Exactly one year ago today, just after lunchtime, one of the pivotal moments in Celtic history occurred. Neil Lennon took his Celtic team to Kilmarnock, who had lost their three previous league games, and for 73 minutes looked like surrendering their league title chances just as Tony Mowbray’s team collapsed at St Mirren Park seven months earlier.
The manager later admitted to thoughts of resignation. 3-0 down at half time while already in heavy deficit to Rangers, who were riding a wave of positivity under the reinvigorating ownership of Craig Whyte, events looked to have escaped Neil’s grasp.
It is tempting to write the narrative that a half time talk or tactical change turned things around but turnaround was more difficult to explain. Celtic were awful for the opening 28 minutes of the second half; like condemned men waiting for the inevitable.
Anthony Stokes started the recovery by exploiting Kilmarnock’s weaknesses. A free kick drifted over a wall which didn’t jump and into the net. Had the wall jumped, would history have been different? Three minutes later Stokes fired into the corner of the net from distance, Jaakkola in the Killie goal was not equal to the challenge. Suddenly, we were back in the game, back in the title race.
Charlie Mulgrew, who erred to gift Kilmarnock their third, equalised with 11 minutes remaining, surely there was only one winner now? Not so, images of Heffernan’s last minute header from inside the Celtic six yard box gliding over remain vivid.
We escaped with a draw but it felt like a stay of execution, not a pivotal moment. Neil didn’t resign, he stayed, beat Stade Rennes in the Europa League and never looked back. The imperious positivity which surrounded Craig Whyte was ultimately proven to be a charade, those of us who told you Rangers were in peril were proven correct.
It is impossible to calculate just how much football has changed since Anthony hit that free kick, although imperious positivity still surrounds a charade which is doomed to fail, leaving a lot of football fans out of pocket. If only the football authorities had a warning from recent history that light-touch regulation is dangerous, or had the mechanism to order a financial audit. They do, of course, but despite the traumas of 2012 I doubt they have the appetite to head-off potential problems. It’s easier (in the short term) to hope everything will turn out well.
Not that you need worry about any of this, you can chill and enjoy the season.
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Neilbhoy
i agree 100% with Sadies bhoy..
the Celtic football club is open to all
HT
Sorry
Bonjour
Gary : Tank Commander time!
T4
bt,
except huns :o)
They’d better have draught Guinness on the boat this time!!!
indeed canamalar
HT
driving on the other side bhoyo?
right off to bed but I think some of you need to get it into your head that the SNP is not just Salmond.
Yes he is currently being used to front independence but will become irrelevant in a independent state when we move to traditional political groupings
“ex SNP 79 group bhoy!”
HT
Enjoy the Ferry
I have fed a few fish on that sailing in my day
UncleAlbert CSC
ht – you naw driving?!!!
T4
Yep but we don’t get in until 8am so I’m permitted a couple ;-)
where
are
BDO???
I blame the French for not fighting hard enough against the English,we couldve been colonized by a much more interesting culture then there would be no need to consider independence,wine with every meal,chocolate for breakfast and even a world cup,the benefits are endless.
theouimhancsc
Jeezo and I thought my maw was the one asleep beside me ;-)
Sheik Yerbouti
Playing Darts?
HT
ha…. o))
only looking after you mate…
I’d like to join France..
It would be interesting to have a vote on independence on here and see the stats.hh
prestonpans bhoys
I agree. Independance first, then take it from there.
Sadly I doubt it will happen. Too much scare- mongering. It would be nice though.
BT
Oui mon ami, merci ;-)
Greenlion2
22:18 on 15 October, 2012
I pointed out that a four month stint working in a call centre whilst at university as his only employment in the real world is not a particularly impressive background for an MSP.
And having watched his contribution to the progress of the SNP’s flagship Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill, it showed.
Doubtless you were impressed though.
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
22:44 on 15 October, 2012
Sheik Yerbouti
Playing Darts?
——-
Hee hee
If some kind soul remembers would you please text me updates from St Mirren on Saturday, gave my ticket up for a week of red wine, local cider and Calvados ;-)
Hamiltontim
22:49 on
15 October, 2012
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
22:44 on 15 October, 2012
Sheik Yerbouti
Playing Darts?
——-
Hee hee
————————————-
TOPPER
ernie lynch
22:48 on 15 October, 2012
Answer the questions I asked ….. its what you asked others
HT
working in club will update when/if I get the time..
