When an unexpected name flies into the frame from left field there’s always a concern about what you’ve written about him before. I still remember the day we signed Kenny Miller, and an earlier blog with my assessment of the player (subsequently found to be on the money). While it’s important to be fair when assessing players, I’m not in the business of trashing them before they kick a ball for Celtic, so Miller’s signing was not a comfortable one.
With this in mind, I typed “Leigh Griffiths” into the articles database to check what had been written. Apart from match reports, there was only one comment, the day after last season’s Scottish Cup Final:
“Leigh Griffiths has had plenty of uncomplimentary discourse written about him this season, most of it deserved, so it should be recorded that he was the first Hibs player to return applause in the direction of Celtic fans yesterday, closely followed by his team-mates.
“This is the way football should be. For too long our game has been poisoned by the unique kind of rivalry you got in Scotland. More of the same, please.”
He unquestionably did deserve the criticism that came his way last year. If he gets his move to Celtic he needs to grow as a person, as well as a player, which is a big challenge. His move towards the Celtic support at Hampden was a modest but necessary first step towards reassessing other people.
Having said this, don’t go ordering your ‘Griffiths’ shirt just yet, I reckon a deal has no more than a 50% chance of happening. Wolves didn’t invite our interest and our need is to be ready by June, not February. Neither club has an imperative to do this deal, which is often an omen for snags to get in the way. Patience required, as you know………
Reminder to everyone who booked tickets for the CQteN St Patrick’s Day Dinner that they have to be paid by this Friday! Let me know if you can’t find details, celticquicknews@gmail.com
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No matter,Geordie, I am off to watch a programme about animals and how they think !
Cheerio,
JJ
Sergio: Rangers dragging down Templeton
FORMER Hearts boss Paolo Sergio has compared David Templeton to “a top pianist in a bad orchestra”.
Sergio worked with Templeton during his time at Tynecastle, and believes the winger has been stunted by Rangers’ spell in the lower leagues.
Sergio said: “At this time I don’t believe it’s best for David. You could argue he should stand out more because he’s up against players with less ability than him, but the way I see it is if you are a top pianist playing in a bad orchestra then the music won’t be as good. Especially when you are being conducted by the fat lady” (Record)
YNWA ringing out at Anfield.
Pale imitation of the real thing.
HH!!
tonydonnelly67
15:41 on
28 January, 2014
The UK distributers, Distillers, paid compensation in 1973, but the German manufacturers who passed the drug on as safe for pregnant women have never paid compensation to anyone outside of Germany.
A recent positive development.
Perhaps a precedent.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-02/thalidomide-victims-in-australia-get-multi-million-dollar-payout/5128298
macjay1 for Neil Lennon
20:01 on 28 January, 2014
sent the link to Phil
Everton 15/4
Just watching The build up to the Merseyside Derby great how the Everton supporters Mcmanaman and Owen Who played for Liverpool respecting Both. Team’s culture
I see some questions on Twitter re our club arranging a collection for Airdrie youth team.
Now the youngsters are innocent so, hey, why not. But the ‘heritage’ of this club is rotten.
Let me take you back to the 1973 Cup Final. I had a part time job as a pirate taxi driver in Airdrie. On the Friday night before the final, where we were to face the Dead Club, I took several fares to the Airdrionians Supporters Club. On picking them up at the end of evening, I entered the club (and it was quite a large hall) to find the whole place singing and dancing to the band playing ‘ We’ll be running round Hampden with the cup’. And they didn’t mean us.
The next day I went to Hampden and we lost 2-3 to Tam Forsyth’s late scramble of a winner.
That evening I endured wild scenes of celebration back at Airdrie FC’s social club.
The thing is, that same day p, Airdrie FC were officialy relegated from the top league, Division 1.
But the Hun sang on.
The wumen that LG has the weans to
Does anyone know if they are absolute dolls or pure growlers man
And should this be a factor in whether we sign him or not
Or should we stick to trivial matters like cost, footballing ability and suitability for the team
Tough one
LG is better than what we have, he scores goals, Neil wants him so do I, He will join no matter his off field antics.
Chuffed if he signs.
KLV
Jungle Jim
Don’t know – only picked the score up from bet365 In-play.
