Q. So you were a Rangers season ticket holder, when did you stop?
A. A few years ago. I work weekends and was seldom getting to games.
Q. How do you feel about how Rangers were treated in 2012?
A. How do any of us feel? It wasn’t our fault, one guy came in and did all the damage, then sinister forces took advantage. Every last one of us feel the same way.
Q. How do you feel about the League Cup semi-final, are you looking forward to it?
A. Not really, but we need to do whatever it takes to make sure we don’t get embarrassed. Years of being subjected to the effects of what Charles Green called “bigotry” means we need to fight with everything we’ve got. We can’t let Celtic embarrass us, need to stand up to them.
Q. Thanks, Robert. One more question, are you available to referee that game?
A. You know me, aye ready!
The forthcoming League Cup semi-final will be one of the most difficult games to referee and police in the history of Scottish football. The police will have their most experience Match Commander on duty. The SFA will not have their most experienced referee on duty, instead they have given the game to former Rangers season ticket holder, Bobby Madden.
The authorities must be independent and be seen to be independent. Former season ticket holders are acceptable and welcome as referees, but when you face extraordinary circumstances, take extraordinary care in selecting your referee. I don’t know a single ‘Rangers’ fan who doesn’t have animated views on what happened in recent years. They want to beat us next month more than at any time in original-Rangers 140-year history. Why is one of them the referee?
Craig Thomson is widely regarded as unaligned and Scotland’s top official. There must be a story explaining why he wasn’t given the game.
Our team selection for the League Cup semi-final doesn’t bother me. We can have Scepovic, Guidetti, Stokes or Griffiths up front, Efe and Charlie at the back, I’d still back us to win. Can’t say I’m too worried about the other lot either, even if they manage to hold onto all their, ‘stars’.
What does concern me is how the game is refereed. Before it, CQN will write about how important it will be to keep 11 men on the field, not to dive into tackles inside our penalty area, and not to get drawn into a levelling battle.
You can write the script about how this one is going to play out, we’ll be kicked, elbowed and incited, with liberal dramatic tumbles taken in and around our box. In a decade writing CQN I’ve only discussed referees around a dozen times but the selection for this one is alarming. Mr Madden will be scrutinised more than at any time in his professional life. He has an enormous challenge ahead.
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mickbhoy1888
20:09 on 7 January, 2015
It was a celtic throw in at the Motherwell corner (blatant) that was given to Motherwell (petrov was going ballistic) that they took went up the park and scored with
delaneys dunky
20:12 on 7 January, 2015
BMCUW
The F&C canal was flooding behind me in Dalmuir on Ne’erday. Can imagine what it was like at Firhill Basin.
——
So it’s YOUR fault the game was aff and our proud club was plunged into crisis!!!!!!
Could you not have got a pale and started baling Mhan?
HH jamesgang
BMCUW
Since when??
Ma mammy had an outside lavvy in Maryhill in the 40s. :))
Mickybhoy, I don’t really get your point. Are you saying that Celtic get the same fair treatment that Rangers and now Sevco manage from Scottish officials, or are you just murkying the water to make it appear that way?
There is a game on 19th Feb, which I am interested in, and will be attending
So will 3 of my family who are coming over fae Toronto :-)
As I nipped along to ticket office today ( back o 11) and bought an extra 3 tickets, got them up near the Green Brigade as well ( actually closer to Doc, which is a worry :-))
Sales seemed to moving along very well
Hail Hail
Atletico Madrid are still dirty bassas.
Assault on wee Jamesie there was knee-high – not even a yellow card.
From TCN on the OBAct.
http://thecelticnetwork.com/2015/01/07/the-o-b-act-was-always-going-to-fail/
HH
James
Guilty as charged. Went for a Ne’erday morning walk along the Nolly. I merely stared at it’s rising waterline. Took zero evasive action to save the match. Shamefully.
Referees?
Possibly rather ironic that, arguably, the best referee of the modern era was an Italian.
The scary-looking Pierluigi Collina.
HH!!
kdc 20:20 on 7 January, 2015
It was coming – the longer the game went on you just knew Motherwell would get a chance. In the end they got two and took them both, while we missed half a dozen when we were 1-0 up.
On the subject of dodgy referees …….
