Hide your scarf, your ref for the League Cup semi

898

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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  1. west of ireland csc on

    beefheart

     

     

    religious bigotry and supremacy if unchecked leads to religious fundamentalism and eventually religious based violence

     

    rangers club and fans have been known to be sectarian for decades with a deep hatred of catholics and people of an irish catholic background

     

    non signing of catholics, famine song etc

     

     

    religious bigotry is the acorn that religious fundamentalism grows if left unchecked

     

    these people needed to be educated to be nonsectarian

  2. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    Wasn’t it good to see our keeper come for a cross and protect himself with his knee

     

     

    Magennis wasn’t going to challenge him after that

  3. philbhoy

     

     

    14:03 on 7 January, 2015

     

    ed

     

     

    13:23 on 7 January, 2015

     

     

    Jungle Jim,

     

     

    I’m not bothered about any Celtic supporting refs just fair ones, these listed below hated our club with a vengeance, please feel free to add to this list.

     

     

    JPR Gordon

     

    RH Davidson

     

    J McCluskey

     

    R Tait

     

    M McCurry

     

    D McDonald

     

    R Madden

     

    Tiny Wharton

     

    ……………………

     

    Dyne the Hun

  4. F.A.B. Virgil 1903 v 1909 and 1888 v 2012 on

    Tigertim

     

     

    Yup our new pitch is pants already. May be recoverable or may be dead. If dead we should get a refund. Nobody playing on it the night before a game though.

     

     

    HH

  5. Any refereeing decisions and the result will be discussed and ironed out when Mike Ashley meets the SFA for a disciplinary on January 27th.

     

    Who decided to do this on the week prior to this game!!

  6. TLWIO,

     

    Hope you are well, and happy NY

     

     

    On the day we played at Love St the ref at Dens Park was a Mr Abercrombie, and I think this was his last senior game at a time when referees were generally afforded the courtesy of refereeing a game involving ‘their’ team.

     

    Pretty sure if you recall back to us stopping 10 in a row, at the game where Killie beat Rankers, the Ref was about to retire.

     

     

    During the game in question there was a penalty claim from Hearts, which should have been given, and wasn’t.

     

    The words I heard, and I think this is pretty well known in Hearts folklore, is that ref didn’t give it as he didn’t want to be accused of bias.

     

    And the rest is history?

     

    Except , of course, ref should never have been put in that position, hence, my agreement with Paul67.

  7. bournesouprecipe on

    adi_dasler

     

     

    No question, Andrew Dallas is being set up as Dallas II hope he’s learned from the mistakes of his father, he has at least a decade of Celtic matches ahead.

     

     

     

    There will be a split in the Celtic support, the ones that say Who cares? – ( “They can’t chalk them all off” © Jock Stein ) and the ones that care passionately and see it as continuing corruption, and cry foul.

     

     

    Rangers supporting referees from before their demise are what made Celtic unique, the SFA make Celtic unique.

     

     

    Celtic are a miracle club completely unique, in a hostile environment they continue to defy and triumph.

  8. 67Heaven ... I am Neil Lennon ....The angels are with Wee Oscar in Heaven.. Ibrox belongs to the creditors on

    …..and some Celtic Supporters want their tribute act back ….. Hunbelievable ….!!!!!!

  9. the long wait is over on

    CCB

     

     

    HNY to you and yours.

     

     

    Tait was the ref for that Rangers v Killie game.

     

     

    I have never heard that story about the Love Street game but bow to your superior knowledge.

     

     

    Won’t stop it being probably my all time favourite Celtic experience though.

  10. lawwellsacountant on

    Look all the ref,s are anti celtic scum even the token cathoilic collum,as for Thompsdon he,s the biggest asshole of the lot

  11. 1970 Cup Final against the Sheep was pretty dire, didn’t realise back then how corrupt it all was.

     

     

    YNWA

  12. Paul 67 et al,

     

     

    While there is no outside impartial governance, and anyway no-one else apart from us is that interested, it seems they (the SFA) can do whatever they want.

     

     

    The match is already being shaped up for a ‘spectacular’ – the huns will have outlined their latest plans for a hover pitch and mega-bucks “cash injection”, Polis scoddland will be primed for any offensive displays of greenery and the huns will have their roving warrant for on-field thuggery – we’ve all seen this film before.

     

     

    However, I don’t think “Boaby” will affect the outcome of the contest too much.

     

    The fact that we are pitted against something called ranjurs means the game’s already lost in my buik.

     

     

    HH.

  13. Oh come on bhoys. We once got a throw in near the half way line in a cup final we shouldn’t have had. And then there was, er, …

     

     

    Evens itself out,doesn’t it? I’ve obviously forgotten the hundreds of bad decisions n our favour over the years.

  14. West of ireland

     

     

    Let them wallow in ignorance and the inability to learn from mistakes.

