I’ve been to a few non-Celtic games over the years and always found is striking the different reaction mid-table teams have to a defeat compared to how we react. There is simply not the expectation that every game has to be won. For most of the last 40-odd years Celtic have been nip-and-tuck with a direct opponent at the top of the league, so a single defeat can have a significant bearing on league title prospects.
Even when we were not involved in a close league race, the desire to win by an astonishing number of points provided an edge, whereas, back in the 90s, the chasm between Celtic and the top was made increasingly unbearable by each passing defeat.
This season is different. We’ve dropped 10 points in 10 games but substantial evidence exists that the team is making solid progress, a fact not disputed by the support, even as they left Celtic Park on Saturday. For most, the distress of defeat has tempered.
We’re two points ahead of three teams at the top of the league, with a game in hand, which makes this the most competitive SPL ever. The gap between second and second last is just six points, St Mirren who sit second bottom, would be level on points with joint-second St Johnstone had they won the game between these two earlier this month.
All this honest competition has resulted in a rise in average attendances for most clubs during “Armageddon”. It’s too easy to poke fun at the miscalculations of the SPL and SFA chief executives who believed the game needed a fatally flawed giant in the top flight. Instead, what it needed was genuine competition, which we have, to a degree.
Hibs, Aberdeen and St Johnstone are all two points from the top of the table while Inverness and Killie are only one win below them. Can you imagine how good a league this would be without the last remaining over-sized behemoth?
The SPL didn’t need Rangers, in fact, it is a better, more competitive league without them. The same goes for Celtic. We are not good for the league and do nothing for Aberdeen, United, Hibs or clubs who want nothing but a sporting chance in the game. Many of these clubs seem to have Stockholm Syndrome; locked into the belief that they need to be with their tormentors.
If I was writing a blog about any of these clubs I’d tell Celtic to go find themselves some fantasy football league and let the rest of the country get back to a proper sporting endeavour. They have nothing to lose but their loser labels.
The next issue of CQN Magazine is due out shortly, let me know if you would like to advertise, advert@cqnmagazine.co.uk.
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5h
ThomtheTim whose purchase of Jimmy McGrory`s Autobiography coincided with meeting the Legend and obtaining his autograph
corkcelt.brilliant.and my grandad came from CORK.
4th
Favourite Uncle who danced on Stevie Chalmers` garden to cellebrate our `67 triumph. ( I lived in Barmulloch and often passed Stevie`s house…….without dancing.)
bt
Dennis was a really nice guy and a devout catholic.
We did a reading the day after the 0-4 LCF where he scored.
He very kindly brought his medal to mass to show it to me.
Very nice man indeed.
ASonOfDan
The mind boggles with that mob.
CG keeps going on about the powers and oldco and newco, he’s the one who can’t differenciate between them, a breath of fresh air so he is.
3rd
Henriksombrero
Who bought his house from a Celtic player. Doesn`t sound as amazing as the Tully/McGrory stuff but every day it is still an ex-Celt`s house.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/graham-spiers-and-the-rogue-angry-underclass/
Joe McBride married our school janitor’s daughter
I’ll Proudly accept fifth place and dedicate it to all those Celtic fans who never met any player, sat beside them on a bus, played fitba’ in their garden or collected their mother’s Society money.
Also to the man who sold me the book and that Hungarian chap Mr. Biro, who invented the pen that signed the dedication on Jimmy’s book.
Gene……
….was he a minister?
:0)
2nd
Greenjedi…..who is able to gain Brownie Points by ironing on the very Board bought for him by the man who so accurately sussed Curly. Tom Boyd.
THOMTHETHIM.JUST PUT CORKCELT INTO 2ND PLACE FOR FUNNY OF THE DAY.
new article posted.
Phils latest on G Spiers
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/graham-spiers-and-the-rogue-angry-underclass/#more-3291
only the prime minister of goal scoring
THE EXILED TIM
Posted a couple of weeks back a reliable source told me Sevco had run up a £200,000 unpaid electricity bill already.
As far as I am aware ‘External Debt’ is a term used to define debt owed by a Country to creditors outside that country. Never seen it used for a business.
1st
Well, Jungle Jim living in the same close (and possibly the same house) as James McGrory is the obvious choice but modesty forbids so,for involving both members of an amazing strike force, Chris Sutton and the King of Kings,the number one spot goes to…….
estorilbhoy!!!11
Jungle Jim @ 14.58
I’m an old Bar-m boy myself, and didn’t know that Stevie Chalmers lived there. Whereabouts, and where were you from?
Jonny.
The Exiled Tim .
External debt ——–
Been a long while since I studied such stuff but my addled ole bonce thinks that external debt is debt to non residents of the country in which the relevant company is based.
In Sevco speak it might mean something entirely different
Place is full of name drappers the day!!
I sat a the same table wae Big Billy and Joe mc Bride!!
Have a great story about me and my bhoy when he was about 6 but it’s way to unbelievable to print and have me ever regarded as anything but a chuck green impersonator! Honest Guv
Kikinthenakas……
Aw go on kikinthenakas you have made us curious now
MWD
Auldhieid – I believe it was Wolves – and we got beat 2-0. Celtic team that night (from Celtic Wiki).
Fallon, MacKay, Mochan, Smith, Evans, Peacock, Chalmers, McVittie, Lochhead, Divers, Auld.
*I was at that game with my da’, he raved about our new goalie, my hero then was Frank Haffey who I met in Gordons on Glassford Street, couldnae talk.
Another former Celtic goalie was at both my parents funerals.
dannysbeard
12:46 on 30 October, 2012
Tenuous links
In Drumchapel in the late sixties I went to the dentist and Jim Craig took my tooth out
*Used tae run doon Cardross Road on the opposite of Cairney when he was winching a lassie whose 2 brothers were in my class at St. Pats, he was going for the last train tae the toon and me for the last one oot Balloch, both trains passed each other on the Dalreoch Bridge over the Leven.
The Laddy McGeary
13:54 on 30 October, 2012
Also i usually end up sitting next to Kevin Kelly (yes that one.
*met Kevin at an event many years ago, me, him and the wee punter I was with were the only ones sober, it was Lent. We got talking about the Renton and he told me that night why we sold KD and Charlie Nick.
BTW both Kevin and Alex Ferguson’s great grandfathers hailed from the Renton and both had Celtic connections.
Proudbhouy 13:35
Not heard Quadrofenians yet, but if you like Mod Music, you’ve got to have a listen to ‘Missing Andy’. Fabulous band.