You remember Celtic manager, Gordon Stachan, third manager in our history to win three-in-a-row? Took us to the Champions League knock out stages for the first time, did much of this while comparative economics were moving against us, remember him? Is he the same Gordon Strachan who has transformed the Scotland national team’s results?
Gordon is unequivocally a successful manager but his Scotland team is performing far better than I thought possible when he took over what looked like a poisoned chalice. The most stunning fact of his record there is that they have not conceded a goal in three successive away games. Gordon’s Celtic covered 15 months, across two championship winning seasons, without keeping a single clean sheet away from home, no matter how lowly or distressed the opponent. Even good, experienced, managers learn, especially from their earlier troubles.
Jock Stein is viewed mostly through the prism of 1967 but during his final season as Celtic manager, 1977-78, the sentiment among many in the support was decidedly downbeat. Rangers (remember them, played in blue, I think?) would win their third title in four seasons, with two trebles thrown in for good measure. Celtic finished fifth in the league, Jock’s judgement was widely called into question.
At the time Leeds United were a top club in England and after Celtic sacked Jock they moved to secure him. Leeds had no doubts as to his abilities. A little over a month later the SFA offered him the Scotland job, which he took and excelled at, twice succeeding in World Cup qualifying campaigns. His talents were without question but stood in sharp contrast to how many in the support viewed him a few years earlier.
I don’t know if Jock was a better manager in 1982 and beyond than he was in 1978 but there’s a decent chance his football education didn’t stop when the trophies dried up at Celtic. Gordon Strachan is, like Jock was until the end, a student of the game. Neil Lennon is too, he is also receiving some of the reviews his illustrious predecessors would recognise. Gordon was an excellent Celtic manager but he’s better now, perhaps as a result of life’s experiences along the way.
It’ll be really interesting to see how Euro qualifiers reflect on the comparative progress of Gordon and Martin O’Neill, who for my money was a better manager than Mourinho when the latter deployed some of the best players in the world against Celtic in Seville, and needed to deploy every underhand trick in the book to come out on top.
I was blown away by the stunning contributions to our Mary’s Meals campaign yesterday. First in was an incredible £200 + £50 gift aid donation, followed by others, large and small, every one appreciated. Ignore those who would tell you society is dead. You can get involved here.
Seville, The Celtic Movement, launches this month.
“Porto were favourites and would go on to prove how good a team they were by winning the Champions League 12 months later. Their players would demonstrate their prowess across the world for the next decade. They had fabulous talent, so much so, that they should have aspired to better than the gamesmanship used during their run to the UEFA Cup and Champions League wins.”
Order yours below:
[calameo code=0003901714cb03d5d5808 lang=en page=114 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
1,097 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- ...
- 29
- »
BMCUW,
I could bore the hind legs off a donkey bout seville my friend.
One day whilst your shovelling some sort of corrosive curry down your asbestos gullet i’ll fill you in on our trip.
There was a very unfortunate incident that i dont like to talk about much the night before the game, but that apart – amazing!
Totally understand why so many others couldnt go. i have a few friends who are teachers for example, not to mention again my youngest brother and his maths higher etc. Your good self.
Still.
I am certain we will have our day in the Sun once again my friend and i know you will be there!
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
DD,
Jose is generally too arrogant to be considered one of us – almost hunlike in his arrogance tbh – but there is still something about him that I cant help liking at times!
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
BMCUW
My mobs biggest contract of the year starts on St Patrick’s Day. I MUST be at our two site meetings on Thurs n Friday this week. Gutted. See you May 10 tho.
TTT
After the game, I missed my bus to Benidorm. What an adventure to get home tae Glesga. :)
DD,
haha, imagine that was fun!
BTW you going next week?
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
TTT
No, was planning to go to Gold Cup Cheltenham on Friday. Work fecked that. Might go if theres a pay at the gate? :)
DELANEYS DUNKY
Nothing at this end,mate.
Can you re-send to
bmcuwp@gmail.com
please.
DD,
Chelters is on my bucket list.
But….
Only once i have the wad i need for going and will only do it when i can go to the whole festival or Wed-Fri anyway.
What a few days that will be.
Canny wait.
BTW re CQTen, i think there is still a couple tix floating about if u seriously interested?
If so, post to Winnings Captain/Doc and ask them. They’re the bhoys who will know.
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
TTT
Will do. Anyone got a spare for Friday?
DELANEYS DUNKY
Pity,mate. We were really looking forward to that. Work comes first in certain circumstances-see my sorry excuse for missing Seville!
May 10th it is.
Btw,Doc has a spare.
THE TOKEN TIM
Your fine tales of heroism and glory will be wasted on me if I am eating a curry at the time.
