Fraser Forster had a daily routine which verged on OCD. He rose at 6:00, ate his first meal of the day, drove to Lennoxtown (while eating six pancakes, as it happens), then worked-out in the gym. He stopped for ‘breakfast’ with the rest of the team, his third intake of the day, before training started at 10:00.
After training the players take lunch, then head home. Fraser stayed, back to the gym, or some specialist work with goalkeeper coach Stevie Woods, before heading home at 16:30. He was first to arrive and last to leave, every day.
This was his routine, broken only something as rare as a dentist visit. Every biological and fitness measurement was documented with improvements targeted.
Years ago, he decided he was going to this year’s World Cup. The personal relationship, which took visits to London to maintain, was put on hold. The visits interrupted the work schedule for two days, which he couldn’t afford.
There is a reasonable chance that he put more work into his game than any player in Celtic history, the contrast with some would anger you. The results were remarkable. Fraser transformed from a rough stone into the only man in the England World Cup squad not to play in their feted league.
Much of this was as a result of the meeting of minds he had with Stevie Woods. Stevie completely changed Fraser’s game, set career targets with him and planned how to reach them. I could make a good case that Woods is one of the leading goalkeeping coaches in Europe. He created one of the greatest keepers in Britain and will do so again.
On a personal level, he is everything you would want a Celtic player to be, had time for kids, time for fans. He graduates from Celtic as a credit to our club. We want more like this.
While I’ll have genuine regret if he goes, the axiom of the ages remains true, we manage our assets, or we fail to manage our assets. If we have £10m to add to or deny the budget, it should not be tied up in a goalkeeper.
So good for Celtic, but it’s left me with a problem. I’ve a nine-year-old who eats, sleeps, talks and, most of all, dreams, Fraser Forster. Hero worship has never been so intense, so I’ll delay wishing the big guy well, just in case….
Just so you know, Maribor would put us out if we played them this week. Don’t go dreaming of Champions League football yet.
Still cannot believe what happened yesterday.
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So its new huns v the old huns in the bestest wee second tier league in the world.
What time is the penalty today?
Auldheid. What infuriates me is that the people who are currently running celtic are ruining our position of strength.
They do not care about football only about money.
Worse than that they treat the support with open contempt. This latest press statement is a case in point. It’s just a load of old crap.
I care about celtic. And therefore it does feel personal when I see our wholly unnecessary decline.
You are basically saying oh well and we better be nice to peter and co or they will stop talking to us. What other company would treat its customers as such???
The club have continually lied to us. They have buried res12 (or are they just scared to send a reminder to the SFA?). They have colluded with the Huns.
And now they are ruining the football team hell bent on pursuing money for its own sake.
So forgive my anger but there is a lot to be angry about.
Just another time. Read the CQN magazine where I outline what should be done. None of it is rocket science but it involves caring about football results and treating the supporters with respect.
Big Joe
13:46 on
10 August, 2014
Now yer talkin`
Stuff politics,let`s do fitba`.
After reading the shit storm that Legia are kicking up over their expulsion from the CL, trying to push the blame onto Celtic and so on, I have absolutely no sympathy left for the Poles. Stuff them, I say. I hope the Khazaks boot them out of Europe altogether in the EL play-off.
GIRUY Legia.
corkcelt
Really? Gordon Waddell in the Daily Retard.
I saw the headline on Newsnow BTW – I haven’t nor never will read it.
They troll through this and other sites looking for disaffected Celtic fans and then draft a gormless story to try and fit in with the unhappy mood of some of those fans.
He and they are loving this, and I cannot understand any, I mean any Celtic fan having the slightest interest in anything they say.
As for songs, we have just lost what Paul was right to call a genuine Celtic hero.
Apart from the generic “There’s only one..” or “FF give us a wave..” etc what song was sung to celebrate Fraser Forster?
