I read one highly unlikely article yesterday suggesting we were going to sign Alfred Finnbogason AND were still bidding big money for Kevin Doyle ahead of an 11pm tonight signing deadline. It’s hard to be so wrong in so few words, but this one hit the mark.
Alfred is a target but, and this is the key point the newspapers have not picked up on, he is one of four strikers Celtic are seriously considering at the moment. He looks the part, as do the others, I am assured, but the deal has to be right for Celtic to move.
Our strategic plan is to buy players at a comparatively low price, develop them on the Champions League stage, and sell high, in order to be able to build a team capable of competing further in the Champions League.
To do this we need to buy from the right markets, at the correct age and on the right wage. There will be exceptions to this rule. A few weeks shy of his 27th birthday, Dirk Boerrigter is unlikely to appreciate greatly, but teams need experience to tackle the Champions League, as well as some specific skills, so Dirk is here for what he can give today, not to be the next £12m exit.
We will see more business like Wanyama and Hooper. Before Celtic agree a deal for Finnbogason there would need to be a gap between the buy price and the projected valuation IF the player is a success. If this gap doesn’t exist we will do business elsewhere. Sticking to strategy is more important than pursuing a target like some latter-day David “this time we’re really going for it” Murray.
You can also forget about the 11pm deadline tonight. That is only relevant if we need two or more new players to overcome Shakhter Karagandy. If we want to add Finnbogason, or any ONE other player, the deadline for a Wildcard signing is a day before the game, or pretty much when the team leaves Glasgow Airport, so there is no effective deadline tonight. As such, I would be surprised if a deal was concluded today.
Right now, at Lennoxtown and Celtic Park, people are deciding how to invest our money. We have the kind of choices consistent with a well-run club, but while we are a well-run club, we can’t get caught up in the hubris.
We are living through some big changes in our financial model. Revenue from domestic football (season ticket sales-now discounted, Rangers game £42-per-head ticket sales, hospitality sales, commercial income) has fallen, or disappeared completely (I reckon we’re in the region of £9m p.a. down in these areas, we’ll have a better indication when accounts are released later this month). On top of this, the club was running at a loss without Champions League football or significant player sale (£7m for season 2011-12, the last we have accounts for), and as well as some income streams falling, costs have risen.
I heard that one ‘St Mirren’ supporting journo on Radio Scotland on Saturday said with last season’s Champions League income and money from player sales, Celtic have a £40m transfer kitty.
In the name of all that is sacred, nine years after ‘What the Celtic fans want to know is where is all the Seville money?’, the same nonsense is being peddled. As far as some are concerned, we are back where we started on CQN. The first thing you do with your money is pay your bills, including tax… there is no creditor left behind at Celtic. After they are taken care off you can look to invest in footballers.
This year, the underlying loss has been flipped because of player sales and that Champions League income, although not by nearly as much as journos who regard researching accounts before commenting on finance as an unnecessary indulgence, will tell you. Without Champions League income (this season potentially £14m plus any prize money earned), the money from Wanyama alone would not make this a profitable season, even before the spend on our new signings.
The road ahead is clear. Get into the Champions League as often as possible without allowing any individual failure to cause a collapse, sign players who will flourish at that level, sell them for a profit, repeat and reinforce all aspects of strategy with an improved budget.
Over any business period, every penny which comes into the club, has been, and will continue to be, spent. Our money will be invested in footballers who will appreciate in value, and who will give Celtic their best chance of pushing further in the Champions League on a persistent basis. It will not rest in a bank account earning a pittance in interest. The strategy is ambitious and sustainable but not reckless.
A year ago some wondered if Celtic could survive, never mind flourish, without a Rangers-branded club in the league. If successful, this strategy will not only allow the club to flourish, it may even result in higher long-term income than Celtic achieved while locked in an arms race with a former rival, with a corresponding improvement in Champions League achievement.
Is Alfred Finnbogason the man, is he better than the others we’re looking at, good enough to excel in the Champions League? I’ve no idea, but he is just one detail in the wider Celtic strategy.
Stick to plan, Celtic.
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Oops forgot the link to Big Mick, and I don’t mean McManus or McArthy
http://youtu.be/oqBjjBkHnh0
Off out to check the skies again
well Amido was bought to do that …and the more he gets roughed up the smoother he will get…
I see young James Keatings banging in goals for fun for the Accies.
