We have a curious end of season coming up. Out of the Scottish Cup and a matter of weeks away from securing the league, the last six weeks of the season will hold no competitive challenge for Celtic. Neil Lennon has suggested he will, as last season, rest players with next season’s Champions League qualifiers in mind.
The end of last season, however, was complicated by the Scottish Cup Final, so players were spared in small numbers, for short periods. There is no reason why we cannot give players the equivalent of their summer break the day after the title is secured, on the basis that they return earlier than normal, to build competitiveness before we experience our annual fright against a team we need to look up in order to spell.
Send them away as soon as possible, do a Kenny and play the promising youth players, and get the first team back very early.
Congratulations to Patrick Kerr, who was at table 16 at CQteN, and who has won a Champagne lunch for two at The Honours restaurant, Edinburgh. The Honours is owned by Michelin Star chef, Martin Wishart. It will be a great experience, Patrick. We’ll be in touch by email.
Seville – The Celtic Movement, is moving…
““Look at that old bloke there in the full kit. He looks like a Subutteo man”. Turned out it was my dad and we hugged and shed a tear. We were altogether as most of the guys from our CSC had met him and heading to a European final. Our CSC was 5 years old. We had our flag and we were ready to watch our team lift the cup.”
Get yours here:
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I gotta go Bhoys, it’s the girls birthday!!!!
Winning captains,
Aw cheers neebs.
I’ll save that for later tonight when I can give it the attention it deserves.
my old man died in 2001 from asbestosis and I still miss him .RIP Mr McGinley
C’mon ya Greek bassas!
Doc
Enjoy
Mind let her try out those cqn pegs the morraw
Love
SOAL : Doc had a whole table of slapheids on Friday night! Load of monks, but nae bucky!
T4
TSOAL
My mate and I at work, are known as Clydebank’s Right Said Fred. Two Bankie baldies wi attitude! :))
T4
It was good to see TTT at that table
Lisbon ’67—- On a wing and a prayer, a mortgage and a man called Freddie!
2 Nov
Good Afternoon,
On 12th April 1967, My Father and mother took the unusual step of deciding to remortgage their house. The reason for this decision was not that a new kitchen was needed, or an extension needed to be built or anything else like that. No the decision was made when the final whistle went at Celtic park with the result that Celtic had beaten Dukla Prague by 3 goals to 1. The oul fella had argued that if Celtic won by two clear goals then the trip to the bank was on. What he had in mind was a gamble but Stein’s team did not lose two goal advantages– and he had seen enough of Dukla that night to believe that Celtic would go to Lisbon.
By the following week, he had collected the money raised and he had spent a fair part of it!
A sizeable sum had been spent by the time Celtic kicked off in the afternoon match in Prague. As there was no football coverage on TV he had to call back by phone from London to my mother to find out the score from Prague. With no mobile phones in those days he had to call from a phone-box in the Tottenham Court Road. I would guess that he was slightly nervous, and his nerves were made all the worse when he could not get a word out of the mother on the phone– all she did was cry!!
Presuming that the unimaginable had happened, he began to try and calm her down over the phone, telling her that though they had lost a few quid, everything would be OK and that it was not the end of the world —— he would make the money back again. Somehow, the mother managed to blurt out four words: ” We won– we’re through!”– and that changed the tone of the conversation totally.
Putting the phone down the father scurried off about his business.
Not long after, a man politely knocked on the door of his boss. The Boss man was a small bespectacled man in a dapper suit.
” Sorry, sir, but there is a man in reception asking to see you and who says that it is urgent. When I asked him what he wanted, he said that he wanted to hire every one of your planes for three days in May. He is clearly deranged and I have called for the police and an Ambulance– but in case there is a commotion I suggest you stay in here for the time being”.
“What did he want the planes for?” said the boss
” Some rubbish about a football match and a team from Glasgow— He says that Celtic are in the European Cup Final in Lisbon.”
” And are they?”
“I don’t know– I just thought he was mad!”
The Boss man then picked up the phone and called the Daily Express and asked where the European Cup final was to be played and who was in it. Lisbon was the correct answer and as for the participants– well that would be Glasgow Celtic and either Internazionale or CSKA Red Flag who were to play that night.
The Boss man came out to the reception to meet with another small bespectacled man who had the remainder of the remortgage money in his bag.
” Hello” said the boss man ” I’m Freddie Laker.”
For those too young to remember Freddie Laker, he started Laker airlines in 1966 and tried to establish the company as a charter company flying people and mail all over. He later went on to be knighted and to challenge British Airways on their transatlantic routes. His was the first real budget scheduled airline, but in 1967 no one had ever heard of him and no one had tried to book all of his planes at once!
Ultimately the oul fella flew 17 planes to Lisbon. He knew and saw that not only were the team capable of remarkable things but that the Celtic support would travel in vast numbers to the Portuguese capitol. Some drove, some trained, but the majority flew and this was the first mass airlift of football fans in Europe. That is often forgotten. In those days the final was played somewhere and the majority of spectators were local to the chosen stadium. The travelling football army was a Celtic first and each time it has had the chance to invade foreign soil for a final it grows from the time before—- Lisbon, Milan, Seville.
