There remains a chance Raith Rovers will be promoted to the Premiership in the summer. They are one of four clubs within a three-point gap fighting for the playoff place, although Kilmarnock, Partick Thistle and Inverness are each more likely to get there.
Raith’s prospects would be better still if they had not made such a botched attempt to improve their options at striker last month. Instead of adding momentum, they sucked whatever enthusiasm the club had straight out of Kirkcaldy, losing sponsors, the women’s team, support staff and around £150k payoff to David Goodwillie.
Previously, football clubs, commentators and even the First Minister had blurred guidelines when it came to serious offenders in the game. Goodwillie was employed without fuss after two convictions for assault. A rape charge did not move the dial either (he is not alone in this respect). Oldco Rangers manager, Ally McCoist, bid to sign him seven times in the months after charges were dropped, before he left Dundee United for Blackburn Rovers.
In 2017, he was ruled by a judge in a civil case to have raped his victim. This was too much for then-employer, Plymouth Argyle, who kicked him out. He declared bankruptcy, which meant the compensation he was ordered to pay went unmet. Unable to gain employment in England, he found a landing place back in Scotland, at Clyde, with little fuss from our politicians, only the fans seemed interested, some of whom have never returned.
Author and Raith shirt sponsor, Val McDermid, two club directors and many of their non-salaried staff withdrew support when the club announced Goodwillie’s signature. These actions were a beacon for those on the lookout for a virtual signalling opportunity. Scottish football was soon getting advice on what had been going on without comment for five years, from those previously untroubled by exactly the same thing happening at Clyde. Opportunistic double standards are what we do best in Scotland.
Since the turn of the year Raith have drawn five, lost only to Premiership-bound Arbroath (sigh) and beaten only Junior club, Banks O’Dee, in the previous round of the Scottish Cup. They are a side on their knees who will be bereft of the fight we witnessed to such devastating effect in 1994. So the unthinkable cannot happen, right? Hmmm.
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Come on the Hoops !
f The Rangers go into admin, do they get barred from any European competitions for a period of time?.
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Isn’t there a convicted drug dealer managing club?
bet he wishes he had stayed at Clyde….
in the end its money that talked..not morals. they could see themselves losing fans and sponsors. i am sure if it was a top player with same background and ticket sales went up they would have put up with press criticism for a few weeks
Everybody deserves a second chance!!
Have to agree, Paul.
Gesture politics at its worst.
Keep politics as far away from football as possible. This rarely ends well
MARADOMINIC
Not only does he manage the club but I am sure he owns shares in a large part of the club too!
Will Raith Rovers be using their share of the gate money to pay up Goodwillie’s contract?
And if so does that mean any fans attending are in line for a sherricking from Big Val and her pals?
Brian F
“Everybody deserves a second chance”
——
Do they though?
If your family member was the victim of such a heinous crime would you think like that?
And are child killers or paedophiles entitled to a second chance? Really?
Not for me. I would refuse to work with such a person.
Nothing ado at Celtic Paul.ah well.
Invite a wee pile in from our virtue(well!) eating right wing trolls
Thought rr director,the one who resigned with responsibilities spoke of the fact a rapist was going to be playing centre forward at his club may impede him, in his professional capacity when insuring and giving confidence to parents that their boys and girls are safe? He couldn’t assure them,he was being honest and it was due to the error of signing
Safety and security of anyone involved with any club today is paramount,and should be open to question at all times.
HH
AN TEARMANN on 11TH FEBRUARY 2022 12:52 PM
You going to the game?
The Raith Rovers match …..
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bain, Welsh, Julienne, Scales, McCarty, Ideguchi, Forrest and Doak either start or get decent game time this weekend.
If so, over to you gents.
Put in a performance.
Entertain the fans.
Strengthen the squad in reality.
Give Ange a selection problem.
Brian F
People do deserve a second chance,that is a truth,
No better thing than reconciliation and forgiveness.
Its one of the horrid things,we are all virtue signalling,
Oh thats OK,its so comfortable as there was no victim……..that woman is lost amid the laser show of publicity she didn’t ask for
Would you have him at Celtic?
Back to
I can’t see too many changes – I think our record of wholesale changes hasn’t always gone well
Have a spare too Ernie,
Won’t embarass you,
:-)
HH
Most important thing against Raith, other than winning, is giving game time to those that need it and rest to those that will benefit from it.
After this weekend, depending on the draw for the next round, we won’t have any more opportunities to manage the squad in any wholesale ways. We should make the most of this chance.
Strongest available 11 for every game from next Thursday on.
I can appreciate the argument for playing Dawson or Doak. However, at this stage of the season I would run with a front three of Giakoumakis, Maeda, and Johnston.
