There’s something not right about a free weekend in early March; we should still have been in the Cup. Congratulations are therefore due to the five managers who remain in the competition, who have each shown remarkable abilities and are truly invaluable resources to their respective clubs – worth contract extensions all round.
Congratulations are also due to the 40,000 Aberdeen fans who will pack Celtic Park next weekend for the League Cup Final. Opponents, Inverness, have shifted only 7,000 of their 20,000 allocation, although I hear there is a brisk trade in tickets this morning, many of which will end up in the hands of Aberdeen supporters.
40,000 Aberdeen fans at a game may be unprecedented, despite the 147,365 attendance at their 1937 Scottish Cup Final against Celtic. No one was to know demand would be so buoyant from Aberdeen, but now the SPFL do know, they need to ensure the spare circa 13,000 tickets are sold to Aberdeen fans in a controlled manner.
Many thanks to everyone who donated to Mary’s Meals since the MyDonate link went up on Friday. We are more than halfway there to funding the second school kitchen, at St Joseph’s Primary School in Kasungu, Malawi. Stunned at the response. You can get involved here.
Seville, The Celtic Movement, launches this month.
“It might not happen anytime soon but sometime down the line I’d like to think we could get there again. Maybe even go that extra mile and win the Cup. Henrik Larsson was our hero in this outstanding run and we’d probably need to look at finding another Henrik to get us there again! Remember that Celtic recently finished ahead of Benfica in Champions League Group stages and they dropped into the Europa Cup, reached the final and were very unlucky not to win it.”
Order yours below:
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TAMRABAM
He may have a point,but it is telling that he has waited till Celtic do it to comment.
I seem to recall that Rangers were congratulated for moving John Fleck and his family into a “nicer” area of town. No mention of the tied-cottage aspect of the situation.
Anyway,offski.
Re VVD
I think he would be making a big mistake to go now (except for the money of course).
Unlike most on here I believe he has yet to prove himself as a FIRST CLASS player. I think/hope he too is not certain how good he is despite his typical Dutch attitude of apparent self confidence.
Consider the evidence:
22 yo with but 90 senior games.
Has only one U19 & 3 U21 International caps
Played with a barely mid-ranking Dutch club with no domestic honours.
Has played but 8 (eight) European games, including qualifiers.
Plays with a club able to cruise league matches without many tests.
Has played in only 38 Celtic matches.
Has played in lost cup ties domestically & in Europe where he has had some culpability.
Not considered ready for full national cap.
So a dilemma for the lad…does he ‘prove’ himself by consolidating his reputation at Celtic, gaining domestic honours, more European experience (hpoefully) and Dutch international recognition or go for the money now but perhaps play little?
So a dilemma for the club…VVD is perhaps the real deal & might be the difference in Euro qualification, he is contracted till 2017, can offer improved terms and ‘ grow’ the asset or accept/create a market and gain a large profit with additional tie-ins on a largely unproven talent?
I’m not aware Celtic fought off many other clubs to get VVD. What has happened for his value to treble? Is it one of those rare occasions where our exposure in the south works for our benefit (Vic)?
The Dutch have a track record of producing young talent and being happy to promote youngsters to their national sides. Virgil has barely made a dent in that system, not even in squad terms. Even the Dutch are not blessed with limitless talent, what are they not seeing I wonder?
On balance I hope he stays and celtic work hard for that outcome but if he decides to go (& we know the player holds the cards) it will be sad only slightly compensated by the nice profit on a largely unproven player.
PS…I like VVD very much and think he’d be good for us!
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS ………FC not PLC
04:00 on
11 March, 2014
I was half joking,mate.
I would never have thought that of yourself.
Nevertheless,there has been a bit of nastiness around the old blog recently.
jimbob71 –
Have a read at THIS.
Warning: Strong language.
justafan
04:30 on
11 March, 2014
I’m not aware Celtic fought off many other clubs to get VVD. What has happened for his value to treble? Is it one of those rare occasions where our exposure in the south works for our benefit (Vic)?
—————————————————————————————————————-
If I`m reading you correctly,you`re suggesting that Celtic are improving the calibre of players after their arrival.
I`m really getting that impression too,which would be marvellous.
Doesn`t apply to all our newcomers,but that`s the chance you take.
Cannae win them all.
CQN CHELTENHAM Naps Competition
Lads, for anyone who wants to take part in the CQN Cheltenham Naps competition, please post your daily selections at the end of this article :
“Jock, Martin, Gordon and Neil”
N.B.
please bookmark this page, as we will be using the same page for the entire week of the Cheltenham festival !
Good luck… fleagle1888
bmcuw & gct,
Great stories guys, thanks for that!!
BMCUW –
Thanks for the link to that blog. Looks a cracker. I’ll be having a good shifty at it later.
