For those who like their pleasure delayed, there is something wholesome in the wider awakening to the traits and abilities of Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese inherited a squad at Porto in 2002 that would achieve great things there and elsewhere, notably against Celtic in Seville a year later, then against Monaco in 2004, but Mourinho’s principle contribution to results was his indulgence in the game’s dark arts.
Later in his career he would achieve while out-spending competitors, or by ‘parking the bus’ while still outspending most. His temperament has always had a question mark over it. Never has he won a league after his second at a club, by then, the impression of brilliance has always unravelled.
He made a barbed comment aimed broadly in the direction of Brendan Rodgers last week, although the Celtic manager was not mentioned, before picking on his own squad this week. All will serve to divert attention from the fact that his spending is eye-watering and comparable to anywhere, but he will never get close to Manchester City.
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VFR
You can include me for the 30th.
JJ
Great to see this fabulous site back to its best.
Shame it’s taken taboo subjects to do it,though.
Disnae matter,CQN is back!
What did the special one say that was directed at Brendan?
The Pope live in Croke Park 25th August…..avoid Ticketmaster….
” He made a barbed comment aimed broadly in the direction of Brendan Rodgers last week ”
What was that comment?
JJ
IMATIM WANTS JUSTICE AND THE TITLES TO BE STRIPPED FROM THE CHEATS on 21ST MARCH 2018 11:54 AM
I don’t want this to seem like a personal thing against you as you are entitled to your opinion, but I wholeheartedly disagree (as an aside, I find your viewpoint somewhat ironic when I look at your blog name).
To take ownership of the situation and truly make amends Celtic MUST act unilaterally – we have McCafferty who was linked to our club recently in court, and if internet rumours are to be believed, Torbett will be in court fairly soon to answer to new charges. No other Scottish Club is in this position.
If we wait for a “smokescreen’ of other Clubs or abuse scandals it will be seen as exactly that – reacting at a time that provides the least damage and least visibility.
It is a significant stain on our great Club and I, for one,. would be very relieved if the current Board took ownership and faced the abuse that was perpetrated head-on!
KTF
Mourinho?
Staying in a hotel in a city he clearly has no time for. Missing his wife and kids. Mintit,and with a CV to die for.
What could possibly go wrong,Jose?
If I were him,I’d look at the first paragraph and retire to a life in the sun. In case he finds out the answer to the second paragraph.
P67
Mourinhos teams have always been cheats. I sat in a stadium in Seville in 2003 and saw my team cheated by Portugese divers. I wish him no favours. He is a cheat then and still is. Horrible manager.
NAS NA RI on 21ST MARCH 2018 11:44 AM
Thanks for sharing that story, although truly awful for the family and indeed yourself
HH
CRC
Whilst on about Brendan, what about this from Rob McLean at the BBC:
” It’s (The possible Double Treble) a spectacular achievement, but is it a major surprise? Not really. And it surely doesn’t compare with the transformation of a team from relegation contenders in October to top six qualifiers by mid-March.
That’s what Kilmarnock gaffer Clarke has done, without the aid of a magic wand or cash injection.
And we’re now at the stage that when Killie pull off another impressive result, like Saturday’s defeat of Rangers at Ibrox, it’s no shock.
It would be a shock if Clarke isn’t voted top manager.”
Apparently, moving a team four or five place up the table over five months is comparable with something which has never been done !
Dearie me.
JJ
VFR
Look forward to spending time in your company next week in Coias
HH
DD, Hot Smoked – table booked for 1 o’clock for 4 people; waiting on BRTH to let us know if he can join us.
BTW, this isn’t an exclusive club or clique – anyone is welcome to join us: 1 o’clock Sat 30th March in Coias Duke St before the game. Just let me know before Sunday so I can get a bigger table if needed!
greedybassasincoias CSC
KTF
He said something along the lines of, it would be easy for him to win leagues in a counry with a poor league.
Perhaps he meant Portugal!
NAS RA NI
Thank you for posting your friends story.
That was a brave thing to do.
Your pain and the palpable even now.
Take care.
Man Ure will be hoping PSG come in for Mourinho, boring football, critisizing fans and players on a weekly basis, embarassing outbursts, owners amd sponsors will want him out too.
LIONROARS67
Hope you are better soon!
YNWA
Delaney’s Dunky,
I’ve followed the posts on the Blog for the last couple of days and I thought I’d share a couple of things.