Sign him up Celtic – oh, wait….doh!
I happened to be in Liverpool over the weekend of the Hillsborough disaster and the following week. I have a lot of family in the city, mostly Evertonians. I was in the Barley Mow in Cantril Farm with my cousins playing pool and enjoying the craic in the build-up to the game, which was on the TV.
The atmosphere as the tragedy unfolded was something I will never forget. There were no mobile phones in those days and there was a queue at the one public phone as anxious customers strived to check on connections who might or might not be at the game. As time went on, you could hear a pin drop as people crowded under the TV screen.
That evening, we all sat in my uncle’s house and there was a feeling of numbness as the constant TV coverage told a steadily worsening story. Sunday morning a few of us went to the Cathedral. The area around the altar was already bedecked with dozens of tributes. As we sat quietly, the calm was occasionally shattered by the sound of people wailing, and I mean wailing. It was pitiful and it shook me to the core. I watched a grown man break down as he read the many tributes. His family carried him bodily to the back of the church. I saw a middle-aged woman fall to her knees and call out a girl’s name, presumably her daughter.
Before long we decided to leave. We felt like intruders. Six of us walked back home in complete silence. The two girls in our company wept openly. The rest of us fought back the tears. The feeling inside me was awful. Also, for some reason I felt very scared. Maybe because I knew that those poor Liverpool fans were just like you and me . . . ordinary people who enjoy going to the match and supporting their team.
We went to Anfield on the Monday and joined the procession there. I laid my Celtic scarf with the thousands of other tributes.
During the rest of the week, every pub had raffles for prizes contributed by local business people. Every time somebody won a prize, eg a bottle of spirits, it was immediately handed back for another raffle. The atmosphere had now turned to one of empathy and solidarity. These people were truly united in grief. Every day we saw one funeral cortege after another and more broken mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.
I don’t want to see anything like that ever again.
Several of my Liverpool family came to Celtic Park for the benefit game. They were stunned by the atmosphere and still talk about it to this day.
It took me a while to get some of the images of utter grief out of my mind. I had nightmares. My wife at the time told me I was in need of counselling. Like a typical male, I brushed that sort of talk aside, mainly because I thought my pain was as of nothing compared to the poor people I had seen in the Cathedral on that terrible Sunday morning.
Celtic and Liverpool.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
GG
Come on Sir….. You are sounding resigned…. KTF….. Like you always do …
Before you head to bed after staring at the immense improbability of the cosmos…. Wait…
Till the last moment of the Game
tom mclaughlin
04:27 on 13 August, 2013
You know we have our differences.
Still…
Respect for that post.
Pertinent and profound.
Wayne Rooney has David Moyes’ permission to face Scotland on Wednesday, because he is only half fit.
The Scottish manager of Manchester United joked: “You don’t think I’m going to send England a fit player, do you?”
alabamacopycatsfeckingjokeyouare….
thankyou Tom……I always know I am in the best of company here…what ever the weather! hahahahaha
fecksake ….the hahahahahaha was for the strange posts(weather) …ach a good man like yourself will work that out ….and a lot quicker than myself ..till then ..
life is Braw!
Roll on the Rattling and The Shakes.
You are right GG, or Mick is….
Sometimes, if we just try, we get what we need….
neustadt-braw. Tell you whit… Lets start a new 111, you can be the Green, and I will be the White…. Nae Lateral Thinking or Moving on your part, Its Ma Game
BTW…. If you are my cousin Donnie-….We’ might fall oot…. :0)
Zzzzzzz…
it seems to me that the strategy is to buy cheap players and sell them on as good players and make a profit, combined with CL money to increase that profit
At the risk of being a naysayer, doesnt selling your best players generally jeopardise our CL chances?
It didnt seem to help the “old” board much in the long run, when our best players were repeatedly sold
Dont get me wrong we had a great season in Europe last year, undeniably so, and we have now made a few quid by selling our best players, again undeniable. obviously the secret is to replace these best players with guys who cost less and who can still bear the likes of Barca
Im not sure its realistic to expect that startegy to come good every season though
Anyway “heres hoping”, but maybe theres a bit too much hope, and just not enough strategy in that plan.
I wonder if there is anything anywhere in the startegy to get back to 60k season tickets that we had 10 short years ago and to plug the ever increasing defecit that accompanies the empty seats. Just a thought like.
