The day after the opening Champions League qualifier of the season can get a bit tasty on the blog but business has been pedestrian since last night’s professional performance by the men in hoops. If you wanted to be pushy, you could point to a couple of glimpses of goal which fell Cliftonville’s way as a result of Celtic defenders being dragged out of position, but that’s about the measure of an unfamiliar defence at any time.
Congratulations to Georgios Samaras, who scored in Celtic’s first five European away games last season and obliged again yesterday. A remarkable record for a player who is never employed as a penalty box striker.
It would also be tardy not to congratulate Celtic and Cliftonville supporters on their exemplary behaviour throughout the day. After recent disturbances in Belfast there were fears that a group of travelling Celtic supporters could find trouble in the city but the casual observer could be forgiven if he thought we were in Seville again.
Maybe Belfast council should invite us over every July to spread a bit of cheer. We do football very well, in all respects.
Neil Lennon can now kick back and relax with a formality of a second and the next round not for another…. 12 days!! Maybe not. 12 days is not a lot of time to do anything in football, so every day, including match day against Cliftonville, will need to be meticulously planned to ensure we are ready to face an opponent who could well be midseason. Relax, and you’re finished in this business.
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Morning all.
Just reading back.
I once saw Willie Henderson interviewed on STV shortly before a Scotland V Wales Match which took place in May 1975.
Willie was resplendent in suit, large dark glasses and the compulsory torpedo cigar. Perhaps, he had just given up playing, because at the time concerned Wee Jimmy was still playing and had played in a Scotland shirt the year before even though he was heading towards the end of his career.
Anyway, the focus of the conversation was on the guy who was considered to be one of Wales’ star players— Leighton James— who had just signed for Derby County for what was then a record fee of £310,000, and the interviewer was pointing out what a dangerous player Leighton was and that he had been transferred for what was considered to be an awful lot of money.
Quick as a flash, wee Willie stabbed his cigar at the STV man and said ” Aye Leighton James is a good player, but I will tell you this — £310,000 would not amount to a deposit on Jimmy Johnstone at his best — with no Leighton, he couldn’t lace the wee man’s boots!”
It was so obvious that Willie was a Jimmy fan — forget club rivalry and all the baggage and rubbish that went with that horrible time — The Wee Rangers winger was just a huge Johnstone fan.
I must ask WW about him because both WW and Willie Henderson were very close to Tommy Gemmell and will have kicked about together.
Found something…
Celtic’s potential opponents (first leg score in
brackets)
IF Elfsborg or Daugava (7-1)
Dinamo Tbilisi or EB/Streymur (6-1)
Sheriff Tiraspol or Sutjeska Niksic (1-1)
NK Maribor or Birkirkara (0-0)
Slovan Bratislava or Ludogorets Razgrad
(2-1)
Maccabi Tel-Aviv or Gyor (2-0)
Molde FK or Sligo Rovers (1-0)
HJK Helsinki or Nomme Kalju (0-0)
Ekranas or FH (0-1)
Neftchi Baku or Skenderbeu Korce (0-0)
squire danaher
22:44 on 18 July, 2013
CL 3rd qualifying round draw is made Friday at 11:00 Celtic Park time
Steamed live on http://www.uefa.com
Disregard any MSM crap re us getting Zenit, Lyon or Arsenal
We are in the Champions half of draw
Seeded teams all look like going through comfortably unless detailed
FC Basel (straight through to 3rd rd)
BATE Borisov (0-1 going to Kazakhstan)
Celtic
Steaua Bucuresti
APOEL Nicosia (straight through)
Viktoria Plzen (4-3 up goin to Bosnia
Dinamo Zagreb
Partizan Belgrade
Austria Wien (straight through)
Legia Warsaw
Non-seeded
Sheriff Tiraspol (Moldova, 1-1 going to Montenegro)
NK Maribor (drew 0-0 in Malta)
Slovan Bratislava (2-1 going to Bulgaria)
IF Elfsborg (7-1 up v Latvians)
Maccabi Tel-Aviv (won 2-0 in Hungary)
Molde FK (Norway, won 1-0 at Sligo)
HJK Helsinki (0-0 going to Estonia)
Ekranas (Lithuania, 0-1 goin to Iceland)
Neftchi Baku (Azerb, 0-0 goin to Albania)
Dinamo Tbilisi (6-1 up v faroes)
Looking like 30% Scandinavia /
70% Central/Southern Europe unless there is also geographical seeding
Hope this helps
Whither the cash strapped scrofulous hillbillies the day?
