Last night my brother reminded me of a comment he made after the 0-0 against Benfica on match day one of the Champions League, “I hope we’re not sitting with one point after five games”. Expectations can be as high as you like, but reality based on experience at that stage suggested Celtic would struggle to have more than a single point at this stage of the tournament.
A solitary point away from home in our Champions League history would lead the harsh realists to expect our trips to Lisbon, Barcelona and Moscow would be fruitless, leaving the enormous matter of tackling Barcelona at Celtic Park.
Two of those away games resulted in defeat, and we were behind in Moscow before one of the most significant fight-backs in modern Celtic history. It’s difficult to find perspective for the win over Barcelona. Suffice to say, they won 0-2 in Lisbon and 0-3 in Moscow. Celtic’s 2-1 remains the most astonishing result of this season’s Champions League.
Manchester City’s failure to qualify for the knock out stage, with their seemingly limitless budget, tells the story of how difficult this tournament is. England’s other mega-wealthy club, reigning European champions Chelsea, sacked their manager this week as the expectation they are likely to be eliminated at this stage dawned.
Beating Spartak and qualifying for the knockout stage will be suitable reward for a remarkable team.
The very first CQN Annual is NOW in stock and shipping order yours here! P.S. it’s great.
In case you missed the story, check out the Celtic Trust’s ‘Stand up for the Green Brigade‘ call on the 12th minute on Saturday. Full details on the Trust’s site.
P.P.S. Stand up for the Green Brigade.
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Oldtim
if you had the port in the place I directed you to I expect you round mine after the game on saturday with a bottle to share a glass !
Oldtim67
I hope you have a old blue(sorry)cheese to go with your Port.
ernoe..,
thanks for the clarification, as you spotted I have been referring to the players as trustees, cheers
hail hail
oldtim67
22:03 on
22 November, 2012
I’ve not a fan of port and said so to one bhoy while having something to eat in a Lisbon restaurant. That bhoy asked me to try what he was drinking, well I wished I had bought a case as well………..
whitedoghunch.
I’m not going to the game on Saturday,I did that much walking in Lisbon My feet are knackered,staying of them until the russian game.
oops ernie
Jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/
22:14 on
22 November, 2012
Ive gotta annoying pop up at the side of my screen with wee bugs running all over it. How can I stop it?
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Jude,lay off the drink for a few weeks.
V P
Thers always wan eh? <:o)
MWD
replied
Shieldmuir Celtic
22:12 on
22 November, 2012
You are of course correct regarding scottish football’s media, however mercifully they are becoming irrelevant as newspaper circulations continue to drop off.
We know they cheated and they know it. They have admitted it. The rest of scottish football despise them. Let them get on with supporting a rangers fc franchise in the 3rd division on their romantic adventure. We will stick to winning titles and cups and beating Barcelona.
prestonpan bhoys.
That eating place wasn’t in the big square,if so,we may have been in the same restaurant,and supped the same port,but not out of the same bottle,we drank that one tout de suite.
The Quiet Man
What was killing them was an uncontestable decision that they used illegal means to pay players to such an extent they would be forever stigmatised OFFICIALLY as cheats.
That the verdict was not so clean cut allows them to dispute that they cheated, ignoring all other salient factors like the ebts they did admit were used illegally or the huge unpaid debt they ran up to win trophies..
What now terrifies them is that the Nimmo enquiry will look at the SFA/SPL registration rules, look at the reasons for using ebts (to gain an advantage according to Rangers themselves) look at the documentation and decide that players were not only not properly registered but that Rangers hid the additionality and did not seek to clarify with the SFA whether the full amounts should have been registered or not.
It all depends on the value of the contract provided to the SFA and the full amount of remuneration a player received. The additionality cannot be ruled out because the FTT deemed it a loan. For footballing purposes that decision should have been made by the SFA under the principles of football rules, nottax ones, and the SFA were never given the opportunity.
Whether titles will be stripped or not as a consequence is not what they fear so much as an official decision that they cheated to get an advantage. Taking titles away will be a permanent reminder of their behaviour and it is being exposed as we all suspect them to be – cheats – that will really hurt.
It also explains their campaign to have the enquiry dropped.
Ernie
It might be just me , but I found your quip re the security guard hilarious
just listened to ssb playback fae the night
comedy central
as per usual
dayrl + dalziel
were made to look like a couple of tools
check it out for yersells if ye huvnae heard it
the player has got a useful fast forward botton tae
http://www.clyde1.com/on-air/ssb-listen-again/
Paul67,
Excellent blog today and it is a measure of how far we have come in such a short period of time. The seeds were sown a while ago though. I’d suggest the 2-2 game at Mordor in the Cup.
The excellent blogger…..
http://ticticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/scottish-cup-5th-round-rangers-2-2-celtic-fascinating-tactical-battle-and-a-thrilling-game/
That was the day I knew Young Neil, and I shouldn’t say that as he is a year older, convinced me that Celtic were going back to the top of Europe in the near future.
