Spurs have dispensed with the man once thought Europe’s hottest guru manager (don’t believe in guru managers). Villas Boas was a failure as manager but he was a mere symptom of their problems. Splurging circa £100m on vagrant misfits should be enough to disguise the fact that you don’t have a sustainable strategy. For a while. But primary responsibility lies with whoever authorised the budget in the first place.
Selling that chap with the funny hair to Madrid went some way towards offsetting the cost of this summer’s acquisitions, but Spurs wage bill for the new arrivals will dwarf the money paid to those who departed. This is the more serious problem.
They are left with players on long and expensive contracts who look like they auditioning for a West End show. Forget about Spurs recouping their ‘investment’, the chances of players attracting contract offers which match the cash the Cockerel coughs up each month is zero.
The Bale money is gone and those new contracts written in the summer will inhibit the club for years. What next: downsizing, or another visit to the roulette table, gambling with even bigger stakes next time?
Here’s what happens when you sell your star player: everyone and their grannie wants the money spent. “The [Insert club name] board need to show their ambition”. This comes from fans, the media, the manager, scouts, family members and every taxi driver in a 30 mile radius. And why wouldn’t they spend an apparent windfall, that’s what the money’s there for, after all.
It’s at this point clubs lose all self-awareness. Reinforced by the success which led to the development and profitable sale of a prime asset in the first place, the organisation’s view of its reach, not to mention competency, is obliterated. “We have spent money well in the past, look, here is the evidence, therefore we can spend this even larger amount of money well now”.
With this belief now orthodoxy, every pore in the organisation secretes an intoxicating scent attracting the club to market. Unfortunately, the rewards for spending big are heady and instant, though they seldom last as long as the hangover.
Directors are celebrated, ticket and merchandise sales get a short-term kick. The manager and coaches get to play with more expensive toys; quite literally, everyone is happy. This is narco-football, only accommodated by ever-bigger hits. For some, this narco-football offers proof that management share wider stakeholder aspirations. I contend otherwise.
The heresy to this orthodoxy reads differently:
Clubs should mistrust their successes, they are evidentially more random than most are prepared to accept.
Windfall transfer income is more likely to draw clubs away from the part of the market they are most competent in. It is an acknowledged fact that sellers and agents literally see them coming.
Don’t go searching for the instant hit, you’re more likely to miss. If necessary, take some short-term pain while using resources to enhance recruitment infrastructure.
Heresy in any area of life is seldom met with quiet contemplation. Narco-football heresy is more likely to be met with a rationalisation that the heretics don’t share orthodoxy’s core values – sustainable success of the football club – no matter how many references to “sustainable success of the football club” they make. It’s Salem-esque.
The orthodox-heretic analogy is evident where three or more are gathered in any club’s name. The first club who manage to unite everyone behind the heretic’s charter will clean up/reach nirvana/find salvation/achieve ultimate enlightenment/do lunch with Tom Cruise.
CQteN St Patrick’s Day Dinner is now FULLY BOOKED. Many thanks for everyone who responded so quickly. We are well on the way to raising the money to build a kitchen and shelter at the Kholoni Primary School in Malawi (for details check here).
Just a few posting days left to order your CQN Annual before Christmas, £5 from every sale goes to the Malawi appeal:
Sean Fallon: Celtic’s Iron Man:
[calameo code=000390171ece27dd9e54e lang=en page=98 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]
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Saint Stivs
Correct! They landed a spitfire there. It was in the Sunday Sport.
LB
LiviBhoy – God bless wee Oscar
10:47 on 18 December, 2013
Saint Stivs
Correct! They landed a spitfire there. It was in the Sunday Sport.
It was Princess Diana that landed it for them IIRC?
livibhoy – god bless wee oscar
10:47 on 18 December, 2013
Saint Stivs
Correct! They landed a spitfire there. It was in the Sunday Sport.
LB
I believe it was Elvis who landed the spitfire on the moon. @sunday sport
did the nazis not get to the moon first ?
i am sure i saw a documentary about that
Mmm I think it was Vampires…
The Wan in the Moon.
MWD
yorkbhoy,
You’ve taken that too far!
The moon landings– the view from a man who is about to board a plane and whizz through the air..
The technology required to fake it did not exist .
Buon Natale tutti !
The Clangers not the first to make it to the moon???
LB
When does a rebel become a requisitioner?
What’s so wrong with the word rebel?
Repost from last night, hope you like it, I’ve put the link to the original Guardian article at the bootom of page.—
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/32980
Uefa, Celtic and the Guardian. How are we supposed to express our views?
