326_DC-SITE_PLAN_AND_SECTION_AND_SCREEN_PLAN_AND_ELEVATIONS-3358051.pdf
https://publicaccess.glasgow.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=ODSXK8EXKO900
philbhoy
Do not think our bings were as dangerous as those like the coal slurry tips such as those in the Merthyr valleys. Nor anywhere as near to the school and the villages as that at Aberfan. Even now it is unbelievable to think Tip number 7 was to the rear of the school, or that warnings from a waterworks engineer would be ignored. But they were.
Essentially a big rotating LED screen, 4m x 8m at the front of the stadium.
Note the address on the application is Celtic Park 95 Kerrydale Street Glasgow G40 3RE
SoT
The Masonic Arms in Partick and Curlers on Byres Rd were always good places to see men aboot dugs. :)
Big Georges
I’ll keep you posted R. Loved the bit about your mum helping out with the tickets for Pittodrie! :-)
..
I’d say Jinky and most other Lanarkshire Celts referred to Paradise as Parkhead.. The Posh ones Celtic Park..
But it was Always Paradise..
Summa of ParadiseCSC
An Teach
I’ll endeavour to do that if I remember :-)
It was always Parkheid when I was growing up, I never remember anyone calling it Celtic Park.
Tontine
I think the St Ninian’s bus from Stirling used to pick up the guys from the Condorrat CSC from the MA.
was taken to my first game to see celtic as a 12 year old in1950/51.never in all the years leading up to fergus did i hear it called anything but parkhead or some said the holy ground. today i always correct people who say parkhead. just love that name CELTIC PARK.
I do declare!!!!!!!!
I still call it Parkheid, but my 6yr old grandson calls it Celtic Park
StrangeCSC :)))))
I remember vividly playing on the bing(nowhere near the schools) when i was a pup,
sliding down it on breadboards, lino or the remains of a pram, also playing best mans fall and hide and seek as often as we could when not enough of us for football, to this day it beggars belief that anyone would create a bing near a school.
It was `always called Parkhead` because the media influenced people even more then than it does now.
Doesn`t make it right.
Cheerio for now.
JJ
I’m shocked to find that the Aberfan disaster was in 66. I remember it vividly yet I was only 6 at the time. I can’t remember much from that age.
Perhaps it’s because we had our very own Bing blocking out the sunlight at St Flannans Primary in Kirky. It was as pulled down pretty soon after.
Thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families.
One final comment. Ours was not A bing but THE Bing ( Barmulloch) 0:-)
JJ
When’s November?
IT
Being a left wing uni type…I always called it Celtic Park. :)
My pals who called it Parkheid said that they used that name because “why else would you go to Parkheid other than to watch us play?”
BTW…there used to be a train station in between Carntyne and Belgrove, called Parkhead Junction I think, which was used on matchdays only for those going to the game. Just at the back of where the Forge is now.
Hail hail
Matt
Another 21st October disaster, this one 45 years ago today
The Clarkston explosion was a disaster that occurred on 21 October 1971 at a shopping centre in Clarkston, Renfrewshire, Scotland. The death toll has been stated variously as 21[1] and 22.[2]
The explosion followed a build-up of gas in an underground space beneath the Clarkston Toll shopping centre, caused by a gas main leak later ruled to have been accidental.[1] Customers and shop staff had on 20 October complained of a strong smell of gas in the centre and Scottish Gas engineers had attended to investigate, but had identified no source for the smell.[1][2] The engineers were still in attendance at around 2:50pm on the 21st when the gas ignited and exploded, killing at least 21 people and injuring around 100.[3] The victims included many female shop staff and housewives on shopping trips, and the passengers of a bus that had been passing the scene.[2] The explosion destroyed several shops and a terraced car park.
An inquiry was held, and a jury on 11 February 1972 returned a verdict that no fault for the explosion lay with any organization or individual. No cause was identified for the ignition of the leaked gas, and the leak itself was deemed the result of an accidental gas main fracture caused by “stress and corrosion”.[3]
The victims of the disaster are commemorated in a plaque erected in 2001/2 near the site of the explosion.[2]
IT should have been HT. ..I blame the chips, Guinness and Sharkeys in no particular order.
Hail hail
Matt
Matt
Like many things in life you learn from those around you. My old da and all my uncles etc always referred to it as Parkhead. I suppose naturally that’s why I always used the term.
Hope you’re keeping well sir.
I’ve always called it Parkheid since copying my old man as a wean. In fact he tends to call it Part-heed these days in his 84 year old Glesga accent. We all know it’s Celtic Park with Paradise really more of a beautiful tribute than a nickname, which also btw grates with that mob. Anyway unlike my mate TD 67 I don’t see it as a big deal.
Gary67
I was a first year apprentice in a Bridgeton Engineering works. I remember some other apprentices who’d been outside sciving, running in saying they’d heard an explosion.
Clarkston toll to Bridgeton must be 6 or 7 miles as the crow flies.
parabhoy,
i thought i was the oldest poster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My Dad took me to Parkhead in 1957.On the subject of names -my mate Zooney (RIP) used to refer to Ibrox as The Ku Klux Kludgie.Same surreal brain once referred to a band of marching Lifeboys /Boys Brigade chappies with -a -“look S of T it’s the Sectarian Thunderbirds”
Matt Stewart,
Are you sure about thon station. Parkhead Junction’s, location? I can’t remember it at all. I thought where the Forge is now was tenements and the original Forge: Beardmore’s. That Forge had its own railway line which used to cross over Duke Street.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkhead_railway_station
Philbhoy, I also went to St Thenogs, although did not get there until 1962 ish, lived in Coxton Place. then onto St Gregory’s on Edinburgh Rd, behind the Dalriada.
My auld dad sometimes called Celtic park parkhead the holy ground :) HH