Stuart Bathgate: Rangers saviours wanted
Published: 27 January 2014
The team is still guided by a Rangers man in Ally McCoist. Picture: SNS
By STUART BATHGATE
THERE was no drum roll on Friday afternoon. No gory display of a severed head. Nothing that could be construed as playing to the gallery or placating the mob.
Instead, there was just a dispassionate announcement. Brian Stockbridge, the focus of outrage and discontent for many Rangers supporters, had resigned as a director of the club.
“No ex gratia benefit or bonus” had been paid to the finance director, according to Rangers’ statement. He had received his annual salary, but that was it. A clean break. No loose ends or lingering uncertainties. A problem sorted.
Granted, Stockbridge, for all that he had become an object of such widespread execration, was no more than a small problem. Rangers’ difficulties did not begin with his arrival in June 2012, nor have they evaporated with his departure 19 months later. Nonetheless, his disposal still represents a move in the right direction – towards a healthier, more efficiently run club which can be trusted by its supporters. And, perhaps more significantly, it is an example of the modus operandi which is steadily garnering respect for chief executive Graham Wallace.
These are early days for Wallace, who was only appointed in November. Given what has gone on before him, some continued scepticism is understandable when it comes to assessing his ability to sort Rangers out. But so far, he has gone about his unenviable task calmly and efficiently, which may just be exactly what is needed. As no-one needs reminding, incalculable quantities of emotive bluster have been expended about the stricken club over the past couple of years. Some agonised outbursts have been wholly understandable: in the cases of people with genuine, long-term attachments to the club, you can appreciate why they should be driven to distraction by what has gone on.
In other cases, the bombast may have been less sincere. Charles Green, for one, appeared ready enough to make the right noises about Rangers in a bid to get the fans on his side, and somewhat less prepared to go about his job with unimpeachable transparency. Dave King, while having an attachment to Rangers far more enduring than Green’s, is another case.
As Tom English spelled out in Scotland On Sunday yesterday, the ostensible saviour of the club has been long on rhetoric, short on hard cash. And, at this stage of proceedings, coming on two years since Craig Whyte took Rangers into administration, there is no need for any more bombast. What there is a need for is clarity, and calmness, and a cool, detached determination to get things done.
Imagine Rangers as a patient, lying in the operating theatre a couple of miles down the road at the Southern General. Green would be inside the room, bragging about how he had grown to love this stricken individual – and doing nothing effective about it. King would be somewhere further away, possibly even thousands of miles away, insisting that something had to be done to get this fallen giant back on his feet – and doing nothing effective about it.
And Wallace? Maybe, just maybe, we can envisage him as the surgeon who has examined the case in cold blood, settled on a prognosis, and is now carrying out a course of action that he is sure will be effective. And maybe –albeit at the risk of hyperextending this medical metaphor – we can envisage two of Wallace’s colleagues there too, playing their part in an operation designed to end in the restoration of rude health.
Consultant Philip Nash should shortly be confirmed as Rangers’ financial director in place of Stockbridge, and has a track record at Liverpool and Arsenal that should at least inspire a little more confidence than his potential predecessor. Chairman David Somers has a similarly solid background, and has so far demonstrated exactly the kind of independence that the role demands.
It was possibly difficult last month to take every word of Somers’ statement literally when he claimed that, until joining the board in November, he had “never heard of Charles Green, Imran Ahmad, Craig Whyte, or any of the other characters in Rangers’ history”. More important, though, were the two sentences that followed: “To my knowledge, I have never met them, nor had business dealings with them. Nor would I recognise them if I passed them on a street.”
But in any case, by claiming ignorance of Green and those others whom he euphemistically described as “characters”, Somers made a couple of useful points. Not only did he have no link with those discredited figures, he had no interest in finding out about them. He was not concerned with the past, and had arrived at Ibrox with no baggage, either good or bad, relating to what had gone before.
He had arrived to do a job. A job that did not entail any previous emotional commitment, real or merely feigned, to Rangers. Like the way in which Wallace dealt with Stockbridge, Somers’ statement was a good example of the dispassionate attitude being brought to bear at Ibrox. It is an attitude that is no more than basic, decent business practice, but has nonetheless been conspicuous by its absence from the club for too long.
