I’m a friend of one of the Cowans from Glasgow, I got him a ticket for Celtic Park once. For that family, for Humza Yousaf’s family and the countless more who are mourning, or terrified of what may happen next, I will not give you my hot takes on a situation so tragic and complex it deserves nothing but our full concern.
You can see by watching Celtic, we have a tight-knit squad, there to support each other, and a tight-knit club. You wouldn’t have it any other way. Getting involved here is the last thing any football club would want to do, but the players needed support, perhaps the bereaved too.
Try, though you can, politics and sport cannot always separate. ‘Celtic Football Club, open to all since 1888’, is our proud boast, but for much of our history, that was a political statement in Glasgow (whereas it is just a fact now). We are a club with founding values worth preserving and occasionally worth stating. God help anyone killed for their ethnicity – nothing is truer to those values.
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SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 1:56 PM
Thanks for posting that. I don’t know enough about this situation but certainly know more now given the measured and informative views given. I’d like to see something similar on the Israeli side so I could compare and contrast.
As for the GB statement, I’d ask and will, through JPT, that Celtic close that area for the Madrid match. If they don’t, a real shit show is coming our way, and it won’t be nice.
POR CIERTO on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 3:41 PM
We happily huddle under the establishment’s choice of what is accepted as celebration – from the poppy to the Ukranian invasion.
I’d have preferred if Celtic had got the GB into a room and tore them one for this, rather than this crappy megaphone diplomacy.
I certainly didn’t need the ‘who speaks for me’ divided house panto that is now taking place.
HH
BIG WAVY on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 3:50 PM
I concur, por cierto
BIG WAVY on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 3:50 PM
This isnt about in-house squabble, its bigger than that.
The Club has a duty to make sure its seen in a certain way by the rest of the world.
BIG WAVY on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 3:50 PM
BW,
I dont often agree with you much on football stuff,
but hat doffed on your comments today on the banner,
celtic supporters asking the plc to close a section of the ground because they dont like their politics ,
seriously,
should we go further and remove anyone from the ground that waves a flag that we dont like ?
maybe take everybody and anybody season book off them.
maybe be age restrictions on attendance, and cancel the wearing of the green.
SAINT STIVS:
Well that rather depends on the politics, doesn’t it? And its capacity to harm Celtic as a club.
If you’re suggesting we should allow pro-Hamas banners out of “respect” for their politics, then we’re not really that far from seeing Hezbollah honoured in the stands or Al Qaeda? Anyone who wants to “stick it to the man”, any organisation which wants to wipe Israel off the map.
What about some Russian flags? You good with that? Still want to keep the People’s Republic section open? After sponsors are threatening to walk away? After UEFA tells us to shut that part? After they tell us to shut the whole stadium? Still good with it?
Some people on here should do more reading and less writing / virtue signalling.
SAINT STIVS on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 4:23 PM
So anyone can come and display any banner, just think that through.
I think most on here are very much behind the Palestinians but not Hamas. I would avoid conflating that position to endorse the Green Brigades actions here.
Nowhere in the latest missive from the ‘Green Brigade’ do the Marist Brothers get a mention
No understanding of the word Marist. No mention either of ‘The Poor Children’s Table’ and the charitable purpose of helping alleviating poverty in the Parishes of the East End. No mention of Glasgow.
And unless I have missed it no mention of Brother Walfrid. He does not fit with their narrative.
Some on here would do well not to overestimate their limited intelligence.
Must be a slow news day on other blogs. .. . . .
Greenpinata
“I was inclined to agree that the GB display was ill judged and badly timed. However the GB statement dispels that theory.
Not a word of sympathy for the innocent young people massacred at a music festival for peace.
They confirm many perceptions that Celtic supporters were celebrating the massacre of innocents from all over the world. ”
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I agree that the absence of any expression of sympathy for the victims is crass and wrong but it doesn’t prove they were pre-meditated in seeking violent actions nor does it prove they were “celebrating”. Those are still judgements we are projecting on to them.
Cloud9/JHB
“Of course they were reacting😂 – these people don’t sleep with what they are on – they would be up all night ‘manufacturing’ as soon as the news broke. Do you know how quickly they can make one of those banners?”
——————————–
I am not inclined to mistake your imagination for what really happened.
I think it is far more likely that those people had prepared something for the Saturday that had been completed at least a day before.
The idea that they all phoned each other late on a Friday night/early Saturday morning and said “Change the banner- we’re going with Palestine this week!” would be a laughable thought in any other week than this one.
I dont endorse the Green Brigades actions.
