Humiliate your rivals in the Cup Final by putting five goals past them and, if you don’t pay the piper, you pay the consequences. Winning trophies while running up debts you cannot afford to pay is not a viable strategy. The consequences, if you are fortunate enough to survive, has to be painful, otherwise football removes the moral hazard of failure, making Hearts recent experience more likely to happen to other clubs.
Hearts season at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership is the cost of pouring millions of pounds creditors will not receive onto the Hampden Park pitch to hit five goals past a Hibs team, who live within their means. Many other teams were denied progress in the cups, or higher prize money in the league, while the fantasists were building to their 5-1 glory.
Billy Brown’s nonsense about rescinding a punishment for a club who are still in administration is yet another fantasy, but it was fostered in 2012, by the notion that Scottish football can change insolvency rules on the hoof to accommodate a failed club. If you want to change insolvency rules, knock yourself out, but there is near-uniform agreement that you cannot change rules when a favoured club falls foul, in order to benefit them.
This notion that because the rules were not changed to help Newco Rangers into top flight football, Scotland’s reigning Third Division champions would be outraged, is hardly news. The 11 top flight clubs, most of whom appear to be enjoying a competitive ‘Best of the Rest’ league race, and a whole clutch of lower league clubs, would also be outraged if Hearts were advantaged.
In October 2011, when Rangers fate was privately acknowledged, Craig Whyte, Neil Doncaster and SPL chairman, Ralph Topping, discussed this rule change ruse. It should have been a 30 second conversation; declined when first proposed. Instead, Scottish football was put through the real trauma of a fantasy fear of Armageddon. Now everyone who can’t pay their bills think they have the same entitlement to campaign for a rule change – and why shouldn’t they, the tabloids told everyone that changing the rules on the hoof was acceptable.
Hearts fans know this. They are heading for relegation, those I have spoken to have accepted the situation. For them, it’s all about ensuring the club survives and sorting things out for the long term, SPFL results don’t even register. I don’t know any who want to see their club go cap in hand for rule changes, the way Whyte, then Green, did. It’s demeaning and lacks dignity.
This is turning into my favourite domestic season yet. All the ‘They’ve suffered enough’ merchants better get their strategies sorted for the next episode.
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And finally, a short article on Newco share price.
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twists n turns
04:37 on 14 January, 2014
And finally, a short article on Newco share price.
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TNT
Dropping faster than the Jamaican bobsleigh team.
gg
Haha . Indeed!
Yeah, the Norwegian is being talked up. Hope he adds some composure and quality.
gg
I’m sure the Ranjurs board are working on a very good retirement plan……theirs!
I suppose as well as posting the morning papers I could do a stock report each day for interested parties, so here are a few to get started:
Helium is up
Feathers are down
Raisins market dried up……….
Porridge ….check
Bacon@eggs…check
link for the Tennis …check
braw ……hoopy days
Morning all…..
Time to get up and head tae work, tis the season to be jolly…..
Just reading back there, a pleasant informative read as it should be, hail hail.
Ayrshire is Green and White.
HH
here is a braw wee Melbourne story…
Australian Granny
Melbourne, Australia
Gun-toting granny Ava Estelle, 81, was so ticked-off when two thugs raped her 18-year-old granddaughter that she tracked the unsuspecting ex-cons down and shot off their testicles.
The old lady spent a week hunting those men down – – and when she found them, she took revenge on them in her own special way, said Melbourne police investigator Evan Delp. Then she took a taxi to the nearest police station, laid the gun on the sergeant’s desk and told him as calm as could be: “Those bastards will never rape anybody again, by God.”
Cops say convicted rapist and robber Davis Furth, 33, lost both his penis and his testicles when outraged Ava opened fire with a 9-mm pistol in the hotel room where he and former prison cellmate Stanley Thomas, 29, were holed up. The wrinkled avenger also blew Thomas’ testicles to kingdom come, but doctors managed to save his mangled penis, police said. “The one guy, Thomas, didn’t lose his manhood, but the doctor I talked to said he won’t be using it the way he used to”, Detective Delp told reporters. Both men are still in pretty bad shape, but I think they’re just happy to be alive after what they’ve been through.
The Rambo Granny swung into action June 21 after her granddaughter Debbie was carjacked and raped in broad daylight by two knife-wielding creeps in a section of town bordering on skid row.