By Tony Attwood
I saw a picture of a Celtic banner at a match recently which said Fuck Uefa. And I felt 100% agreement with that.
I saw a commentary in the Guardian newspaper (a liberal left broadsheet which has recently done, in my view, enormous good in revealing the extent to which the US government spies on the world, and how the UK government kow-tows to this behaviour) calling this an “indiscretion.”
The context of the article in the Guardian was on the issue of raising banners of political philosophy at football matches.
Now this being Celtic – a club with a long religious tradition – I need to explain my religious position – just to avoid any suggestions that I am on some side other than that which I am on. I’m not religious in the slightest and don’t support one religious cause against another. I am an English atheist. I have no truck with calls for religious freedom until atheists get the same freedoms, which means removing the Bishops from the law making process in my country.
So that’s the context out of the way. Back to the banner, and I must admit when I see a set of banners that say, “The terrorist or the dreamer, the savage or the brave, depends on whose vote you are trying to catch, or whose face you are trying to save,” I find it interesting, stimulating and the source of a significant level of debate. Not religious debate but debate on politics, manipulation and control.
Now back to the Guardian’s article. I found it extraordinarily confused – for it was an attack on the Green Brigade seemingly for bringing politics into football. And yet football is politics – football is controlled by a fanatical corrupt all powerful tax free group known as Fifa. By being a willing member of Fifa, my country, England, allies itself with that corruption, and its policy of appeasement towards homophobes, male supremacists and fraudsters. My view is that what we need is a proper political and philosophical debate in football, starting with a debate on the ethics and morality of the Football Association being a member of the cartel and the clubs failure to break away from any association with Fifa and Uefa.
So for me the interesting thing is that what is not debated in the Guardian article is the question of why political displays are not to be allowed at football matches. Where does this come from? Football has the most appalling history of sexism (just read the history of the way the League destroyed women’s football) and self-serving insensitivity – and it seems we are never to engage in this debate at the place where football is played.
Why the Guardian article (which interestingly is unsigned) is so terse and against political action within a football ground is unclear. Their article, although long, rather has the effect of the person who reads a 1000 word article on Untold with a closely argued point responds by writing in to say, “You’re typical Arsenal wankers. Fuck off”. Writing it may have given the writer pleasure, but it doesn’t actually take the debate on.
The Guardian quotes the Green Brigade thus: “It is our opinion that the level of apathy from Celtic PLC towards the criminalisation of their supporters is unforgivable,” The Guardian’s response was “It was both the latest indication of youthful egos running amok and the lack of regard they have for either their own club or appropriate behaviour.”
That’s pretty much just abuse, and it was the source of abuse that people who try to redefine what is happening in our society suffer. Our society has repeatedly criminalised different groups of people, ranging from the women of 1910 who fought for the right to vote, to the miners of the same era who fought for the right to a living wage.
Now I found my own way to express the way society criminalises whole groups through the football book “Making the Arsenal”. It seemed to be a perfectly legitimate way to do this. Why is a banner at a football match less valid? Indeed I have no idea about the issue has developed, and I would have welcomed some insight and information. I got none.
My point is not that I support the Green Brigade, but I am thoroughly against what I think this Guardian article is saying – that there is no place for politics in football grounds. This is wrong because football is a political business, and to pull our right to debate the politics, hands yet more power to Fifa and Uefa. By being associated with Fifa, Uefa is tainted. By failing to deal with racism across Europe at games, Uefa exists in the same mire as the perpetrators. By holding people in appalling conditions for days on end for wearing t-shirts with beer adverts on while walking off with millions of pounds in tax free earnings while the poverty of South African townships continues, Fifa sinks to the bottom of the cesspit. By playing in the Fifa world cup, the FA associates itself favourably with these people.
This is all politics. OK it is my political rant, but is the Guardian really saying the Celtic supporters are not allowed to vent their political and philosphical views while the disgusting policies of Fifa and Uefa which treat wearing a t-shirt with the wrong beer on it as a far greater offence than overt racist chanting?
To me, it is the behaviour of Fifa and Uefa, and the wow the FA has bowed down to them that gives every single one of us the right to politicise football. Indeed it demands that we open up the debate on football, the clubs and their political stance.
What is wrong with protesting against the policies of the club, the directors and as the Guardian puts it “Scotland’s political landscape” at a football match? When the silly little man stood behind Mr Wenger in the West Stand with his “spend some fucking money” no one complained about his right to do it. I railed against the message, but not about his right to do it.