Cheers.
GOLD COAST TOM
Just read the first on the one you linked. I’d say dead-heat!
JIMBOB71
Canny take the credit for it,it was KITALBA who linked it here first.
I’ve had it on a separate tab since. As is the one from GCT now.
Cheers,fellas.
Just back from a fantastic trip to Dubai.
Thursday night I was in a place called the Supper Club, with DJ Bob Sinclair playing, where towards the end of the night a guy stood on my foot and apologized profusely.
I could not understand the apology till I realized he was from Aberdeen. …
Anyways. He kept repeating in an aggressive fashion…. Feckin Arabs…
And Glesga United…
Its Glesga United…
Feckin SFA…
It’s Glesga United….
I only escaped the loving clutches of this bam because I agreed with him forty times.
And you know…
The SFA is Glesga United…
I replied the SFA money train is Glesga Divided…
But he could not hear or comprehend that.
Bottom line?
Wherever you go in the world the reputation of the SFA (among Scottish fitba followers) is damaged and regarded with cynical distaste. There is a long way to go to improve that.
Or perhaps a long way to go (down) to make it more marketable}
The only thing that (occasionally) unites is Gordon Strachans’ results for the national team.
Still we could be Ukrainian…Non?
WTF? CSC
macjay 5.48
Well maybe…
Certainty Celtic provide a platform few other clubs in the ‘smaller’ nations can so regularly provide so players are tested and maybe improve in consequence.
Paul had a leader recently indicting Celtic scouted in pools which the super rich no longer deigned to delve. So when we find a gem our club is scouted by usually a super rich league team not so much a super rich club. That’s where we are for now in the great scheme of things!
The challenge for the club it getting more than 5 mins playing time from these players before they move on.
pjbhoy…6.32
Were you with Kris & Lukas who I believe got off the Dubai flight Sunday evening?
I know cause I was there lol
Good morning friends from a lovely bright, dry, clear skied and slightly frosty East Kilbride.
3 more sleeps.
Good morning Jobo from a similar outlook in Lanark!
Criticism of Barcelona? It would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/mar/10/barcelona-beaten-valladolid-critics-la-liga
Worst tackle ever??
http://t.co/vCtuL1nyM8
JIMBOB71
Bloody hell,mate.
That is a shocker,absolutely brutal.
Jimbob71
Dreadful tackle, but, there are still some honest footballers about…….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26521283
Not as bad as a big bugger called McVie did to the original Brian McLaughlin (the next king Kenny) one horrible night at CP.
He should have been banned for life and jailed.
The consequences for Brian can’t be fairly quantified.
Top of the morning to you all from sunny Fife.
It is strange as Paul’s article says to be out of the cup in March but we weren’t 100 years ago when we beat Motherwell 3-1 at Fir Park.
As with our last visit to Fir Park there was trouble but a century ago it was not blown out of all proportion by the newspapers of the day and only a small piece appeared in The Scotsman. If you know the history……………….
The Scotsman, page 8, Monday 9th March 1914.
Partisan Fighting in Motherwell Streets.-
In connection with the Scottish Football Cup tie between Motherwell and Celtic, there was some disorder in the streets of Motherwell on Saturday afternoon.
The most serious incident occurred at what is known as the “County Corner,” at the junction of Muir Street and Milton Street, the Orange quarter of the town.
It is alleged that several char-a-bancs filled with supporters of the Celtic Club on the way to the match were interfered with by Orangemen.
When the match was over, and the vehicles were on their way back to Glasgow, the occupants alighted at the railway station, about three hundred yards from the former incident, and with pockets well filled with stones and bottles, and waving green flags, marched in a strong body upon the County Corner.
They met with stout resistance, and a battle-royal ensued. Stones, sticks, and bottles were thrown in all directions, and many hand to hand conflicts took place.
In many instances the flags were riven from the hands of the Celtic supporters and used as weapons against their owners.
Many of the combatants sustained bruises, and one policeman was struck on the head with a stone. The constables on the scene were practically powerless to quell the disturbance and it was only when the motor brakes drove forward and picked up their passengers that the affair began to die down.
Before the vehicles got out of the way however, they were subjected to volleys of stones, and some of them were damaged. Several arrests were made.
#############################
I think Hamilton Tim posted on here that our fans were ambushed before the last game at Motherwell (the grandchildren of this report) but the police ignored the attacks by Motherwell fans?
Plus ca and all that.
H.H.
As an homage to Jobo I’d like to add that the castle and the Wallace Monument look hauntingly beautiful this morning as they peek through the fog and into the sunshine.
HH jamesgang
The real problem with the summer transfer window is it shuts 3 months before AGM
Last year PL did not release the money to Neil as it was important ( for PL and his bonus and his growing PR) to present good figures at AGM
What happens on park is second to that
Poor Virgil we cannot seek him as it would take years to replace him, going no where son , we don’t need the money. We are building a team. Or are we?