“When I saw the look on my Debbie’s face that night in the hospital, I decided I was going to go out and get those bastards myself’ cause I figured the Law would go easy on them,” recalled the retired library worker. “And I wasn’t scared of them, either — because I’ve got me a gun and I’ve been shootin’ all my life. And I wasn’t dumb enough to turn it in when the law changed about owning one.”
So, using a police artist’s sketch of the suspects and Debbie’s description of the sickos’, tough-as-nails Ava spent seven days prowling the wino-infested neighborhood where the crime took place till she spotted the ill-fated rapists entering their flophouse hotel.
“I knew it was them the minute I saw’ em, but I shot a picture of’ em anyway and took it back to Debbie and she said sure as hell, it was them” the oldster recalled.
“So I went back to that hotel and found their room and knocked on the door — and the minute the big one, Furth, opened the door, I shot’ em right square between the legs, right where it would really hurt’ em most, you know? Then I went in and shot the other one as he backed up pleading to me to spare him. Then I went down to the police station and turned myself in.”
Now, baffled lawmen are trying to figure out exactly how to deal with the vigilante granny. “What she did was wrong, and she broke the law, but it is difficult to throw an 81-year-old woman in prison,” Det. Delp said, “especially when 3 million people in the city want to nominate her for Sainthood and a medal.”
What A Woman!
awfy Braw….
neustadt-braw,
Good on the auld yin.
From FF
Default Haggerty attempts to get more Bears into bother
The book?s publishers had expected the Scottish edition of The Sun to run a serialisation of the work, however, it is believed that pressure from Rangers fans in September 2012 prompted the newspaper to pull the story.
As a result Haggerty defended the book and became Limond?s target.
?I was completely unaware about this podcast before I started receiving abuse on Twitter. I clicked on a link from one of the abusive tweets and heard the podcast. It was vile and abusive. I started blocking all the accounts that were abusing me on Twitter. I didn?t save the links before blocking them.?
Donnacha DeLong of the National Union of Journalists was able to track down the original tweets and save the screen grabs. He also saved the audio from the podcast and forwarded the information onto the police.
Initially it seemed that Strathclyde Police were not going to take action against Limond on the basis of the tweets because they did not believe they passed the threshold for prosecution.
Haggerty said: ?I couldn?t believe it. They never listened to the podcast and that is where the worst abuse was from. I sent them the link but they never clicked on it until after Alex Thomson from Channel 4 News interviewed me. I think that without Alex?s intervention, nothing would have happened because so many people here consider such actions normal.?
The case was eventually heard at Ayr Sheriff?s court in December 2013.
Despite demanding the new OB act, Police Scotland continue to allow online Sectarian and racist language on FF and Rangers Media, two of the more well known sites, indeed the first line is from a current thread on Angela Haggerty, below are two posts from FF Grand master Mark Dingwall, you would like to think Police Scotland will be having a chat with Mr Dingwall, but i suspect Mark has to many friends within that organisation as he seems to be an expert in cesspits
Post 1
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coza View Post
Have admin deleted every post here!?? Hahaha
She is a moron. That entire article reeks of victim.
Only the unprovable ones.
Post 2
Some of us have been aware of the substance of other court proceedings and associated mental health issues.
Bro Limmy was similarly aware but chose not to drag it into his court case – and it is a positive for him as a human being not to swim in such a cesspit.
I suggest we respect his judgement.
sipsini
06:35 on
14 January, 2014
neustadt-braw,
Good on the auld yin.
……………………….
glad I didnae go for the sausage with ma Bacon@eggs ………..braw
Good morning friends from a damp and drizzly East Kilbride
RIP Bobby Collins
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/clubs-united-in-grief-after-bobby-collins-passes-away.23170895
Brilliant story.
If it was over here, she would be jailed and the 2 rapists would claim millions in criminal compensation, while her granddaughter has to try and get on with her life after such an horrific ordeal.
This is justice, and should happen to all rapists and paedophiles.
first set to Murray …6-1
braw ….
Burnley 78 2040
Greetings from a very snowy French Alps. Busby & Eaglesham bhoy myself – brought back a few memories there with the bus getting bricked and big Charlie Sharkey – what a mhan. Was at the AC Milan game recently with my brother and he pointed out that the big screen had a message saying that Joe Houlihan, one of the Bus Convenors had passed away – very sad. Now a shareholder and SB holder and travel on the Arbroath Emerald bus to most matches. HH from a Busby Bhoy.