In fact the papers lapped that scene up. When Mr Wenger arrived, all the papers were on the steps of Highbury suggesting there was a story about his sexual preferences. That’s ok is it, while the activities of the Green Brigade is not?
Why?
According to the Guardian’s article (and you’ll notice I am calling it this, because as I stress again it was not signed by an individual) said, “…the Green Brigade has fallen into the trap of believing both their own hype and their significance in relation to a football club which has given them more grace than they were entitled to.”
But then it gets confused. The article talks about letting off fireworks, and on this I am with them, because that is not a matter of political or social debate. Any smoke bombs, fireworks etc must be stopped – and indeed I said so in a recent piece. I want Arsenal to take action against Everton fans. In fact more than that I want Everton to take action. They can see from the film where the fans were, and they know who they sold those tickets to. And I feel this because of the damage fireworks and smoke bombs can do.
But the Guardian also says, “The Green Brigade’s standard, domestic displays are dominated by the issuing of left-field messages rather than direct support for Lennon’s successful team.” OK so why has the Guardian not commented on the fact that for several years the Ems has been dominated by the AAA with some of the most bizarre left field messages football has ever seen?
When Celtic visited Motherwell, smoke bombs thrown and I am told damage was caused to a stand. I am not supporting that. I am supporting the right to bring political debate into football, and saying that the fact that it is not brought into football is part of the cause of much of what is wrong with football.
Here’s another Guardian comment…
“Ironically the Green Brigade perceives Scotland’s national police force as somehow out to get them.”
Now in that I have sympathy with the Green Brigade, because for much of my life I have seen members of the English police force out to get me when I become a football supporter. I am now in my 60s, but even so just a few years ago – the last time we played Cardiff at their old ground – I saw some of the worst police behaviour against a non-violent non-aggressive crowd. One group of people were out of control – and it was the police – and it was frightening to be targeted by them. Sometimes perceiving yourself as a victim is not wrong, because you are the victim.
I am not supporting the Green Brigade in any way because clearly I don’t have the knowledge to be able to argue for or against them. I am just saying sometimes the issues need to be debated, no matter how that debate is arranged.
Ewan Murray who wrote the Guardian article. http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/dec/10/celtic-green-brigade-supporters …
It was actually Celtics next 30 goals a season striker who landed the spitfire on the moon
In advance of the inaugural Annual General Heist,
a paid rocket has revealed that the ranjurs plan to have wan team for the Moon,
another for the Stars
………………….and a youth team for Alpha Centauri………….
Aye!
What a fantastic night at The Pogues last night. I must have seen them about 20 times going back to roughly 1985 when they played The Mucky Duck in Shotts but last night ranks up there with the best of them, even the Fruit Market when Shane had missed his flight and they didn’t come on until after 11pm.
How he manages to remember all the lyrics is a feat of nature in itself!!
Some people claiming their seats early for the Sevco AGM
pic.twitter.com/WwvZBT9WP8
https://twitter.com/petethefoot/status/405969797286232064/photo/1
I think you’ll find Elvis landed a Lancaster bomber on the other moon.
Cheese is too flammable for a Spitfire landing
NatKnow – Supporting Wee Oscar et al.
“heard there were 2 astronauts on the Chinese mission – Wan Wee Step & Wan Jian Leep”
Absolutely correct, they were funded by the well known Chinese billionaire Cha Ching.
HH.
If they faked it, they would have got their lines correct.
One small step for a man.
the green man
09:49 on 18 December, 2013
You could have fooled me…….
Huns in Space……….
“That’s wan small, drunk step for a bam……”
cathedral view
11:04 on 18 December, 2013When does a rebel become a requisitioner?What’s so wrong with the word rebel?cathedral view
Must be a Masonic term….
11:04 on 18 December, 2013When does a rebel become a requisitioner?What’s so wrong with the word rebel?cathedral view
11:04 on 18 December, 2013When does a rebel become a requisitioner?What’s so wrong with the word rebel?
Livibhoy
That is typical misinformation from a Sunday red top. It was a Hawker Huuricane MK2 from the City of Edinburgh 602 squadron.
It crash landed in the Firth of Forth in 1940 but was salvaged by a passing UBoat and off loaded in Hamburg and taken by lorry to Peenemunde.
It lay there for 4 years and was used as the landing module on top of a V2 when the Nazis travelled to the moon.
It was the ideal choice being of sturdier construction than the Spitfire or Messerschmidt 109 or Focke Wolfe 190 and of course was cheap having fallen off the back of a lorry.