Maybe 2 or 3 seasons ago, we were playing Motherwell away, and the referee that day was taking charge of his first top flight game in around a year.
His name escapes me, but I think it was Bobby Madden, but not completely sure about it.
The referee’s performance was pathetic that day, gave our players no protection at all.
This was really the first time that I had noticed Keith Lasley in action.
Him and another Motherwell MF player, possibly a Scouser proceeded to kick every Celtic player in sight.
Lasley may have committed 8 fouls that day at least.
The referee was hand picked that day to allow the thuggery to go unpunished.
Anyone else remember this game and the referee ?
kdc 1959-
The investigation into corruption in Italian football was triggered by comments made by then AS Roma manager Zdenek Zeman in summer 1998. He made cryptic comments about football needing to get out of the chemist`s laboratory and the financial controller`s office and followed this up with comments expressing surprise at the “muscular explosion” of Juventus players, especially del Piero and Vialli.
This was a particularly sensitive time to be making such comments in Italy as the Festina cycling team had just been exposed as having doped their way through the Tour de France competition that summer which caused a national scandal.
Despite Juventus attempts to stonewall the allegations, Zeman`s comments were picked up by a prosecutor and so began an investigation into alleged cheating involving Juventus in the period 1994 – 1998. When the case finally came to trial in 2004 18 Juventus players had to testify in court. Guys like del Piero, Birindelli, Pessotto, Conte all variously claimed not to remember things and were all called “inadequate and unreliable” by the judge. Vialli`s evidence was called “obscure” by the judge.
Not only were they cheats, they were – and are – unrepentant cheats.
Juventus and the huns have much in common.
Charlie Richmond?
Churchill the dug now on the banned/hated list. JCGE. :))
Easily the most pointless lead article I’ve ever seen on cqn.
Was (is) football the only ‘institution’ in Scotland exempt from anti Irish/Catholic prejudice? Obviously not.
Did (do) occassionally Celtic suffer from this fact? Obviously yes.
Have other countries endured a bias on religious/ethnic/political grounds which also became evidenced in sport? Obviously yes.
The narrative is an historical consequence.
Is Scotland of 2015 the Scotland of 1930 or 1950? Obviously not. A pluralistic society with its associated benefits and drawbacks is now the vogue. Our parents and grandparents wouldn’t recognise the place.
Apparently however evidence a small percentage of people refuse to be enlightened is enough to generate gross exaggeration and grand paranoia.
That vigilance is maintained is good and necessary.
….
“They want to beat us next month more than at any time in original-Rangers 140-year history. Why is one of them the referee?”
Vigilance? No just ungenerous, unsubstantiated innuendo seemingly pandering to a particular constituency.
Mr Madden may or may not turn out to be a cheat, a bigot, a Dallas lackey or just incompetent but evidentially he was a former rangers supporter who is a qualified referee making his way to the best level he can.
Had the positions been reversed and a Celtic supporter been appointed wonder what response this blog would give to similar outpourings on other opposite websites? Wonder what Paul’s blog lead have been then?
“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Mathew 7:5
HH
A favourite tactic of the SFA when we play at hampdump is to wait till we are finishing our warm up period then turn on the sprinklers soaking Celtic players with ice cold water, you’ll also notice only the sprinklers in the Celtic half are turned on.
Delaney Funky.
Ha !!!
It never occurred to be that he had a girlfriend at that time..
Poor soul I bet she got pelters from all of you.
Tallybhoy
You have a ‘not to be crossed’ Italian look yourself. ;))
Agree totally about the great PC.
Another link
Rennes are reportedly putting Jean-Armel Kana-Biyik up for sale this month
Celtic manager Ronny Deila brought in Manchester City youngster Jason Denayer on loan this summer, but he may be forced into more additions at centre back this month.
Star defender Virgil van Dijk is being monitored by about half of the Premier League, whilst Nigerian international Efe Ambrose could also leave amid interest from Leicester City and West Bromwich Albion.
Should one of them leave Celtic Park this month, Deila will need to bring in another centre back, with Ajax’s Stefano Denswil linked before his move to Club Brugge earlier this week.
Yet one of Deila’s reported summer targets was Rennes’ Cameroonian international Jean-Armel Kana-Biyik, with reports in France suggesting that the Bhoys wanted to bring the 25-year-old to Scotland.