Was on the ole Official site there to see when the 8 February Aberdeen Cup tie tickets go on public sale (this Thursday incidentally) and see that the kick off is advertised as being 12.45am. SUrely a world record earlykick off time? ;-)
Just read of the sad news about the death of Bobby Collins. He was the Lubo of my early Celtic supporting years. Still remember being at Parkhead and saw his last game. Couldn’t understand why he would leave Celtic for Everton. He had the heart of a lion and was a real Celtic hero.
Bless you Bobby.
2nd set 6.1
braw
Transfer window half way through
Still no sign of our goalscorer
Disappointed with Paul67 header here. What’s more important at this time. A striker or some small team in Edinburgh ??
I know what I think is more important
Especially during a transfer window and doubley important after our last transfer window shambles
Jobo,
If that is the real kick off time we will still expect a live EK weather report from you an hour before kick off to save me looking out of my window
and Murray wins 3rd 6-3 ….good workout for Murray …..braw
I posted last night asking for some help re a feature we are doing in the next CQN Magazine on the 4-2 game in 1979. If you have any memories of this game you’d like to share can you post on here or email me – david@CQNMagazine.com – just a couple of paragraphs please.
Martin Williams @Martin1Williams 20m
Soldiers avoid charges & disciplinary action over Army day sectarian songs at Ibrox #Rangers
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/news/home-news/soldiers-not-charged-over-sectarian-songs.23162098?_=bb26ac1eda942fe73b4fdc4887859d6f2b6f8f21 …
From collectcelticfc
Motherwell Seats Fracas 14 arrested all from Motherwell area . Not 1 GB Member has been arrested #somethingstinks
hen1rik
08:27 on
14 January, 2014
From collectcelticfc
Motherwell Seats Fracas 14 arrested all from Motherwell area . Not 1 GB Member has been arrested #somethingstinksHarry Brady @HarryBradyCU 15m
With just over half season gone, figures show Celtic arrests at away games likely to be on a par with last, except proportion of OBA up
Good to see Police Scotlands even handed approach to the OB bill
https://www.facebook.com/michael.mcgill.587606/posts/1515462155344621:2…rumer has it that a St. Mirren player lives here ;)
sydneytim
08:00 on 14 January, 2014
I was going to say “patience my mhan”, but best just to read some of your posts and ‘move on’ ……. didn’t realise it was so easy to sign a good striker……it doesn’t help when we’re waiting for Messi to make his mind up…… :)
Martin Williams @Martin1Williams 3m
#Rangers ArmyDayRow: Four soldiers who posed with a scarf with a sectarian slogan are admonished. http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/soldiers-not-charged-over-sectarian-songs.23162098 …
mncelt
23:42 on
13 January, 2014
Was in the jungle the night of the 4-2 game. Went on the Cumbernauld bus. Was an incredible celebration but we did run into some rather ugly huns in the Town Centre when we got back :)
mncelt,
Made me laugh, is there any other kind of hun?
AR
Sean Fallon @SeanFallonCelt 12h
Very sad to hear of the death of Bobby Collins, a footballer and a man of whom Sean spoke extremely highly. RIP. pic.twitter.com/jqiNSHuVWA
hen1rik
08:27 on 14 January, 2014
It will be interesting to discover how many of the 14 were Celtic supporters, Motherwell supporters, or supporters of any other team……?
https://www.facebook.com/dhinde2/posts/10202154160566760…..oooops!
67heaven … i am neil lennon, supporting wee oscar..!!.. ibrox belongs to the creditors
Spot on.
Lionsroar 1967
Exactly.
Excellent article on football management with a focus on the EPL. Apologies for the shameless cut+pasting, but it is worth it.
The Hatchet Guys Who Enjoy Saying ‘You’re Fired!’
January 14, 2014
Glistening examples of how not to build organizations
A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal carried a story about the CEOs of six well-known companies where shareholders are getting agitated. Among those named were Sheri McCoy of Avon and Don Thompson of McDonalds – both of whom were appointed during 2012. If either of them is cursing the impatience of institutional shareholders, they should be grateful they are not in front of ‘The Firing Squad’ – the owners of Britain’s 20 premier league soccer teams.
Bloodletting is the slavish ritual to which almost all these owners adhere. Since this season’s first game last August, six managers (the British equivalent of a coach) have been fired. One of the latest victims was Malky Mackay, coach of the Welsh club, Cardiff City. He was ousted following a series of spats with the team’s owner, Vincent Tan, the founder and CEO of a Malaysian conglomerate, who among other things decided that the team, known for over a century as the Bluebirds, should dress in a ‘lucky’ red strip and who also installed a 23-year-old friend of his sons as head of player recruitment. So frequent are dismissals like Mackay’s (who five days before he was booted was told he would be at the club for “foreseeable future”) that websites, such as thesackrace.com (‘being sacked’ is the English equivalent of ‘getting fired’) are entirely devoted to the topic. These don’t lack for material: 13 of today’s premier league’s 20 managers have been in their roles less than a year.