I won’t be able to hear you due to the steam coming out of my ears!
I had an excellent curry in London last month with Steinreignedsupreme but settled for a vindaloo in case of a repeat scenario from last year. Wow,that was h-o-t….
Doc
Looking for a spare for Friday
BMCUW
My bhoy Ryan is 21 on May 7 You will meet him on 10th
DELANEYS DUNKY
Is your lad not at Strathclyde University?
Sounds like he’ll be in the year below my nephew. He’s in 4th year of Chemical Engineering.
He was at the last one,thoroughly enjoyed it. Kept an eye on his Papa,whose son was derelict in his duty of care that day…
I hope he’s sobered up from his birthday celebrations when we hook up!
BMCUW
Naw Ryan just got his Blacksmith papers after 4 year apprentice. Clever bhoy like his da :)))
Seville.. flew down from Alicante to Malaga. Benidorm heaving with Celtic fans. Waiting in taxi queue at Malaga Ap someone left a jacket on my bag. Nobody claimed it, inside was a wallet with passport, match ticket and few hundred euros. Went looking for Patrick Murphy 62 from Dublin and found him, steaming, crying and hanging on to two cops. Passed over his gear to him but he wont remember it being so drunk.
Next day was an experience of a lifetime. Perhaps only another half dozen European clubs could have taken that number of fans but none would have blown the city of Seville away like the Celtic fans. A staggering display of colour, passion and humour, the sheer numbers taking your breath away.
Personally I blagged it in with the worst forgery ever (long story), maybe the big man on my side after handing in that jacket.
Like many that day, I could write a short book about the whole three day experience, and like Lisbon it will be etched on my memory forever. If there was ever a case to prove ourselves the ‘best fans in the world’ Seville was that occasion, and it will take some beating.
HH
BMCUW
His 3 best pals are Strathclyde, Glasgow and St Andrews uni students. Dont tell Tony D, they are all Green Brigadeers FGS
DELANEYS DUNKY
Ah,I remembered you mentioning something along those lines.
Congratulations to Ryan on being time-served. Not enough apprenticeships available nowadays.
That’s two reasons for me to buy him a pint on the tenth,he’s bound to accept at least one!
Btw,you can tell Tony yourself on the day.
MARRAKESH EXPRESS
Magic,mate. I could read that sort of stuff all day,but sadly,duty calls,back to work.
I guess I’ll just have to buy the book!
BMCUW
Magic, you will like ma bhoy. He is a wise one. :)
Here’s some music to keep you occupied in my absence.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WfO9lpbbW_4
Murdoch
Canny sleep and the Seville memories flooding back are making it harder to doze off. Think I’ll get up and watch something I’ve taped. Btw one day I’ll post the story of how my nephew got into the stadium. Unbelievable..
marrakesh express-best time of my life supporting Celtic,will never watch the DVD though.For me it summed up being a Celtic supporter for my era.Hartson was the missing link that night,Mourinho told you his defensive teamtalk was based on BBJ.HH
did nothing come out of the UTT yesterday?
did it finish?
is it still ongoing?
a lot of folks talking about seville
even though we got beat, it was still the highlight of many celtic supporters lifes
i wonder then why the last 16 is rated so highly? (cash I suspect) IMHO in sporting terms seville is a million times a better achievement than any last 16 will ever be.
In keeping with the Seville postings.
I was trying to clean up a full HD and I came across this
Maybe some folks will recognise themselves
SEVILLE MEMORIES
If it doesn’t work here’s the direct link
http://youtu.be/lJ7QUCalNM4
another thing about seville is that we owned the telly the papers the lot!
you could make a video up about the stuff on the news alone, from sandpits in glasgow to checking in at the glasgow airport car park
seville rools and the last 16 is a poor second
maybe even a poor third to boavista!
its not alwaya about cash!
Gooood morning CQN
Great news this morning, just heard of another wee addition to the Cowiebhoy family Celtic community
*Very Well done Kate & Liam, a 3rd wee Ghirl* wee RUBYand congrats to my brother his 3rd granddaughter
Hail Hail
CQN Saturday Naps Competition
Lads, for those who are in the CQN Saturday Naps competition, please go back and post today’s selection at the end of the previous article :
“1200 hungry weans, ill-conceived Act”
All the best, fleagle1888
CQN Saturday Naps Competition :
Week 28/Feb 22nd & Week 29/1st March results & standings
Week 28 : PF Ayr (Wyck Hill @9/1), unionbearbhind (Grandeur @4/5)
Week 29 : Outstanding from tommytwiststommyturns & unionbearBhind (Night in Milan @14/1).
