Really delighted at the flow of sentiment towards Billy McNeill and the launch of the new frontage of Celtic Park tomorrow. The place is beginning to look like a 21st Century venue, now we need the shops, restaurants and bars to bring the match-day experience alive.
Were you one of the fans who put £620 (or more) into Celtic shares in 1994? Around 10,000 did, raising an initial total of around £10m from small investors alone. It wasn’t an investment, none of us wanted or expected the money back, it was our contribution to Celtic at a time of critical need.
Many small investor-Rangers fans did the same when Newco went to market in December 2012, although one high-profile investor, who coughed up £500k, has asked Dave King to buy him out.
The stark reality facing these shareholders is that if King’s path is followed to a logical conclusion the club will be run into the ground, destroying their investments along with everything else. I have some sympathy for their position.
King is not interested in buying control of the club, even at the discounted price shares are now available at. He emailed the £500k investor “Why should any new investor bail out existing investors because they made mistakes in overpaying for their shares. The club needs money not complaining shareholders”.
The price paid by small investors was perhaps the most irrelevant figure to them, they paid the gross figure they could afford, irrespective of price. The value of the share was irrelevant so to accuse them of making a mistake by overpaying is like criticising the month of March for being too purple.
How the small shareholders feel about this behaviour will not determine what actions the Newco board takes, that will be come down to how easily manipulated people like the Easdales, Mike Ashley and Laxey Partners are. My information is they are not easily manipulated in the slightest.
Seville – The Celtic Movement:
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squire danaher
09:18 on 3 May, 2014
This was put up overnight and should be MANDATORY wallpaper material for ALL Celtic devices !!!
Many thanks !!
murdoch mcgrain larsson
01:10 on 3 May, 2014
Eddie, don’t know your era but somebody posted the link to this pic recently. One of the best, if not the best, Celtic pics that I have seen. Distance lends enchantment …
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BmImMTiCEAANEX3.jpg:large
——–
I’d have to crop Tommy Callaghan out of the picture. I was too young back then to know what he contributed to the team but Jock obviously considered it good enough to include him every week.
He was much vilified by the older generation who were 10 out of 14 of us who used to go to every home game. To the point where we would stand outdside the ground until the teams were announced and walk back home to the for alps if TC was included.
Eventually even that ritual was discontinued as other pursuits, like golf, took priority over going to the football.
Too long ago to know whether it was due to one player or whether they had been spoiled by so much success in the past which was now waning.
A spell in Oz from 81 to 92 rekindled my dad’s enthusiasm and we’ve had season tickets every year since then, my dad’s handed down to my son when he was no longer able to attend.
Perhaps the point is that dwindling crowds is not a new phenomena.
For the alps = to the gorbals … Autocorrect.
cowiebhoy:
Thanks for the detour last night mate and dropping me off in ML5.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
From today’s Scotsman
John Hughes has had a career and a life full of near misses and the catalogue is almost as long, twisty and dramatic as one of those thunderous charges up the left wing which exemplified his contribution to the Celtic cause, excited the faithful in the Parkhead Jungle and inspired one of Scottish football’s most evocative chants – “Feed the bear, feed the bear, feed the bear…”
He was nearly a sprinter, or at least running was his only interest as a kid in Coatbridge. “The 100 yard dash and I wasn’t bad in the 220 either,” he says. “The teacher who ran school football, Vincent Bradley, wanted me in the team. I said: ‘But, sir, I don’t even like football’. He said: ‘You will by the time I’m finished with you’.”
He nearly scored what might have been the winner in a European Cup final – 1970, against Feyenoord in the San Siro – and even though he has never watched a recording of the defeat and never will, he is convinced it was the reason Jock Stein ended his 11-year stint with the club, when he was 11 goals short of a double-century.
He nearly won Goal of the Season playing for Crystal Palace, but a typically slaloming run and dynamite shot against Sheffield United eventually placed him runner-up to Ronnie Radford (the one for non-league Hereford United which helped dump Newcastle United out of the FA Cup; probably it was the youthful parka-clad charge across the gluepot pitch which was the clincher there).