AN TEARMANN on 11TH FEBRUARY 2022 1:03 PM
‘Oh thats OK,its so comfortable as there was no victim……..that woman is lost amid the laser show of publicity she didn’t ask for’
###
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter she had an absolute, and very strictly enforced*, right to anonymity, but chose to waive that right. So to say she didn’t ask for the publicity isn’t strictly accurate.
* If you are in any doubt about that, ask Craig Murray.
AN TEARMANN on 11TH FEBRUARY 2022 1:07 PM
So you’re OK with funding Goodwillie’s pay off.
How very principled of you.
Goodwillie is a complete *printCode( ‘desktop’, ‘block_2’ ); ?>*
If Raith spend their money from the tie paying him off that has nothing to do
with Celtic fans attending the game.
ERNIE LYNCH
You really have scraped the bottom of the barrel with that poisonous nonsense.
So anyone who has bought a ticket for Celtic v Raith Rovers is “funding Goodwillie’s pay-off”?
Even the most twisted Hun wouldn’t come out with that shite.
Raith Rovers have already paid Goodwillie his contract buy-out. So how do Celtic supporters come into this? Absolutely disgusting comment.
You clearly have personal issues.
PS Not that it matters, but I won’t be at Celtic Park on Sunday. Nothing at all to do with Goodwillie.
Genuine question for those more in the know than I am , given that I haven’t read one word of her books.
From what I can gather her books involve crime writing and, in some cases, crimes against women , including sexual crimes.
I am not seeking to detract for one second from the monstrosities it seems Goodwillie has been involved in, but it does feel to me that there is a a degree of irony , maybe, in Val McDermid’s position given that she has made part of her living writing fiction about equally awful, if not , worse cases against women.
I am perfectly open to being shot down by anyone who has read her books and can back up a different view.
Watching my team Celtic always Ernie.
Done week in week out as much as possible whereever I may be.just to see Celtic
Seen history in action.nothin like it
So all the other games you don’t attend
Are those of same depth of debate in your head?
Explains why you miss a lot,😊
Your party no mine.
HH
I’d give GG and Maeda the game time to see if they can get amongst the goals. Confidence is a wonderful thing, especially for forwards. It’s all that is missing for GG.
Another brain stunning comment from the master of them,Brian F.
“Everyone deserves a second chance”
What,like Suttcliff,Bundy,West,Nillson,Hindley. Try thinking before you open your gun.
Gub.
Maybe Celtic could make a sizeable donation to a local Woman’s Aid Centre.
Might be a good thing to do.
Ernie,
Your reply to An Termann as stupid as Brian Fs.But I suppose you will try and wheedle out of it.
Its what you do.
Clinko,
Why,just why?.
THE LONG WAIT IS OVER on 11TH FEBRUARY 2022 1:46 PM
I have not read any of her stuff either.had to be told of her particular type,crime fiction,some must like the descriptive fiction,it is a fiction.the reader knows this.The other is real…………….
but I heard she would give a lot of the squad a run out,resting some so Bain,scales,Welsh,doak, and others,can wear the hoops.maybe that’s a fiction too and Ange will go full squad andput on a show.
:-)
HH
Flegs is it?
https://twitter.com/CollectCelticFC/status/1492099155610775552?t=QppAdiKCBv3U_QhCLOUBwA&s=08
CLINKO on 11TH FEBRUARY 2022 2:09 PM
Maybe Celtic could make a sizeable donation to a local Woman’s Aid Centre.
Might be a good thing to do.
==============
I agree it would in the sense that they do a great job and so it would be at any time but I fail to see the compulsitor on us to do so , given that the whole Raith Rovers debacle has nothing to do with us whatsoever and we would be playing them no matter what.
Goodwillie is an irrelevance to this fixture as far as we are concerned.
Embdae know current Covid restrictions, pal flying to Dublin on Sunday, ta
Clinko.
Am sure Celtic via its foundation help and assist woman’s aid already,or indirectly thro many of the small but important charities that aid woman,broken families,chaotic families.needed more than ever sadly today.
HH
Tom McLaughlin on 11th February 2022 1:42 pm
ERNIE LYNCH
You really have scraped the bottom of the barrel with that poisonous nonsense.
So anyone who has bought a ticket for Celtic v Raith Rovers is “funding Goodwillie’s pay-off”?
Even the most twisted Hun wouldn’t come out with that shite.
Raith Rovers have already paid Goodwillie his contract buy-out. So how do Celtic supporters come into this? Absolutely disgusting comment.
You clearly have personal issues.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes, he tries to be too clever and is always trying to prove that Oscar Wilde was correct when he said,
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.”
An Tearmann,
I get that it’s fiction and to be taken as such.
I have gotten to the stage that I cannot watch movies or TV where there violence against women is a central theme.
Maybe having a wife and daughters is a factor of course but I find watching it voyeuristic and enraging
and I dislike that it’s a central theme of so much media.
That it’s fiction doesn’t escape me but it still find it prurient.