There’s some fresh enthusiasm in Lanarkshire this morning with the appointment of Englishman Ian Baraclough as Motherwell manager. Baraclough had a couple of successful years with Sligo Rovers from 2012-14, winning their first title in decades, before things fell apart this year, but his role as a scout for Huddersfield over the last six months is likely to interest Motherwell as much.
Motherwell directors have had a long-term tradition when looking for a manager of saying they want someone ‘plugged into’ the scouting and agent network. This game is all about the right contacts, you don’t get to acquire a promising Blackburn Rovers reserve (as Motherwell once did), but this particular activity is also very competitive.
The small matter of how to deploy players is, of course, equally important, but if you’re Motherwell, Celtic or Barcelona, that call is a shot in the dark.
I watched newco Rangers for the first time last night, although I ended up watching a lot more Queen of the South than I expected. The latter, each of them journeymen, were excellent, the former were symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with comfortably well-off footballers. Newco’s medium-term future, if they have one, will be to spend the next few years building a self-sustaining lower league club, capable of winning promotion and remaining a top-flight football team thereafter.
Get along to Celtic Park early tomorrow, Davie Hay will be signing copies of Caesar & the Assassin in the Superstore. If you ask him nicely he’s promised to sign your CQN Annual too. Don’t forget your camera!
Also remember to look out for the Foundation bucketeers as you approach the ground or enter the turnstiles. My boys and me will be at the North Stand, turnstiles 1-13, say hello if you’re around.
Thanks to everyone who donated to Mary’s Meals yesterday, the response was overwhelming. Emails went out this morning to winners of the Magners’ tickets.
You can order your CQN Annual here, or get a special Annual-DVD bundle here.
As a special offer, everyone who buys an Annual, or bundle, before Christmas will be entered into a prize draw for a VIP Meal of 4 at a Celtic Park restaurant on a match day. One entry for each Annual bought; pile in.
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Estadio@09.34
Brilliant. Is that from your own fair hand?
Right def off to mass.
Gerryfaethebrig, Read back some of your stuff, really enjoyed it. Hope you keep posting, you are a most welcome addition to the blog.
Aye
..that was me and that was ma mammy and dad.
Wait till I tell you about my granda. !!!
Hail hail
Estadio
nye bevans’ rebel soldier
10:56 on 14 December, 2014
11 goals in 14 games. You take a lot of convincing.
Davie Hay is at Celtic Superstore at the moment and will be here until just before kick off. Pop in and say hello…
Estadia, Look forward to hearing about your granda. I’m off to 11.30 Mass at Franciscan Friary Clonmel. Today’s CQN prayers will be for the Estadio and jamesgang families.
Jimmynotpaul
I am sure you are correct, true story at one of the games at Pittodrie there was a Bhoy so drunk walking up in the aisle at the Beech end holding 2 tickets above his head, who he thought would buy them inside the ground is beyond me, loved going to Pittodrie atmosphere in the old beech end was amazing still annoys they moved us to the side but I suppose it is their ground
I’m sure the 2-2 cup game was the scottish cup. Replay was 0-0 at Celtic Park and the 3rd match was Dens. McLair with the winner. Billy Stark didn’t join Celtic until 1987.
Unless I read it wrong and Stark scored for the sheep.
LB
so today I decide if i treat myself to a Half Season book for my xmas present.
for quite a few years now i havnt had one. work, family, finances said it was not sensible.
i got to games when i could, from personal attendance home and away , hardly missing a game in the 80s, 90s , through to 2004, i found myself last few only being a big game supporter.
this season i have been to most of the home matches including the cups, and europe.
missing the bloody united game 6 – 1, go figure.
i go to see the celtic, and thats magic, its magic
being there is good.
but but but.
the football is often sore on my eyes.
i watch and think i aint clever enough to be a supporter anymore.
i dont know what the formations are, how its meant to work, why players play in positions they aint best at.
in the manager i want him to succeed,
but its a turgid watch. often takes us half an hour at home to get a shot , a chance.
so, today, celtic, cmon, be celtic, ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK.
score quickly, score often, score many.
ever the optomist if yakrn yo bet us 4-0, 5-0, 6-0 at home.
and allways with a player to score a hattrick
one of these days it will come up.
if its today, that half book is in the bag.
cmon celtic, just do it.
i am sURE STARK HAD A HABit of scoring against us then, for saint and the sheep.