And he nearly shared a team-bath with blue-movie actress Fiona Richmond but by the time Palace manager Malcolm Allison contrived his publicity stunt Hughes had moved on to Sunderland for a long-cherished hook-up with his younger brother Billy, only to be crocked 15 minutes into his debut. He would never terrorise right-backs again.
He nearly came a cropper running pubs, facing up to extortion threats and Crocodile Dundee-type knives, and sometimes the only response was to laugh: “I got held up at 11 o’clock in the morning once when there was nothing in the till. ‘Look pal,’ I said, ‘why don’t you put the shotgun down, take off your balaclava and have a pint of heavy and we’ll say no more about it’.”
Hughes was nearly on the pitch in Lisbon, nearly a member of the immortal, false teeth-sporting, uncologned, Glasgow-and-environs XI who won the European Cup in 1967. Getting injured before the final against Inter Milan haunted him for a long time and he used to say it was the worst moment of his life.
But what happened six years ago changed his perspective, made him realise that it’s only a game.
I meet the original Yogi – well, that was Hanna-Barbera’s cartoon bear, forever ursine about in Jellystone Park, but you know what I mean – at his semi-detached in Sandyhills, Glasgow with the personalised-plate Audi in the drive and photos of the grandweans peeking out from behind the Greek columns in the sitting room. He is 71 and looks well. There’s a bit more beef about him than in his pomp, when there were still 14 stones, but at 6ft 2ins he can carry it. His father made breeze blocks – “He was a big man” – and so is Yogi, who must be glad to have the weight back after his cancer scare.
“It started with a sore ear and then a growth was discovered on my tongue,” he says, “When I was told it was cancerous I had a whitey.” Another near miss; he could have died. “My son Martin is a consultant at Glasgow Royal Infirmary and he was with me went I went there for my test results. He only told me recently that my chances of surviving had been 25 per cent.” And at this the colossus sheds a tear.
“I’m glad I didn’t know that, otherwise I might not have made it. Ken McKenzie of the ear, nose & throat department said it was my stoicism that pulled me through. I guess I’ve always been stubborn, but Ken was amazing: great sense of humour and such humility. I lost my hair, my teeth and four stone in weight, with tubes stuck up my nose the whole time. Pals would say, ‘My, Yogi, you’re looking great’, but I knew they didn’t really think that. I got used to the baldy – my wife, Theresa, reckoned I fancied myself as Kojak – and I was determined the cancer wasn’t going to beat me.”
Other ailing footballers will be pleased he did. “I was visiting my old Celtic pal John Divers in hospital the other day. He’s got dementia. I always tell him he’s a dirty, rotten, crabbit so-and-so. His wife Liz says it’s the only time he laughs. The amazing thing about JD is that he played football, scored more than 100 goals for Celtic, despite suffering from bad circulation. Folk thought he was lazy; a surgeon told him when he was 20 that he had the legs of a 70-year-old. But this was kept from the club otherwise he’d have been let go.”
Then there’s brother Billy, a fine player in his own right, just as lethal a striker and an FA Cup winner with Sunderland, who had the chance to follow Hughes into Parkhead but feared he would struggle to escape the comparison. “Now Billy’s got cancer; he’s in a bad way. It started with his prostate and he’s terrified it’s going to spread to his bones. I had a long chat with him last night. His wife Linda says he listens to me. We’re all hoping for the best, praying for it.”
Hughes, of course, is a green-blazered member of the regularly-reconvening survivors of Scottish football’s bright and shiningly greatest club achievement. I say “of course” but he hasn’t always enjoyed Lisbon Revisited. “I was sick to miss the final, to be there and not play. Folk say ‘Wasn’t it great?’ but having to watch was absolutely dreadful. I was happy we won but I immediately felt detached from it and that never changed.”
