I’m sure there are people all over England wondering why their manager is apologising for anti-IRA chants by England fans last night. Someone likely pointed out to Roy Hodgson that his fans were breaking the law in Scotland by doing so, hundreds, if not thousands, could be criminalised this morning.
Their names and addresses are known to the football authorities, the match was televised and the chanting received widespread media coverage. Police Scotland were all over the ground and had the England fans surrounded.
All this took place in front of the First Minister, whose government decided laws against bigotry and sectarianism left them unable to “equalise” fans of all colours, most of whom never chant bigoted or sectarian words.
Alex Salmond left the stage caring nothing that the police have no interest in applying his law on this occasion. It wasn’t designed to criminalise the English, it was to criminalise Celtic fans. If the Offensive Behaviour Act can be flouted in front of the nation, the police and the First Minister, without censure or action, it is an absurd nonsense. The SNP government has refused to debate a review into the Act, never mind repeal it. They are defending the indefensible.
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Rangers football board chairman Sandy Easdale issues a statement through his PR man. “I have grown tired of Mr [Dave] King’s antics.”
Easdale: “I can only conclude that Mr King’s phantom bid was designed as vehicle for self-promotion of some kind.”
Easdale: “For a bid to be rejected it has to be received first.”
________________________________
Yesterday
Somers has explained in detail for the first time why he turned down the offer from King’s consortium, which was looking for 51% of Rangers shares in return for a £16m investment.
Disappointed re cancellation of Jan 10th game. January is usually a depressing month anyway and 12 days without a Celtic game will make it more so. We will just have to wait & see the real reason but I do suspect a foreign tournament jolly.
Can’t wait for the fitbaw to kick off again, just 3 more sleeps & a bit of normality will return to life and to the blog.
P.S. I don’t normally like to see anyone banned from here but I will make an exception for lawellsacountant, he is either a Hun or a Troll likes to use swear words and SHOUTING to try & get a response, Paul should listen to him and give him the response he deserves.
notthebus
19:12 on
19 November, 2014
Rangers football board chairman Sandy Easdale issues a statement through his PR man. “I have grown tired of Mr [Dave] King’s antics.”
Easdale: “I can only conclude that Mr King’s phantom bid was designed as vehicle for self-promotion of some kind.”
Easdale: “For a bid to be rejected it has to be received first.”
________________________________
Yesterday
Somers has explained in detail for the first time why he turned down the offer from King’s consortium, which was looking for 51% of Rangers shares in return for a £16m investment.
————————————-
Quotes I read from Somers suggested that they’d asked for proof of funds and who was involved. King didn’t (or couldn’t) provide that info. therefore there was nothing to consider. Somers stating that he couldn’t go to shareholders with a proposal where the cash was not confirmed and nobody knew who the potential “investors” were.
I thought RD was taking team to training camp in January ?
corkcelt –
someone earlier suggested it should be ‘six more sleeps’ as most of the old fogeys on here need their wee afternoon naps ;-)
Ohits,
Another wee hoopster to follow the Celtic, all the best to your family. Hail Hail
Paul 67
The article today is a cracker. Nail on head. Thank-you.
I’ve previously stated that I think the currant Herlad Ad strategy is wrong. but an ad dealing with your leader’s headline would have great impact.
Hell, slap it intae thum!
HH.
notthebus
19:12 on 19 November, 2014
Rangers football board chairman Sandy Easdale issues a statement through his PR man. “I have grown tired of Mr [Dave] King’s antics.”
Easdale: “I can only conclude that Mr King’s phantom bid was designed as vehicle for self-promotion of some kind.”
Easdale: “For a bid to be rejected it has to be received first.”
________________________________
Yesterday
Somers has explained in detail for the first time why he turned down the offer from King’s consortium, which was looking for 51% of Rangers shares in return for a £16m investment.
############################
Easdale could not and would not bow to King’s offer, how could he when King cannot name his backers. King has the Scottish media at his beck and call, they will promote him and groups associated to him till the cows come home.
After the incident involving Easdale’s outside Ibrokes, I wouldn’t be surprised if they both cashed in…..!
Ayrshire is Green and White
notthebus
Think Somners said “Glib shameless liar” consortium talk fell at 1st hurdle i.e. Didnae get as far as a bid,
Can anyone recommend the best option for getting (ahem) free Microsoft Excel or equivalent? It’s for my son, honest!
If you’d prefer to advise in a less open forum I’m occasionally known to read mail sent to jobobaldie@yahoo.co.uk ;-)
it’s a jolly
lustig injured international game
mulgrew last injury international game
going back players career finished
playing international game-john kennedy
take them over to the veladrome
out of the cold
and shut lennoxtown
hail hail
Jobo, That is funny, I normally have a 10/15 min kip in the recliner in the afternoon. Today for some reason (well I do know the reason, but I’m not telling) I was totally knackered and zonked out for about 2 hours, so its 5 sleeps left for me.
standcorrectedcsc.
“I thought RD was taking team to training camp in January ?”
Adi,
Aye he is. It says so in the article.