Tom
Very touching post. Will probably go back and read it again later.
PJB
No meteors to be seen.
A titillating thin layer of cloud obscuring the stars.
I did my best, but unable to see a shower.
I’ve done my bit so off to bed.
No cod from Icelandic waters CSC.
Tom McLaughlin
04:27 on 13 August, 2013
Very moving and deserving of a bigger audience.
If you don’t repost for the dayshift I will.
Goodnight everyone
Tom McLaughlin
Good post.
I was at the game at CP, but probably didn’t appreciate the enormity of the event.
If the Iceman disnae cometh…….how about this young fella?
“At this moment in particular I follow very closely Paddy Madden because I think that he’s a good player,” said Tardelli.
“He’s very quick and a clever player. He finds the moment to receive the ball in space and he runs well into space.
“It’s good and I like him. He played well in training.
“He has a good attitude with quality. I think he is the future,” he said.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/yeovil-switch-the-key-to-maddens-change-in-fortunes-239659.html?
tom mclaughlin
04:27 on 13 August, 2013.
Good post Tom
I was in a pub in st Enochs square with my mates that sad day.
It was numbing to watch news..
HH
.
Courtesy 200%
“The Boys From The West Of Scotland Don’t Scare Easily”: Rangers At War
It comes to something when John Brown produces the most prescient analysis of your football club’s fortunes. Last summer, the ex-Rangers man told anyone who wanted to listen (and a fair few who didn’t) that he knew “what’s going on” at Rangers, in the early days of no-nonsense Yorkshireman Charles Green’s lively leadership. “What do you know, John?” an increasingly exasperated Scotsman newspaper journalist Tom English asked time-and-again on BBC Scotland’s Sportsound ten months later. “I know what’s going on,” said Brown, every time.
Brown still knows what’s going on. And it has dawned on Scotland’s mainstream media that whatever the attractions of the latest “Ibrox civil war,” Brown made the real point: “The money is disappearing like you can’t imagine.” It seems more than a week since Rangers CEO Craig Mather sought “clarification for our fans” over the SFA Disciplinary Tribunal decision not to fine Heart of Midlothian for entering administration, when Rangers received the maximum £50,000 fine for the offence last year. Mather’s claim that “there is one rule for our club and another for everyone else” was demonstrable nonsense. But it was for a reason, as a day later an Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders was requisitioned to force his and two other directors’ removal from the board. And after days of executive name-calling by leading Rangers ‘personalities, fans themselves sought clarification on “what’s going on” – in journalese, “demanded answers”. Not before time… and months after supposedly ‘anti-Rangers’ bloggers started asking those questions.
Having failed to worm his way back onto Rangers’ board, Green has returned in the unconvincing guise of “consultant”, for, he says, a £1,000-per-month fee. And not a penny more in expenses, I’m sure. One of his first “consultations” was with Scottish Sun newspaper journalist Chris Musson, during which Green reminded us that he thought last season’s Rangers team was the worst to represent the name, adding that McCoist would “have a problem” if he didn’t win a league and cup double with this season’s expensively-assembled squad. Predictably, a furious McCoist seized upon these words in the immediate aftermath of Rangers’ League Cup defeat at Forfar Athletic. Whether he’d have been so annoyed had Rangers won isn’t clear (no). But that afternoon, an article attributed to the media department’s Andrew Dickson appeared on Rangers’ website, cryptically entitled “Contempt for our Club.” It said McCoist “was furious to waken up this morning” to Green’s comments. And, having presumably let his players buy and read the paper during their pre-match preparation, he called them “appalling,” adding “what kind of a team talk is that?” (more effective than his, it seemed). McCoist continued: “He’s fooling nobody,” (although one thing Green has consistently done well at Rangers is “fool” bodies). “He’s trying to kid the fans that he’s this, that and the next thing but he’s not interested in Rangers.” This was a tidied-up version of McCoist’s combative post-match press conference. There he warned that if Green’s words were “a threat,” then “the self-acclaimed, straight-talking Yorkshireman should know that boys from the West of Scotland don’t scare easily.” Woooh.