Other winners : green T (Rocking Blues @7/1), PF Ayr (Summary Justice @9/2), Som mes que un club (Shangani @3/1)
+£20.00 Rockon Neil Lennon (8)
+£10.98 PF Ayr (9)
+£ 8.50 valentinesday (7)
+£ 4.88 Som mes que un club (5)
+£ 3.00 tommytwiststommyturns (2)
+£ 0.00 leftclicktic (5)
-£ 1.50 Cathal (4)
-£ 3.63 BMCUWP (6)
-£ 4.63 green T (5)
-£ 5.00 BULL67 (4)
-£ 6.00 Bada Bing (3)
-£ 8.00 El Madrigal (3)
-£ 8.70 unionbearBhind (3)
-£10.13 bonbhoy (4)
-£10.50 fleagle1888 (3)
-£10.75 16 roads (3)
-£11.50 What is the Stars (2)
-£15.50 twists n turns (2)
-£16.75 Kilbowie Kelt (3)
-£19.25 Che (2)
-£21.20 Sponsored by Cheetah (2)
-£21.75 MHARK67 (2)
-£23.94 Burgas Hoops (2)
-£24.80 voguepunter (1)
*No selections (wk 28) : bonbhoy, Burgas Hoops, Che, fleagle1888
*No selections (wk 29) : bonbhoy, Che
*Non-Runners :
Cheers, fleagle1888
Any celts get on that j league game ?
16 roads ?? Hope u did this week budy. Nice wee lift for me :-)
Work finished and all. Not a bad wee day.
Hate when celtic dont have a game.. Weekend just isnt the same
From the Hootsman, i agree Chuckles sue them, you deserve more !!
FORMER Rangers chief executive Charles Green claims he deserved to be paid double for the work he did at Ibrox.
The club’s official accounts from last year show that the Yorkshire businessman received £933,000 – including a severance payment and bonus – for the 10-month period he was employed by the fallen Glasgow giants.
He also pocketed a profit after selling off his shares in the club to investors Sandy Easdale and Laxey Partners.
But Green says he was worth much more after helping to relaunch the company that owned the club after it was liquidated in the summer of 2012.
He told Sky Sports News: “When I joined Rangers I was the only employee, the only director, the only investor.
“I was on the same salary as [manager] Ally McCoist. But [former chairman] Malcolm Murray said that was too much and halved it.
“For the work I did at Rangers I should have had double.
“My salary was £360,000 a year. I didn’t take 12 months’ notice. I agreed with [former director] Ian Hart that I would take less money because I didn’t want to penalise the club.
“The bonus was a bonus which was contractually in my contract and I was entitled to it.”
Green had to resign his position in April 2013 when allegations of links to former owner Craig Whyte emerged, although he denied any wrongdoing.
The ex-Sheffield United chief exec did return to the League One leaders for an 18-day stint as a paid consultant last summer but was again forced out after a public spat with McCoist.
But the 60-year-old says he never wanted to leave Ibrox.
“I didn’t want the severance pay,” he said. “I would have liked to have stayed at Rangers but I was driven out of that club. I would have happily carried on at the club.”
In January, McCoist has also signed off on a 50 per cent cut to his £825,000-a-year salary.
Glenn Gibbons: big hitters see Rangers as small fry
Just as the truth is widely recognised as the first casualty of war, the most striking and predictable consequence of the kind of circumstances in which Rangers have floundered in recent years is almost invariably the proliferation of myths and misapprehensions.
Principal among these is the ludicrous notion that the Ibrox club (and their traditional rivals, Celtic, for that matter) warrant being referred to as “a massive institution” whenever their descent into the fiscal void is discussed, as if another General Motors has gone to the wall. This is clearly a preposterous description to apply to an organisation whose latest financial returns show an annual turnover of £19 million. That equates to about three months’ takings for the average-sized Asda supermarket.
Hard evidence of the regard in which the market held the new Rangers company which was formed after the liquidation of the old – that is, their status as a business as opposed to a crowd-pulling football team – first emerged with the results of the share issue launched under the former chief executive, Charles Green, in December, 2012. At the time, Green talked of the “huge” interest from “institutional investors”, a claim which was less than convincing, given the recessionary times in which the prospectus was
offered.
Nor did it seem to make sense for institutional investors – these are hedge funds and the like handling pensions and other monies on behalf of clients – to be risking substantial amounts of cash on a football club, and especially one in Scotland that would be operating in the relative penury of the bottom tier of the game. In the event, these so-called heavy hitters limited their commitment to a total of just £17m, with another £4m worth of shares bought by individual fans. Now the eight most prominent institutional investors (not counting Sandy Easdale, an individual businessman) own equity worth an average of £1.3m. This is a figure that would not cover the annual remuneration of the common-or-garden hedge fund manager. Indeed, as an accountant friend confirmed, it suggests the kind of throwaway “investment” that results from the company involved having been advised it would be tax-efficient, rather than a source of profit.