Surely the guys put an arm round his shoulder, reminded him of the part he had played and commiserated. “I don’t think anyone did. They were caught up in the emotion. Football doesn’t work like that; it’s a selfish game. But I don’t blame them. Maybe I was churlish, not enjoying the reunions, but I did think that only if you were a wonderful human being – and I’m certainly not – could you turn up at these events and go: ‘This is fantastic’.
“I have to say, too, that at one time I might have been excluded from them. There was a move to formalise the Lisbon Lions and make money out of ’67 and some who shall remain nameless suggested it should be just the 11 who played. I thought that was nonsense. By that logic Willie Wallace would have been included having played three games in the competition and me with my five games would not. Anyway, the fans complained – they wanted to see everyone.”
Now Yogi is laughing. “Me and Bertie are pally now but do you know that when we played I complained to Jock about him? He wouldn’t pass to me. He only gave me the ball when he was in trouble: ‘Go on, you look stupid’.” The next reunion at the end of the month will see the Lions return to the Portuguese capital for the Champions League final. “The relationship we have with each other can be difficult to explain. We were pretty close as a team but as the years have gone by the bonds have grown stronger. The reason is we’re getting old and some of us are dying.”
He chuckles some more because he is remembering Bertie gags. “We were in Belfast for a supporters function, Bobby Murdoch, Tam Gemmell, Bertie and myself, and a big armoured vehicle bristling with guns went past. ‘Look at that’, we said. Bertie said: ‘Aye and that’s just the breid van’!” Here’s another: “Jinky [Jimmy Johnstone] was nearing the end and I was visiting him and Bertie appeared, looking vexed. ‘What’s wrong?’ we said. He said: ‘I’m just back from Maryhill. They’ve pulled down my mother’s old shop and found a body’. ‘That’s terrible’, we said. ‘Aye’, said Bertie, ‘the poor fella was still wearing this medal: 1922 Hide-and-Seek Champion!’ ”
You want local colour? Yogi has a tale to match Bertie’s and his is true. In post-war Coatbridge, the fact the Hughes family had a car marked them down as exotic, all the more so when it trundled up to the house with a greyhound in the passenger seat. Yogi’s dad was a bit of a gambler and had driven over to Ireland to splash £800 on the mutt. It was the fastest thing on four legs, right enough, but only in solo trials. Up against other dogs it stayed quaking in the traps.
Hughes’ Parkhead career had two distinct chapters. He arrived a big lump of a boy and made enough of an impression, skittling defenders and thumping in 20-odd goals a season, to interest Juventus as a replacement for John Charles (another near miss for him). But he was disillusioned by the lack of proper coaching, fell out with assistant manager Sean Fallon, decided Celtic were “dreadful” and was planning to quit until Stein tipped him the wink about his impending return. Big Jock began with two big defeats – 6-2 by Falkirk and 5-1 by Dunfermline – but greatness soon followed.
Yogi won six championship medals, a Scottish Cup badge and four League Cup medals. He was most effective in mudbaths – “I can still hear [trainer] Neily Mochan shouting; ‘Run him, big yin, run him” – but wasn’t bad on skating rinks, once borrowing Billy McNeill’s sandshoes to net five against Aberdeen in an 8-0 icebound romp. In the 1965 League Cup triumph over Rangers, he scored both Celtic goals from the penalty spot – a result sparking a pitch invasion, players confronted by fans, which stopped future Hampden laps of honour. In another Old Firm game he kneed Willie Johnston where it hurts, expected to be sent off but wasn’t, a blunder which effectively ended referee Jim Callaghan’s career. Against Hibs he broke Bobby Duncan’s leg: “It was accidental, I’d never have done that deliberately, although I played with guys who would’ve.”
And in the Intercontinental Cup against Argentina’s Racing Club, he was one of the four sent-off Celts. “I kicked their goalie. The provocation was terrible. I was a sub for the second game and their fans peed on the guys on the bench. But I have to say that when I watched a video years later I was shocked by what I’d done. Jock asked afterwards: ‘What were you thinking of?’ I said: ‘Boss, I honestly didn’t think anyone would see me’. How stupid is that?”