I think the rage kicked in before some got that far :)
I Thought King was looking for 75%.
Please confirm ?
HH
westies
12:38 on
19 November, 2014
I am confused why so many Celtic fans passionately voted “yes” for those who want to discriminate against them ?
Yes, the OBAF Act is rubbish legislation which has been used unfairly. But I can’t believe after 3 years of discussing independence there are people who still equate voting Yes with voting for the SNP. IT WAS A VOTE TO BE AN INDEPENDENT NATION OR NOT. THEN YOU GET TO VOTE FOR ANY PARTY YOU LIKE FOR GOVERNMENT. IT’S NOT A DIFFICULT CONCEPT.
And in any case, never mind your vote on Indy – if you would decide even your vote for government, on who decides our healthcare, taxation, tackling poverty, education and all the rest, solely on the basis of some football arrests, then your priorities are f***ed.
Is this really the level of political awareness in the Celtic support in 2014?
Well,well,well,is Craig Whyte due in London’s Chancery Court tomorrow,or face 28days in jail? http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/disgraced-former-rangers-owner-craig-4404966 …
Was Judge Bishopp not involved in the last EBT charade either resided or walked away from if my auld heid remembers correctly.
Jobo- Open Office is free and might have excel option
GM-I think the big issue is a 3pm Saturday game moved to a 7.45 midweek,,i hope the club remember the excuses when guys are choosing not to renew STs HH
Geordie, I read that too but the training camp could well double up as a Foreign Tournament, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. In theory I have no problem with that, in fact I think Scottish Football would be better served to start our season 2 weeks earlier to facilitate an official winter break. Its just that on a personal note I hate a week-end without a Celtic game.
eatingandwantingmycakecsc.
Awe naw
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/sport/football/round-up/rangers-chief-david-somers-explains-reason-for-turning-down-dave-king-1-6425303
Celtic underground reporting 5 players away in January. Looking for a left back and holding midfielder. Should be a good enough reason for some on here not to renew season book.
You would have thought given the previous history of English fans being offensive in song and chant FOCUS would have been prepared to enforce the OB act legislation last night
Mindless chanting is a sadly familiar story for England fans
Having attended England matches since 1985, Philip Cornwall knows that tasteless chanting does not reflect all fans
The Guardian, Wednesday 19 November 2014 18.00 GMT
Jump to comments (23)
Ireland v England
The last time England visited Dublin in 1995 the game was abandoned after 27 minutes due to crowd trouble. Photograph: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Poznan, November 1991: my first away match with England, the final qualifying game for Euro 92. Avoid defeat and England were heading for Sweden; lose and the Republic of Ireland would take our place by winning in Turkey. In the opening minutes a small pocket of Irish fans, unable to make it to Istanbul, started a chant in support of Jack Charlton’s side from the neighbouring home section. The response of the English around me was immediate and definitive in its misjudgment: “No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the IRA – scum!”
I had heard the song, to the modern hymn tune of Give Me Joy In My Heart (Sing Hosanna!), often enough at Wembley, its relevance to a game against, say, Albania perplexing enough. But here Charlton’s assortment of homegrown players infused with English– and Scottish-born grandchildren were being effortlessly conflated with terrorists. And so it has gone on, and still goes on, and reached a renewed peak at Celtic Park on Tuesday.
After a first half played out in large part to the chant “Fuck the IRA”, the FA intervened and stopped the England fans’ band from beating out the rhythm. In fairness, the tune in question is common enough and first stuck in my head a decade ago, when the Euro 2004 hosts used it for “Portugal Ole”. The lyrics “Follow England Away” are squeezed into its metre, which is what the band thought they were playing. However, after what felt like 10 minutes it must surely have dawned on them that the words had been changed, unless they too have been deafened by their playing down the years.
Anyway, this is just a fresh wrinkle on an all too familiar theme. I only heard one voice, in the gents pre-match, try out: “UDA, On our way, Fuck the pope and the IRA.” It is 14 years since a man wearing an “SAS – Gotcha on the Rock” shirt, in reference to the Gibraltar incident of 1988, was in a chorus of “Could you go a Chicken Supper, Bobby Sands?” outside the Germany game at Euro 2000. But “No surrender”, as well as its own song, is inserted at the end of the third line of the national anthem by the many for whom the Good Friday agreement never happened.
On Tuesday, England’s politically minded supporters were so consumed by their considered views on the Troubles that their other staple subject-matter, the second world war, did not get a look-in. This takes its most childish form with the green-bottles rip-off “Ten German Bombers”, but also includes chanting “Where were you in world war two?” at former allies (I first heard it in Poland in 1991), or “If it wasn’t for the English you’d be Krauts”, which is sung frequently enough and I have also heard muttered, matter-of-factly, to a Belgian barman going about his business.
