Fraser Forster has missed the last two games with a neck injury, which Neil Lennon suggested could have been sustained as a result of sleeping on an unfamiliar pillow in Spain last week. Fraser has been treated by a chiropractor but it might be a few games before he is back between the posts.
This is a known phenomenon. As well as bikes, spare tyres and pumps the GB Olympic cycling team make sure that each cyclist brings their own orthopaedic pillow on each journey. Olympic cyclists, like professional footballers, are finely tuned athletes who stress their bodies each day. Muscles are continually bashed and stretched making their bodies especially vulnerable a whole range of ailments.
The GB Olympic cycle team also used heated trousers. To be best of my knowledge velodromes are not particularly cold but as much as any type of athlete, cyclists require their leg muscles to go from rest to full throttle in an instant. Warm muscles are less prone to hamstring, calf, rolled ankle and ligament damage.
Did all this fine tuning get them anywhere? GB cyclists won 7 out of 10 gold medals available to them, so they are doing something right. Jock Stein was the first British manager to take food with the team when they played away in Europe, soon everyone was doing it. The need to find ways of ensuring Celtic are as well prepared as possible for every training session and game remains just as important.
Orthopaedic pillows and 20 minutes in heated trousers before warm-up would cost less than £1000. They would support neck muscles and potentially reduce our horrendous muscle-injury record. Best practice suggests we look into this.
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Lovely morning under the quilt here in Sandyhills.
To all the commuters, wrap up!
P
Can anyone provide a link to the EBT verdict, please ?
P
Austin might prove too expensive but the young Japanese lad’s stats don’t impressive.
Got to hope Hoops stays til the summer…
Doubt if the game will be on tomorrow night …??
macjay1 for Neil Lennon,
My Dad loved Johnny Higgins. I can’t remember him myself. Shearer DID huckle him, I believe. He was one of a long, long line of thon deid team’s hatchet men.
Hooper will not be the first or last to leave Celtic having improved himself and benefited the club.
The timing is tricky. Not everyone can show the mental strength to imstantly deliver in the manner needed at Celtic.
With that in mind I think the club will do everything to keep him even if a big bid comes in this week.
Pod I
If you click on Cqn magazine and click on back issues you will get a copy of the tax case verdict there. We like to keep these documents for future use!
winning captains
08:48
thanks
From Douglas Fraser on BBC over the weekend:
Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
Paper Tigers
Read all about it. But don’t bother paying, if newspapers are willing to give away so much content for free.
Their generosity is causing them profound problems.
We know about the squeeze from falling advertising, following on declining sales. And to keep them generating cash, they’ve put up their prices.
The British Journalism Review pointed out this week that The Scotsman has lost half its circulation since Johnston Press bought it in 2005, while it has lost nearly half its staff and doubled its cover price.
And it is fairly typical. Last year’s circulation figures were bad for dailies. The Scotsman was down 14%, to average daily sales below 34,000. The Daily Record was down 15%.
That once mighty and dominant force in Scottish newsagents now sells only 250,000.
The Herald and its Sunday sister title have opted out of the monthly national figures for audited circulation, after a dismal run.
Next month, we will get an update on it within the regional and local titles for July to September (also including the Courier and Press & Journal).
Keeping the Sabbath
The Sunday market over the past two years was disrupted by the departure of the News of the World, followed by the rising of the Sun on Sunday.
Although the new tabloid from Rupert Murdoch’s stable saw one of the sharpest declines in the December figures, it hit its rivals hard during last year.
The Sunday Mail average sale was down 23% to below 300,000, the Sunday Post by 17% to only 181,000 sales in Scotland, while Scotland on Sunday fell 19%, to below 40,000.
This is not only a Scottish problem. The average paid-for daily sale across Britain was down 9% during 2012. Some of the so-called quality dailies have suffered most. The Guardian fell 13% and the Financial Times by more.
Times by more.
The least bad falls were for the Times, Mirror and the Daily Mail, which, on current trends, can aim to overtake The Sun as Britain’s biggest-selling title within a few years.
The Mail online is already outstripping the opposition with a big international reach and more than 100m unique monthly users.
The Independent fared worst of all, with print down by 48% last year, harmed above all by the rise of its own stablemate, the low-priced ‘i’. The Indie is now selling only 81,000 per day across Britain.
In Scotland, it’s just over 3,000.
Flying the Scotsman
So what to do? That’s a question I’ve been asking for this weekend’s Business Scotland programme on BBC Radio Scotland. (It’s on at 10.05 on Sunday, and available by free download and iPlayer.)