.
In 1966 Datebook published the John Lennon Quote: “More popular than Jesus”
In 2012 Facebook will soon Publish the Quote: “More ‘Liked’ than Jesus” .. OMG..
PSY has entered the Building..Oppan..#GangNamStyle..
“Jesus he’s Everywhere” Summa CQN 2012..
Summa of Samaras
PSY has entered the Building..Oppan..#GangNamStyle
sheik yerbouti
22:43 on
15 October, 2012
where
are
BDO???
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
auldheid
13:01 on
15 October, 2012
67Heaven … I am Neil Lennon..!!.. Ibrox belongs to the creditors
I think TBB answered your last questionon the previous but I’ve copied it over.
The Battered Bunnet
11:54 on 15 October, 2012
Auldheid
BDO have not yet been appointed. there was a creditors’ resolution last week to move to a Winding Up, following which D&P need to get Lord Hodge to dismiss them and asign BDO. I haven’t seen anything in the court Listings today to that effect, but I;m guessing it won’t be terribly long. that said, Hodge has still to give his view on the conflict issue raised by Mark Daly earlier this year. Might not be quite so straightforward for D&P to get rid of the job.
Greenlion2
22:53 on 15 October, 2012
ernie lynch
22:48 on 15 October, 2012
‘Answer the questions I asked ….. its what you asked others’
I asked one poster his age because I suspected he was a kid, and didn’t want to be too hard on him. He didn’t reply. Maybe he was just an idiot.
Four months in a call centre.
Good background for an MSP?
It must be International fortnight. Apologies for this long post on Independence.
I am an unashamed Scottish Nationalist and I have been since a young age.
Scotland SHOULD be an Independent country IF the people who live there vote for it and if you are one of those folk who says I’d leave if it became so, I disagree. For whatever reason your family moved to Scotland and stayed, you are part of the fabric of Scottish life and to move away because of Independence puts you on the same page as a non-entity like Michelle Mone (who I hope never gets press coverage again frankly as she said she’d leave if the SNP ever won the Scottish elections as they currently stand).
Apart from Philvisreturns no one on here has a kind word to say about Thatcher (maybe she could paint an apartment in one afternoon and dance the pants off Salmond) but staying in the Union means you’ll get a Tory government from time to time or eejits like Blair and Brown who were “Scots” wrapped in the Union Jack as ALL Labour/Tory/Lib Dem MPs and MSPs are. They are pigs at the trough of Westminster (have you forgotten the Expenses scandal?) and they don’t in general appear to care a jot about the people of Scotland – they are another self-serving mob who are only interested in their jobs down there. You re-elect these clowns but when faced with a chance to get rid of them and their masters in London you choose to stick with the tried and tested. Is it really that good? Is it worth sticking with? Not in my view.
Sectarian Scotland?
The biggest opposing arguments people give on CQN relate to Sectarianism and how it’ll become a hell-hole for Catholics but at the same time most of these people think it is currently a hell hole while part of the Union but it’ll be worse with the SNP? Do you hear how silly that can sound? Really? Not worse with a Unionist Tory Party banging the Union jack bogg off Johnny Foreigner bulldog spirit,, screw the EU trip we’ve heard since 2010? Or the kid-on used to be Labour Party – better together (for certain peoples’ bank balances no doubt) ?
As I understand it Sectarianism has always been in Scotland or has been openly there for the last 140 years (random number forget it). I see no evidence of it being better or worse – in other words I don’t know if things would be significantly worse but the way folk on here portay it the first day of an Independent Scotland will see a mob with torches and pitchforks heading to the chapels and Catholic school endorsed by the government to destroy them. Do you really believe that? Of course you don’t. This isn’t FF. They think Peter Lawwell will be coming over the water with his army of Unseen Fenian hands waiting to raise Ibrox to Rubble (if Chuckles doesn’t beat him to it, allegedly). Both assertions are equally daft. Where are you going to get enough torches and pitchforks for all that?