Macjay 1 and what qualifies you to tell green man he is wrong. May we see your CV?
auldheid
13:36 on 10 August, 2014
Should Celtic coach their own coaches for coaching too?
It’s cheaper and the ones they hire are crap.
Save a lot of money to invest in errr something or other ……
Money must be tight in Govan…………………….
They can’t even afford to put proper lines on the pitch………..
pennypinchinhORwhat
What’s odds on Hearts right back finishing the game?
Auldheid. Coach our way forward???? Did you see the games against legia Warsaw???????
Larrybhoy
13:37 on 10 August, 2014
The club could have refused to sell FF.
To say that they wanted him to stay when they’ve just sold him is self contradictory.
He was sold because the price was right.
Most of us can live with that. We’re not children. We don’t need to be told the club wanted him to stay when it’s self evident they didn’t, not at that price anyway.
It’s PR bullshit.
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
13:51 on 10 August, 2014
Big Joe
13:46 on
10 August, 2014
Now yer talkin`
Stuff politics,let`s do fitba`.
exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxactly
Fear for Jordan McGhee a red card.
A Timmy name who likes to tackle.
Yep PR bullshit and another sign of the contempt they hold us in.
We wanted to keep him but errrr we sold him……
Tom Mc
What have Legia been saying about Celtic?
JJ
C’mon then Macjay where is it???????
Macjay or whatever your name is….
I’m neither a hun nor a mindless moron. Ya bass.
Without Fergus, we’d be lucky to be in the position the zombies are in… or should I say aught to be in.
As far as singing players names is concerned, I remember at the warm up singing for each of the players in turn. We’d sing until we got a wave or got fed up. I always thought the players got a notion of exactly how much they were worth and they’d let the song go until an instant before we started thinking “Away and chase yourself, ya wide-o!” It just doesn’t happen any more. Other than the GB, there just seems to be a hum of chatter round the rest of the stadium.
Jude
Got them all :))
Dreadful night at Ayr though, 0 out of 7.
Neganon2 –
So it is being reported in the media that PL and RD tried to convince Ff to stay for another crack at the CL.
How does that sit with your agenda?
Oh and before you give us the “I don’t believe it” nonsense, you are constantly coming on here and slaughtering Celtic on the back of media speculation, so you can’t have it both ways.
Josh played the last 10 mins with the 18s V Airdrie 20s. Were down 2 nil at ht but fought back to win 4 -2. Another cracking goal from Mark Hill started the fight back!!
NegAnon2;
i agree comletetjy with you we are are a corrupt club and the fact that we along with others particiapated in the greatest corruption ever in scottish football speaks volumes about celtic and as much as certain folk try to defend the indefensible it just makes them part of the debacle and worse still they cannot see it.
re FF. Perhaps it is not black and white. Maybe Forster really does like Celtic but , understandably, wants to play in and receive the riches from the EPL. Maybe Celtic really would rather he wanted to stay here but, rather than keep him against his will and let his value drop they decide to cash in .
JJ
NegAnon2
13:52 on
10 August, 2014
Macjay 1 and what qualifies you to tell green man he is wrong. May we see your CV?
==============================================================
Fatal mistake,NegAnon2, old son.
I didn`t tell green man he was wrong.
My C.V.?
I wouldn`t be stupid enough to advise Celtic F.C.
I don`t have the qualifications to do so.
DOES GREEN MAN?
Hang on,pal.
Is green man unable to speak for himself?
Why does he need you to speak for him?
Has he gone to ground?
Neganon2, no coach could possibly be expected to change a team in 6 weeks and affect all the changes he wants, that isn’t realistic.
Ronny needs time, and backing, financially from the club, and as importantly he needs backing from the support.
To get the players and structures HE wants, not what Blog Managers want.
Given I, and you, do not know who those players are, nor what structures they are you are simply second guessing and speculating he is a patsy.
The language is offensive.
He is the Celtic Manager, I’ll give him time and back him.