Some of the answers are being tried at Johnston Press, headquartered in Edinburgh but run more often from London by its new-ish chief executive Ashley Highfield.
He came in from the technology sector in 2011, having worked at Microsoft and the future tech division of the BBC.
He says the migration from print to online is gaining some ground, though he still wants to “show some love” to the print medium.
Whereas the loss of pounds from lost print readers was being replaced by pennies for gained online ones, he says that is now turning into shillings.
Online revenue now accounts for more than 10% of total, and he aims to get to a third by 2015.
Highfield’s under particular pressure because Johnston Press is labouring under a debt of more than £330m when last updated, and needs to roll that over in 2014 at much lower financing cost.
So cost-cutting across more than 170 Johnston titles has been ferocious.
The design of papers is moving to a single template for almost all titles, and local papers are closing down local offices.
Online migration
The big debate within newspapers is whether and how to charge for online access. The Mail’s making some money out of free content online, while The Guardian’s got big readership at a big cost.
The jury’s still out on The Times and Sunday Times, which are offering low-priced packages to help a migration to online subscriptions.
The Scotsman stable of titles is drawing people into its tablet format, and Ashley Highfield claims there are signs that the declines are levelling out.
Indeed, he points to a sharp rise in bundled print/tablet subscriptions as the base for the readership, from 6% last year to around 25% now, saying that’s a positive sign that the paper now knows its readership much better.
Mr Highfield said: “This is a fundamental shift from an audience we knew little about to one where we know a great deal about them and can offer advertising to that audience because we know about them.”
I asked him about the prospects of merging The Scotsman with its rivals across Scotland, including The Herald, and while conceding that it’s an interesting idea, the chief executive said it’s not part of his plans at the moment.
Parish pump news
For an international perspective, I turned to two people in the academic end of journalism; Ewan Crawford of the University of the West of Scotland, and Charles McGhee, formerly of the Record and The Herald, who is soon to join Glasgow Caledonian University.
That’s partly to support its joint venture with STV in setting up a city TV station for Glasgow. (The licence for that was won from Ofcom in the past week after a bidding contest, with a similar arrangement for the capital between STV and Edinburgh Napier.)
They offer the perspective of countries where newspapers are doing very well – not only in India, where they’re booming on prosperity and rising literacy, but also with France Ouest, showing the strength of the French regional press against the national one.
McGhee says that title has more than 500 journalists, 48 editions and 4,000 websites, and it’s growing circulation (to about 800,000) and revenues.
In Sweden, he points to a rural newspaper that has opened up its newsroom to citizen journalism in a way Britain has not.
That has helped it get all its property and motoring ad revenue back – and it is now 25% of its revenue.
Paper tiger cubs
And in the USA, where newspapers have preceded British ones on a downward trajectory, they’re also struggling with paywalls.
But two of the answers are philanthropy, drawing on America’s mighty trusts to fund investigative journalism, and tying newspapers ever more closely with universities where journalists are training.
One to watch, says Charles McGhee, is Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia, where a local newspaper and radio station have moved on campus, providing what’s described as the ‘medical residency model’ – training journalists on the job, as has long happened with doctors.
To me, it sounds all too attractive for newspapers to deploy free or cheap journalists, and it’s certainly an attractive opportunity for young student journalists to get a foot in the door.
But once inside the building, it’s still far from clear that newspaper journalism is built on firm foundations until it finds a new business model.
Celtic tycoon sells £5 million of club’s shares to his own firm http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/celtic-tycoon-sells-5-million-1545820#.UPzigNAg5qE.twitter …
Nice tribute to Sean (Liverpool Echo)
THE man who discovered arguably the greatest player in Liverpool FC’s history, and the second highest goalscorer in Everton FC’s, has died aged 90.
The death of Celtic legend Sean Fallon – the man who spotted Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Sharp and a host of other world class talents – was announced at the weekend.
Fallon, a former Celtic defender and assistant to European Cup winning manager Jock Stein, was an extraordinary talent spotter.
He unearthed the backbone of Celtic’s legendary 1967 Lisbon Lions, and recruited Scottish household names like Simpson, Gemmell, Auld, Murdoch, Dalglish, McGrain, Macari, Connelly, Hay and McStay.
He later spotted gems like Graeme Sharp at Dumbarton.