The article was swiftly removed from the website, with communications director Jim Traynor reported on some social media sites to have threatened resignation otherwise; although this would have been barely audible above the noise of stable doors slamming shut. “If I’m asked a question, I’ll answer it,” Green told Scottish Television’s (STV) Peter Smith, four days later. “Football’s got nothing to do with me,” he insisted when asked how he and McCoist could now “possibly work together”. Of course, had Green said that to Musson, there would have been no issue – and there might have been proper focus on McCoist’s continuing managerial shortcomings. Green did tell Musson that McCoist “a fantastic guy… brilliant with the players, fans and media,” he would have known that the “worst-ever” stuff would be the media focus. Green also bemoaned Rangers’ close-season financial policies, claiming that he would not have sanctioned the acquisition of eight players – despite telling Smith that “I signed two of them before I left.”
This was Green as Stalinist Revisionist. Rangers lost £7m loss in the first seven months of 2012/13. Though there were numerous one-off costs in that figure, Rangers’ “cash-burn,” (to give spunking money up the wall it’s technical term) was alarming. And early speculation suggests their debut annual loss could be eight-figure, much of it authorised by or, most damning, paid to Green. Rumours abound that Mather, Green’s successor CEO, will trouser up to half-a-million quid this year. And such expenditure clearly irked Green. Yet it merely continued his own executive pay policy. Green and finance director Brian Stockbridge’s annual remuneration totalled £1m – both receiving “100%” bonuses for Rangers’ promotion (Green wasn’t thinking “worst-ever team” when he trousered his £360,000 bonus, I’ll bet).Mather soon responded to the external, internal and personal pressures being brought to bear by the bid to get “highly-respected Glasgow businessman” Frank Blin and rather less-universally respected Rangers ex-director Paul Murray onto the board (there’ll always be a Murray, it seems), although Green told STV that part of his consultancy remit was to help the board “fight off this hostile bid.”
It emerged, via a traditional route – a “Keith Jackson exclusive” in the Daily Record newspaper, that the move was backed by billionaire “entrepreneur” Jim McColl. He said he was approached by disgruntled institutional investors who “demanded greater transparency, honesty and integrity” at Rangers and wanted “lifelong fans Murray and Blin to…begin cleaning up from the inside.” Mather’s prose was quivering with rage in his Rangers website response entitled Craig Mather Statement –a less provocative title than McCoist’s effort but scarcely less contemptuous of its targets. Mather’s version of “transparency, honesty and integrity” was “honour, dignity and integrity.” He claimed the move was inspired by “self-gain and arrogance.” “Not a single one” had been “willing to invest their own money.” They “stood back and did nothing when Rangers was in trouble.” And “they failed to make even a remotely credible attempt to save this fantastic club in its darkest hour.” There was the occasional cliché, including a version of “no-one is bigger than the club,” a theory McCoist and Traynor seem determined to disprove through diet. But he struck an unexpected final note: “Everyone is entitled to an opinion, including Charles Green. But… backing the manager and the playing staff… is critical to our ambitions.”
Worse followed. Chairman Walter Smith, the “Ibrox legend”, had kept his head down while directors’ divisions surfaced. High-profile Rangers blogger Bill McMurdo criticised the Herald newspaper for “identifying (Smith) as sympathetic to the Murray-McColl group,” saying Smith “could dispel this by an unequivocal statement backing Craig Mather and his board.” But the Herald was right. BBC Scotland’s Chris McLaughlin, one of many journos labelled “Rangers-hater” for…oh, I dunno, wearing green underpants on a Tuesday in 1996, claimed Smith was “on the brink of quitting.” And Jackson wrote a cloyingly sentimental “Smith must go to save his reputation” article, praising him for not being “cut out for all the Machiavellian skulduggery and devious deception.” Jackson cited “a speech of Churchillian quality” Smith gave in April (“fight them on the beaches” rather than “awww yesh,” presumably), “pleading with (directors) to abide by the standards handed down through the years.” He claimed Smith “prides himself on his own honesty” (“look, here’s ma EBT”?). And he urged him to publicly back McColl.
Smith’s initial resignation statement reportedly went the way of McCoist’s Contempt for our Club (“his remarks initially appeared blocked last night” – Herald). But what eventually appeared was unequivocal, if not how McMurdo had wished. “It is clear that boardroom change is required,” Smith declared. “I would urge Rangers fans to get fully behind the resolutions which last week were presented to the board and shareholders.” He also said Mather was “doing a good job…I hope he will be allowed to continue.” “As for Alistair McCoist,” he added with chilling formality, “it is my fervent hope that…he is given the chance to manage under conditions similar to those afforded his predecessors.” By which Smith was NOT thought to have meant debts climbing to £82m and Rangers being run by a bank. Distraught fans “demanded” more “answers,” descending on Ibrox in…er…dozens. Traynor met supporters in a new role as head of non-communications – refusing to give any answers until all media f***ed off, “especially you,” he angrily grunted at Peter Smith. But whatever Traynor eventually said, “battle lines were drawn,” and Tuesday was a busy day for McColl’s PR-operation at the Record and Green’s PR-operation inside his own head.
