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.
160 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- »
SAINT STIVS
I wasn’t at the game on Saturday but watched it live on CelticTV. It was a late decision so didn’t have time to pass on my season card.
There were clearly thousands of empty seats which was understandable given the weather conditions.
However, I was astonished on seeing the official attendance published by the club — 58,295.
What is that all about? They obviously counted me being there by virtue of my being a season card holder.
How do they justify that?
Tom,
“Earlier this year in relation to the Ukrainian crisis, we donated a further £10,000 to the Scottish Refugee Council to assist their work with Ukrainian refugees in Scotland.”
I believe we also had displaced Ukranian kids as mascots.
Good on Celtic but it’s also arguably an act of politics to do so. Something I found a bit daft of our club to say in the statement.
Not sure we’ve ever done anything for Palestinians forced to flee and living in Glasgow.
I suspect that would be too risky in the eyes of the board but will stand corrected, given my search was a simple google one.
HH
I’ve been silent on the terrorist atrocities at the weekend, mostly to absorb the shock.
I appreciate the mostly balanced and mature debate on the blog, reflecting the demographic of most posters.
I’ve worked closely with Israelis for 11 years and have several close friends living in Tel Aviv. Like many of the massacred young people from the desert concert, my friends are largely sympathetic and empathetic to the Palestinian cause and suffering.
I agree wholeheartedly with Nir Biton that Palestinians need freedom from Hamas, not Israel.
To the GB Banners, I give them the benefit of the doubt on celebrating the unacceptable. Their statement is articulate but their cause is tone deaf at a time like this. My Israeli friends always shrugged off the Palestinian flags in the understanding that Celts will always back the underdogs (depending on your view).
While I can put off last weekend’s display as ignorance, they are moving in the direction of wilful ignorance and will lose my support if they embarrass the club and it’s supporters even further.
https://x.com/hltco/status/1711288668017631277?s=46
I think this guy is a Tim.
GP,
I was not in a position to actually attend on Saturday, one of the reasons I gave up my season card was the shifts my wife works on a saturday.
Greenpinata 5.47
For balance it was an alternative view to another of its own articles @CelticStar,
both good Celtic men,who used to post here.
1
https://thecelticstar.com/opinion-that-celtic-statement-is-both-wrong-and-hypocritical/
2
https://thecelticstar.com/support-for-celtics-statement-on-green-brigade-banners/
HH
A superb video from Norwich on World Mental Health Day. Hopefully the link works..
https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12981797/norwich-city-launch-powerful-video-on-world-mental-health-day
TOM MCLAUGHLIN on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 5:55 PM
SAINT STIVS
There were clearly thousands of empty seats which was understandable given the weather conditions.
However, I was astonished on seeing the official attendance published by the club — 58,295.
What is that all about? They obviously counted me being there by virtue of my being a season card holder.
How do they justify that?
———–
ta for the response, you got in front of the question I was going to ask. So i mentioned before a very reliable source working within the Stadium Facility team has told me previously that all season cards activated for a league home match will be counted as in attendance even when the card is not seen on entering through a smart turnstyle.
You differed a few weeks ago around this would be an h&s concern.
I thnk we see from that physical attendnance on saturday, they are counting Season cards whether used or not, easily 10,000 unoccupied seats.
I tried to get a Madrid ticket today, sold out in 10 minutes,
As an aside, my old neighbour in 122, told me again at the lazio game, my old seat, and the two across the aisle unoccupied again,
something is not right in the actual operations in the ticket office i am convinced of it.
as an aside to an aside –
the blackpool bus made it up on saturday, and 6 of my family were in attendnace , and in the Standing section the youngest 12 the oldest 75.
meanwhile one of the port busses had to go view the parkhill to langbank back road,
what a day it was down here, the port toon was actually cut off for a time.
i blame fergusons ship yard, the snp , and the greenock polis.
it flooding was that bad one of the big cruise ships actually docked at cappielow.
AN TEARMANN on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 6:15 PM
Hola,
I saw your pic on BRRB feed from other day, now i have a face to put a name to, I can look out for you.
your looking remarcably healthy for all your recent endevours.
keep it lit.
Texastim – “I agree wholeheartedly with Nir Biton that Palestinians need freedom from Hamas, not Israel.”
– With all due respect, Nir is an ex-IDF soldier who praised those soldiers attacking Gaza in 2014, that saw scores of children die in an all-out attack. He has absoluetly no credibility and a clear Israeli war machine fan boy.
