Earlier this year I wrote that the pyrotechnics problem was one of the free rider. There are reputational and Uefa fine costs to Celtic, but the perpetrators hide among a crowd, so encounter no costs. Celtic pay the fines, Celtic fans, as a group, carry the reputational damage, those who create the problem act with impunity.
Two who set flares in Istanbul have been identified and banned by the club. This ban will prevent them attending away fixtures in Europe for a considerable time, but it will not prevent them walking through turnstiles at Celtic Park, or some other Scottish grounds. Celtic have announced that they are considering their position and may raise a civil action to recover fines imposed –aligning consequences with actions.
Whenever I hear someone ‘considering their position’ I don’t expect them to act. Those who act tend to only provide advanced notice when legally obliged to do so. There is a flip side to this, however. If Celtic raise an action the issue is dead – it will not happen again. If Celtic don’t raise an action it may well happen again. Steps to hide identities will be improved, perhaps making it impossible to identify another offender. The stock defence of football clubs, “We’ve done everything we could”, will not wash.
It’s only 12 years since 80,000 Celtic fans went to Seville and didn’t so much as spill a drink. What chance that now?
When they were at their peak, 1.2million miners went down the pits in Britain. Before the pits, the population of Lanarkshire was a fraction of what it is now. They build railways in the late 19th century, allowing coal to be taken to the cities and ports, and people were drawn to places like Bellshill, Motherwell, Coatbridge and Wishaw.
This subsequent years saw the greatest migration from Ireland to Scotland, and an enormous migration from rural to urban Scotland. People came to Lanarkshire to work in the coal industry, and to Glasgow and other surrounding towns to work related industries, like shipping and heavy engineering.
The work was almost always dirty, often dangerous and inevitably poorly paid. Poverty and its associated diseases, including social diseases, were difficult to escape. Even today, the twin towns of Hamilton (a market town established for centuries) and Motherwell (a 19th century town established by the coal and steel industries) are separated by a significant gap in employment opportunities, property values and wealth. Physically they are only two miles apart, you can walk between them in minutes.
Football was the real opium of the masses. They worked five and a half days a week, on their half day they went to a game. Entrance was cheap, even the poor could attend, all boys could play, all men could talk a good game (it remained a predominantly male pastime for decades).
Coal, and its by-products: railways and heavy industry, shaped the industrial towns of Scotland, Wales and much of England. Without it, cricket would be our national game (it was once popular even in Scotland). You wouldn’t have Celtic.
Today the last miner will emerge from a British pit, in Kellingley, North Yorkshire. The pits around Lanarkshire are long gone, and there are few bings left. Jobs now are cleaner and safer, but we’ve lost a link to something Celtic fans value more than most, our heritage.
Speaking of which, get to Celtic Park before 13:00 tomorrow. Wallow in the abundant heritage that is Billy McNeill!
We’re shipping same day from CQN Bookstore, but there’s not long left before Christmas!
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Neganon2
http://youtu.be/-8hbUqhKM38
Hebcelt I think it’s a rather good analogy ( it wasn’t a vey good apology though).
And in case my wife is reading remember it is only an analogy dear.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/an-ecumenical-matter/
THE EXILED TIM on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 12:46 PM
NAT
I also meant to say, for years NA2 posted the same stuff without anyone attacking him, they did the message, but no him personally.
It’s only in the past year or so that he has been getting attacked, hence imo he retaliates, if I were in his shoes I would do the same.
HH
——————————————–
Respectfully, I completely disagree. There have always been those who play the man rather than the ball and it’s something that does no-one any good as it just leads to a spiral of name-calling. Respect for others’ opinions goes a long way.
Just retaliation? Sorry – disagree once again. My personal experience was when he accused me of calling other posters “huns”. I have never done so and responded in a reasonable and measured manner to point this out. Guess what? No response.
What goes around comes around – it’s certainly not the one-way traffic you’re suggesting.
BTW – posting the same thing for years? OK – I’ll give you that…
Gotta fly……
NegAnon2 on 18th December 2015 1:31 pm
I agree. I’m saying they did know. I’m not convinced they had any say in the details though.
Yes the 5WA agreement leaked, but I’m not aware of any club actually saying anything at all about it, or it’s details. That’s why I think they only knew about it in vague terms.