But it is the tale behind the recruitment of a teenage Dalglish – a childhood Rangers fan – which highlighted his devotion to duty.
Bill Shankly rarely made mistakes. Yet when a fair-haired, 15-year-old schoolboy arrived at Anfield for a trial, he let a player who later was to turn Liverpool into a double-winning team slip through his fingers.
It was August, 1966. England had just won the World Cup and Shankly was cementing the dynasty that was to make Liverpool one of the most successful sides in British football history.
The youngster played one game, for the B team against Southport Reserves in the Lancashire League. Liverpool won 1-0, but the kid went home and heard nothing.
A few years later when Shankly saw the lad play he was furious, blaming others at the club for the astonishing miss. Liverpool’s loss was Celtic’s gain.
Dalglish grew up supporting Rangers, but the call never came and Jock Stein sent his assistant, Sean Fallon, to see Dalglish and his parents at their home.
Fallon drove there and left his wife Myra and their three children outside in the car while he went in, saying he wouldn’t be long.
It was three hours before Fallon emerged with Dalglish’s signature and his wife was less than pleased. It wasn’t just that the kids were hungry and restless after being cooped up. It was the couple’s wedding anniversary!
Fallon made more than 250 Celtic appearances in the 1950s and assisted Jock Stein in the next two decades.
He also won eight caps for Republic of Ireland and had a brief spell as Dumbarton manager, where he helped develop a teenage Graeme Sharp before his £120,000 switch to Everton.
Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell described the news as “very, very sad” and said the club’s thoughts were with Fallon’s family.
“Sean Fallon was a Celtic legend who devoted much of his life to the club he loved,” he added.
“He was, of course, a supporter, first and foremost, and he was proud to have worn the green and white Hoops that he loved.
“He was an integral part of the club’s success, and also played a vital role in identifying talented young players who would go on to become great Celts.”
Fallon left Celtic with their best player of the 1980s and 90s in Paul McStay, and at Dumbarton maintained his knack for unearthing talent by signing the teenage Sharp and Owen Coyle.
Fallon didn’t just benefit Merseyside football, though.
Alex Ferguson, a long-standing friend, credits Fallon with having a major influence on the early stages of his managerial career.
Good morning Timland.
I think it’s 50/50 that Hooper will be sold, hopefully
we have a replacement lined up.
TBB I listened to that program on radio Scotland yesterday while driving. Interestingly Charles McGhee also said that within 5 years there would be no more Scottish papers.
The fall of the Daily Record readership by over 500,000 people and the annual decline means that it is now at tipping point with advertisers in particular seeing that it has decreasing value add. People will not pay anymore for it.
We have seen Jabba jump from the sinking ship; Broadfoot go to the SFA; King to US and Keown to Daily Mail.
Keevins, Jackanory and whoever else is left at the Record know their time is up and newco in SFL3 has accelerated that. The record will not even to serve it’s main purpose in life shortly…..fish supper wrapper.
lucky cody
Newspapers have been wiped out by Google. Classified and Recruitment advertising were among the first to go online, and branding/positioning campaigns are now far more targeted than printed newspapers could ever achieve.
No one has yet figured out a model that delivers meaningful replacement revenue from an online audience built on free to read news content. Kinda difficult to compete with the BBC after all.
Journalism will find a new business, but the printed press is doomed imo.
Looking positive for Andy Murray in the Australian Open. Pretty much a walk over this morning in 3 sets, and has unseeded Jeremy Chardy in the Quarters.
He’ll face the winner of Tsonga v Federer in the Semi if it goes to plan.
From the official site.
Funeral Requiem Mass for Sean Fallon
By: Newsroom Staff on 21 Jan, 2013 09:26
THE Funeral Requiem Mass for Sean Fallon will take place this Wednesday, January 23 in Christ the King Church, King’s Park, Glasgow at 10am.
The Celtic legend passed away last Friday at the age of 90.
Following the Requiem Mass, Sean will be taken to his final resting place at Philipshill Cemetery, Westerfield Road, East Kilbride.
vmhan @ 6.38
Hooper’s leaving? And we’re buying Yoko Ono???
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
09:49 on
21 January, 2013
Hooper’s leaving? And we’re buying Yoko Ono???
imagine.
…we’re buying Yoko Ono???
Only Lennon has the answer.
;o)
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
09:49 on
21 January, 2013
Hooper’s leaving? And we’re buying Yoko Ono???