In a three-minute interview on Sky Sports News, Green bemoaned “recent events, particularly Malcolm Murray calling this EGM,” a casual but repeated observation on which, perhaps significantly, he remained unchallenged. And he concluded: “I say to Jim McColl, world’s richest Scotsman, put £14m in a bank account… and my consortium will deliver to you about 28% of the club. You’ve then invested some cash into the club you want to run.” This was an offer McColl could refuse. The 28% was a powerless minority stake. And Green gave STV one key additional detail, “saying on camera now” that “my consortium will happily sell their shares for £14m,” meaning the money would be “invested into” Green’s and other, anonymous, back-pockets, NOT the “club.” In his half-hour STV interview, Green denied so many associations with Rangers that you wondered if he’d ever really worked there…or how he earned £720,000 remuneration… or how he’d formed any sort of consortium. “I’m not back at the club,” he claimed, which stretched credibility, even for him. He had “no thoughts” on Walter Smith’s backing for McColl’s “hostile bid”, despite being appointed “to fight” it. He had “no relationship with Brian Stockbridge,” a novel arrangement for a CEO and his Finance Director. “I didn’t mislead fans and investors,” he said, claiming that “the Pinsent report… the Deloitte forensic investigation” into his links with ex-owner Craig Whyte had cleared him, even though the announcement of their findings made no reference at all to the allegations against Green, let alone that he’d been cleared of them. And, having admitted to being devious, he declared: “I’ve never told a lie. I’ve never done anything wrong.” Yes he did.
Towards the end, though, he lost the run of himself and was talking like the “real” power behind the Ibrox scenes that so many observers believe he is. “I’m a defender of the faith,” he pronounced, a bold statement, even for the holder of Rangers’ largest individual shareholding. “No-one is going to steal Rangers unless I know that they’re going to do the right thing by it.” Not “the board knows” but “I know.” Mind you, having paid only £5.5m for the business and assets of a club valued at £25m even by its tumbling share price, Green probably was the right person to pontificate on “stealing Rangers.” (Oh…and Green’s response when reminded of the racist language he used towards his commercial director? “Where I come from…a spade is a spade.” You couldn’t make him up).
McColl’s response was immediate and withering. “If we don’t act now to get rid of Charles Green and the clique which has been supporting him…it could take ten to 20 years to repair the damage.” For McColl, corporate governance was the issue. “My money isn’t necessary here,” he claimed, which was handy as his decision to “do whatever I can in the name of Rangers” didn’t involve investing any money in it. He certainly wasn’t about to “give that man a penny,” correctly interpreting Greens’ “£14m for 28%” offer. And he added: “I would encourage no-one else to give money to him because he’s just an opportunist.” Almost under the radar, Paul Murray briefly broke his silence. “The shareholders own the club, not Green.” “No-one in their right mind is going to pay money to Green,” he concluded (told you it was brief), which ruled out very few of this saga’s protagonists.
No game of “Rangers civil war bingo” would be complete without former director Dave King sticking his oar in via the Daily Mail newspaper. And he arrived in the accustomed manner in a Mail “exclusive”: Rangers bidder King fears club could be in administration by Christmas. That the South Africa-based King “still faces criminal charges in his adopted homeland” seemed not to dampen his ambitions for a boardroom return, insisting: “I’m absolutely 100% certain that these are not an issue at the present moment.” And, given the SFA’s governance track record, he may be right. And King offered as withering a Green put-down as McColl’s (“I don’t see myself or anyone else, frankly, putting money in to pay these guys off”). But for him, as the headline suggested, it was about the money: “The way directors are spending money…I don’t think they’ll make Christmas.”