When people buy British soccer clubs it’s as if they are immediately relinquish anything that smacks of sound management skills. They forget that picking the leader of an organization and providing him with the tools and support required to succeed are the most important tasks of any owner – whether it is of a soccer team or a large company. They seem oblivious to the idea that important decisions are made rarely. Instead, they feel that public executions – for none of these dismissals is ever conducted quietly – are the ticket to quick success. According to Soccerbase, a betting website that also tracks club statistics, there have been 303 managers of premier league clubs since the league’s formation in 1992. Nobody would consider replacing the leader of a fleet of taco trucks or head of a kindergarten in the madcap manner in which the owners of Premier League clubs swap managers.
None of the owners of NFL, NBA and MLB teams are known for being Sisters of Mercy, but they are models of compassion compared to the owners of premier league teams. George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the New York Yankees who could fire a manager quicker than he could say ‘strike,’ ran through 22 managers (five of whom were named Billy Martin) during his 23 years of active involvement with the club. By contrast since 1992, Crystal Palace has had 30 managers, Southampton 23, West Bromwich Albion 22 and Newcastle United 19. Only four teams – Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton – have had fewer than 10 managers during the same period. Arsene Wenger, the manager of Arsenal which currently sits atop the Premier League, has held his job since 1996. The extraordinary result: Wenger has managed more games for his club than all the other Premier League managers combined have for theirs. It makes Sir Alex Ferguson’s 26 year run at the helm of Manchester United even more of an oddity. Even odder were the terms of his departure last summer: a retirement that was actually celebrated and the longevity of a successor, David Moyes, who had managed Everton for 11 years. Just for the record, P&G has had 13 CEOs since 1890.
What is it about sport that causes owners to embrace their inner buffoon? Is it blood lust? Is it the revenge of people with pots of money who never possessed the skills to play? Is it just an arrogant belief that mastery of the sport is simple compared to the traits required to assemble the fortune that furnished the means to purchase a club – patience, investment, determination, stubbornness, ambition and loyalty? Or is it some primal urge to remember what it was like to throw the toys out of the pram?
Malky Mackay, the former coach of Cardiff City, who was fired after disagreements with the team’s owner. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images.)
Oligarchs (Chelsea) and Arabian princes (Manchester City) might have some excuse since their fortunes were furnished by connections or birth rather than painstaking enterprise. But what of Aston Villa? Since 2006 this club, in the British Midlands, has been owned by Randy Lerner, son of the principal shareholder of MBNA, the credit card company. Since his purchase, Aston Villa has had seven managers. MBNA, by contrast, had one CEO from the time of its formation in 1982 to its purchase by Bank of America in 2005.
For the most part owners conduct themselves like Mohamed Al Fayed, longtime proprietor of the Hotel Ritz in Paris and London’s Harrod’s department store, but best known for being the father of the man who perished alongside Princess Diana. Al Fayed bought Fulham, a cozy club housed at Craven Cottage on the bank of the Thames, in 1997. In the 25 years in which Al Fayed ran Harrods there was more stability in the kitchenware department or behind its fish counter than there was during his 16-year stewardship of Fulham, which saw him dismiss 11 managers and also erect a statue of Michael Jackson after the singer attended a game. The new owner of Fulham is Shahid Khan, a Pakistani immigrant to the U.S., who graduated as an engineer from the University of Illinois and subsequently has performed marvels by bootstrapping a bumper manufacturer into Flex-N-Gate, a company that employs 16,000 people and now ranks among the world’s largest automotive suppliers. Since 1982, Khan has been Flex-N-Gate’s only CEO – a tribute to the benefits of stability and purpose. After purchasing Fulham last July, it took Khan just 146 days to remove two objects: the statue of the King of Pop and the manager.
Stan Kroenke, the U.S. owner of Arsenal, is often cited as the model of temperance. Since he first became involved with the club in 2007, Arsenal has refrained from guillotining the Frenchman, Arsene Wenger. However, if anyone deserves an accolade for patience it is David Dein, Kroenke’s predecessor, who appointed Wenger in 1996. A closer inspection of the Kroenke family’s sports holdings suggests that their reputation for patience may be overdone. The Kroenkes control several U.S. sports teams – among them the Denver Nuggets (NBA), St Louis Rams (NFL), Colorado Avalanche (NHL) and Colorado Rapids (MLS) – and these teams have run through 24 coaches under their ownership.