——————————————————————-
Imagine if that happened. Hooper would turn out a nowhere man, instant karma if you ask me. He`ll be a jealous guy when Ono gets his big cup madal. I`ts all mind games at this stage. Hoops would be starting over down south.He`ll be asking his agent, how do you sleep?
medal
Seriously, if Hoops goes (and I hope not) I would sign Johnny Russell.
We can’t buy Yoko Ono.
She split up the Beatles.
Just think what she could do to us?
BobbyRussell,
Nice one …
The Lancashire Telegraph have linked Celtic with a move for Burnley Striker Charlie Austin should Hooper go.
Hmmmmmmm.
Looks a goal scorer and has scored more goals than Hooper this season. Taller and with more heading ability.
With Anthony Stokes coming back and a reported 7M offer for Hooper would anyone sell him if he wanted to go?
Personally I would not until the end of the season but if Hooper’s ambition in life is to play for a non-event perennial struggler club like Norwich who will last another season in the top flight max then that extra 10 grand a week must really be something for a guy offered 25K allegedly to stay with us and win things and have CL football.
The Daily Mail say Arsenal want Wanyama but are willing to do a Bosman – lite deal. Buy now get at the end of the season.
Now that is a more interesting deal depending on what Arsenal might offer. Give us that 25m Arsene and we’ll deal. Anything else and it is No deal.
Valentine’s Day – giez peace (a chance)
Hooper’s leaving? And we’re buying Yoko Ono???
Well it may be Too Late For Goodbyes
Our strategy is to bring in young promising players improve them and then sell for a profit exactly the scenario with both Hooper and Victor.Unfortunately it is hard to get the timeing right if the offers are good enough you have to bite the bullet.While we as fans dont like to see quality leaving our club the money will secure our financial future for years to come it will also encourage more promising youngsters to come to us when they see that we will not stand in the way of them progressing.We the fans have to understand that is where we are as a club in this financial backwater. H.H.
Juve / Llorente / Drogba .
Today’s version .———-.
The Llorente now [ rather than in the summer ] thing is back on .
Drogba’s agent is quoted as having told Juve —– { I paraphrase ] ——– ” You have 48 hrs to agree to X ,Y and Z or you can forget it “..
Juve badly need a centre forward .. Conte waxed lyrical on the subject in every post match he did after the Udinese game.His game is to put pressure on the Chief Exec whilst giving the support a — ‘ it ain’t my fault ‘ message
In other Juve news —– The Italian polis claim to have identified 23 of the Juve Ultras deemed responsible for the violence before ,during and after the match at Parma.. 2 groups of Ultras said to have been involved—– Nucleo / Viking
Very wet , 9 degrees , I hate winter- way down south
Morning Ghents,
What with the sad passing of Sean Fallon it got me thinking of the Celtic Legends in my lifetime who have passed, Tommy Burns, Jinky, Johhny Doyle, Bobby Murdoch to name a few. I know we have a lot older and wiser contributors on the site so..
What would your Heavens Eleven be?
From Goalie Johnny Thompson or Ronnie Simpson to a forward line of John Crum and Jimmy McGrory
Snake Plissken
10:12 on 21 January, 2013
From the Mail Online:
Austin has been on fire this term — breaking a club record by scoring in eight successive appearances to help bring his goal tally to 23 in 27 games.
The six- foot two centre forward began his working life as a bricklayer while playing for non-league Hungerford Town and Poole Town.
Danny Wilson gave him his big break in football when he signed him for Swindon in 2007 before Burnley came calling in 2011.
But now seen as one of the hottest properties in the English game, Celtic may have to fend off Premiership interest to snare him.
Chelsea fan (i know) to Stan Collymore on 5live yesterday. Listen to 1 min 30 secs
bit.ly/13X7Tap
http://bit.ly/13X7Tap
If Hooper is seriously considering leaving Celtic for Norwich I would be very surprised. They are in danger of going down and Celtic are on the verge of a treble.
Whoever his aganet is needs replacing.
Hopefully we can hold onto him for the next 6 months but if he wants to go we need the right price and a replacement in the next week.
Get this sorted as soon as possible.
LB
midfield maestro, belter (literally!)
Snake Plissken
10:12 on
21 January, 2013
I have to agree with you, if the lad wants to go then so be it…if he is not totally focused on the games coming up then it time up
I have to be honest,if a player leaves Celtic I don’t care if he signs for a team fighting relegation or goes to a “smaller”club.These guys are self employed businessmen and will go to who will pay them the most money.As long as we get the best deal we can.