One question arises from this that would require considerable research to answer: is England’s support disproportionately comprised of servicemen and their families? One such individual with the army in his blood told me of his reservations about going to the 2006 World Cup in Germany because he could not separate those his father fought against from the Germans of today. Then again, a left-leaning, Arsenal supporting senior colleague habitually called Jens Lehmann “the Nazi” and cited the bombing of his grandparents as reason enough when challenged. You can find an endorsement of the Bobby Sands song in a blogpost on the Spectator website, while the late Alan Clark offered support to the martial instincts of hooligans in the 90s. Xenophobia takes different forms but is to hand in all walks of life.
All the while, there is an important truth unacknowledged by foreign hooligans and authorities alike: the days when English football fans, whether following country or club, were a certain or even likely source of general disorder are long gone. Everton fans in Lille recently saw the continuing legacy of English hooliganism’s bad old days, in the shape of unprovoked attacks by local thugs and then the French police.
The attitudes of England fans to Ireland are worrying, with June’s friendly in the Republic looming. This is not the England support of 1995, though, when our last trip to Dublin had to be abandoned during the first half as missiles poured from the Lansdowne Road stands. Look at incidents across Europe, such as the Serbia v Albania fiasco and the suspension of Italy v Croatia, and you realise that there are far worse things in football than foolish English chants.
But it didn’t take the youth wearing a cap under a hood, with a scarf covering his face, in the queue at Celtic Park to remind me that there can be a lurking sense of menace. When you find a foreign pub taken over by English fans and their flags, and the national anthem being belted out, you know it is sensible to find somewhere else; you also wonder how these same fans would react were supporters of another country to behave the same way in the West End before a match at Wembley.
The way forward, still, is more of the same measures that have got us this far: banning orders including suspending passports around match time of those who are violent around games, criminal-record checks on those buying away tickets from the FA, and encouragement of a more diverse support (easier for a finals in France than a Sunday night in Estonia or a Tuesday in Glasgow).
The FA were right to stop the band playing that tune on Tuesday but too little is done at Wembley to root out the political.
You should not overreact to Tuesday night’s singing, however mindless. And those of us who take an internationalist, rather than nationalist, approach to following England should carry on, immersing ourselves in tournaments and expanding proud collections of improbably random holiday destinations: Vaduz, Poznan, Tirana, Donetsk, Bloemfontein, Gelsenkirchen, Tallinn, San Marino, Bratislava … even Glasgow.
LP
A holding midfielder
Just what we need
LOL
Jobo Mobo Balde.
Apache Open Office is compatible with Excel.
While I have expressed my opposition to the moving of games from 3pm to 1pm, it seems to be what the majority who voted want. So, I’ll have to live with that. I’m going to have to think very seriously about renewing my season book because I simply can’t attend 1pm Sunday kick-offs.
Guy wanted to buy half of my house. I said Ok, it’ll cost you £50K. He tells me he has £10 right now but some mates are defo gonna chip in, so long as I sign right there….
Dave, says I, get tae f…..
Rocket science it ain’t.
But what I want to know is this – Fraudulent takeover, Glib and shameless bull plop etc is any of this gonna stop the NuRangers getting promoted this? I just want to see more damage inflicted on them and I don’t want to have my Celtic visit their midden twice a season or have their followfollowers visit Paradise twice either. Simples.
!!Bada Bing!! and South Of Tunis –
thank you kindly, advice passed on
Bada,
7 games in a month is too much imo. Both for players and fans. Especially after Christmas.
Re Players away in January. I think Berget was only signed till Jan, so I’d expect him to be offski. I reckon if we could do a deal with Villa to cancel Tonev’s loan then he would be gone too. I could also see Scepovic going out on loan and after that who knows. Kris to Bolton? If Lenny wants him and Kris wants to go, then it will happen. Hopefully we can hold on to Virgil and if we can get in a couple of decent players plus having Guidetti available we just might embark on a decent Europa run.
The OB Act has failed/is failing.
So how do we stop the blight of sectarian behaviour at football and in society?
Answers on a postcard please.
Tsoal @1945
It is if all 5 leaving are of that position.
Batmafaoby,
In your response to Westies you despair at the political awareness of the celtic support in 2014. But of course you have not thought through your comment.
I don’t think Westies was equating a vote for independence as a vote for the SNP. Rather the issue here is that the country is institutionally sectarian and the passing and current survival of the OB act is a sign of that sectarianism. As is the targeting of celtic fans.
Your attempt to just put it down to the SNP misses the wider point entirely.
Neilbhoy. You admit that the country has a problem with anti Catholicism and you tackle it in the same way as racism or anti semitism.
lionroars67,
I had went for a wee kip there as loaded with cold….woke up and saw your moniker and thought…I’ve slept in:))
sipsini
20:01 on
19 November, 2014
lionroars67,
I had went for a wee kip there as loaded with cold….woke up and saw your moniker and thought…I’ve slept in:))
Sorry bud i must make note to myself only post AM………………………..
Anthems in cinemas ?
You ‘ll find an amusing exploration in-
Ray Bradbury- Cinema Sprinters and Other Antics.
Natknow
Somers said just that …..I saw him interviewed on Sky Sport
GM
Berget, Tonev Derk,Biton and Kayal
For a start