So what was his relationship with Stein? A pause, broken by a wry smile. “I can’t say he treated me especially badly.” But even though football in Hughes’ era was a hard, hard game run by fearsome disciplinarians, you wonder if he means this. For instance, while he was in Bermuda on a close-season tour, his first wife Mary lost a baby. The fact he wasn’t back in Glasgow with her tells you this was a different age; nevertheless he only learned the sad news from a journalist. When he found out Stein knew and hadn’t alerted him he confronted the manager to be told: “Sort it out when you get home.”
When that marriage ended, Yogi was devastated. He blamed selfishness and booze and so quit drinking. “I don’t think I was an alcoholic, but those six years when I stopped probably helped me survive.” He met Theresa in a Majorcan karaoke bar and laughs that he’s glad this was before cancer robbed him of his singing voice. “Although,” he adds, “it’s coming back.”
Back to Stein: he recalls a game at St Johnstone’s old Muirton Park when he suffered a bad gash requiring stitches. The manager, though, was unconcerned and would go on to blame him for the defeat. Then there was Feyenoord. Yogi claims that compared to ’67 when Stein hoodwinked Inter on their spying missions, moving the team around and all but putting Jinky in goals, preparations for the second Euro final were nothing like as intense. “We were complacent. We thought Leeds had been the final [Hughes scored in the semi victory]. I remember saying we were going to win three or four-nil. The manager should have knocked that nonsense out of us but he obviously thought the trophy was in the bag. Did he spy on them? He said he did but I don’t know. And he changed the team, dropping George Connelly and leaving us short in midfield.”
Given all that, why does Yogi hold himself responsible for the defeat? I tell him his miss wasn’t so bad, that their goalie made himself extra-big. “That’s what folk say. That’s what Davie Hay said only recently. But it’s in my head that I could have won us another European Cup and that’s why Jock got rid of me.” Hughes learned later that bigger English clubs including Everton wanted him, but Stein was insistent he went to Palace. “He threatened to put me in the stand for six months if I didn’t.” And, Yogi adds with a chuckle, there was a sting: Stein was the TV judge who didn’t award him Goal of the Season. “That was what he was like.”
And yet, and yet…Hughes says Stein was “brilliant” at man-management and “great” for his career. He might have baulked at the disciplinarian stuff but there were times when it was needed. He might have questioned the lack of coaching but the evidence on the pitch was that the team did little wrong. As with the rest of the Lisbon Lions, his relationship with his boss was complicated. And possibly beyond the comprehension of you and me, the non-immortals.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “That was a magnificent team, I was fortunate to play for them, and if I’d been fit for Lisbon I might not even have been picked. For me it’s a long time ago – longer in view of what’s happened to me – and I’m just happy I’m still here. But I’ll enjoy going back with the guys.” If Auld makes good with the jokes, he may even give them a song.
Gold Coast Tom –
I realised that but being equally pedantic it remains a fact that we are, as a matter of fact, 8 points shy of 100 ;-)
At about the same time last week I had posted 4 targets for Celtic to achieve in their remaining 4 games – 100 points, 100 goals (we needed 15 at that stage), 4 clean sheets (so that we only conceded 19 in 38 games) and Kris to get 2 more goals to end up with 25 league goals. Still confident in 3 of these – the clan sheets being the most at risk.
Hope you’re continuing to enjoy good health.
Jobo
Morning all. Dull and overcast down here. Looks like this will be my last visit to Celtic Parl this season; so, the excitement is building already. Hope we win by 4 or 5.
Morning all,
I don’t think Eden Hazard will be too happy with his coverage on SSN. The banner headline across the bottom of the screen has not changed for the last 32 MINUTES and reads:
CHELSEA MANAGER JOSE MOURINHO QUESTIONS EDEN HAZARD’S COMMITMENT TO TEAM DURING GAMES
I guess SSN are really trying to hammer the point home.
I wonder if Sevco/TRFC will ask them to display:
WE ARE NOT ABOUT TO GO BUST. AGAIN. HONEST.
I liked Edward whatever happened to that chap?