     

    There is a simple and awesome beauty about our club, set up to feed the poor of eastend parishes,

     

    inclusive and dynamic from the start,

     

    So take heart we are champions.

     

    A club of our history and background are champions in the

     

    Land of knox.

     

    HH

  15. BOBBY MURDOCH'S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on

    JIMTIM

     

     

    Aye,bud. Correct. Hose attached,and no sympathy. That’s what they nearly got away with twenty years ago.

     

     

    IMO,as in yours,I reckon,we should be questioning everything that we feel uncomfortable about.

     

     

    If that means we go back to the days of being accused of being mentally ill,we have proof now that we simply weren’t paranoid enough.

     

     

    Our continued supine acceptance of every underhand move hardly smacks of strong leadership.

  16. BOBBY MURDOCH'S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on

    IANBHOY929

     

     

    JIMBO67 mutters very dark thoughts when that game in particular is mentioned.

  17. TLWIO,

     

    I have a lot of mates who are Jambos.

     

    Whenever they need put back in their box, I remind them that

     

    – if their club had any ambition they would look at successful EPL clubs like Swansea & Southampton , that they are merely concerned about putting one over Hibs, and at the end of the day football is a minority sport in Edinburgh

     

    – That even with one of their own as ref, they still couldn’t beat Dundee

  18. Referees – what are they like, eh?

     

     

    Remember Dallas using that fake blood capsule on his head back in ’99?

     

     

    To be serious though, watching some footage of that game on Youtube, makes me never ever want to see those two teams face each other ever again.

     

     

    And yes, I know they’re dead….but the undead are returning soon.

  19. the long wait is over on

    Jude 2005

     

     

    It’s a few years since I’ve been but , if I recall, the security is pretty tight anyway but will have been beefed up hugely today.

  20. IanBhoy929

     

     

    Thanks for reminding me of that day. Other perhaps than the JRP Gordon match of January 1978 I can think of nothing to compare with the refereeing by RH Davidson of that day. 45 years on and still makes my p**s boil.

     

     

    Jimbo67

  21. 16 roads - Celtic über alles... on

    These brutal and savage attacks have got nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.They are the work of deranged madmen with a history of mental illness.

     

     

    Islam is the religion of peace.

     

     

    Don’t be afraid.

     

     

    HH.

  22. chrisvancoupon you claimed earlier that Kevin Clancy is a Celtic fan. Strange as his uncle told me not so long ago that he is a Partick Thistle fan. Must be because that fancy school he went to in Garnethill is nearer perhaps to Firhill. Only saying.

  23. South Of Tunis on

    Refs..

     

     

    Much how dare he from Rube last week in response to the statement from Roma’s Manager that Roma would have to play really well and get fair treatment from Refs to have any chance of winning the 2 horse race that is Serie A.

     

     

    Cue yesterday ‘s Udinese v Roma game -a very controversial winning goal for Roma and a stonewall penalty for Udinese being denied.

     

     

    Cue outrage from Rube re Roma using the media to influence match officials.Cue Roma telling Rube to shut it..

     

     

    Italian football !

  24. Just saw the video on facebook that stv made.. green brigade and fac answering questions.

     

     

    Both came across pretty well.

     

     

    Cant do the link thingy

  25. jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/ on

    16r

     

     

    They maybe the work of deranged madman but the ones who tell them to do it are NOT!!!!

  26. the long wait is over on

    CCB

     

     

    Ha!

     

     

    I had one very good Jambo friend in those days I’ve lost touch with.

     

     

    A lovely guy and not in the slightest bitter overall but you simply couldn’t mention ’86 to him. He simply couldn’t talk about it and welled up.

     

     

    Took me all my time not to laugh out loud but it was too painful for him and I liked him too much.

  27. Burgas hoops

     

     

    15:13 on 7 January, 2015

     

     

    Was at the game that day…..watching it again I am sure the linesman in the background is George Smith of Edinburgh who for years took pelters off the Celtic Support of being a sticky until 1982 when he appeared on TV at Bellahouston Park serving mass for The Pope

  28. bournesouprecipe

     

    14:29 on

     

    7 January, 2015

     

    saint stivs

     

     

    Lurking quietly here.

     

     

     

    —————-

     

     

    you posted a mighty fine Henriks gif other day but i cant find it.

     

     

    a repost would be magic

  29. mickbhoy1888

     

    15:29 on

     

    7 January, 2015

     

    Burgas hoops

     

     

     

     

    Was at the game that day….

     

     

     

    I was down at Somerset Park myself mickbhoy, changing ends was the highlight doon there eh?

  30. twentyfirstofmaynineteenseventynine on

    With all the media hype about this game ,and it being billed as one of the biggest games in their (short) history ,I genuinely think we should show them the respect they deserve and field our under 20s . It would turn all this underdog crap around and I think we would still wipe the floor with them, despite the referee. just a thought

     

     

    HH

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