The ineptitude of owners has ravaged Blackburn Rovers, one of only five clubs to have ever won the Premier League, that in 2010 was bought by the sons of the Founder of Venky’s, a large Indian poultry producer. As is customary for many Indian companies, a reverential portrait of Venkys’ founder, Dr B.V. Rao, hangs in all its factories and offices. The only hanging that has been done at Blackburn Rovers has been of managers. The sons of Dr B.V. Rao are now on their seventh, which hasn’t prevented the club from falling out of the Premier League into a the gloom of a lower division deprived of the glow of television revenue. When the Raos bought Blackburn, it was sitting in the middle of the Premier League, but they have since tried to run the club on chicken feed – not a recipe for success when Roman Abramovich has spent over $3 billion in the decade since he purchased Chelsea. The Raos are so unpopular with the fans that a chicken, dressed in Blackburn Rovers colors, was thrust onto the field on the day the club was relegated.
Once in a while an owner does something so foolish you wonder if he knows how to read. Take Sunderland, currently at the bottom of the Premier League, whose owner, Ellis Short, runs a private equity firm that ‘invests in distressed property assets and non-performing debt’ — a reasonable description of the club he controls. Last March, Short hired Paolo Di Canio, who in his playing time was a gifted, theatrical striker. In September, Di Canio was banished after the players mounted a dressing room rebellion – partly caused by his ban on the consumption of coffee, ketchup and mayonnaise – but mainly because of his continuous, verbal abuse. Even a heavily discounted perusal of the Internet would have suggested that Di Canio was not a man known to possess an internal equilibrium. His memoir ‘Il Ritorno’, one of the more revealing (and occasionally beguiling) soccer autobiographies contains this description of Benito Mussolini, “He was a deeply misunderstood individual. He deceived people. His actions were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual.”
If nothing else the merry-go-round that forms the Premier League’s management circle provides endless amusement – fueled by the undercurrent of xenophobia that flows through the British sports pages and the endless fuel supplied by the foibles of the protagonists. There are characters like Harry Redknapp, an endearing 66-year-old East Londoner, who has managed six clubs but has had a lifelong knack for getting into scrapes that land him on the front pages, and who, in 2012, became an “Ambassador” for Betfair, the British gaming company. Then there is Avram Grant, an Israeli who, after being fired by Chelsea in 2008 landed at Portsmouth where he was chauffeured to ‘FuFu’s’, variously described as ‘a dingy massage parlor’ and a ‘brothel.’ Nonetheless, in June 2010, Grant was solemnly appointed as Manager of West Ham on a four-year contract. He was dismissed less than a year later.
Tottenham Hotspur’s former manager, Andre Villas-Boas, dismissed last month. (AFP via Getty Images)
For the managers of the clubs whose owners have more money than sense, dismissal can be lucrative. Andre Villas-Boas was shown the door at Tottenham Hotspur last month with a reported payoff of $6.5M. Just about two years earlier he had pocketed almost $20M after being marched out of Stamford Bridge, home to Chelsea. The Daily Mail estimates that Chelsea has paid more than $80M to managers dismissed since 2003 – including payments of over $200,000 a week it is still making to Roberto di Matteo, who managed the club for eight months until he was banished in November 2012 even though, during his brief stint, the club had won the European Cup, the largest trophy in Europe. Roy Hodgson, who now manages the English national team, was given $12M after he was shown the door having run Liverpool for six months.
Perhaps the CEOs fingered by The Wall Street Journal can take some solace from the knowledge that they manage companies rather than soccer clubs, or from the fact that only 10 percent of the 500 companies in the S&P index replaced their leaders during 2013 – including some who had retired. But if any of these CEOs find themselves out of work they can console themselves with the thought that there will soon be a vacancy for another job – as the Manager of a Premier League team.
67. We have been waiting 2 years for goalscorer We only had one in hooper and we needed another
Now we have zero
Patience mmm
It’s taking the @@@@now
One of the CQN moon howlers https://www.facebook.com/michael.mcgill.587606/posts/1514727778751392:8
Interesting article by Dr Stuart Waiton
http://www.firmmagazine.com/football-sectarianism-free-speech/