Delighted to see Brendan Rodgers is down to business at Lennoxtown, three weeks before the players return for preseason training. It’s interesting that he arranged an early opportunity to meet Scott Brown over a meal, and that this was made public.
Getting buy-in from senior players was one aspect of the job Ronny Deila allegedly didn’t achieve. The rights and wrongs of this can wait for Ronny’s autobiography, although you may wish to express an outsider’s opinion. All that matters to Brendan is that no one is able to speculate about the same issue on his watch.
There’s not much a manager can do three weeks before training starts than eat dinner with the captain, scout players and watch videos. I expect Brendan to have seen every minute of every Celtic game last season by the time players get back; there is lots to learn. In particular, what went wrong at the back to a team which broke defensive records in each of the previous two campaigns. You may wish to express an outsider’s opinion.
Those in the know warned us that blue collar crime is particularly difficult to prosecute, and so it’s transpired. Only Craig Whyte now faces trial in the Rangers fraud case, which saw remaining charges against Duff and Phelps’ administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark dropped at the High Court in Glasgow this morning. It’s far from a satisfactory outcome.
Good to hear the losing Scottish Cup final manager, who was left with some bears in Japanese forest for seven days by his parents, has been found safe and well, even if he has nothing to say for himself.
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BEATBHOY
That is some tale to tell,you’ll treasure his autograph for ever.
Btw,I was just about to post the MacIlvanney article,but you beat me to it.
A great read.
Muhammad Ali RIP.
A beautiful boxer and even more beautiful human being.
Thanks for being you.
BMCUW
Just sold it on e-bay for £50!
BEATBHOY
Haha,a photocopy of the original would fetch more!
Looking for some info ghuys, Miss Hebcelt is going to Crete -Stalis area. Any nice tavernas or places of interest you could reccomend? Thanks. H H Hebcelt. or is it recommend?
When Muhammed Ali visited Rhaune Laslett (RIP ) and The London Free School Childrens Group in Ladbroke Grove in 1966 . – he said this to the assembled weans –
” Get an education , get qualifications and you’ll knock The Man clean out of the ring ” .
True then ,true now
Ali R.I.P.
Very moving interview with photographer Michael Gaffney on the news there.
Man was in tears recalling travelling with Ali to South America and visiting polio sufferers in hospital, with Muhammad on leaving the hospitals coming across beggars in the hallway, and handing 100 dollar bills to each of them knowing how much that amount was worth in that part of the world.
Steven Fletcher would be a no thanks – for me. He’s not the only ‘big name’ out of contract striker we should be looking at because his goal scoring record is fair to middling and his treatment room time is well above average.
Very nearly impossible to see how he could link with Leigh Griffiths, don’t think I’ve ever seen two ‘lefties’ as twin strikers.
We must do so much better when we splash more cash on the specialist striker role, and hope BR aims much higher than the
Bangura Balde era.
Muhammad Ali and Hugh Mcllvanney. Two legends who deserve the right to be mentioned in the same breath.
HH RIP The Greatest
Ail RIP…not only a great sportsman but a great human.
Anyway…
Transfer business. I like the look of Calum O’Dowda, Oliver Norwood and that guy Zlatan. They all look like they could improve the team. O’Dowda would be an improvement on Forresst, Norwood on Biton and I’d hope Zlatan could offer a bit more than Ciftci , Kazim and Cole (although to be fair to Ciftci he’s better than the other 2 duffers and had a rough time in his first 6 months).
Filling up watching the news coverage, but then laughing at clips like this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHnDr1nTCWw
“Ah’m not conceited, just convinced!”
Muhammed Ali.
Genuinely “Simply the Best”
rip
HH
Heard more criticism of the former BHS owner this week than I have of David Murray in a lifetime.
Another shameful little Scottish secret, national institutions mismanaged and sold for a pound.