I dont know what the thinking was,
I dont know who is the groups leaders.
I personally dont really understand the many paragraphs of reaction in their statement.
I dont know for sure that they knew about the seriousness of the Hamas attack, if they did them i think it is foolish of them to continue with the display,
I worked with an American Jewish person who came round to supporting Celtic as his club because of my influence , we researched his wife family heritage to a Glasgow jewellers shop in Gordon street at the same time as Celtic were being formed, and they lived in the Gorbals, with Poles, Italians and Irish.
I told him, that visiting celtic park he would see Palestinian flags and how did he feel about it.
His response was simple, poeple can display what they want.
It’s perfectly possible to have compassion for the plight of the Palestinian people, but feel horrified at the terrible atrocities perpetrated against innocent Israeli citizens at the weekend, and further horror for the dreadful and inevitable repercussions against Palestinian innocents. The Green Brigade’s banner. and in particular it’s orchestrated timing, made it clear in their ideology they only care for innocents on one part of the divide,
The most galling aspect for me of the Green Brigades ridiculous statement is, if they get their way, and our club is inevitably fined, castigated, made a pariah etc., is that, while we will suffer, it will register not the slightest measure of impact for those actually suffering terribly in Gaza.
Years ago the Green Brigade were saluted and praised for their unwavering support of the team. We loved the atmosphere they created. It seems they have been usurped by an entitled and embittered brand of supporter who insist on their politics and damn the consequences for the club they support and indeed for any other supporter who may not agree with them.
Celtic existed long before the Green Brigade. I think we’re at the point of no return.
Celtic40ME
I agree that Celtic had to dissociate from the banner (more accurately, from the inferences made about the banner) as they operate in a different arena from the fanbase.
JAMES FORREST
See above- but please note and acknowledge that the GB did not praise Hamas nor did they overtly celebrate death.
They asked for victory for the Palestinian People- I know you know they are not all Hamas.
SAM QUENTIN:
Okay then, let’s try it this way.
I reckon that this is too complex a situation for people to be playing games with. Too complex a situation for some moronic wannabe revolutionary to think it fits on a banner.
Hamas is an off-shoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and its stated policy, like that of Hezbollah, is to destroy Israel as a nation. It wants to establish a Islamic Palestinian state where Israel currently is. That’s not an organisation with much interest in negotiated settlements or a two-state solution. Both are heavily funded by Iran, which adds another wrinkle.
The point is, Hamas has an agenda which really doesn’t have a lot to do with the Palestinian people. The Palestinian cause itself for Hamas is a means to an end, which is an Islamic state where Israel currently stands. One of the calculations Hamas will have made is that having effectively run the PLO out of Palestinian territory it now needs a wider base of support … and we know historically that there is one sure way to do that, and one “partner” in that endevour you can rely on.
And that partner is Israel. Because 9/11 was explicitly designed to provoke America into some grotesque over-reaction, and that’s precisely what it did, but before it did that 9/11 afforded an opportunity for a different world and certainy for a different Middle East. It could have been the moment the US stopped taking sides and looked at things from all sides. And a just and equitable peace might have followed.
America decided to invade a country that played no part in the atrocity of 9/11 and we were off to the races. They instigated the fall of the Gadaffi regime, interfered in the internal politic of Syria, and thus helped create Islamic State and gave Al Qaeda the sort of strength it had never before possessed. We’ll be living with the consequences of that for the rest of our lives and beyond.
Israel is even easier to provoke, considering the arch crook at the head of the government. So they will react, reflexively, violently, in a grossly overblown manner … and not only will that unite the Arab world in loathing, and thus shatter, first, any Saudi-Israeli compromise or understanding, but it will strengthen support for Hamas inside the Palestinian territory itself.
Part of the political calculation for Hamas here was a vast Israeli campaign against Gaza; Hamas committed an atrocity they knew full well would lead to the further persecution of Palestinians, and they did that for their own gain and for their own agenda.
The Green Brigade thinks this is a binary choice, and that they believe that is just one example of how simple-minded and unsophisticated their world view is. Celtic is right to want nothing to do with that at all.
I am not “virtue signalling.” We’re watching a geopolitical chess match in which ordinary civilians on all sides aren’t even deemed important enough to be pawns. I deplore all of it. You barely understand it.
I think some on here need to look at the bigger picture of what happened in Israel ,innocent young and not so old folk enjoying themselves at a music festival, who for no other reason that they were Jewish were assassinated no other word for it ,
The situation in and around Gaza is beyond grim. You can be disgusted by Hamas’s barbarism and Netanyahu’s fascism at the same time. You can also hold that every life has equal value, whether Israeli or Palestinian. Not that you would know that from mainstream media coverage.