I still have unused tickets for that day in May 1967. I also have treasured photographs of my dad and my grandfather with his chosen guest who he took to Lisbon to see Celtic lift the cup. He , like many others, had no doubt that Stein’s team would win. The Guest was one of my Dad’s favourite players and someone he would have put into his all time favourite Celtic team. The Player and guest was one Charles Patrick Tully.
Much has been written about that day in Lisbon, but what sticks with me is that how different things are now compared to then, how the world and the game has moved on.
In 1967 loads of people in England and elsewhere did not follow European football at all. Other than Real Madrid coming to play the final in Glasgow,the event was not much covered in the British Isles. There had been a general feeling within the English FA that Europe was not for English teams. Further it was a Latin dominated event.
However among those who did follow European Football there was a feeling that the free flowing football of Real Madrid was a thing of the past. The Inter team played an unbeatable form of football, cynical football, professionally efficient football– get in front and kill the game.This was the new way.
Barry Davis had a great series on radio 5 a number of years ago called the great European teams and in it, he concluded that the Celtic team of 1967-72 was undoubtedly the best team in Europe going by consistent results. But the key was that everyone of a neutral hue wanted them to win. Inter’s dearest player cost £250,000 in 1967– which was a fortune then. It was a team designed to stop Madrid and later Benfica and to dominate football with it’s all efficient system.
For the press, Lisbon ‘67 was good against bad, light against dark, football against the anti footballing ideology of Herrera— the only man who would manage Barcelona on three separate occasions in three separate decades. The idea that Stein could produce this local team which played such magnificent football was like a fairytale– the stuff of Hollywood.
In any good fairytale or movie script the would win——and win they did. A friend of mine, who is a Rangers fan, described it as the day Celtic THRASHED Inter Milan by two goals to one. It was a footballing lesson– a beating to beat all beatings. A masterclass in entertaining attacking football.
Yet that game brought about so much more than just a win. It was the precursor to total football in Holland. It deeply influenced how the Brazil team of 1970 would play against many of the same players in an Italy shirt in the world cup final 3 years later. The pictures also advertised this idea of the vast travelling football support and of course the Freddie Lakers of this world realised there was money in football charters.
On 25th May 1967 the footballing world shifted on its axis. There was a new style of football abroad, and for the first time there had been a mass movement of fans abroad to follow a football team– and they were dressed in Green and White hoops!
Sneaky one on RVP
BRTH am very sorry to hear of your sad loss. I caught some of the posts you made and it sounds like he lived a fruiful life and will be remembered by all. I hope when you feel like you might share some of his stories no better man to put it in print. Take care
Doc soal or whomever
I have been tagged in a pic of the irish dancers from Friday night. Can you tag cqn facebook page.
T4, maybe the lovely mrs t4 could help
Delaneys Dunky
Do you get Deeply Dippy with each other
Love
Happy birthday to mrs Doc she has a lot to put up with :-)
Bada
If Utd had used all their subs you could bet yer first gala penny he wouldn’t have went off ;)
BT
It is an auld photo
You are the geezer in the black shirt
Soal
I cannie lift my leg to climb the stairs never mind kick like those kids..
Nice wee double
I guess 5/6 of the big boys will be looking forward to drawing Man U on Friday!
Man U -1,Murderwell -1
Praecepta,
What clubs won’t be wanting them?
Bada bing bada boom…
GM-I thought it looked a bad one mate.
BB
Katanga and well done
Knuckles to the head and a shot of the magic sponge and I’d be back on there.
BT -SOAL -Ta 10/1 double.HH
Feliz Cumpleanos Mrs Doc.
HH
……………………………………………………
BadaB
You must have got decent odds for well -1, I had them @ 23/20 just to win, delighted all the same >}
HH
Any latest on Tony Watt?. Read in the Sunday Post (wives fav paper) that he had a face to face with his coach and the coach slapped Tony on the face.
Only 9 (I think) competitive games before our CL qualifying games. Does Neil blood the youngsters or does he continue to play those who he believes will be the nucleus of his team in July.
We play Dundee Utd away a week before their semi final. Who do we play in that game? :-)
Decisions! Decisions!
Good evening all
BRTH sincere condolences for the loss of your dad. I lost mine 21 years ago and still think of him every day. We have a photo of him on the mantlepiece and every time we light the fire or top up with coal, I have a lovely wee memory of him. May he RIP.
Weefra HH supporting Wee Oscar.
BadaB
Soreee, did mean to say nice one, thought it but forgot to type it.
Nice one.
HH
I see that Zenit St. Petersburg fans burned big flag of Germany at Iduna Park tonight. I wonder what will be the excuses for this?
T4
You canny join
BT – I’ve only just sent a request to join the Group on FB!! And her Minxness has given me the seal of approval !
Cue several unsuccessful attempts to Share the pic on the CQN group….feckin Facebook!
T4
TSOAL
No yet! ;))
Minx
FFS never let a vampire into your house
TheLostbhoys
BRT&H
Sad news on your Dad, may he rest in peace.
HH
TET-ta ,7/4 & 10/3 i think