Loved Ali as kid
watched a film on him and it said Ali got his
inspiration from this guy
Gorgeous George
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVpTpuWSU48
Fletcher is a Park target and one he hasn’t been able to deliver for years, time for us to move on from this shite and get some decent scouting done under the new manager.
That’s a naw from me, a bang average striker who will not inspire anyone.
Give me young and hungry or excitement a the signing not another awe did we sign him signing..
Feel The Bren
RIP Champ – you were the greatest, the bravest and the best, and as you said, the prettiest too,
never boring, modesty personified! ;o)
Thanks for the memories and may perpeual light shine upon you.
Muhammad Ali and James Brown acknowledged that their own approach to flamboyant self-promotion was influenced by George. A 19-year-old Ali met a 46-year-old George at a Las Vegas radio station. During George’s radio interview, the wrestler’s promo caught the attention of the future heavyweight champion. If George lost to Classy Freddie Blassie, George exclaimed, “I’ll crawl across the ring and cut my hair off! But that’s not gonna happen because I’m the greatest wrestler in the world!” Ali, who later echoed that very promo when taunting opponent Sonny Liston, recalled, “I saw 15,000 people comin’ to see this man get beat. And his talking did it. I said, ‘This is a gooood idea!'” In the locker room afterward, the seasoned wrestler gave the future legend some invaluable advice: “A lot of people will pay to see someone shut your mouth. So keep on bragging, keep on sassing and always be outrageous.”[1]
Morning Bhoys,Gutted about Big Ali RIP.
Fletcher no thanks for me as well. Brendan will have his own targets, Fletcher just paper talk.
KLV
Ibra -for what it’s worth .
Watched a Press Conference re tonight’s France v Scotland game .One of the talking heads was Anthony Martial who said this –
” I hope to be saying welcome to Manchester United , Mr Ibrahimovic , Very soon .”.
Italian fitba papers seem to have given up hoping that he will sign for Napoli and have him definitely signing for Manchester United ..Could be tosh ,who knows .
Fletcher ffs no again.
Still I hear the huns are after his uncle Norman Stanley, would fit right in there a habitual criminal that makes you laugh.
**********
Rest in peace Ali.
Inspired me to take up poetry.
Some great tributes to Ali on this blog this morning. In my opinion he truly was the greatest. He won his Olympic gold at light heavyweight and today he certainly would not have been a heavyweight. His reflexes were outrageously fast and yet we didn’t even get to see him fight at his peak because of The Vietnam War. His politics at the time won him few friends but,I am of the opinion, time has shown him to be correct.
When he returned from Rome in 1960, as an Olympic champion, back home,he went to a bar with a white man, if my memory serves me correctly, a boxing coach, they ordered 2 beers,the white man was served his in a glass, the Olympic champion was served his in a plastic tumbler.
22’16”
RIP Ali One of my all time hero’s the word legend gets used to much these days but Ali was the real deal a once in a lifetime “sporting hero & much, much more” whom we were lucky to see in our lifetime. They thrrew away the mould when they made Ali. There will never be another as he as he himself said which was true he was Simply the Greatest of all time
Saddened to see one of my heroes from my youth pass away…it was special nights in our house when Ali was fighting.
Come to think of it, the interviews on Michael Parkinsons was up there too, along the big yin, who doesn’t look to good either.
Age doesn’t come easy.
Ah well, pumping huns always cheers me up:))
CRC
Payment made and e mail sent.
Jobo
Away n gies peace.
:-))
Well done bud.
Cracking piece this from 2013.
A Story about Craig Whyte, Rangers, Charlotte, and the Last 2 Years – Guest Post by Goldstein
I don’t have any quotes, or smoking guns, or links to official documents, tape recordings, or any credentials whatsoever. All I have is a story, a story that you will hopefully agree has a ring to it. In a way, everything that has happened over the last 24 months is evidence. You are all familiar with the facts, so hopefully my story will help you process them.