Here, King was echoing sentiments expressed throughout the mainstream Scottish media throughout the week. “It is understood that less than £10m remains in the bank,” wrote the Herald’s Richard Wilson of the £22m cash supposedly raised in December’s share issue. “Some informed sources believe the club will run out of money during this season and will need to raise additional extra funding” (additional and extra funding?). “There was less than £7m in the bank at the end of last season,” Jackson wrote in the Record. An un-named “City source” put it quite simply: “Rangers are paying out too much to too many people.” And, in as much as a man like him could “echo” a man like John Brown, King’s comments brought us right back to the man who knows “what’s going on.” The mainstream media’s epiphany on Rangers’ finances meant Green’s bluster, so often so effective at rallying Rangers’ support behind him over the past year, rather backfired on him. “What’s happened since I left is the club has become more and more unstable. More than at any time, we’ve got anarchy in terms of the way the club is being run,” he told Peter Smith. “I left to allow the club to move forward and it hasn’t.”
But, as Ally McCoist suggested mid-rant on Saturday: “He’s fooling nobody. ” He hasn’t been able to counter the evidence that if Rangers do have financial problems, they were caused on his watch. He misjudged the mood completely over McCoist. And his ‘revelation’ that Walter Smith had actually made the “worst team ever” remarks was seen as a grubby and stupid attempt to deflect blame for their nuclear fall-out. Even if Smith had said so, he said so privately, and a huge majority of Rangers fans would never believe it of Smith anyway. Green almost seems determined to cause chaos while the money runs out, as if he is forcing administration so he can buy the club back from administrators on the cheap and make his money through selling it on again down the line.
Only the utmost cynic would seriously think such a thing. But remarks attributed to “a Green spokesman” after a summit meeting between Rangers fan representatives and the board were so crass that you could again believe it was all deliberate. “Green out” was the gist of fans’ demand. But Green’s alleged spokesman was plain rude in response, especially about Mather, who re-affirmed his view on Green’s behaviour as “morally and ethically wrong.” In fact, it is difficult to believe this spokesman actually exists. “It is clear Mr Mather is confused and intimidated by the fans’ robust action,” the spokesman said of Mather’s promise to convene a board meeting to discuss Green’s future. “Perhaps he should return to a much gentler business atmosphere. Glasgow is a place for big boys, not frightened wee laddies.” Somebody, somewhere is taking the p**s.
On planet earth, fan representatives prepared 50 pertinent questions for the board and received disturbing confirmation that Rangers’ loss-making abilities were as prodigious as even the most rabid “Rangers-haters” had long been reporting, with £10m left in the bank, despite the supposed £23m share issue cash and whatever 30,000+ season ticket holders have already stumped up. Alongside this, Green is the “clown” John Brown called him this week. If Rangers people spend too much time on him, i.e. any longer than the one board meeting, Rangers will be in financial danger. It has been a fraught week for anyone with any Rangers associations. But it has provided enough warning signs for them to avert the dangers facing the club. The key question for now is, will they heed them? Because if they don’t, and Rangers go pop again, not even John Brown will be able to explain “what’s going on.”
Summa
this disgusted me ..Rascar Capac
01:15 on
13 August, 2013
My memory of the Hillsborough benefit game.
We were in the “Rangers” end with thousands of Liverpool fans.
A hugely emotional experience.
There was one girl there in full Rangers kit.,
A few murmers from some scary bhoys about her, but not so she’d hear.
And we did our thing, our incredible thing.
But the thing I remember, was she was part of the tribute.
And we did Glasgow proud.
and it got worse somebody with the NOME PJBhoynyc backs this dirt ….
I waited a wee bit ….and then like a bolt from TG ,s big toe … …god bless you Tom .. there are no words ..God Bless
Tom McLaughlin
04:27 on
13 August, 2013
I happened to be in Liverpool over the weekend of the Hillsborough disaster and the following week. I have a lot of family in the city, mostly Evertonians. I was in the Barley Mow in Cantril Farm with my cousins playing pool and enjoying the craic in the build-up to the game, which was on the TV.
The atmosphere as the tragedy unfolded was something I will never forget. There were no mobile phones in those days and there was a queue at the one public phone as anxious customers strived to check on connections who might or might not be at the game. As time went on, you could hear a pin drop as people crowded under the TV screen.
That evening, we all sat in my uncle’s house and there was a feeling of numbness as the constant TV coverage told a steadily worsening story. Sunday morning a few of us went to the Cathedral. The area around the altar was already bedecked with dozens of tributes. As we sat quietly, the calm was occasionally shattered by the sound of people wailing, and I mean wailing. It was pitiful and it shook me to the core. I watched a grown man break down as he read the many tributes. His family carried him bodily to the back of the church. I saw a middle-aged woman fall to her knees and call out a girl’s name, presumably her daughter.