In some ways I’m not totally convinced it was even required. If you were to sit down at the time and ask me to consider objectively who might bring more to the SPFL and put RIFC and Spartans against each other, I can see that RIFC might come out on top. However, that would require an admittance that it was a new club making a fresh start. So you end up with the farce of the 5WA.
So if all the clubs knew about it and all were in agreement it was needed, that means all the clubs are happy with the same club myth.
The club have been muddy on this, we’ve had wee jokes etc, the end of ‘Old Firm’ but at the same time things like the ST Ts&Cs at the very least that they’re considered to be the same size of club and treated just the same as RFC.
Once again it comes back to something I’ve maintained for a long time, and that’s PL being a master of the ambiguous statement. The one thing that leads to is splits in the fan base.
NegAnon2 on 18th December 2015 1:05 pm
===================================
Bollocks.
And you know it.
Celtic PLC cannot take a lead in vilifying the Huns. Irony is it would do far more damage to Celtic than the Huns. All the marketplace sees is a well-run sporting company when eyes are cast our way.
That’s how Celtic survive – on a level the Huns would eat their weans to achieve. Celtic just can’t start screeching and pointing fingers and demanding retribution they way you want. It would make the officers of the company appear unstable, untrustworthy and severely affect the share stability. Drag us down to their shambolic level.
We’re grown-up now. Change has a mechanism we need to stand behind as the wheels turn. All the club can do is use appropriate channels at appropriate times. It doesn’t matter if PL hates the Huns/loves the Huns – he still can’t bring emotion into the argument becasue anything he says or does refelcts immediately on the club’s market value.
But you know this. So the melodrama -as you recognized your post for – is bollocks. You know the board’s hands are tied through priority.
The club’s statement after the EBT decision is about as far as they can go – ‘hoping procedure is followed in due course, etc, etc’
But at least they were letting the cabal at the SFA know they were tagging the situation.
It WILL take other club’s to effect the rightful punishment upon the Huns. When we gripe it’s easily dismissed as rivalry – but look at the attention the Aberdeen position got this week. We need the other clubs to stand up against any future fudging of the Hun cheating. Then Celtic can weigh in with some powerful demands. But not on our own. The Level 5 goons would see it as manna, isolate us in our ‘parochial bitterness’, make the agenda one of revenge rather than justice.
Like I said, we’d be putting our neck on the chopping block and costing ourselves more than we’d hope to achieve.
Neganon2 I will admit it was well written but that’s yer lot H H HebceltPS Mrs Neganon2 there was far too much info for that to be a work of fiction. I’d keep an eye on him!!
SANDMAN on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 1:51 PM
Outstanding post my friend.
Someone just got their arse handed to them on a plate I would say, nice one indeed.
Gents,
Although I don’t believe in whole scale nationalisation, I do believe that industries that keep the lights on and allow us to travel to these industries should be in public ownership.
Also regarding a police presence at well known Celtic pubs in the Gallowgate. Well that was the case prior to the Hearts game and I can tell you it didn’t go down well.
Not defending the police, but again they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
HH.
Ps: Wife Just had a e mail from UK hot deals. Get a luxury Christmas sack just like Mourinho’s.
neg2
brilliant post but hope you got the end wrong.
NEGANON2 on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 1:05 PM
Whit ….?
Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths signs new five-year contract with club
Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths has committed his long-term future to the club, signing a new five-year contract with the Hoops.
The striker’s existing deal was not due to expire until 2017 but Celtic have now tied down their first-choice striker until 2021.
Griffiths joined the Parkhead club in 2014 from Wolves and has scored 46 goals in green and white. The 25-year-old has found the net 19 times so far this season.
Griffiths told Celtic’s official website: “I love putting the Celtic top on every time and feeling that expectation to win every week.
Greenpinata
I am led to believe that there is alway a presence in the gallowgate prior to home matches
I only went with my nephew and his friends as they where up from Liverpool for the match
Griff on a long term contract is good business. I think he can and will improve further with experience and the dedication he has shown over the last year.
He has represented good value for money in a position where we have squandered an embarrassing amount of money so hope he has been rewarded financially.
I was very wrong about him – I thought he was another Riordan but has done himself and us proud.
BT,
I was sorry to hear of your trouble. Hope you are all ok.
Was speaking to some fans last Sunday who were also in the pubs that night. Some Ajax fans also got their comeuppance.
From the horses mouth I was told that not all Ajax fans had Dutch accents.