Let me start by suggesting this story makes much more sense if you look at it from the perspective of Craig Whyte, before, during, and after RFC went into administration. Very little of that which follows is in the least bit controversial. Most of the key events and facts are already known and in the public domain. How those facts and events are explained here in my story might be a surprise to some but I think deep down inside everyone who reads it will appreciate its simplicity and wonder how they didn’t see through all this before.
1) Craig Whyte took over at Rangers with the intention of doing what he does best; taking the business into administration, keeping the assets under his control, ridding the company of debt and potential liabilities. The BBC documentary exposed Whyte as an expert with a lot of history in doing this; the word switcheroo entered common parlance.
2) As planned, Rangers went into administration in Feb 2012. Craig Whyte got to choose the administrators; D&P were people he had had intimate dealings with in the past, indeed key personnel at D&P had helped him buy RFC in the first place and secure Ticketus loans.
3) The assumption at this stage was that RFC would come out of administration, one way or another, debt free. But there was a problem. Craig Whyte was demonised in the newspapers, it wasn’t going to be easy treating this like any other switcheroo, not with all the attention on this, everyone watching the magician’s hands, he had to deviate from the usual switcheroo blueprint.
4) Charles Green was brought in ostensibly as a leader of a consortium that had no connections with Craig Whyte whatsoever. His real role, however, was to secretly represent Craig Whyte, hide the switcheroo, with Whyte in the background until his reputation was recovered. On paper this was a good plan; the chosen one (Green) would do what needed to be done, D&P knew the script, they’d come out the other side just in time for the new season. But problems appeared again, and time was ticking away. RFC was also perilously close to running out of cash.
5) The big problem with Green was that he was obviously just a front man. Even John brown worked that out. Rangers’ fans generally in the beginning assumed he was representing Whyte – he was. This isn’t even disputed now by Green. So how do we fix that problem, from Whyte’s perspective, with time ticking away and money running out?
6) Easy: put on a Punch and Judy type fight with Green & Whyte. Project the idea that Craig Whyte isn’t happy, he is at war with Charles Green who has popped up from nowhere and stolen the assets. If you believe they are genuinely fighting each other over the ownership of Sevco and the assets, by implication you believe that Whyte has no involvement in the New Co and that they are not in cahoots. That means the fans can trust Green and buy season tickets. They believed it. It worked. They bought season tickets.
7) The plan solved a few other problems. It gave the clear impression that Whyte wasn’t involved and that was important in the eyes of the SFA. There was a general sense that it would be best in a lot of respects if Whyte wasn’t involved (HMRC, the Law, The Media).
8) Charlotte Fakes was invented for the specific purpose of giving people the impression that Green and Whyte were at odds with one another, that Whyte had been robbed and had no role in the new co. It’s pure theatre. Everybody who matters knows this – it’s the big secret at the heart of the debate. That’s why nobody will publish a thing Charlotte comes up with. It’s also why people like Alex Thomson have disappeared.
9) Key to this whole story is the issue of Whyte’s security on Ibrox; it was water-tight, designed and expected to survive any liquidation event. It would have been impossible for Green to do what he appeared to be doing without Whyte’s consent and cooperation whilst that security was in place. He didn’t need to. The real story is that he has been working with and for Whyte all along.
10) The ultimate goal for Whyte was to cleanse the company of debt and float it on the stock-market. That’s what they succeeded in doing. Even if he walked away now he would be walking away several millions pounds better off. He’s there in the background now with a pile of shares – he can’t and won’t lose. The whole Sevco 5088 court case story is a smoke screen and nothing will come of it.
Whyte and his gang basically drove up and took over a company that had around £40 to 50 million of assets for nothing. The problem was the company also had liabilities and debts of up to £150 million. Whyte had done this before, liquidate and come out the other side with the good stuff, leaving the bad stuff behind. In essence this was the simple plan.