I don’t care much for Liverpool FC though.
Whoo 28 years since Love Street – what day. Passed a bigoted rangers man that morning who “greeted” me with “F**k Celtic”.
My reply was “we’re gonna win the league”
And we did – thank you Albert Kidd!
zbyszek
09:15 on 3 May, 2014
On football/music inspirations. Can James McMillan be next Celtic manager/conductor :-)
…………………………………..
I now have a wonderful image in my mind of James McMillan standing in front of the zhreen Brigade and enthusiastically conducting the singing!
Morning Bhoys & Ghirls
Great wee night yesterday at the CSA bash raising money for the Kano Foundation, a very worthy cause.
Will be up at the ground early today for a variety of reasons, but looking forward to seeing the walkway officially open..
Are they also officially opening the CQN corner as well? :-)
Badges will be available to buy outside the pools office at 2pm
HH
CRC
cqnbadges@gmail.com
Just read that article about Yogi. Rings very very true. Can still see wee Bertie looking at the Jungle, suggesting Yogi had made a mess of some pass wee Bertie had made to him. But I can also see so many occasions when Yogi drove down the left wing heading for the deid team’s end. WHAT A GLORIOUS SIGHT. I doubt it will ever be repeated. Yogi was really something else and I remember THAT goal for Crystal Palace. Absolutely brilliant. Thans for the memories, Yogi, one of a kind.
Edwardurus did come on here and justify his reasons for supporting Rangers, I can’t honestly remember him big noting them though. He often asked questions requesting information with regards to festering hun myths, e.g. Éamon de Valera signing the book of condolences, numbers of Irishmen who fought in the wars etc. I think he was trying to educate more than himself with his questions. One thing I don’t ever remember him doing, ever, was being derogatory about Celtic or the clubs supporters.
Gold Coast Tom, a bit rich from you to ever accuse anybody on here of being an ‘ego monster’ after your confession of being prince myshkin and Franz Kafka.
Was supposed to attend the CSA gig last night but been hit with the lurgy so didn’t make it
Really want to go watch the bhoys beat the sheep and see Cesar open the Celtic way so if you notice a fan wrapped up like its December you will know it’s moi :(
hamiltontim is praying for oscar
09:12 on 3 May, 2014
Where’s the ‘CQN Corner’ ….?
For the avoidance of doubt, I did not criticise Edward Ursus in my comment earlier. I thought I made that clear on two occasions in my post.
Morning CQN. I was at a very pleasant night out last night. Found myself with a bit of a wait for the train. So decided to have a nightcap whilst waiting.
I had the misfortune to overhear a couple of chaos discussing the Huns forthcoming game against Dunfermline.
They then went on to loudly discuss their racist and anti Semitic views and generally how they hate anyone but ra people. Having noticed me scowling at them I was then confronted by these pair of idiots. Now I have been in this situation a few times. I then decided the pub needed to know about what these pair had been discussing. After throwing a few expletives in my direction they were ejected. Whilst i was slightly fearful whether I would make the train i thought it a nice way to end the night.
Just shows what we are up against though……
Great to read the feature on Yogi in the Scotsman today! The big guy is back in the Celtic superstore today before the match doing a book signing.
CQN Magazine is out today – and includes all the pics from CQTEN. It is our Lisbon special and I am sure you will enjoy reading it.
We will be handing out copies of the new CQN Update today – rather than just posting on here about an anti Celtic agenda in the red tops we’re trying to do something about it.
It’s mostly kids giving out the 16 page Update – when you see them please take a bundle and distribute inside the ground or on your supporters bus. It’s free and is a great wee read for half time or the journey home.
You will also be able to collect copies outside the Pools Office where the CQNers meet!
We won the league 28 years ago today because the Celtic Players did their job and secured the title by scoring the required amount of goals at Love Street. If we hadn’t won by 3 goals Kidds efforts at Dens Park would have meant nothing
So thank you Brian McClair Maurice Johnston and Paul McStay
tallybhoy
09:24 on 3 May, 2014
I will be taking photos, but don’t know how to link them…….Doooohhhh …. Hahahahahaha
hamiltontim is praying for oscar
09:21 on 3 May, 2014
And for those of you with an interest in Irish history….on this day Padraig Pearce was shot in Kilmainham Jail.