Interestingly at the same time Tony Stokes sent out a message in support of the people of Gaza.
Interestingly, neither player was reprimanded by ‘non-political’ Celtic plc.
All about context csc
HH
SS,
Thank you for indulging me.
There are many reasons ticket holders cannot attend.
A good site is on Facing book called Celtic Spares.
AT.
Indeed.
It seems I m8ssed you in McChuills on Saturday. We had to meet up in the Sarry.
HH.
I posted a couple of days ago. I’m a daily lurker, very occasional poster, Jewish Celtic fan.
I’m glad to see that there are plenty of reasonable, empathetic voices on here. The last few days have been utterly heartbreaking for the Jewish community. Deeply traumatic. We all have friends and family in Israel, we all know people who have been lost, and the horror of what has gradually unfolded, the utter depravity of what Hamas unleashed on countless hundreds of innocents is beyond comprehension.
I’m not going to attempt to get into the politics of this save to say that if you choose to frame the complicated history of Israel and Palestine in terms of good guys and bad guys, then you are already lost. There have been bad actors, terrible decisions, and poor leaders on both sides. And anyone who thinks that what happened on Saturday is a cause to celebrate, to explain or justify is simply one of those bad actors.
I’m glad Celtic distanced themselves from the idiotic message on Saturday. In truth I think they should have gone a lot further to explicitly offer sympathy to Israel and to the Jewish community, but at least they have said something. And the decent, nuanced messages on here are greatly appreciated.
As news comes out of the mass execution by Hamas of babies on one kibbutz, I read that the GB are planning a big display of Palestinian flags at the Atletico game. The callousness and witlessness is breathtaking.
TexasTim – do the 500 to 600 children arrested by Israel each year and put through military courts and sent to military prisons need freedom from Israel?
Do your friends or you have much to say about the hundreds of Palestinians killed each year by Israeli dedence forces and settlers?
What about the destruction of homes and schools, theft of land and houses that is carried out day and daily by Israel and its settlers?
How about the 16 year long blockade of Gaza, denying its inhabitants freedom of movement, basic goods and services? What about the hundreds killed and maimed in the peaceful protests of the great march of return in gaza a few years back?
The murderous assaults on the west Bank?
The multiple reports by respected human rights organisations describing Israel as an Apartheid state?
I’ll put it down to ignorance. Willing, selective or otherwise.
Great to see St Pauli continue at top of B2 in Germany. 2 points clear of Hamburg and on form
Pity they seem out of favour with the Green Brigade too. I am sure St Pauli will get by without them though.
Embdae fancy a Poppy debate?
“As I write these words, I am sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room, following with growing panic the reports and rumors of horrible events taking place in the Israeli towns near Gaza which are under attack. I see people, some of them my friends, calling on social media to attack Gaza more fiercely than ever before. Some Israelis are saying that now is the time to eradicate Gaza entirely — essentially calling for genocide. Through all the explosions, the dread and the bloodshed, speaking about peaceful solutions seems like madness to them.
Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.
Haggai Matar is an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist, and is the executive director of +972 Magazine”
https://www.972mag.com/gaza-attack-context-israelis/?fbclid=IwAR3Vr3s_VG6XBWr-c81RvJzrdqRao3fuXA99ZqnCBBalEXkOV4z8emNEzus
I’ll say no more. The Israeli journalist quoted above has more moral authority than me or any of the selectivist bloggers on here.
You come in to my home, eat my food, sleep in my bad, beat me with a stick, urinate on my face but, you dare call me a terrorist.
Greg,
Genuinely heartbroken for the events in Israel and the shock it caused to Jewish people everywhere.
but…
The very absence of any condemnation in your post for the ‘utter barbarity’ taking place now in the Gaza strip, perpetrated by the Israeli state, isn’t a great look.
The sentiment here today is mostly about balance. Man’s inhumanity to man.
Hopefully an oversight. Anything else is just partisanship…
HH
Something I read earlier struck a cord….if a wife suffers years of abuse, battering and possibly rape….she eventually cracks stabbing the husband multiple times …..its murder …but many would have sympathy with the woman
Cloud 9 is a wrong un
Well articulated TexasTim. Too sensible for many who want to believe what they believe. The Jewish people have always been a target for fake news. I am nit saying that they don’t take actions that can be seen in a bad light. Likely all of the Hamas ideologist on here have never been to the game, never set foot in Israel, never talked to a Palestinian or Israeli. Kibbutzniks are almost all left wing ideologists. The party goers at a peace festival and kibbutzniks will all have a mindset that wants peace, wants better for their Palestinian neighbours. I know I lived there. Hamas cowards on the other hand want to control and enslave the population, kill all Jews. Despicable cowardly sick men shooting young and old burning families. How can the GB equate that to Celtics history is beyond any semblance of reason. Until Hamas go, allowing Palestinian children to be educated and not indoctrinated, Israel has no choice except to build the wall and respond to terrorism with force. Innocents will be killed. The blood is on Hamas and the jihaddis. The GB support and celebrate. I don’t know what planet or drugs they are on but they need to do their thing elsewhere, away from their safety net in Celtic Park.