Corkcelt
Much appreciated,
Cheers for all the welcomes, I better log off for now as my daughter (6yr old) isn’t too happy I am now posting, she thought I was on CQN too much before when I was just reading
I have no words
From The Sunday Post
“Give the fans some answers, Alistair”
Dear Ally,
We’ve known each other a long time.
Back at the start of the 1980s, we were on opposing sides in a match between Brighton and Sunderland – and both of us ended up on the scoresheet.
We later shared a room on a golf trip to Las Vegas and will forever be linked by our mutual involvement in the events surrounding Rangers’ liquidation in 2012, something I could never have envisaged happening.
There have been a lot of questions thrown up since then. I would like, therefore, to make a public appeal to you for answers.
Answers to the questions that have left Rangers supporters dazed and confused throughout the events of the last 72 hours.
To read on the morning of a crucial Championship match that you had tendered your resignation was unprecedented.
To subsequently see you refuse to either confirm or deny those reports was strange in the extreme.
I understand sometimes individuals are bound by contractual obligation from communicating as freely as they might wish.
In this case though, that simply doesn’t wash.
For the support of a huge football club to be left in the dark about something as fundamental as whether or not their manager has resigned is totally unacceptable.
So, the first question to be answered is – have you given your notice?
And, if not, why didn’t you take the opportunity to shoot down the reports as nonsense?
When you are talking about such an important issue, that has to be the course of action. Stability is crucial at any football club. When you are talking about Rangers, a club whose financial problems mean they have to win promotion this season, it is a necessity.
Players need to know who their leader is and what, within reason, his plans are for the future.
Secondly, if you have a desire to quit, then why not go now, under your own terms?
Do as I did two years ago and leave Ibrox without seeking money to do so because you think it is in the best interests of Rangers Football Club.
You were rightly given credit for the character and mental strength you showed back in 2012 and for staying on and making yourself a focal point at a time when the club was in complete disarray.
You famously said then: “We don’t do walking away”.
But what if it becomes the honourable thing to do – and practically the only thing to do?
There is no way you or any of the coaches were responsible for blowing a two-goal lead at Alloa with 20 minutes remaining of the Petrofac Cup semi-final.
That was down to under-performing players. But you do carry the responsibility for the results.
You were given every financial advantage over opposition managers at every stage of this journey up through the divisions.
Even with the wage cut you agreed to, you have remained the highest-paid manager in Scotland over this period.
While the successive titles cannot be taken away from you, the failures of the current campaign threaten to sabotage so much of the progress made.
Leaving now would allow a new man to come in and see if he can do better.
You know we are not talking about any untried foreign coaches, but about men such as Stuart McCall and Terry Butcher.
Former Rangers team-mates of yours, who you know have the best interests of the club at heart and who boast solid managerial credentials.
As things stand, the club is not going to win the Championship title. Not with Hearts nine points clear and holding a game in hand.
Many, in fact, would argue Rangers will do well to match the Edinburgh outfit’s points haul between now and the end of the season.
Yet I believe that the extra impetus caused by a change at the top could make a huge difference.
There is an almost chemical reaction that occurs when a new manager takes over a dressing-room. You’ll have seen that for yourself during your playing career, like when Jock Wallace replaced John Greig and when Graeme Souness took over from Big Jock.
A galvanised squad would certainly have the ability to string together the kind of long winning-run which is now required to catch Hearts.
This brings me to the last of my central questions to you – why is this Rangers team so bad?
Men like Kris Boyd, Ian Black, Nicky Law, Jon Daly, Dean Shiels and David Templeton have all individually impressed in the Premier League.
I could see why you signed them.
Their collective floundering in the lower divisions surely must make you doubt what you yourself have been doing on the training ground at Murray Park?
People might argue results are what matter. But the football your teams have produced has been uninspiring to watch – and that has been in games that you have won.
It’s little wonder fans are staying away in their droves.
You will know that a certain style is demanded by the Rangers supporters, who have been reared on the genius of Davie Cooper, Brian Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne.
While everyone accepts the days of multi-million pound transfers are gone from Scottish football, it is not unreasonable for fans, who pay through the nose week-in, week-out, to be offered a decent standard of football.
