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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Charlie Hebdo.
Long been a subscriber.Big on satire and the freedom of expression.Loony choon fascist nutjobs dont like freedom of expression and try to intimidate it into silence.Cue yet more governance in thrall to terrorism.Cue one more amplification of that they hate us we hate them thing.
Boaby Madhun. Kwality man ( in a Derek Fergushun type nasal whine.)
clashcitybhoy
Thanks to you I just spent a very pleasurable 10 minutes looking at the BBC highlights of the Albert Kidd match.
Despite its length it failed to include anything that looked like a Hearts penalty or even a claim. I cannot believe the BBC would have left any controversial incident out. There was no hounding of the ref, Bill Crombie, at half time or full time by Hearts players or managers who had lost their gruntle. I cannot find the match stats but the video highlights show a first half with no clear cut chances. Hearts were very nervy, Dundee had the better chances and Hearts only had two breakaways fairly quickly snuffed out. The 2nd half was fairly constant Dundee attack with Henry Smith making a great save before the two goals were scored.
As you say, the penalty story seems to have grown in Hearts folklore but I cannot find contemporary claims for a ref having done them. It sounds like folklore of the Nessy, Robin Hood, UFO abduction variety.
Me and the lhads around me play a wee game at the start of most matches. We discuss who the MIB is and then try to remember his honest mistakes. I think Collum wins hands down, as he gave THAT penalty directly in front of us.
Used to change ends via the Jungle. Always amazed me how wet the ground was even on a dry day. ) )
Mikebhoy 1888 , I think George Smith was seen in the procession into the Cathedral in Edinburgh when St Pope John Paul came to Scotland. It was seminarians who served at Bellahouston.
But, yes, it did surprise Celtic supporters that he was a very committed member of the Church. Though some of us knew that all along.
Well said SoT
The French magazine dish it out to everyone without fear or favour. French Catholics have as much cause for complaint against them as any Islamist.
It was brutal medievalists with automatic weapons who carried out the Act, not a developed religion.
south of tunis
15:41 on 7 January, 2015
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More tolerance and understanding is all that is needed.They can be rehabilitated.We as a society need to accept some degree of responsibility. It isn’t their fault.
Western culture is the problem.
HH.
connaire12
Committed to the Church, yes but no friend of Celtic.
Boaby Madman’s mistooks will even themselves out over the millenium!
Get aff yur hoarse’s.
Boaby Madorangeman or nae Boaby Madorangeman if we don’t win by a minimum of 4 clear goals then it’s a kick in the haw maw’s awe roon. I expect this to go to 6,7 or even 8.
MWD said AYE
What about the Crusades?
HH.
IanBhoy929,
I know for a fact that Tiny didn’t grow up hating all things Celtic. As a “wee” boy, he used to play with my Dad and his pals in the street (and he was useless) about 100 yards from Celtic Park.
I would imagine Private Eye ,and similar,have had security beefed up.
glendalystonsils…. I made no comment on his friendship for Celtic or otherwise. I merely pointed out where he was seen on TV during the visit.
Actually I ran into him once in a petrol station in Edinburgh and it took me all my time to refrain from telling him what I thought of him. But then I decided to be christian and let him go on his way in peace.
jeez_I_thought_blinker_was_pants
It was Dallas senior
A hink ra Celtic support need to start following the ole mantra at taking this a gem at a time.
Awe this talk online is gonny put the players on edge don’t yeez know.
thurs gems tae be wun in the Grand ole Canaries.
MWD said AYE
Donegals top 10
Was in the company of late Brian McLaughlin in the family pub(no10) to watch Thommo skite a 30yarder off the bar and in
past klos.a beautiful county
http://www.theirishstore.com/blog/2014/09/26/10-best-things-irelands-donegal/
God bless ye Brian rip
HH
I can do without the pre-emptive referee stuff, but Paul’s suggestion to ‘Hide your scarf’ should be taken a little more seriously.
I won’t be going to the game in question, but I was given a preview of what it might provoke at a wee soiree just last week.
A long standing family friend, middle aged, middle class professional type, and long-standing supporter of the various iterations of ‘Rangers’, turned highly aggressive when the conversation turned to the topic of his club. Volcanically so.
I had hoped, naively, that the recent experience of the Rangers fans might have instilled a sense of humility, that the old bitterness would have mellowed, but it seems on the contrary that the intervening years have festered an unholy anger which is released in the most dramatic manner.
When otherwise intelligent, grounded people can lose all tangent with reason over a quiet drink in a nice bar, what are the portents for the environment after the match to come?
Hide your scarf. And your green straws…
16 roads
You can keep hoisting the false flag arguments. Why would you want to make enemies of those who share your revulsion?