…………………………..
RIP :-((
Oh dear.
Not going to bite.
Time to sign off again.
3-0 the Bhoys.
Bye.
Has everyone seen the new CQN Bookstore site?
Winning captains has been working hard.
http://cqnbookstore.com/
Great article on Big Yogi in the Scotsman
http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl/yogi-bares-all-on-stein-and-battle-with-cancer-1-3397664
Just read the article on Yogi,my Dad has made a start on his book.
Struggling to get past the personalised dedication,though-Thanks,John!
This photo sums it up for me,with RWE’s son Tony in the foreground.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U54zwMDMXmQ/TxeRzFVEu0I/AAAAAAABewk/7Phd6BM9CFE/s1600/IMG_9165.JPG
Roll on skwerr nailed…….check
Roll on bacon nailed …….check
Grass cut……………………..check
Hair cut…………………………check
Nothing else for it , get Burghbhoy junior decked in the hoops and head for a few jars at St Phils.
Bus to the game at 1.15.
Might be a bit merry by then!!!
67Heaven
Ootside the Pools Office.
margaret mcgill
08:57 on 3 May, 2014
bang on the money
just how i remember it
fergus was far from perfect
he done it his way
as soon as their was a problem at celtic park he jumped on a plane
and put the cash in the bank
built a new stadium ….when others said it could not be done
all hail the bunnet
jam67
Winning Captains, BRTH…………
favour please???
..any chance of having a copy of the CQN Update shipped out to me in the emerald isle?
…thanks in advance.
HT
Don’t you try and muscle my old man from his pitch or you will have a price on yer heid..o))
mickbhoy1888
10:07 on 3 May, 2014
We won the league 28 years ago today because the Celtic Players did their job and secured the title by scoring the required amount of goals at Love Street. If we hadn’t won by 3 goals Kidds efforts at Dens Park would have meant nothing
So thank you Brian McClair Maurice Johnston and Paul McStay
——-
Indeed. But if Kidd hadn’t scored at Dens Park the efforts of the Celtic players would have mattered little.
Re. The Scotsman article above. I attended St. Monica’s Primary from the mid-50s until the early 60s where Vincent Bradley taught and took the school football team. Yogi, although from the Kirkwood area, had attended St. Augustine’s as St. Monica’s had not been built when he was at Primary school, although his brother Billy, of Sunderland fame attended St. Monica’s and starred for the school team.
I remember Vincent Bradley taking Yogi on a tour of each class in the school on the day after he made his Scotland Under 23 debut against England. Yogi destroyed England and scored in a 2-1 victory for Scotland. I can still remember the excitement of all the kids in the class to have a Celtic and Scotland star present before them.
Bankiebhoy
yes there will some posted out– WC will look after you.
he is the only person on the planet who somehow has 72 hours in each of his days!
Off out to take son 3 to Kinlochard to do Duke of Edinburgh stuff — the next week he is off to train with Valencia FC at their coaching school. Oh to be a teenager– again.
BT
Wouldn’t dare. It’s like Glasgow gangs everyone has their own sod of turf :-)
BRTH
Many thanks……………
HH.
67 Heaven
For your benefit it’s the pools office at Tollcross baths :-)
HT
Don’t forget to say hello to him
Tbj
I feel your pain buddy…
I see the Ozmind brothers have split up again.
BT
I always feel like I’m intruding if I do. I see him at most away games but often he has others around him so I don’t like to.
Squire danaher @ 09;18,
What a great photie…
Is it just me or did the strips not fit those guys so much better
The classic shorts with the number, the green more bold and the hoops perfectly. .. Well. … Hooped.
Tough game today, Aberdeen have been the better side in the last two games, but we should have more than enuff.
Celtic 3-2 Aberdeen