Has Phil been on CQN?
Looks like he has decided to try out the Theatre for himself.
Anyway…..maybe this show would be of some interest to some of you?
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/juno-and-the-journalist/
Morning all. Beautiful down here at the moment. Cumbrae is rising out of the mist. Hope things stay this way fo a wee while. No wind would be a good start.
Justafan,
I thought McVie kicked the bhoy McLaughlin out of the game at Shawfield.. Memory going?
Morning Timland from a frosty hun free mountain valley.
Haven’t seen any comments re elbows challenged on the Rovers player, Dallas I think, the other day, anyways, the boy is out for some time, he done his cruciate, and he wasn’t even spoken to, it was off the ball apparently.
I hope he gets done, I seriously do.
HH
Rascar Capac
00:01 on
11 March, 2014
So if we are stuck in Scotland, we have a good revenue model.
And our aim is to win the UEFA cup.
And do well in the Champions League.
But what if we had a new resurgent rival, maybe the Dandy Dons, or The Dundee Hibs, or Just Hibs.
Or what if there were new teams from Glasgow and Edinburgh that hated us, and the rivalry made every game meaningful.
Now i think Scottish fitba could be the best supported league in the world, per capita, like it was.
Dunno, I’m a dreamer, but it could happen
—————-
It’s not going to happen unless every bit of season ticket money was pooled evenly, CL, Europa money also. Even weighted towards the bottom clubs. The disparity between celtic and other clubs is just too large in Scotland.
For example, in England, the smallest club, will have an average attendance of around 20,000+. Highest around 75,000. Smallest club is around 25% the size of the largest.
Here we have say ICT, with around 3000 attendances trying to compete with Celtic who have the potential to have 20x more support.
We are all in this together – we have to sacrifice a large portion of our income and pool it evenly with the other clubs if we want any meaningful competition.
Also, a 10 team league, so the dilution effect is minimal, is vital to produce vibrant clubs.
I’d happily sacrifice a 10 in a row for 5 leagues in 10 if it meant a hearts / hibs / Aberdeen winning the league the other 5 times.
All this talk of competition from aberdeen etc – its never going to happen – anyone who thinks so is either deluded or hates rangers so much they are blinding themselves to the fact that currently the league is a near meaningless procession without them.
The attitude of ‘we already subsidise every other team’ is wrong – we don’t go anywhere near far enough. And life is short – will we see another club outwith the old firm win a league again in the next 40 years? Probably not- and that is ridiculous.
Look at uber capitalist USA sports – they are commies when out comes to competition and their leagues in all sports are vibrant and unpredictable.
As irvine welsh said – all the other clubs don’t have sectarian doping (though in our case it’s political doping, of course it is). We need to give these clubs a genuine chance – it may even pay off if Aberdeen get 25,000+ attendances, Hearts Hibs also.
TET,
I haven’t seen any mention even of McCulloch’s off the ball “tackle”. Symptomatic of the coward. As you say, I hope someone “does” him.
Parkheadcumsalford
I honestly can say that I have ever thought that of any other player.
Do you remember the forearm smash he did on an Aberdeen player a few years ago. right in front of the lino, as usual, nothing happened.
HH
This is the way the thug plays.
http://i37.tinypic.com/13ztvf9.jpg
weeminger
Are you around ?
HH
E=MC2
Good morning , that scenario would make things competitive
But would you be happy for Rangers to win the five out of ten
I’m not looking for a fight , just asking lol :))
marspapa
Thanks for the good wishes last night.
HH
TET,
That wee clip just shows what McCulloch is all about. Awful.
marspapa
08:52 on
11 March, 2014
E=MC2
Good morning , that scenario would make things competitive
But would you be happy for Rangers to win the five out of ten
I’m not looking for a fight , just asking lol :))
——–
Defo no. And not using term old firm to be provocative. Maybe give them one.
Well, that’s the Table 27 wine order confirmed for Friday – thanks to the very efficient Catriona at Celtic Park. I wasn’t sure what she meant by “grape varieties”. All the Table 27 lads are from Coatbridge – so as long as it’s got Devon, England on the bottle we’ll be happy…
I have just spoken with a Dundee Utd supporting mate of mine. On asking him about his thoughts on the semi-final, he replied, with complete sincerity, ” I would be more confident of beating Rangers than Albion Rovers.” I think he meant that Utd would be more prone to having the wrong attitude V Rovers but very funny nevertheless.
JJ
Re Elbows. Is it not the case that if ANYONE asks the Compliance Officer to have a look at the incident, then he is obliged to do so?
Is there any video evidence for the incident against Rovers?
JJ