Until someone has been in that place where as you put it yesterday that ‘you were tired of life.’ It is very hard to explain. When I was very unwell I just couldn’t stop my head from thinking. It was like a washing machine. My head ached, my jaws, ears, neck with a constant tooth ache type pain. Sleep was out of the question. Everything was just darkness. It was just a constant noise in my head, everything I tried seemed to fail.
It was exhausting and I was done.
The first thing I remember them telling me in Cuan Mhuire (Harbour of Mary) was to stop thinking with my head and started trying to think from my heart.
Two things happened, that gave me some hope that I might be able to start thinking from my heart.
During the first week, we went to a Month’s Mind Mass for a man who had died in the room I was in the previous month. He had a family and I remember his kids walking into the Church. I remember the look on his wife’s face too, it was just a look of agony, she was with a woman called Sr Consillio, sheis the woman who started the centres. The Priest started to say the Mass and he mentioned the man’s name. When I heard the name everything stopped.
The man had the same name as my late grandfather in Glasgow.
As a teenage I’d been very close to my granddad. My own father had been very ill and was given four months to live when I was in early secondary school. My grandad had lived on the same street as me and looked after me. He’d told me about Johnny Thompson, about his time in New York and being a miner, the War, Scottish referees… He’d been a hero to me. He’d also had a devout faith. Hearing the name was just an odd spiritual moment and it just made me a little more aware and willing to listen.
Every evening all the residents meet to say the Rosary. I was in Newry and there are folk from both ‘traditions’ there. Everyone went to the Rosary. After a couple of weeks I was asked to find five guys to say the Rosary that evening. I asked a couple of guys and they laughed and said ‘We’re Protestants.’ In strong Belfast accents. Despite that they’d still come along and sit in the Oratory.
A few weeks later the same two guys came up to me and said ‘Do you still need us to do the Rosary.’ I said ‘Yes.’ That night they appeared with the Our Father and Hail Mary written out on pieces of paper and both led a Decade of the Rosary each. They were tough hard drinking men but in that moment I felt a sense of peace that I had never experienced. It was just amazing to see how conditioned beliefs fell away when guys just wanted to get well for their families.
It’s my experience that you will begin to notice odd coincidences as you get better and begin to wake up.
A few weeks later, I was making my first trip back to Glasgow. I was on the 5am bus from Drogheda to Dublin Airport. I was pretty nervous about the trip. I walked on the bus and met a guy who had been my Facilitator in Cuan Mhuire. I haven’t seen him since and it was bizarre meeting him at that time of the morning. He was able to chat away to me and calm me down. When I was at the Airport there was another woman I’d recently met on the Ryanair flight over.She was of a similar background to me and I just knew I was safe.
Over the last couple of years I have worked on myself and to be honest an awful lot of what went wrong, went back to my early childhood.I just grew up without the tools to live a balanced life in the Present Moment. I can do that now but it takes work.
Maybe it’s fair to say that every authority figure I ever came into contact with in my early days,seemed to let me down in one way or another. As a consequence of that I have carried resentment or wounds all of my life. I still don’t like and mistrust authority and have had to work really hard at forgiving things and letting things go. Last year I went to Knock and I Priest told me ‘Leave everything here in Knock. You are free.’ Despite that I came home and was sick for a week. I believe that the sickness was me letting go of toxins from my past.
Just about everyone I have listened to over the last two and a half years seems to be struggling with some kind of adverse childhood experience. It is quite shocking.
I am still very sceptical of organised religion but I have have met spiritual folk who are practicising members of religions, they have helped me to recover.
Anyway, I still don’t like authority figures, The PLC, SFA, SPFL, Moderators and assorted Happy Clappers:) :). Hopefully I will stop reacting in predictable ways when anyone tries to tell me what to do. There can be so much anger (the other side of fear). But that is reducing now and your sharing has helped me this week.
I’ve read that you aren’t working at the moment and I felt the same way for ages. It has taken me time to get better.
Another thing I’ve had to look out for was being triggered or broken open by well meaning folk. Recovery has been a journey and I sort of woke up not knowing who I was, or what I liked or what I wanted to do. I had acted my way through life, just to please folk I suppose.
Over the last couple of years, I have met some amazing characters and seen a fair bit of tragedy but you will begin to notice that people really have your back now.You might also be lucky enough to begin to learn what love is and begin to love yourself.
Fear had always blocked me off from asking for help.