Some people on here should understand that scrolling by is what i do when they attempt to engage with me. I do not have the time to read about Ernest Bevin’s pipe or the latest sub plot in a Hollywood blockbuster to that eventually takes me to some randomers half baked opinion about whatever is making the news on at any given time.
Long self serving rants with little intellectual input should be a personal endeavour and not foisted upon those who do not actively go looking for such. Life is harsh enough these days without having to endure more hardship.
Shoutout to all advertisers on #SnackMedia http://www.toetheline.com
Guys, most of you anyway, have a good one.
This is a heavy enough place today without dipshit and I arguing with each other.
Not that that was anything but a one-sided smackdown.
Catch you all some other time.
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 4:50 PM
A “feck Uefa” pin wouldn’t be a good look at the next ECA meeting.
It sure was a one-sided smackdown
Hope you are ok James.
I take it the ” Years of barbarism against the Palestinians” do not include the slaughter of thousands of Jews,after the bestowal of Nationhood,carried out against Israeli Kibbutz.The blowing up of Israeli school buses,by the PLO ,a piece of terrorism by Yasser Arafat to keep their numbers down.
The attack on Israel from Egypt,Jordan,Syria,in the 6 day war to annihilate the state of Israel.The attack by Egypt in the Yom Kippur war,to do the same.
This land is steeped in blood from barbaric crimes.No side is immune from guilt.No one should be taking sides.
GB,who anyone on here knows,I have always supported,can fek right off.
Checking out of here for a while, I will wait and see if an outbreak of football chat happens.
..
“the bestowal of Nationhood,”
It’s the first time i’ve heard it dressed up as the bestowal of Nationhood.
How very quaint. A Guinness and Skittles type affair by the sounds of it.
JF
all that stuff is too long to put on a banner as a caveat to supporting the palestinians.
with all this talk of smackdowns, what costume/pseudonym would folk have if they were a wrestler ? or is wrestling off limits for a football blog ? e.g. Who would be The Big Show ?
I was not at the game on saturday so I have to ask actual attendees –
was there a crowd reaction to the GB Banner being unfurled,
a mass response of boos ?
an instant feeling of gonny no dae that ?
anyone look to the directors box, any pictures of a furious PL and Michael ?
When I sat in 122, there was a family there, that took a palestine flag to every game, i wonder how they reacted.
I can only find this close up picture, but those outside the standing section appear to be looking and clapping and capturing it on their phones.
So those who actually attended, how was the crowd feeling in response ?
https://icdn.thecelticstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/celtic-fc-v-kilmarnock-fc-cinch-scottish-premiership-61-1024×682.jpeg
And an interesting counter balance opinion worth a read.
https://thecelticstar.com/opinion-that-celtic-statement-is-both-wrong-and-hypocritical/
Regarding the GB statement, I do not recall Celtic FC ever at any time making a statement in support of Ukraine in their war with Russia.
Also, there has never been any banner displayed at Celtic Park with pro-Ukraine or anti-Russia/Putin sentiments, so where is the hypocrisy among the Celtic board with regard to Ukraine?
Take the time to take a look at UN Resolution 181, November 29 1947, the maps and the attached detail for the projected States of both Palestine and Israel.
After which take a look at the UN Armistice Line 1949 of the same geographical area.
You will note that from 1948 the West Bank was controlled by Jordan. Until 1967.
That is what happens when you choose War. And lose.
It will probably be one of the least linked articles and hard as it may be for some of us to admit it but the most balanced view on this comes, as usual, from Paul67 on CQN.
Fewer words sometimes work better
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 5:34 PM
Tom,
did you make the game on Saturday, I am interested in the attendnace, and our previous discussions, at the game what would you estimate physical attendance was ?
Until 1967 ?
surely the Lisbon Lions are not getting the blame for this now ?
SAINT STIVS on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 5:26 PM
Please indulge me. You were not at the game on Saturday. Fair enough.
However you are constantly mentioning empty seats at games and your inability to purchase a ticket. On Saturday there were loads of empty seats, predominantly from fans travelling in adverse weather conditions.
There were loads of spares going. I mentioned that on here prior to the game. Celtic sites were full of available tickets.
Anybody who wanted a ticket could have got one.
Anyway, cheers and HH.
St Stivs
For what it’s worth, I was in the standing section behind the GB (110). I guess about c.45000.
An alternative position from the Celtic Star.
https://thecelticstar.com/support-for-celtics-statement-on-green-brigade-banners/