__________________________________________________________________
corkcelt
22:16 on 22 November, 2012
;)
Was thinking about the league reconstruction plans and wondered who on earth would have been so stupid as to come up with the plan of two leagues of 12 splitting into three leagues of eight.
Then I read this in an article in the Herald……
and even this current idea for two leagues of 12, dividing into three groupings of eight after 22 games, has been doing the rounds since Gordon Smith was at the SFA, having experienced such a system in the Austrian leagues with Admira Wacker.
…..and it all made perfect sense!
Are Barrow n Furness not the same person….?
jammies,bed.
ernie lynch
22:00 on 22 November, 2012
An Dun
21:52 on 22 November, 2012
‘Will Nimo Smith get access to these side letters in the possession of HMRC’
It’s worth remembering just how the huns sought to obstruct the investigation at every turn.
Just like they did when they were sued by one of the widows of the Ibrox disaster.
‘We have noted that the Group had not been forthcoming in producing documentation at various stages of HMRC’s enquiry. Relevant information had become available via other sources, particularly the City of London Police’s investigations.’
‘Unable to elicit the requested information by correspondence, HMRC had served statutory notices under paragraph 27 Schedule 18 FA 1998 on 21 September 2007 to request the administration files for Mr Purple (sub-trust 13), Mr Skegness (sub-trust 38), and Mr Berwick (sub-trust 63). Only Mr Purple’s and Mr Skegness’s files were handed over at the time as Mr Berwick’s had been seized by police. Significantly, neither files handed over contained the side-letters, which were later recovered. It was highly probable, as the Respondents submit, that Mr Red, who was directly involved in handing over the files, had deliberately removed the side-letters germane to the players’ administration files.’
____
Ernie – does that come from Dr Poon’s part of the document, or the majority? Thanks.
oldtim67
22:26 on
22 November, 2012
Now I know its a small world but…… I was sitting with Miss Prestonpans (suffering from the previous night) and the elderly chap to my left offered me a drink from his glass. Now surely that was not you!?!
Your party was four including a Irishman full of jokes?????????
A question to the more red intellectuals on this venerable site.
The good news concerning the TFOD victory was released prior to us playing Benfica (funny that eh?).
Exactly how much where they expected to pay HMRC from this?
How much are they now expected to pay due to this decision?
I know bugger all will be paid to anyone but this is like a mental OO parade conducted via news channels!!!!
Auldheid
22:27 on
22 November, 2012
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spot on analysis mate
couldnae put it better masell
DJBEE fecked oot ma tree got a degreeeee graduate thedeeeeeeeeeeeeee age fortythreeeeeeeeeeee well am only forty 2 can a now spill ma speel wae ra night shift
So Murray and co embark on a high risk salary payment strategy in 2000 ish. This involved giving ‘loans’ to signing targets in order to get them to sign. (equates to me halving my salary then taking a loan to top it back up again- a loan which I will need to pay back?) Non monsieur you get to keep it. Hokay, send me an e-mail and let me know.
As an aside, what also happen at Rangers around the same time? Dave King was about putting money in (just an aside you understand)
The corpulent miscreants are meanwhile unaware of the high risk strategy and any dissenting voices are crushed under their jack boots. (Hugh Adam)
A long time later plod rolls up while they are investigating a separate grubby issue and recover some docuements they think would be of interest to HMRC.
HMRC say aye were ready and get a bill off to the Casino with the floating pitch.
Rangers, then up to their knees in debt rather than fenian blood become a large risk to the bank. A bank who are under a wee bit of pressure not to take on more risk.
Cue operation dump the debt, Whyte, Ticketus, Green…
Thing is, they didn’t need to dump the debt? Sad. Good story though.
Red = Read
preston pans bhoys
have this chilled a dessert on its own or with chocolate.
http://sherry.uvinum.co.uk/noe-pedro-ximenez-30-anos
or this as apairoteeth
http://sherry.uvinum.co.uk/gonzalez-byass-jerez-xeres-sherry-fino-dry-sherry
Oldtim stay off more than your feet !
An Dun
22:14 on
22 November, 2012
Murray had been trying to sell the club for years. No one was interested even before the big tax case final bill was served. Remember the assets were sold for £5.5M and Green was the only serious bidder. No I don’t buy the idea that there was a queue of potential buyers. The non-ebt debt hanging over the club was more of a deterrent.
prestonpans bhoys.
We were a party of Four and there was the obligatory irishman,and he was cracking jokes.
And i’m thinking about when an old portugese guy came along and asked if you were finished with your meal, he lifted it off the plate and put it in his mouth.Surely that wasn’t you?.
I have not read the FTT judgement in part or in full. I am not good with analysis of money matters and I leave that to better informed individuals on here.
Nonetheless, from my limited second hand reading of other people’s interpretation I have reached a conclusion that I have felt strongly on 2 previous occasions, namely, and with apologies to all you lawyers on here, that the law is an ass.