All conflicts, including the one raging in Eastern Europe can be framed in decades if not centuries of history. War can be mightily complicated.
So, to keep things relatively simple, I find focusing in on a few important but indisputable facts can be helpful.
Does Israel occupy the West Bank ? Yes. Almost every country on the planet acknowledges this.
Does Israel continue to build illegal settlements inside this occupied land ? Yes.
When the Israelis deal with these indisputable facts, and by that I mean, withdrawal from the West Bank and the dismantling of every settlement built on internationally recognised Palestine, they’ll have no bigger defender than myself.
Until then, violence is inevitable. But the Israelis know that. Annexing land means more to them than peace.
One day that may change.
SFTB @ 4:40
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.
———-
For someone who’s full-time job is CQN, that is about the most mealy-mouthed effort you have ever posted.
Greg, I’m glad you can find some comfort from Celtic supporters at this difficult time. As a Celt we share your suffering.
And fine words Texastim.
Celtic was founded on hope and love. Lets hope they win out
what does ‘ethnicity’ mean?
On other stuff.
I see the British and Irish bid is approved.
But that not all teams will get an automatic place at the finals, and that some will need to still qualify.
There is a thought that England and Irelnad will be “hosts”, while the other 3 teams will still need to be in a group.
Supreme irony is Scotland didnt then make the finals.
ROBERTTRESSELL on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 6:45 PM
Haggai Matar nails it
Another consequence of this ME catastrophe is the poor LGBT community in Gazza who really needed access to Israel. What does freedom look like to them..?
I have not forgotten # MahsaAmini.
The Palestinian cause is undeniable and just , but not to the detriment of the innocents who live and work in Israel.
freedom means different things to different people.
HH.
The Devil is in his element right now.
So much is being destroyed.
The Epicentre has always been Jerusalem.
Dumbarton had the worst flooding ever Saturday Morning., I’ve seen Bowling Station Willo like that before.
LIEL, I will understand if you don’t want to play for Celtic again, hopefully you will under Brendan, the GB used Brendan as a marksman.
“SAINT STIVS on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 7:27 PM
There is a thought that England and Irelnad will be “hosts”, while the other 3 teams will still need to be in a group.”
That`s not how I took the news. I thought they said all five would have to qualify but two `failures` would still have a chance of entry through the back door.
HS@7:32
That’s exactly what Reporting Scotland said this evening.
Does Hampden have hot water in its toilets. ?
I should have added ie what you said 🙂
PRESTONPANS BHOYS on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 7:37 PM
Yes, that very reliable organ on matters Celtic was my source :-))
I really don’t understand Celtic Boards reluctance to deal with the Green Brigade. They must know who the key individuals are . Remove their season tickets , reduce the numbers in that section to make it more manageable, restrict access to only tickets for that area, it’s a magnet for all the yahoos , invest in proper stewarding that can identify and remove instigators..people with pyro etc.
I used to have a season ticket next to that section , the group I sat next to were tuned to the moon and whacked out on everything!!!! I used to get targeted because I didn’t sing the “ rebel “ songs and told them what I thought of them…scum
JHB on Cloud 9
” For someone who’s full-time job is CQN, that is about the most mealy-mouthed effort you have ever posted.”
—————————
Nothing mealy-mouthed about it. I meant every word I said about you. You are see-through.
JAMES FORREST on 10TH OCTOBER 2023 4:54 PM
James’s summation is excellent.
Both the Palestinians and the Jewish/Israeli people are in hock to extremists and have been ever since Yom Kippur in 1973. A new generation of Jews emerged. They abandoned socialism for the security religious fanatics promised. The Palestinians have had 60 years of compromise, oppression and gradualism without one inch of progress. Small wonder then many give their support to religious and political fundamentalists who ‘get things done’.
This problem has the potential to set half the world alight. It won’t be solved either by me or the GB.
10TH OCTOBER 2023 7:58 PM
Good to see you back again James.