It was supposed to be a return module as well but could not reach the necessary escape volicity in no air and simply bounced a quarter of mile away from the Father ship. ( Nazi’s did not do Motherships).
Luckily for the naztronauts my auld fella was passing by in his Zoomer saucer and picked them up and dropped them off at a prisoner of war camp near Eaglesham.
And that’s the truth because its what ma da told me and he was there and ah wisnae.
” Renfrewshire – we huv a problem!”
Dharma bam
Naw it wisnae a Lancaster it wiz a Wellington. No wonder so many planes get shot doon by their ain side.
Correct on the combustiability of the Spitfire though. Ah forgot tae mention that wiz another reason for using a Hurri on the Nazi moon mission.
So, what exactly was the result of Our Hero’s Ticketus court case? I understood last night, he had won it, but according to the Retard, he lost.
Confused.com
HH
I did get an Airfix Apollo 11 rocket for Christmas hopefully without anyone noticing craftily turning the conversation away from the moon landings back to Christmas presents which was a lot more fun
Was definately a mcgills double decker on the moon. You can see it through a telescope. It was torched recently by Celtic fans according to the DR
What’s your favourite media comment ?…..mine is “some fans are saying that…….”
Billy Bhoy 05
09:38 on
18 December, 2013
Frank
You peepl will make any excuses to stay tied to the unionists.You are entitled to but please do us a favour and let us Scots decide our future.
===
What should ‘you peepl’ (your words) do? Just go home after all the famine is over isn’t it! Perhaps you may wish to elaborate exactly what you consider a Scot to be – perhaps only those who are ‘Blood of our blood, bone of our bone perhaps’ (copyright Wee Alex). Or perhaps you define a Scot as someone living in Scotland that agrees with a divorce from team GB because the imperial bank is bust and the union no longer has any tangible benefit? Those definitions of course exclude anyone who can actually see the hypocrisy of Scots Nats asking for self determination when The Scots nation in partnership with England have denied that fundamental right to so many for so long and still celebrate Scots involvement in team GB’s imperialistic adventures. Or consider those in the ‘Scots’ population from an Irish Catholic background that have reservations regarding an SNP governed independent Scotland. Nothing the SNP has done recently would incline someone from that particular demography to vote yes for a divorce from England – destroying evidence regarding sectarian harassment and attacks on the Catholic minority, laws passed to specifically target Scottish citizens from Irish Catholic stock who have the audacity to sing songs about sacrifice and freedom.
And should you wonder if i am Anti Scots – why far from it my maternal grandmother was born and raised in Glasgow of Scots Presbyterian stock
67Heaven
like ive said many times on this blog.
Ive been watching Celtic for nearly 50 years, one of my first conscious memories as a human being, was watching bobby lennox at CP.
Now, let me repeat that in case you don’t get it….almost fifty years watching Celtic, home and away..
Your attempt to draw division between supporters is laughable…ha ha
Or maybe im one of those “bad” Celtic fans you dislike.
However, I still love you:)
HH
Auldheid
Was your auld man one of the Jetsons?
LB
Oops! There goes another 7000 Sevco shares.
Roll up, roll up, cash your shares in before they’re worth hee-haw!
HH
..or Chuck Yeager?
Auldheid, I bow to your superior lunar landing lore.
BTW, do you know then which vehicle Elvis then used to leave the other moon and time travel back to Rome?
http://www.kovels.com/news-news-news/roman-statue-looks-like-elvis.html
Fangyewverrymush.csc
Dharma Bam \o/ stands up for Neil Lennon
11:10 on 18 December, 2013
I think you’ll find Elvis landed a Lancaster bomber on the other moon.
Cheese is too flammable for a Spitfire landing
But if they HAD used a Spitfire – would it have created Roasted Cheese or Toasted Cheese?
:-)
Auldheid @ 11.15 hrs.
Your post Its all true.
I saw the film its called Iron Sky ( 2012 )
It tells the story of Nazi Germans who, after being defeated in 1945, fled to the Moon where they built a space fleet to return in 2018 and conquer Earth.
So we have the naztronauts returning in about 4 years. Maybe mickbhoy 1888 is correct any they will bring our 30 goal a season striker.
HH.
Greenpinata
Does that mean Peter Lawwell told the truth about a bid for Gary Hooper from another planet in another galaxy?
LB
This is when we feel the terrible losss of Paul McConville. Two stories that need a thoughtful, knowledgeable explanation. There is, literally, nobody in the press or TV who could be relied on to understand, let alone tell the truth, about either event.