Before long we decided to leave. We felt like intruders. Six of us walked back home in complete silence. The two girls in our company wept openly. The rest of us fought back the tears. The feeling inside me was awful. Also, for some reason I felt very scared. Maybe because I knew that those poor Liverpool fans were just like you and me . . . ordinary people who enjoy going to the match and supporting their team.
We went to Anfield on the Monday and joined the procession there. I laid my Celtic scarf with the thousands of other tributes.
During the rest of the week, every pub had raffles for prizes contributed by local business people. Every time somebody won a prize, eg a bottle of spirits, it was immediately handed back for another raffle. The atmosphere had now turned to one of empathy and solidarity. These people were truly united in grief. Every day we saw one funeral cortege after another and more broken mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.
I don’t want to see anything like that ever again.
Several of my Liverpool family came to Celtic Park for the benefit game. They were stunned by the atmosphere and still talk about it to this day.
It took me a while to get some of the images of utter grief out of my mind. I had nightmares. My wife at the time told me I was in need of counselling. Like a typical male, I brushed that sort of talk aside, mainly because I thought my pain was as of nothing compared to the poor people I had seen in the Cathedral on that terrible Sunday morning.
Celtic and Liverpool.
You’ll Never Walk Alone.
great post tom
hope this cheers you up
UEFA.com > UEFA Champions League > History > 1966
HH
Morning champions
The story of the blues. … whoever runs that south side performance has a really vivid imagination and a warped sense of humour
You really couldn’t make this up ;)
Rangers / Sevco … the gift that keeps on giving
sorry
linky no worky
it was an interview with stevie chalmers that i hadn’t seen before.
try again later
HH
TBJ ….first of all good morning …..obviously am new at this (computer twats) ah suppose yeve jist tae ignore them ….but on a serious note do think etc etc etc(thats an old army joke )
Neustadt braw
Not sure about the army joke …. im assuming it wasnt Walter smiths blue and white army :))))
Can you imagine being a hun…. no me either. . But … most days must be like that terrible feeling one gets when you get pumped out the cup by a wee team like Brechin … actually : that’s a bad example cos thats the least of their worries ;),
ssssssssssshhh I was born in Forfar …the Blues love us …number 8 from 11 ..hahahaha
ps … armies are told no tae think …(that was the clue)
Nb
Used to work in the same place sipsini works.. full of zombies… the old saying was leave your coat and your brain in your locker each morning ;),
TBJ …..I was brought up among them …could tell you stories (and a hope over the years we might) …but Forfar was home ..and it still is …..whit can I say ….ah tell ye what I got annoyed this morning …and at what ? scum …disnae matter if its here or anywhere ….scum is scum ..and I will smack it promptly on the heid …as No 8 that wisnae always my job …..but a could lip read quicker ….yer moniker is a mighty one …
Imran Ahmed suing Sevco, with the backing of Chuck, for £3.4M.
Lottie premonition comes through again.
MWD
http://twitter.com/Daily_Record/status/367058496019120128/photo/1
My Pakki Friend ….13 x whatever 3.4 million …..f@cking class ….love it !
letters
Well well..would you adam and eve it…Chuck’s ‘paki friend’.
Morning from a sunny, fresh Chilterns…
Supersutton, saw your post re; MON’s CL Record.
Apologies didn’t mean to twist your post just thought that looking at Martin’s European record ignoring our greatest European campaign in a generation was somewhat disingenious.
Still Martin’s CL record is certainly mixed, basically because we couldn’t win away- guess we all have an
achilies heel.
T’was a good debate yesterday, but all I’d say is that at the end of the day we are talking about bringing in a 20+goals a season Striker.
Off the top of my head I think I could name 10 of them in the last 20 years and I reckon they’d be only a couple of Seasons during that time when one or two of our strikers didn’t hit that milestone.
Hail Hail
the exiled tim
22:47 on 12 August, 2013
Calm doon, mhan ….!!
pjbhoynyc
00:49 on 13 August, 2013
Exactly….hardball stage …..and we get him, or we don’t ……… It’s called negotians, but don’t tell some on here…….HH
Negotiations even