Again, hope you are all ok. What a welcome to Glasgow and Celtic.
HH.
Good news about a proven SPL scorer signing up for a long time, please dont get complacent Leigh, as I’m sure you wont and continue to work hard as you have done to earn this,keep banging them in.
DAVIDOPOULOS on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 2:24 PM
You where not the only one, but I will say well done to you, at least you had the balls to admit it, well done you.
Must run, things to do, HH.
Dont care who thinks Neganons post is good.To me its just the same old stuff tarted up a bit.Relentless,day in day out,trying desperately,and sadly,to influence the blog with his agenda towards the Celtic board.
This clown wants fellow supporters to boycott Celtic Park !!!!!!!!,and quite a few sooking up his erchie.
This poster tries to have a go at Tony Donnelly for actually supporting Celtic.Now,I dont always agree with what TD says,but I know where his heart is.He has a deep joy supporting Celtic,unlike the constantly whingeing third columnist,who would be happy to put our club in the gutter to appease his hatred of the board.
Not for me,never will be.
When coming onto the blog now,there are only a few who want to talk up the team.The majority only seem to want to denigrate,the manager,the board,certain players.Corkcelt is walking,and I really cant blame him.
We have a game tomorrow,anyone heard the trumpet Neganon mention it?.I will wait with baited breath on his congrats to the board for tying up Leigh Griffiths on a 5 year deal.Aye right.
” Rangers director Paul Murray says the £5m loan owed to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct retail company will be repaid.
Murray told BBC Scotland that the money has been lodged with the Scottish Championship club’s solicitors.
“We think as a board that it’s the right thing to do and that’s why we’re doing it,” he said.”
Is this a different £5 million from the tranche that the Court was told had already been repaid?
JJ
SANDMAN on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 1:51 PM
NegAnon2 on 18th December 2015 1:05 pm
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/pyros-pits-seville-and-heritage/comment-page-2/#comment-2739067
Well said.Thank God some have their eyes open.
Geordie Munro on 18th December 2015 10:12 am
Joe,
Xmas has been used for over 1000 years and contrary to the myth, does not take the Christ out of Christmas.
*Correct Geordie, in fact it goes back to the time of the Catechumens. I used tae think like JFH until a Franciscan priest explained it to me.
Incidentally it was St Francis of Assisi who created the 1st nativity scene.
Christmas is also sometimes known as Xmas. Some people don’t think it’s correct to call Christmas ‘Xmas’ as that takes the ‘Christ’ (Jesus) out of Christmas. (As Christmas comes from Christ-Mass, the Church service that celebrated the birth of Jesus.)
But that is not quite right! In the Greek language and alphabet, the letter that looks like an X is the Greek letter chi / Χ (pronounced ‘kye’ – it rhymes with ‘eye’) which is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Christos.
The early church used the first two letters of Christos in the Greek alphabet ‘chi’ and ‘rho’ to create a monogram (symbol) to represent the name of Jesus. This looks like an X with a small p on the top: ☧
The symbol of a fish is sometimes used by Christians (you might see a fish sticker on a car or someone wearing a little fish badge). This comes from the time when the first Christians had to meet in secret, as the Romans wanted to kill them (before Emperor Constantine became a Christian). Jesus had said that he wanted to make his followers ‘Fishers of Men’, so people started to use that symbol.
When two Christians met, one person drew half a basic fish shape (often using their foot in the dust on the ground) and the other person drew the other half of the fish. The Greek word for fish is ‘Ikthus’ or ‘Ichthys’. There are five Greek letters in the word. It can also make up a sentence of Christian beliefs ‘Ie-sous Christos Theou Huios So-te-r’ which in English means “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”. The second letter of these five letter is X or Christos!
So Xmas can also mean Christmas; but it should also be pronounced ‘Christmas’ rather than ‘ex-mas’!
SANDMAN on 18TH DECEMBER 2015 1:51 PM
Submissive subservient cap in hand. Severe Stockholm suffering, Hun kissing. Old firm protectionist bollocks
HH
Sandman,
I’ll maybe try and simplify it a bit, like many on here I played a bit of Boys Guild fitba back in the day, if you played at U14 level for instance and the opposition chucked in a couple of hairy 16 year olds, you would have had 12 or 13 screaming kids asking the manager how these guys could play. The manager would go to the committee and the offenders would forfeit that which they had stolen, and that in the mickey mouse but competitive world of Boys Guild.