What is more, it probably has its roots in the assessment that many neutral observers of Rangers would make. To those who can remain impartial, neither desperate for a rapid resurrection nor hopeful of a continued decline, there has been one central question about Rangers ever since the club went into administration nearly two years ago. That is, not if they will ever recover from their financial woes, but how long it will take.
Given the size of the support base, eventual recovery appears certain. The timing will be variable, depending on how soundly or otherwise Ibrox is run. Without full knowledge of the state of the club’s finances, we cannot be certain, but at least judging by the way in which Wallace and his key colleagues are going about their business, it now looks like that recovery will be completed sooner rather than later.
rubicon
20:04 on 28 January, 2014
I see some questions on Twitter re our club arranging a collection for Airdrie youth team.
Now the youngsters are innocent so, hey, why not. But the ‘heritage’ of this club is rotten.
Let me take you back to the 1973 Cup Final. I had a part time job as a pirate taxi driver in Airdrie. On the Friday night before the final, where we were to face the Dead Club, I took several fares to the Airdrionians Supporters Club. On picking them up at the end of evening, I entered the club (and it was quite a large hall) to find the whole place singing and dancing to the band playing ‘ We’ll be running round Hampden with the cup’. And they didn’t mean us.
The next day I went to Hampden and we lost 2-3 to Tam Forsyth’s late scramble of a winner.
That evening I endured wild scenes of celebration back at Airdrie FC’s social club.
The thing is, that same day p, Airdrie FC were officially relegated from the top league, Division 1.
But the Hun sang on.
Hun Skelper
He may not be everyones choice but its a transfer thats got everyone talking!
This one had me screaming.
Surgeons examining Sevco in cold blood now….oh the irony. Far too stupid and arse licky to even notice ;-)
Rubicon,
That reminds me of the day we won 5-0 at Love St to pip Hearts in 86.
The Saints fans cheered at HT coz the hunz were wining at Ibrox – even though it meant they would finish below the hunz and therefore miss out on a UEFA spot.
A “We are all chick young” moment!
You couldn’t meet a better bunch of loyal fans than the ones who support Airdrie……top drawer = Airdrie scarf……..bottom drawer = hun scarf
Sorry jj, I got distracted.
Same back 5 as Sunday with broonie, nir and Joe/Charlie/ New dude in the middle. Kc in front of them and the rest of his sunshine band (balde and pukki) up top.
But any 11 will do;)
I live in Airdrie and its the exact same still now Bhoys,
KLV
In case anyone’s interested – Reading 2 Donkeys 0!
Billy Bhoy supports wee Oscar
Whit aboot the huns all cheering Madly(runs in the family) when Kidd scored…
…….och whit a shame is wasn’t Walter.
Embdy know any Tims called Walter?
hoopy-do
20:05 on
28 January, 2014
The wumen that LG has the weans to
Does anyone know if they are absolute dolls or pure growlers man
And should this be a factor in whether we sign him or not
Or should we stick to trivial matters like cost, footballing ability and suitability for the team
Tough one
____________
Dont worry if we sign the lad these women will be all over the tabloid press.Interviews the lot a hope Lenny is ready for all the crap thats going to descend from our press boys ever weekend.Thats the problem.
thunder road
20:12 on 28 January, 2014
Your no joking, when he signs am giving this place a miss, meltdown will be a understatement going by what’s happening with a bid going in :-) HH
Blackpool 2-0 down
Not the best of starts for wee Barry Guardiola
Gerard 1-0
Bullet header Stevie G …superb
Excellent ball Suarez
Stevie G 1-0 Pool
KLV
Rubicon
20:04 on
28 January, 2014
I see some questions on Twitter re our club arranging a collection for Airdrie youth team.
Now the youngsters are innocent so, hey, why not. But the ‘heritage’ of this club is rotten.
Let me take you back to the 1973 Cup Final. I had a part time job as a pirate taxi driver in Airdrie. On the Friday night before the final, where we were to face the Dead Club, I took several fares to the Airdrionians Supporters Club. On picking them up at the end of evening, I entered the club (and it was quite a large hall) to find the whole place singing and dancing to the band playing ‘ We’ll be running round Hampden with the cup’. And they didn’t mean us.