Seriously though, under successive Governments the lot of Scotland’s Irish Catholic population has improved and been trampled on at varying intervals. We are and would be light years away from The Scottish Protestant league being formed again as it was in 1920 as an openly anti-Catholic political party along BNP lines and winning seats. They lasted until 1939 and vanished off to be replaced nowadays by the bampots on sevco fan sites peddling filth we get to read for our disgust or amusement depending on how we roll. It is underground nonsense and the fact that they believe the Nationalists are out to destroy “their” glorious Union should tell you where such bampotery now lies – hidden as it dare not try to re-enter the mainstream. It was the equivalent of the SDL and that organisation are a moving anachronism which decent people have no time for it and it WON’T come back because of the multi-cultural nature of the West and the British Isles at large. Something like that would be seen for what it was – open legal Sectarianism which is illegal as things stand unlike in 1920. It isn’t going to re-emerge in an Independent Scotland because quite frankly it is a relic of a bygone era which may not have completely disappeared but it wouldn’t get public backing outside the lunatic fringe. Decent people wouldn’t be interested in it and I think there are more decent people than scumbags.
Not buying it.
Just the politics of fear for me and it simply doesn’t ring true with the SNP people I know and have worked with and respected.
The SNP
The way the SNP have stood up for Scotland’s rights within these Islands has for me been a damn sight better than any of the three “Major” parties who don’t give a damn about Scotland nor even have much of a working knowledge of it based on the folk who commentate on this issue on the BBC and the like until they have to (in my view anyway). Without the SNP would Scottish students not be paying the same or similar top up fees as their counterparts in England? Would prescriptions be free? (Oh look something approximating an NHS, imagine we had a Tory government in Holyrood as well? SHUDDER) I have my doubts. The lovely caring Unionist Parties (more interested in their jobs in London – who me a cynic?) claim without England subsidizing everything, these things would go and they’re a bribe to keep people voting SNP. They claim the UK is giving Scotland too much money when it contributes so little but of course they don’t count oil revenue as part of Scotland’s contribution to the UK coffers. If you hold sway with these folk you might as well be Kelvin MacKenzie – that’s his diatribe of anti-Scots garbage he gets free reign to repeat on TV constantly (but maybe not as much these days thankfully).
Many folk on here attack the SNP for their interest in supporting the Old Rangers in their time of crisis but Scottish Conservatives and even Labour MPs spoke up (and indeed long before administration came along) in support of them getting a bailout in Westminster no less in some cases. It’s called playing politics and the SNP are no better or worse than the rest but because some folk have certain ideas about the SNP they’re the easy target if you want them to be when the other parties had equal sycophants out to “save” them.
We have heard people say they think the SNP are anti-Catholic but the people I know or have met in the SNP could not be further from that. John Swinney is a lovely man and a thoroughly decent person who I have met and I respect him. I believe ) he is married to a Catholic and actually had his first marriage annulled in 2003 in order to marry in the Catholic church – where does that fit into the notion they are a nest of bigots? Based on people I’ve met and know I honestly cannot tell you ONE person I know in the SNP who is a bigot. Most of my SNP card carrying pals have Zero interest in religion and don not follow what was Rangers (they’re Thistle and Scotland fans – gluttons for punishment eh?). I simply do not hold this view that SNP would turn Scotland into an apartheid state. That for me is simply not true based on the folk I know.
If you really hate the SNP vote them out promptly after Independence is achieved and put forward your own candidates/parties – that’s democracy folks whether we like it or not.
Let’s be clear.
Plenty of the rotten mob hate Salmond and Independence – look at how he was booed in Glasgow at the Olympic rally. Now unless there are thousands of Celtic fans desperate to wave Union jacks at British athletes in George Square I think that was quite a different audience from the folk on this site. They (the lunatic obscurantist fringe of the Sevco support) WANT the Union because it defines them and they need it to continue this idea they are the quintessentially British team (what utter tosh) – take it away and they lessen and that’s another reason why I’d vote YES . They can retain the Queen if they like because her relevance is less and less and only silly people or sentimental old Grannies really care.
What is Scottish Nationalism to me?
Scots and I mean REAL Scots nationalists since 1707 have expressed a strong anti-Union feeling as they were never consulted and had no say in politics at the time and it was a select group who decided that. Read Robert Fergusson, Allan Ramsay and other vernacular poets who hated this concept of being “North Britons”. Read McDiarmid or Linklater or Kelman or John Byrne or Alasdair Gray or even bloody Irvine Welsh before you get to Burns. Their works reflect an actual and very clear separation linguistically and indeed socially and politically (something which goes further back to Ane Satyr of the three Estatis centuries before) and that SCOTS are not BRITS and the socialist position of Scottish political thinking is arguably entrenched even deeper than some of us even think – it could be in our DNA or some Jungian thing. “The Commonweal hes been overlookit” and all that my friends – go read it.