Fast forward to the real thing, the world where we have had several league championships, Scottish Cups, League Cups and major European participation monies stolen from us and we are supposed to sit back and say nothing? Well not this Tim, we should be screaming at the top of out voices until our narrative is so loud that it cannot be ignored. What do we have to lose, they already class us as paranoid and obsessed, not bloody paranoid or obsessed enough. In my opinion, nothing will come from compliant silence, he’ll slap it into the cheating bastards.
Turkeybhoy
“The majority only seem to want to denigrate,the manager,the board,certain players.”
I know it seems like that but I have a feeling that those who are positive outweigh those who are negative in terms of actual posters. The brain working as it does , makes us more aware of negatives in life as well as on CQN.
JJ
SANDMAN
Well written post, don’t agree with it mind you, but well written all the same.
One bit in it went over the top of my head, this bit….
“Celtic just can’t start screeching and pointing fingers and demanding retribution they way you want. It would make the officers of the company appear unstable, untrustworthy and severely affect the share stability.”
Can you explain to this ejit how when the shares are losing value, and the club get most of their income from Season Books, match day income, TV money and player sales, that it will affect the share price.
HH
CQN is getting bloody boring. Too many people accusing others of being huns or idiots for not sharing the same opinion on something we don’t know a lot about.
We need to know more about the five-way agreement but we need to achieve this as part of a coalition with other fans. I genuinely believe that we need to do so via a judicial review.
A form of the actual of agreement and minutes of the meeting must be considered before we throw anybody under the bus.
Have to go out in a minute so I would like my final post before I do so to be about Celtic. My team for tomorrow:
Gordon,Lustig Bhoyata Simunovic Izzy/Tierney
Forrest Bitton Allan Rogic Armstrong
Griffiths/Citci.
Manager:Mr. R. Deila.
Cheerio for now,
Jungle James
no pyros, no party.
only joking
Davidopoulos:
Thank you for your explanation but I just don’t see anything bellicose in love. I see fears and fears again when what you love the most is being bastardised. Fear that what you love most will be taken from you; and by your own stabbing you in the back for a dollar they don’t even need, that hurts, that hurts the most. Remembering some of our own can’t even afford the bus fare to work at Celtic park and they walk there instead to service us.
I’ll get bellicose to defend my ethics, my morals, my love, but I’ll only do so if others try to deny me right to my ethics, my morals, my loves, my fears, if they leave me alone and allow me equal credence in tolerance and opportunity to articulate, then peace often reigns, and what hurts more than love? Really what hurts more than love?
Paul67:
” It’s only 12 years since 80,000 Celtic fans went to Seville and didn’t so much as spill a drink. What chance that now?
You would not be asking such a ludicrous question had you lived through the 60’s and the 70’s.
The heart is being ripped out of our club, and its soul… its soul, conceived in the sweat, and tears, and fears, and graft, and courage, and sacrifice, and humiliations, and pains, of all that have gone before us who held the club and its virtues dear in their hearts and proved so with their unselfish actions, well that now, that soul we all so loved and adored, that soul now is nothing more than a callous manipulation of the board to pay dividends.
They who founded our club would bleed from the heart, and their compassion would tear out, if they could see and feel what we have become; I thank my God they can’t.
Or maybe I think too much of my club, your club, our club. f you are going to write about it, please feel it.
Talking of mines and miners.
What did Tory Prime Minister Heath and miners’ leaders Lawrence Daly and Mick McGahey have in common?
The 5 Way Agreement breached so many rules I cannot begin to count them. Does anybody really think Celtic PLC were not privy to what was in the agreement? Along with all the other member clubs too. If they weren’t why the retrospective silences?
WHY?
im proud (smug) to say I was a griffiths supporter day 1 – infact before he signed for us. Great that we have him tied in to us for 5 years. I suspect he knows his level and Celtic and Griffiths are a great/ perfect match!
Heartening to learn from Paul Murray that when it comes to Scottish Football related matters, even QCs can make honest mistakes.
Turkeybhoy,
I agree with JJ.
If there are 10 posts and 5 are saying one thing and 5 saying another I believe you always think that the consensus is the opposite to what you think.
I think :)
HH
As one of the negatives.
Odd that the Board has no problem in acting against the flare numpties, for numpties they are, when there is a loss of money involved.
Aye so you were Cultsbhoy ;)