A deal couldn’t be done though, leaving Kana-Biyik to stay in France, and he hasn’t even played once this season as his exit becomes increasingly likely.
Now, Rennes are reportedly hoping to flog Kana-Biyik this month, with Ligue 1 rivals Evian believed to be leading the race for his signature.
However, when Celtic were linked with the player in August, L’Equipe suggested that Kana-Biyik had singled out Celtic as a team he wanted to sign for over other suitors such as Dinamo Moscow, Palermo and Real Betis.
If Deila still has Kana-Biyik on his radar then now would be the time to swoop for a cut-price deal, with Rennes desperate to bring in any sort of transfer fee for him to save him leaving for nothing in the summer when his contract expires.
Weet weet weet(gbwo) 18:48
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/scotland/9196192.stm
Cheers for that link.its squinty as eh :-)
A declaration of which team you support should be asked.
HH
HH
JNP
Lovely lass too. Still see her at Paradise. :)
Moravcik,
Madden has only ever done one game for us v murderwell and that was last season.
An Tearmann,
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my post.
All well here, thanks, as I hope it is with you.
In my analogy, it is the relationship with the Game that I was analysing.
The Game is the Institution that is being undermined.
My clumsy point is as long as the Game is being supported in it’s dereliction of it’s responsibilities and duties, then we are all complicit in condoning the cheating.
We are not the children of the Game,
We are it’s ultimate guardians, as in, we have the power to control it’s direction.
When the plan to plant Sevco into the SPL, then into Div.1, it was fans from other clubs who informed their boards of the consequences of such an event.
The fact that Celtic supporters didn’t issue a similar ultimatum may be due to the assumed knowledge, rightly, as it became apparent , that Celtic would vote against the proposal.
I think my marriage analogy holds up, but I don’t mean it as a criticism of anyone who feels compelled to give credibility to the betrayal of the game.
Life is full of compromises and we all have to make them from time to time.
Sad, sad events in my adopted city today. Was never a great fan of the satirical paper “Charlie Hebdo”.
But today what can you say except:
“Je suis Charlie”.
Many reasons for losing to Murderwell on Black Sunday,one of them Dallas bottling it to send off Craigen for a last man challenge.
Let’s all be realistic about the Sevco semi – with our recent Hampden record – e.g. Ross County, St Mirren and Kilmarnock and taking into account Morton, Hamilton and Ross county at CP – there is absolutely no room for wild optimism of a Sevco ‘roasting’.
I don’t care how, or by how much, we beat them – but we MUST beat them
Just a wee thought on hun and referees, what was the reason given for a newco to have grade1referees officiating whilst they played in 4th teir? Mmmm
Delaney’s
I forgive you.
HH jamesgang
Sips
Easy.
It was the only way the top refs could get to see their team live…..
HH jamesgang
How many times is Tooes going to be caught offside before he does something about it ……
Tooes = Torres .”…hahahaha
Jamesgang,
Top of the class for you, I’ll get HT to present you with your gold star on the next meet :)
Alfie,
Agreed.
Whilst it may well end up 3,4,5-0, to expect so is lunacy.
James
Thank you. Don’t need to bother my Parish Priest with that sin now.
Mon the Priest Town! Intae these midlander anglos.
On the subject of refs……had a chat with my Da about it today and he was able to highlight a lot of the instances spoken about on the blog.
One story he told me was one Saturday, mid to late sixties , Celtic game had been cancelled , RFC ( IL) were playing at home.
Anyway , he was passing when the local RFC (IL) supporters bus came back.
‘ what was your score ?’ He enquired of a guy he knew.
Nil – Nil came the reply.
Quick as a flash from my Da……..
‘ who missed your penalty?’
Think he had to bolt home!
canamalar
Sprinklergate?
Only in Scotland could Craig Thomson be described as unaligned….the half dozen rejected pens at Ibrox lead me to consider otherwise
I suppose we could get a ref with a Tim sounding name who would be outrageously anti CFC lest he be considered impartial
IMO they’re all hopeless and conflicted in some fashion
Madden ….why not …go the whole hog ….shocking appointment
Paris suspects arrested according to twitter.