The next day I went to Hampden and we lost 2-3 to Tam Forsyth’s late scramble of a winner.
That evening I endured wild scenes of celebration back at Airdrie FC’s social club.
The thing is, that same day p, Airdrie FC were officialy relegated from the top league, Division 1.
But the Hun sang on.
—————————————————-
As I’ve said before, there are many clubs in Scotland who define themselves by seeing us as the enemy. But Airdrie have actually built the sash into their strip. That tells you something.
Its no wee barrys fault Bhoys, Its no his team he will be a great manager one day. Aye. lol ;)
KLV
Just tuned in, is Aidan playing for Everton?
I love the process of socialisation on cqn. Starts with a £6m striker beings signed and ends with deep gratitude for ANYONE being signed. Classic psychology. Well done Paul and PL.
You gotta hand it to em……..
Billybhoy
The buddies qualified for Europe.
And I’m sure they went further than the currants.
Kenny Miller looked like a worldbeater in the 3-0 Benfica win. Not before or after though.
He looked a better player when he was with FC Zombie.
Good evening friends
Moonbeams WD @18:23
“There will come a day, not too far away, when our buy young sell fir a quick buck policy will see us struggle to qualify for CL or see us consistently humped in group stages.”
The day has already come, MWD. We were consistently humped this year. As we should have been by a much more powerful Barca, as we were by a weakened but still streetwise and expensive Milan, and as we were, as the weaker of the two teams overall, in our games against Ajax.
As 4th seeds, defeat is what is predicted and what the bookies and neutrals expect at CL level. The fact that it has not consistently happened is because we have punched above our weight in previous tournaments, including twice in the Gordon Strachan era when there was just as much a disconnect between the team and the fans.
Not qualifying remains a possibility every year. Only the invention of the Champions route has saved us from sterner tests that would raise the likelihood of that outcome. Thankfully, it has not happened yet and I will rejoice in that rather than make myself miserable with thoughts of the failures that might have been or might yet be.
So long as we remain in an impoverished league with no significant TV money, certainly not enough to justify the inconveniences our fans are exposed to with re-arranged fixtures, that will be our lot.
Only the buy low: sell high and replace with likely potential is available to us as a strategy. There is a reason why the top loading of 3 times £6m signings we saw in the early years of this century under MON was stopped. And its not because we had to pay for PL’s bonus or because we are salting money away to DD’s other firms or to pay large and undue dividends. It is because we cannot afford to continue with that policy, helpful though it was for a time.
We need to trade smart but we cannot trade impeccably. There will be continued mistakes in the transfer market because the man that never made a mistake never made anything. The trick is to keep your mistakes to a reasonable level and to have your successes at a better level.
Neil Lennon, for a formerly rookie manager, has done well in this regard but our success has been lopsided. Good goalkeeping, defender and midfield moves to set against the palpable current failures up front.
I think back to my idol Davie Hay and his transfer misfortunes with McClair, Johnston & McInally all leaving at once. He could not recover. Neil has seen the proven failures of Bangura, Rasmussen and Murphy, where we have taken a financial bath to get rid, alongside a disappointing loan signings of Miku, Brozek and Lassad, who were good but not good enough to enhance. Like Davie Hay, Neil has lost the goalscoring ability and potential of Stokes and Watt because one has transformed into a creator and one has taken a teenage huff.
I do not consign Balde and Pukki to the failures list because I remember the Celtic careers of more senior players like Kelvin Wilson. I hope that the palpable talent of Tony Watt comes back raring to go and with a more mature consideration of how Neil Lennon helped him by sending him abroad.
But, like you and many other Celtic fans, we’d all prefer a bigger better forward to excite us. Who knows which of our current or future stars will fill that role.
HT
Nope.
Neganon
I don’t think CQN is indicative of the larger CFC support
I’d be very surprised if the majority of the support are as compliant
Watching Scouse Derby.
Is Liverpool now Britain’s top football city currently?
Before you dive in – remember – Glesga have been “relegated”.
The sassenachs don’t rate Partick Thistle!
HT
Aiden on the bench.
HH!!