D D
Ach thats a shame. They were brill prices too!!
mullet and co 2
13:38 on 10 August, 2014
Others have shown that its possible to do a significant amount more training and not suffer from fatigue or pick up injuries so its curious – especially when we have a playing squad that pick up soft tissue injuries so easily.
If you ever do watch a gaelic football game – make sure and check out the defenders, the men who need to be strong, are very strong.
Yet we have Efe Ambrose who regularly gets pushed off the ball for his lack of strength and is the same he was the day he walked through the door..
As I said there must be a reason, I dont know it, and it doesnt seem like our entourage of sports scientists know either.
ernie lynch
I think you need to let go of putting the boot into Celtic over FF
Fraser Forster wanted to leave Celtic and we took a near world record fee for
a goalkeeper.
If they want to go we take the money and move on, even if you can’t.
C’mon Macjay you like throwing your weight around. Let’s see it.
MacJay
Your posts this morning have been a breath of fresh air. Forza Sao Paolo Whiteinch!
Ole MIB Thomson dishing out the yellow cards to Hearts players …..setting up a wee red later given the opportunity
JJ –
Legia are claiming that Celtic ignored their phonecalls and emails that , according to them, could have let Legia remain in the CL.
Bunch of moaning gits.
Tom
Thanks.
JJ
macjay1 for neil lennon
13:37 on 10 August, 2014
TheOriginalSadiesBhoy
13:24 on
10 August, 2014
Can`t begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you have said.
“the club prosper”…………………….the beginning the middle and the end.
“Let’s get behind the team”………….the beginning the middle and the end.
I used to spend my student days defending Celtic to the “educated ” hun.
Lots of experience….sadly in the wrong field.
:-)
…………………………………
I had intended to say how much I was enjoying your style in knocking down the whingers :-))
Like everyone else, I can have the occasional negative rant but we have been given a life line we did not deserve. Many of us are still basking in the glow of being back in the Champions League. If we beat Maribor it will be an unexpected bonus as far as I’m concerned and I’ll be very happy and I think, at that point, the team will be strengthened. I don’t mind posters coming on and criticising strategy and other aspects of Celtic but when we have a so called Celtic fan coming on and calling Peter Lawell, ‘Liewell’ which is the term used by Huns in Scotland then that’s crossing boundaries. I also wish that I had been given the analytical powers of Kev Jungle, Syd and Neganon 2 who inform us day after day and sometimes ‘hunners of times’ a day exactly where it’s all going wrong.
Many of us renewed our season tickets just as many of the detractors did. We can choose to buy or not to do so but if they get as little pleasure out of supporting Celtic at the moment as they seem to do, why on earth do they bother.
NegAnon2
13:55 on
10 August, 2014
Yep PR bullshit and another sign of the contempt they hold us in.
We wanted to keep him but errrr we sold him……
____________
So in your eyes a player who has publicly stated his desire to leave for the EPL in the past, something which every supporter knew, is the clubs fault? I just do not understand your rationale here.
I want the club to hang onto our best players, just like all of us do but if a player has already decided he wants to leave, in your eyes, that is still the club being unambitious or treating the fans with contempt? Your anger is beginning to border on ridiculous.
bournesouprecipe
14:01 on 10 August, 2014
I’m not putting the boot into Celtic. From the Club’s perspective it’s probably the right time to sell him (from the player’s perspective I think he might have benefited from another season with us).
But we don’t need the ‘we don’t want to sell him, but er, we’re selling him’ nonsense. We’re selling him because the price is right, leave it at that.
How did Boyd not get booked for that…………………..
scottishrefsareAjoke
Tom I never use media speculation to attack the celtic board. I don’t need to I just see and judge the actions and inactions of the board.
So for the FF transfer who has reported that PL tried to convince him to stay? The evidence is he has gone with a daft unbelievable PR statement too.
You slag me for taking media comments but it’s actually you who is doing it.