Some challenging potential opposition in that lot. Would like to avoid Tblisi and one or 2 others.
HH
Gerry
Mornin CQNrs
Delighted with the performance against Cliftonville, even though I had butterflies for the team. Glad that folk enjoyed a Seville like visit to Solitude.
The football’s back and there’s only one place to hear about it…….from the famous Celtic internet bampots.
Have a great day, from a sunny Glasgow north.
HH
Morning,all
Re tomorrow’s match…….
I may have inadvertently given a bum steer on The New Inn. I was also under the impression that The Horse Guards nearby was closed.
Well,that’s websites for you.
Apparently The Horse Guards is now being run by the former landlord of The New Inn.
So that is the new PLAN A for post-match and pre-theatre cocktails.
I’ll still be wearing the cunningly-disguised grey and green HENRIK/HEINEKEN t-shirt and frantically checking my watch on a regular basis.
Till I get too drunk to remember….
Apols for the confusion.
http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/celtic/233411-celtic-face-trips-to-moldova-azerbaijan-or-albania-in-champions-league/
OHITS
No problem. Dashing around mad. Haydock is afternoon…NOT evening as I thought. Laterz
Morning from a sunny Gran Canaria.
H H.
BREAKING: The Tories sell the nation’s freely-donated blood supplies to the vampires of the private sector. Satire announces “I give up”.
Dear @BBCNews, today the Tories sold #NHS Blood Services to an American Venture Capitalist Firm for £200m. Newsorthy? http://www.greenbenchesuk.com/2013/07/today-nhs-owned-blood-services-were.html …
Some tough teams in our half of the draw, but I would rather face one of those sides as opposed to Milan, PSV, Basel, Schalke… who enter the league (non champions) draw.
HH!!
Correction!
Basel are one of the seeded teams in our half of the draw – I think!
HH!!
The first game I attended in the 60’s was Dunfermerline V Rangers.
First impressions were shock at the sheer aggression and brutal approach by the Ranglers.
Very different from the skillful beautiful game I had seen on TV with Brazil and Spurs.
In hindsight they knew even back then that the Mibs gave them the freedom to intimidate.
However there were 2 shining beacons of skill ,Jim Baxter and Willie Henderson. They led to me following the hun for a couple of years. Celtic hadnt even registered on my richter scale at this time. I lived in the country and all the football talk was about Rangers.
Willie Henderson was very good and I think sometimes featured with Baxter in rest of the world teams. He he had plenty was tricks which he performed while speeding to the byline and getting his cross’s over. He was well established as one of Scotlands stars before JJ burst onto the scene. However Jinky was on another level. Memory lane.
Berlin, Belfast, Brentford- Baku next on our itinerary?
Some ole banana skins to be negociated in amongst the non-seeds.
Morning cqn.
Today I shall be mostly sitting outside watching golf on tv …
Then heading to KSC to enjoy the company of fellow tims..
Factor20.com…
BRTH, I gave Pat a book to pass on to you the day after the Lions Roar Again night. I hope you got it.
P.S. Hogan to win the open…………………………………………………..
bt
Likewise.
However at noon (1100 hrs CP time) I shall be tuning into the CL draw, and hoping for a trip (fairly) close to home for Celtic.
HH!!
BLANTYRE TIM
Enjoy…..
Did ART OF WAR find you fellas yesterday?
http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=1973149.html#stage+europa+league+third+qualifying+draw
Motherwell unseeded in EL
Tallybhoy.
The draw will be live on cqn… o)
Guardian sport @guardian_sport 19m
The Rumour Mill: PSG to go for the nuclear option and trigger Lionel Messi’s £215m release? http://gu.com/p/3hdyp/tw
215 million…………………………………
Bmcuw.