“”I am extremely angry. These are criminals, barbarians. They have sold their soul to hell. This is not freedom. This is not Islam and I hope the french will come out united at the end of this,” said Hassen Chalghoumi, imam of the Drancy mosque in Paris’s Seine-Saint-Denis northern”
Siesta time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
setting free the bears for res. 12 & oscar knox
16:09 on 7 January, 2015
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I said that we need to be more tolerant and more understanding of other people’s cultural and religious beliefs.
We all have a duty of care and responsibility.
We could reach out more, be more accommodating, more secular in our approach.
Education, rehabilitation, diversity.
I read the Huffington Post and the Guardian, believe it or not.
HH.
GordonJ
The last time that the Zombies won the SPL .
The final Glasgow Derby of that season at Ayebrokes was a draw.
A potential title clinching penalty was given to Celtic after a challenge on Samaras.
IT WASN’T A PENALTY.
MacGregor saved the penalty anf kept the Zombies in the title race.
TT
In view of previous posts, I was asking if you believed that as I suspected you were being sarcastic?
The Crusades are no more of an excuse for today’s barbarism than the Invasion of Spain and France by the moors is for bombing Iraq.
connaire12
15:51 on 7 January, 2015
My mistake
I gave you the Crusades as an example of Christian aggressiveness, that it is not a trait exclusive to Islam.
Do you honestly think that I am going to sit and insult Islam on a public forum?
Would I be so foolish as to insult the prophet, knowing full well what the sentence for blasphemy is?
I’m not that stupid my friend.
This is Europe, 2015.
Thank you.
HH.
Never mind Bobby Madden we could let Ian Black ref the match & we’ll still pump them.
I will go to the match but tbh haven’t thought about it that much as I didn’t see how they could survive as a club long enough to fulfill the fixture.
Looks like the life support machine is being kept on for now though so I will be there to support Celtic whether its against Rangers 2.0, Rang3rs or Berwick feckin Rangers.
HH
Love to see henderson and another young bhoy play against rangers.. treat them like the championship team they are.
Griffiths should also start.
And bring back paddy mccourt .. 1 game only.
Saint Stivs
Sorry for delay, – but it wasn’t me this time, I don’t think Roy Croppie maybe?
Traditionalist88
Bang on mate,let’s just do them HH
frannyb67
16:36 on
7 January, 2015
Traditionalist88
Bang on mate,let’s just do them HH
====
Hail hail:)
On the need to sign Stuart Armstrong… you can never have enough good players imo – too much deadwood hanging around and Armstrong would be here to PLAY. We also need a quota of players who came through the ranks between the ages of 15-18 in Scotland. If Armstrong, or the lad from Hamilton for that matter, was signed, I’d be fairly confident we’d either have both for the long haul OR they could be sold for a tidy profit in 2/3 yrs.
Once the deadwood is released I think a few people would quickly realise that Armstrong would be a great addition for a number of reasons,
HH
I agree about the Sammi missed penalty at Ibrox in 2011. I think it was Stokes that went over easily, though.
Always thought Barry Robson got off lightly for that elbow on Dailly in 2008 as well.
I don’t think he even got a yellow. On another day it could have been red.
Armstrong has never stood out in a match i’ve watched him in.
Henderson has.
Grow and trust our own, they are better than the rest.
connaire12
15:59 on
7 January, 2015
I got a chance to speak to him in a social context just after Dougiegate and asked him what he thought of the whole affair. He was scathing about Neil Lennon and thought poor Dougie had been badly treated. Definitely one of the fraternity.
Craig Thompson was the referee who gave Celtic a very late and quite soft penalty at ibroke.
If Samaras had scored it Celtic would have won the league. Simple as that.
Thompson also raised the hackles of both the SFA and EUFA Two seasons ago by refusing to nominate Scottish linesmen as his assistants for Champions League games, as he thought they were all shite.
Instead he insisted on his linesmen coming from the Republic of Ireland.
Thompson us an arrogant sod and a not very good referee.
However, he is not a hun and I would rather have him than a devout rangers supporter like Madden.
Paul 67 –
While I agree Madden’s appointment is unlikely to influence the outcome of the tie, the fact is he should be nowhere near this match, other than sitting beside his fellow Sevco fans at Hampden.
His performance in last season’s Scottish Cup semi-final provided proof of his bias towards any team called Rangers.
The lower league outfit were allowed to kick lumps out of better opponents, with one assault by Foster the definition of a red card challenge, going unpunished – not sure he even gave a foul.
Madden also ignored a blatant penalty for Dundee United, and awarded four yellows to them and one for a Sevco player.
I don’t normally call for Celtic to make statements, but I think this decision should be challenged publically.
16 Roads
I give up.
If you are playing games by expressing the opposite of what you believe that is fairly crude. Better to say nothing than wheedle.
Meant to add, the conversation didn’t last long when i gave him my views on it.