And it is not unreasonable to suggest that more kids should have been brought through from Murray Park to the first team over the past three years.
When there is more drama to be found off the pitch than on it, then something has gone seriously wrong.
That was added to when the news broke that you had tendered your resignation.
You should follow that through by going this week, for the club’s sake – and yours.
Yours, Gordon.
http://www.sundaypost.com/sport/columnists/gordon-smith/gordon-smith-sends-open-letter-to-mccoist-1.736263
HH
Nye Bevans’ rebel soldier
Dancing to their tune mate…………………JG scored a perfectly good goal from open play last week…………………think there may have been another in recent weeks which was also ruled out.
Short notice got a freebie for the North Stand Lower for anyone who wants it will be at the Superstore at about 1140 if anyone wants it
saint stivs
Attack,Attack,Attack…..Atack,Attack…….Quadrofenians ’67
http://youtu.be/KNjfrzNI0q8
HH
Looking like a day for the ole Big Coat. Maybe weighed down with a brick in each pocket. ;-)
lymmbhoy
11:22 on
14 December, 2014
thats fleckin magic.
ta for sharing, hadnt heard that before.
post 7 7 7
its an omen i tell yease, i am betting 7-0 today.
Kitalba and others
for the avoidance of doubt the story of those killed in the Kirkintilloch bothy fire was a true story and tragedy:
http://www.kirkintilloch-herald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/the-night-kirkintilloch-burned-75-years-since-fire-horror-1-2545837
estadio.
brilliant memory.
on the shoulders of giants we walk on.
they just happened to be the real rebels. that was brave.
The Big Wig’s billet doux…………………………
……………
…………
……………………………….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ( Why The Face!)
…………..has to be the work of a Timposter.
:)
HH
Not sure this will be aired today………but FairPlay to the Bhoys in Zagreb.
Last Christmas. http://youtu.be/0uQDicKm7aM
HH
Gazebo has blown away in the wind so post match meet up in Burnside Hotel. All welcome. Including bjmac and his new friend ;-)
lymmbhoy –
one of my better memories from Thursday evening. I honestly think that if that was started today we’d get the whole stadium joining in! Might just start it myself from FS2. ;-)
Winning Captain’s has got the freebie ticket, Cqn family rule
On the M8 going to game, it’ a bit wet out there today. Spare a thought for those poor souls who sit in the lower tiers near the front.
SoakingwetCSC
LIve weather update.
Big Coat back in the cupboard and waterproof wee jacket thing looked out instead.
Lymmbhoy 11:18
Jivvens, crings and help m’boab – I didnae realise that you could read Oor Wullie and Oor Wiggy in the same paper.
BIG-CUP-WINNERS:
It wasn’t the only one either, there were more.
This one was a sore one…
Arranmore Disaster
Strange feeling watching Last Christmas being sung in that virtually empty stadium . I was there in 1998 ————absolutely packed and as noisy as hell. . Their third ( Prosinecki ) lives in the memory -an absolute beauty.
jobo
I so wish I was home for a game……… I believe Wee Jay is welcoming The Hoops out today
@AICSC2014: Best Wishes to “Lurgan Legend” Jay Beatty who will be welcoming the team onto the pitch today #WeeJay #Celtic’sNo1Fan
HH
A wee bit brighter as I pass The Whirlies. But strong cross winds. Better concentrate now ;-)
Team –
Celtic Starting 11 v St Mirren
Gordon
Matthews
Ambrose
Van Dijk
Izaguirre
Brown
Bitton
Forrest
Johansen
Stokes
Guidetti
C’mon the Hoops
Wishing a happy birthday to Kano for tomorrow. He’s still fighting the hardest of fights against the most insidious that nature has to taunt, and he’s doing it virtually on his own.
He’s had bad days and he’s had worse, but n’er his will, nor hope, nor friends, have deserted him.
Always in our thoughts.
Lymmbhoy 11:18
Has that been Awe Nawed ?
HH
Corkcelt
This site never ceases to amaze me, your explanation of the song about Thady Quill is fascinating.I read a post earlier today about a tragedy involving men and boys who perished in a fire while locked in a bothy overnight while they were working in Scotland.
Two stories from opposite ends of the spectrum one tragic one anectodal but both part of the big picture regarding Ireland and the Irish, keep them coming.
Highlandbhoy
The match thread is up.