.yes mate.
I was hobbling to out the door and he was standing loke a spare gay brazilian lumberjack….
Fine fellow as you would expect from a cqn bhoy.
Left him with Bundoran bhoy.T4 and oldtim.
The barca mole and I made an early retreat
The fact that he hae a pint of stella in his hands was a giveaway. .8-)
Parish priest just turned up to give my old auntie Holy Communion.
Nipping out to get fish – it’s Friday.
HH!!
@odea_darren: Delighted I can confirm I’ve signed a 3 year deal with FC Metalurh Donetsk! New chapter and I’m very excited to get started!
PJBhoynyc
05:57 & 06:08,
The fella comes up Regularly on so many of the podcasts I listen to, I’d much rather listen to your fine self. ;)
What I am looking forward to listening to over the next 2 weeks, hopefully…..
..after just listening to 2/3rds (dodgy numeracy) of Saucers, Swastikas and Psyops.
is
Yahweh ~ The Two Faced God mp3s, theres a few others that will likely rabbit trail. :D
A second half penalty from Patrik Twardzik earned a youthful Celtic Development XI a 1-0 win over Longford Town last night.
With Calum Waters and Liam Henderson on first team duty alongside Jackson Irvine, Darnel Fisher and Liam Henderson, Stevie Frail and John Kennedy have had to dig deep into the Academy for the two match trip to Ireland that continues against Cork City on Sunday.
Longford are sitting at the top of the First Division after 17 games and provided the young Celts with exactly the type of test they needed.
“The fitness levels are great but players need games to get match sharp and that’s what we are playing these games in Ireland for,” Frail explained.
“You could see that Longford are in mid season, they are a good side and it was great to play in front of a crowd with a few pockets of Celtic supporters.
“We’ve got a young squad over here but they know that they are being assessed and watched in every training session. Every time they put on their boots and a Celtic jersey they know that they need to perform.
“It’s great for the boys to see Liam and Calum called into the first team squad and there are others like Bahrudin (Atajic) and Jackson (Irvine) involved which is fantastic for us.
“Before the match I told our players that a year ago we played at Cliftonville, who’s to say that in a year or two some of our players could be coming to a place like Longford or Cork in the Champions League, it’s amazing how quickly football changes.
“Cork will give us a tougher test and that’s something that we are all looking forward to.
“The boys know the opportunities in front of them, our job is to get them ready when their first team chance crops up.”
John Herron and Callum McGregor will join the Celtic first team squad for tomorrow’s friendly at Brentford.
One there for the Bhoys from Cork or even Clonmel.
BT/BMCUW, Good wee afternoon/evening with some fine CQN legneds yesterday. Oldtim should forget using a glass and just get his G&T intravenously.
Moved on to All-Bar-One where we were joined by Token Tim with a surprise visit from WMD(Minty Moonbeams etc….).
Enjoy Blantyre KSC tonight bhoys!
HH
Great result for St Johnstone last night. A wee help to the old coefficient. Motherwell in the draw today too.
Gordon J – how can a defeat for the mighty Rosenborg be a ‘great result’?
BLANTYRE TIM
I have to say,I reckon he should have kept that description to himself!
Sure you enjoyed it. Enjoy the golf.
Enjoy this evening….
lionroars67
08:10 on 19 July, 2013
Rangers FC Official @RFC_Official 5m
I know Rangers are in the Third Division but you only get an opportunity to come somewhere like here once – Ian Black #RFCQuote
Retweeted by Gregory Ioannidis
HA HA HA……………………..toast all over the laptop now
————————————–
I would like to offer Ian Black some hope here. Circumstances may enable him to play in the 3rd division many times.
ART OF WAR
Pretty much a criminal offence not to enjoy yourself in such august company!
Dontbrattbakkinanger,
Because it’s all about the coefficient …
blantyretim
How’s the rehab going, fully weight bearing still on crutches?
Whit’s the crack?
Still on cruthches robin bhoy.
Will start walking about indoors then get rid of crutches in a couple of weeks.
Hard work about to commence. ..
Mighty Tim bringing me a programme tonight to help with rehab..