In time I learned to accept things and believe that all of the pain was really life trying to slowly wake me up to reality.
You have loads to offer and as you work on yourself you will truly appreciate the extent of the gifts that you have you will be able to help so many people as you have this week.
Take your life and live it.
KTF & HH
Till Later,
Martin
TTT
Thanks
and the = is, sorry.
NAS NA RI on 21ST MARCH 2018 11:44 AM
Beautiful written post.
That can’t have been easy, in my opinion, when I was reading I could feel your emotion.
It’s such a sad situation that the authorities allowed it to be covered up.
I believe the more information that is out there, the less places there are for them to hide. Although in saying that the establishment will always do what it can do to protect its own.
Thank you for posting.
Hail Hail
VFR
The team who play at Ibrox have not been immune from employing beasts who harm children. Celtic Boys Club employed a beast who abused weans. Had he done it to any of my four children, he would not be alive today, and I would be serving a life sentence for murder. Why is the beast still alive?
DD
Sorry, Garry. Got your name correct eventually. I share your dislike of Mourhino. Imagine what the RM fans made of him parking the bus at home in a Euro semi final, esp when they lost. His win at any cost approach appeals to some but not true football fans. I would hate for Celtic ever to hire such a character.
There have been some tremendous and heartfelt posts on here in the last few days, wishing all those affected the strength and courage to get through their issues and go forward to a long and happy future!
CLOGHER CELT on 21ST MARCH 2018 12:21 PM
Another post from the heart.
I always enjoy reading your posts.
That one was very special. Thank you for sharing.
Hail Hail
test
Martin,
I had a rough idea of what you had been through before we met two years ago. Your lovely wife let us know that you were due an operation,with an indeterminate recovery period.
Your hospitality to me and my Dad in your beautiful village-and beyond!-will not be forgotten. Your efforts to make that weekend special will live for a long time.
A poster formerly of this parish still lurks,and mails me now and again. He has pointed out that there is a theory that the Irish bloodline/gene is prone to depression.
I googled it in the absence of time and means to do much more,and it seems that An Gorta Mor really didn’t do the survivors any favours either.
Look after yourself,bud. Give Y a wee hug from me. It’s not just the ill who suffer through depression.
Didn’t pick up on Mourinho’s veiled comment towards Brendan, then again couldn’t work out much of his car crash of a rant.
I’ve admitted before I quite like the football ball dark arts but not Mourinho style and would never want Celtic to go down that line.
Clogher Celt
Incredibly powerful stuff.
I’m sure reading that will bring hope and comfort to many.
I promised Clogher Celt and TheHandThatfeedsme an overview/explanation of what Celtic spend on players etc in the period to Dec 17, as reflected in the interim accounts, so here it is (eventually)
(1) Player acquisitions
In the period from 1 July 2017 to 31 December 2017 Celtic acquired
“the permanent registrations of Olivier Ntcham and Kundai Benyu, and the temporary registration of Patrick Roberts.” ( see Chairman’s statement page 2).
As mentioned previously, the full agreed transfer cost, loan fees plus any signing on fees is added to the balance sheet as an intangible asset and written off over the length of contract of the players.
This figure will also include any further trigger payment now due as part of the transfer fee ( but not necessarily paid) for any player acquisition that has now met an agreed milestone ( i.e qualifying for CL group stages, Number of appearances etc)
You will see in the notes 8 to the intangible asset section of the accounts ( page 12) that we added £6.634m, and this is our current committed cost for the agreed transfer fees, loan fees plus signing on costs etc for the above players, plus any additional trigger payments now crystallised for previous acquisitions.
It is NOT necessarily what we have paid out in the period to clubs in cash for the players, as there may be agreed payment terms over a longer period ( i.e. 40% on registration, 30% after 1 year, balance after 2 years etc. The 60% will be shown as a creditor within the balance sheet until physically paid in this example)
(2)Cash paid in period for player acquisitions
You will note from the cashflow statement (page 8) that we physically paid out £8,874m for Purchase of intangible assets. So, whilst we only added £6,634m value to the balance sheet, we paid out a higher amount.
The difference between these two figures is down to a number of factors, so effectively the £8.874m payment will include:
(1) Initial instalments and any further instalments paid for the players purchased in the July 2017 transfer window
(2) Further payments made for players purchased in previous transfer windows
(3) Additional payments that have triggered as due and PAID in the period due to hitting milestones within the transfer agreement of that player between the clubs.