Here below is an excerpt from Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things. I think it has some relevance here:
“And now British regiments are fighting the Dervishes in the Sudan”.
We cannot tolerate religions which urge the natives to rule themselves. Home rule would disturb trade and our smooth running of the canal”.
Up piped Bell Baxter: “What are natives Mr Astley?”
“Natives” said Mr Astley carefully, “are people who live on the soil where they were born and do not want to leave it. Not many English can be regarded as natives because we have a romantic preference for other people’s soils, though we are very loyal to our old schools and school friends our regiments and businesses. Some even feel loyal to the Queen who is a very selfish old lady”.
“Are there no British natvies?”
“In Wales, Ireland and Scotland perhaps. In England we still have a class of farmers, farm servants, estate workers etc, but the landowners and city-dwellers regard them as useful animals, like horses and dogs”.
“But why are British soldiers fighting Egyptian natvies? it makes no sense to me.”
I am glad it makes no sense to you, Mrs Wedderburn. Politics, like filling and emptying cesspools is filthy work and women should be protected from it.”
Do you think for a minute that Scottish Nationalists reading this
A. Don’t get the joke?
B. Agree with the Astley character?
C. Don’t feel like they’ve been treated as the “Natives” for too long by pompous smug gits who are interested in Establishment politics, Old boys clubs and the like?
Of course not. Scottish Nationalists in my experience are vehemently against Empire, Colonialism, illegal wars and the kind of superiority complex garbage spouted by the character who is quite clearly a narrative device used by the author to make a political point. This extract is of course making fun of Colonialism and quite frankly it does a better job than I ever could. A vote for Independence makes the Union obsolete and in time the bigotry that came from this Union will die. Not in my lifetime but in the future, it will come if enough folk work together to build a Scotland people deserve.
If you think nationalists are all Sevco fans waiting for their chance to “get us” I think you’ll find most of them are with Alasdair Gray. They’re anti-Union, anti-colonialism, anti-war, anti-trident, pro-Scotland, pro-economic development and autonomy and very much anti-bigotry. I cannot say everyone is because that would be foolish and there will be some bigots kicking around the movement but it will be the same or similar in every walk of life.
For people to think Scottish folk are unique in the world and cannot govern themselves based on the mentality of an increasingly more marginalized bunch of cranks and genuine bigots is silly. There are good people in Scotland, decent, hard working, law – abiding tolerate people who deserve the chance to have a country where their destiny is not governed by a bunch of old Etonians who’ve barely set foot in the place in their lives.
You might be reading this think ah but Snake you live in Slovakia, it’s easy for you to say. I would come back to Scotland if I thought there was a chance Scotland could move forward but unless the Union is gone I don’t want my children to be brought up in a country where there is less self determination than in the one I currently reside in( a country of equal population but completely unequal resources – Scotland is light years in front of Slovakia on this front).
I personally cannot wait to get my Scottish passport (even if it is in Blue).
That is my notion of Independence for Scotland and if it upsets a few people then I’m sorry. I don’t care if it is an emotional investment. I feel it strongly and I won’t change.
No doubt I’ve made a few people angry but it is my view and I am entitled to it just as you are to yours. I do not denigrate you for having your view, I simply don’t agree and I’ve explained why.
Sorry if you disagree but that is politics or at least my experience of it.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.
Born in scotland to scottish parents, scottish grandparents, scottish as far back as I go.
No passion for the land of my birth.
That would be for a variety of reasons.
The masonic thing would have a great deal to do with things.
Married to an Irish woman, who has passion to beat the band.
I understand why those born in scotland are passionate about scotland, would never want to diminish their passion, it’s just no for me.
Love the Celtic though.
God bless wee oscar
Snake Plissken
22:59 on 15 October, 2012
Go and find out about the founders of the SNP.
In particular their leading intellectual, Prof Andrew Dewar Gibb.
Find out what they said about Irish Catholic immigrants in Scotland.
Then come back and apologise.
Greenlion 2.
Think Ernie will be in his bed.
He’s got a milk run tommoro:-)
BT
Cheers. Right all aboard…..
ernie lynch
22:58 on 15 October, 2012
Ernie answer a question…on Celtic or Poltics…
Politics