With liquidation he had to make sure his front man bought the assets, at a huge discount, it has to be said – that’s where the profit lies, in selling £50 million of assets to yourself for a fraction of their true value. D&P were key, of course. Politics and public or fan opinion got in the way. This wasn’t some unheard of textiles company in Wolverhampton – attention and interest levels were sky high. So he had to add a few illusions to the usual switcheroo formula.
After liquidation the plan would always have been to sell the newly constituted company on the stock market. That process in essence is how you turn the assets into cash. Once they sell the shares they are away with it, and it looks like they probably have sold most of the shares already.
If you process everything through the filter set out above, hopefully things might make more sense. Any time you find it hard to explain any aspect of the process, just come back to this simple story and look at things from the perspective of Craig Whyte. Most people so far have contested the story on the basis of things Charlotte Fakes has released. What they, we, and everybody need to bear in mind is that this was the very purpose of Charlotte Fakes – to hide the true nature of the process and give the impression that Whyte and Green could not possibly be acting together. It has been very effective for them; we all got caught up in the drama of it, gloating over the latest revelations, etc. We all fell for it. It was very clever.
Any thoughts or ideas on this…
https://twitter.com/sharko67/status/738857877490798592
The last post at 11:10 AM was tweeted on Twitter by the legend Terry O’Neil.
Lunch time -way down south .
Time spent digging out these –
Derrick Morgan -Muhammed Ali – ( Horse ) -so naff , I wonder how I came to own it .
Trio Madjesi & Orchestre Sosoliso – 8ieme Round (Sosoliso ) – wonderful , hot African funk for a hot day -way down south .
Back to the grind – way down south ( with a dip in the sea to look forward to)
****** CQN Euro 2016 sweepstake UPDATE*****
Good Late Morning folks
The Sweepstake is sold out, with 5 names in reserve, so I am going to see if there is enough interest to run a second sweepstake.
We therefore have 19 places left to fill in our Sweepstake II
Rules are simple
You will be drawn a team at random once all entrants are registered
Cost per team is £10. You can have more than 1 team if you wish
Payout =100%
Prizes ( based on 24 entrants)
Person with Winning team scoops £110
Person with Runner up scoops £55
Persons with Losing Semi-finalist £15 each
Spot prizes
Person with team that scores most goals in group matches £15
Person with team that concedes most goals in group matches £15
Person with team that concedes the earliest goal in a group match £15
Participation will be on a first come first served basis based on registration and payment. If you don’t make arrangements to pay straight away you will not be eligible to join. There will be no chasing for payment ( I don’t have time!)
Anyone that wants to take part please email me on cqnpredictor@gmail.com
HH
CRC
RIP Ali
Loved this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gsDHi-vJCYs
Kevj
Happy to help if u want to go to a game and I can’t make it. Sometimes get my pals ticket as he is away in London working quite a bit. Be happy to pick u up n drive you back. Get my email from Paul67.
UTLR
Kikinthenakas
HEN1RIK on 4TH JUNE 2016 11:10 AM
The upshot of that would be that Whyte still has security on Ibrox. If that’s true the incumbents in the blue room must know that. Surely they wouldn’t withhold that information from the the peepul.
Out of interested curiosity, does anybody know if it is true, that the ‘Outlander’ series was banned in censorship of broadcast, in the run up to the vote for Independence?
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 4TH JUNE 2016 10:36 AM
Heard more criticism of the former BHS owner this week than I have of David Murray in a lifetime.
Another shameful little Scottish secret, national institutions mismanaged and sold for a pound.
I believe that in his book ‘Who Owns Scotland’ Andy Wightman discusses the £1 episode in some depth.
THETIMREAPER on 4TH JUNE 2016 11:23 AM
What’s the chances Craigy Bhoy will walk free :)
HEN1RIK on 4TH JUNE 2016 11:28 AM
THETIMREAPER on 4TH JUNE 2016 11:23 AM
What’s the chances Craigy Bhoy will walk free :)
Depends on whether the Establishment want a scapegoat or simply wish it all swept under a rather grubby carpet.