(4) Any signing on fees actually paid to players in the period
The chairman’s statement (page 2) goes onto say “Subsequently, during the January 2018 transfer window, we have invested further by acquiring the permanent registrations…. Marvin Compper, … Lewis Morgan and Jack Hendry and the temporary registrations of …Charly Musonda and … Scott Bain.”
None of the costs for these players will be reflected in the above numbers and these will be shown in the accounts to 30 June 2018.
(3) Profit from transfer of player registrations (shown as profit on disposal of intangible assets) £0.5m (2016: £2.0m)
“Our profit on disposal of intangible assets of £0.5m (2016: £2.0m) largely reflects the transfer of the registrations of Gary Mackay Steven and Saidy Janko.” Page 2 of the chairman’s statement
We have recognised in the accounts to 31 December 2017, proceeds due from other clubs of £820k, making a paper profit of £482k based on the net value ( Original Cost less amortisation to date) of those players disposed in the period vs the proceeds due from their sale
This is calculated as follows
(A)Original cost of players now transferred ( Page 12; Note 8) £2,591k
(B) Less : amortisation of those players at date of transfer ( Page 12; Note 8) £2,253k
(C)Net Value of players at date of transfer (A-B) £338k
(D) Profit from transfer of player registrations (page 5) £482k
(E) Transfer fees payable on players disposed (C-D) £820k
Whilst we are due proceeds of £820k from the sale of these players, we actually received cash of £5,769k* in respect of monies paid for transfers. Again this will be down to several factors as mentioned above (i.e.payment terms, additional trigger payments now paid etc)
*This is called “Proceeds from sale of intangible assets” and can be seen on page 8 of the accounts within the cashflow statement.
http://cdn.celticfc.net/assets/downloads/Interim%20Results%202017%20FINAL.pdf
HH
CRC
Nas na Ri, Clogher Celt,
Your stories are harrowing and desperately sad, but what strikes me is the eloquent way you relate them.
That also goes for DD.
The courage and generosity of spirit you have shown, in aid of another soul, is awesome and inspiring and truly comes from the heart.
DELANEYS DUNKY on 21ST MARCH 2018 12:29 PM
G, the point I am making is not necessarily that any other club is free from guilt; rather, that it is irrefutable that our Club is guilty. As a consequence, we should act as we see fit and not hide in the shadow of the guilt of others!
KTF
VFR . If you count count me in for Coias it would be much appreciated. HH
Clogher Celt
This is an amazing coincidence. I was on the phone to BMCUW this morning. I asked him if he had been in touch with you lately. I believe in fate. Your post has just blown my mind. I have very similar issues like you. I have not really thought about you since Easter 2016 when you got me and my son Ryan tickets for the Ireland v Switzerland match. Why did I think of you today and ask Mick if he had heard from Martin in Ireland? Great to read your eloquent post Martin. It was what I needed to read. Life is strange at times. In the words of Saint Theresa. There is no such thing as coincidence. Everything in life happens for a reason. You have just confirmed that Martin. Thank you my friend. X
Gerry57
Miss you pal. You always put a smile on my face. When I spend time in your company I always feel better. God bless you G
HH
VFR
I did not mean to bring the huns into your debate. Celtic need to get our hoose in order regarding paedophile scum
HH
AG
Will be great to see you again my friend. Coias do some great scran.
HH
Re-post from last article.
Interesting story from a Bob Marley bio I read…
As a up and coming artist struggling to make his way Marley had signed up with producer Leslie Kong who had a bit of a stranglehold on the music scene in Jamaica at the time.
Kong being a bit of a dodgy geezer didn’t pay Marley for some songs he’d recorded for him.
Marley approached him on his own and asked for the money he was owed and Kong team handed gave him a short shrift.
Marley fixed Kong with a stare and stated before he left that he could see them working again in the future,Kong would gain wealth hitherto unseen by him but wouldn’t be able to enjoy that wealth. This revelation and the tone of it’s delivery left Kong startled.
And so it was some years later there paths crossed again and Kong released a Wailers best of against the bands wishes.
Some weeks after that Kong’s accountant came to tell him the ‘ good ‘ news that he had just became a millionaire. That very day Kong went home unwell and died of a heart attack at thirty something ,with no history of heart trouble the docs were mystified.
Possibly a coincidence but a interesting wee tale
AngelGabriel – added to the ZZ Top CSC for Coias!
KTF