My first appreciation of this fact was as a boy of 12 or 13. My mother caught me doing my homework on an early Autumn evening after my tea. She reacted like the good women she is, on encountering such abnormal behaviour, and sent me out to play football in the street with my brother and the other boys in the scheme. I headed down to where the street game was supposed to be occurring but I found half a dozen boys, including my brother, sitting in a close mouth with a burst ball at their feet. Within 30 seconds of my approach to talk with them, a squad of polis appeared from the rear entry to the close in coordination with a squad car arriving to block off escape from the front. All 6 of us were interviewed, gave our names and addresses and were charged. A month or so later we all appeared at Govan Sherrif Court where several bewigged gentlemen gave lengthy evidence to the Sheriff about how far we were from a main bus route and how much damage had been caused to the nearby properties by our vandalistic play. The cost of the whole charade must have been over £200 quid, at a time when that was a lot of money (late 60s), and in turn they collected £2 fines from each of us, giving them £12 and a lot of resentment in return for their efforts.
My father, who was more learned on these matters, had told me that when they asked if I had anything to say in response to the evidence and charges, that I was on no account to tell the truth and say that I had not been there and had not kicked a ball when the game was on. He knew that, while that defence might have worked for a boy from another area, my fine, as a schemie, would have been doubled for daring to waste yet more of the court’s time. I knew, from that moment, that justice could be deaf, blind and biased too.
Spring forward to 1981 and my close reading of Private Eye’s coverage of Ken Livingstone’s Fares Fair policy. As head of the GLC, he sought to keep Public Transport costs at an economic level for London’s lower paid workers, by subsidising it from GLC rates money gathered.
A legal challenge to this wholly sensible public subsidy of public transport was challenged by one of Maggie’s vandals and the hearing was presided over by Lord Denning, a man renowned, in legal circles, as the wisest man in Christendom. This wise man proceeded to issue a stunning judgement that defined the duty of the GLC to run an economic public transport system as meaning that “it had to break even” and could not be run at a loss with subsidy. The sheer cheek and banality of that judgement never left me and it was no surprise the Lord Denning’ admirers found it harder to justify his wisdom when he came out with later statement suggesting that non-white jury members were less trustworthy than others with lighter skin hues. Lord Denning gave me my second lesson in the asinine nature of cloistered legal judgement.
My third major lesson on obtuse interpretations of the word “loan” has been delivered this week by Mr. Kenneth Mure and Mr. Scott Rae.
I am holding out little hope that Lord Nimmo Smith will prove any more surefooted in his investigations into the double contracts.
If only there were more like Heidi Poon.
MP Charles Kennedy is now on Question Time, and just announced he is a Scottish Roman Catholic. Well did you ever. Anyways, as I am totally invisible on here, there is probably no point in saying goodnight. Well, goodnight anyway.
Weefra HH
they are dead
it does not matter the how or why they are dead.
NEXT
Professor Green
22:35
Spot on. One of the things that annoys me more than anything is how they keep trying to tell us that they were in great shape at the point when Whyte took over (Jabba being particularly resolute on this one).
The debt had came down from 31m to 18m – but this was with two years CL money (ie 25-30m) – so without that money in 2011-12 they would have seen the debt shoot back up again. I’m also pretty certain the 18m didn’t even include the Wee Tax Case (4m).
Jabba keeps saying that Lloyds were happy with the 18m debt – but never explains why if that was the case Whyte felt the need to pay it all off.
weefrathetim
22:44 on
22 November, 2012
__________________________________
Are you a Sevcovian?
oldtim67
22:39 on
22 November, 2012
Yes indeed and Miss Prestonpans thought you guys were a hoot. I still can remember that guy picking up the ends of my hamburger – I thought he was giving it to the birds!!
BTW If you recall the girl playing behind us who stopped after three plays – thats the law apparently. I met her in the square, she spoke great English and explained to me that she made about 1-2 euro’s per hour. It was raining then and she had to stop because of the electics. So I took pity on her and gave her 5 euros to make up for the day. Thought she was going to cry!
Anyway she took me to a Benfica bar where Miss P and I were the only tims and she explained to these guys that, next to Benfica of course, we were the best fans in the world!
Nice to meet you!
SFTB
Nimmo Smith is a clever man …his remit is different from the FTT
However, I understand your concern
Paul67, begging your indulgence m’lud, and completely off topic…..
As a long-term lurker and occasional poster on your illustrious blog, I hope you’ll forgive me doing a bit of research through your hallowed portal (quiet at the back, titter ye not).
I’ve put my first foray into singwriting “out there” tonight on social media to gauge the reaction to it.
Nervously, I wonder if any of your posters might care to give a fellow Celtic fan some constructive criticism?
Much obliged, and hoping the link works…….
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ac9bqaq5x99h4e8/My%20Angel%20Martin%20McGroarty.wav
How much does Sevco owe HMRC? Anyone?
prestonpans bhoys.
There was another CQNer sitting next to me, Johann Murdoch is his posting name on the blog.
I tried very hard to get the Irish boy to start posting on the blog.
It is a small world indeed.
One thing missed from all the analysis of the FTT decision is……
If you live in Scotland, would you publicly decide against the Huns in the biggest event in their history, when you have seen bullets, bombs and a whole gamut of threats against those who the Hun fanbase decide have wronged them.
Not sure I would