Nor could these reputed heavyweights be accused of an attempt at seizing power at Ibrox, since the biggest among them, Laxey Partners, holds a mere 12.47 per cent of Rangers. Curiously, the company about which there has been so much intrigue over the past year or so – with puzzling, widespread demands for the identities of their personnel to be revealed – appeared only this week to show a pronounced insouciance in the matter of the Ibrox club’s business affairs.
Having agreed to lend the club £1m in return for an interest payment of £150,000 as well as security over the Albion car park and Edmiston House in the event of failure to repay the loan, Laxey seemed surprisingly ready to cancel the deal in order to allow an apparently wealthy fan, George Letham, to step in with the funds at a more favourable rate. This hardly seems to be the action of a City predator, interested only in maximising returns for minimum stakes.
If anything, it is an episode that hints strongly at the possibility that, whatever priorities and imperatives drive their interest in Rangers (unlike certain individuals such as Green) making a quick killing is not among them.
Celtic’s ‘lost’ treble is hardly unprecedented
The impish cast to Fergus McCann’s mind would surely have been highly activated by the events of this week.
While Celtic fans were remembering and celebrating McCann’s rescue of the club from the financial quicksand and looming oblivion during the most critical days in its history in 1994, there was a simultaneous outbreak of disgruntlement that the team under Neil Lennon at present were only 21 points ahead of the pack on their way to a third successive league championship. For those apparently endowed with the memory of a goldfish, this is clearly just not good enough.
The notion that Celtic should stroll virtually unopposed to a domestic treble every season on the nonsensical grounds that their traditionally strongest rivals, Rangers, play in a lower league, is a supposition not supported by historical statistics. Some observers refer to Lennon “losing” a treble, seemingly unaware that you can’t “lose” one, but simply fail to win one.
During the periods of virtually unchallenged domination by each member of the Old Firm, those many occasions on which they fell short of a domestic grand slam were almost inevitably the result of defeats by lesser opponents.
Graeme Souness managed five years at Ibrox without winning the Scottish Cup, unforgettably losing to Hamilton at home in 1987. Martin O’Neill contrived to have the most formidable side in the country in 2003 and win nothing as Rangers under Alex McLeish lifted everything. O’Neill took his team to Seville and the Uefa Cup final. He also took them to Inverness and lost in the Scottish Cup, before conceding the championship on goal difference.
In one bizarrely contradictory article, Lennon was first of all chastised for his part in two “avoidable” defeats, by Morton in the League Cup and by Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup, thereby failing once again to land the treble. A few paragraphs later, however, Lennon was accused of being “ungracious” following his scathing remarks about referee Craig Thomson’s performance in Celtic’s defeat in their latest league match at Pittodrie. It is a perfectly legitimate view, but Lennon was “advised” by the observer that he should simply have accepted that “these things happen” and allowed Aberdeen the credit they deserved.
These things certainly do happen – but, apparently, in some quarters they are only forgivable if they do no damage.
Lionroars67
Green –
“The bonus was a bonus which was contractually in my contract…”
Had a wee laugh at that.
HH
Martin O’Neill contrived to have the most formidable side in the country in 2003 and win nothing as Rangers under Alex McLeish lifted everything. O’Neill took his team to Seville and the Uefa Cup final. He also took them to Inverness and lost in the Scottish Cup, before conceding the championship on goal difference.
Glen McLeish was given help to win his trophies as his managerial career has subsequently confirmed
Oooops hold that, wee RUBY ? name still to be decided:-)
Still a fantastic start to the dhay though
Hail Hail
cowiebhoy supporting the celtic to 3 in a row
06:22 on 8 March, 2014
Gooood morning CQN
Great news this morning, just heard of another wee addition to the Cowiebhoy family Celtic community
*Very Well done Kate & Liam, a 3rd wee Ghirl* wee RUBY and congrats to my brother his 3rd granddaughter
Hail Hail
the long wait is over
07:05 on
8 March, 2014
Chuckles has been a riot, lots of funny moments that xmas broadcast beyond parody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8mkK2NQQuY
Watch again, much misunderstood is Chuckles HA HA HA
Cowiebhoy supporting the Celtic to 3 in a row
07:11 on
8 March, 2014
Congrats to your family Cowiebhoy hope you and family enjoying your hols, catch you up on bus to CQN10
HH
Cowiebhoy
Great news to start the weekend. Hope mother and child are well.
Surely though, choosing a name is something that the CQN community could help with!?!?! ;-)
EveryNewMum’sNightmareCSC
HH jamesgang