My friends in Celtic, for the first time in four years we start a league campaign as champions. We carry a slender-but-hopeful lead into the second leg of our Champions League third qualifying round tie, and we are hotter favourites to win the league this season, than North Korea’s Supreme Leader’s favourite Pyongyang team would be, if he was to playing as striker.
Quite simply, the return on money placed on Celtic to win the league this season more accurately reflects a tax-free savings plan than a gamble. The bookies will hold your money until March or April then return it with some interest. Your rate of return will directly reflect the interest they can earn elsewhere.
This is the ninth eve-of-the-season we have reported on the state of the club. During this time we have gone toe-to-toe with a competitor who tried so hard to get the better of us, they ran up unsustainable debts, which could reach £134m, and which will never be paid or forgiven.
Celtic ran a better operation, were commercially sharper, had by far the best scouting system in the country, but paid their bills and ‘lost’ five leagues in this time.
Living with this was hard. In fact, it tore the Celtic support apart. The question was simple, “If they can, why can’t we?”
They couldn’t, and now the ideological debate is over. Mantras we have heard for decades have proven to be false. ‘Speculate to accumulate’ and ‘For every fiver Celtic spend….’ were suitable for an inflating market, where player values, TV contracts and match day revenues rose consistently, but this strategy was fatally flawed.
Whatever was accumulated in Scottish football it was never financial reserves, so when revenues dipped, or the vagaries of sporting fortune denied the wealthy their anticipated earnings, Armageddon happened – for one club!
Students of economic history will be able to tell you that even the most obvious economic lessons are eventually forgotten. New people arrive, achieve some early successes which reaffirm their ideological beliefs (in this instance ‘We deserve more money to be spent on footballers’), make no provisions for the inevitable change in circumstances, before disappearing into the obscurity from which they came, leaving others to live with the consequences.
Here is the true State of your Club. Celtic will continue its trajectory without changing what has been orthodoxy since the last century. Over any business period we will spend whatever money comes into the club. In normal times debt levels will trend downwards, providing space for the afflictions of fortune to be accommodated. We will most likely promote more players from our precocious youth system and buy fewer squad fillers than in the past.
The blink-junkies, who still believe in the values of Sir David Murray, will be reminded on these pages of their consequences *.
When this period of our history ends, we will reflect back on what, by then, will be the most successful period of any club, in any country. Ever. Those of you who lived through Lisbon are now enjoying the second Golden Generation of our club, but this time, nine years will not contain it. This Generation will stretch from 2000 as far as your mind’s eye can see, if only someone would coin a catchy phrase to encapsulate this successful period!
The Battle of the Ages is over, Celtic have prevailed, as did every Scottish football fan who wanted the madness to end. We won!
Thanks to everyone who bought a raffle ticket to help with our summer charity causes. Enjoy the season. I will.
*At the moment I’m reading End this Depression Now by Nobel Economics Laureate Paul Krugman, an excellent insight into how even the most eminent allow what they want to believe to obscure some of the lessons every economics under-grad is taught. It’s also a fine retort to the political classes who believe there’s nothing we can do for the economy but strangle it a little tighter.
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Or are you Andy’s Ma?
CRC
For the timeline of the quiz I would like to be referred to solely as Signor Mysterioso.
Thank You
SM
Perhaps you are drunk.
I wonder if there will be co-ordination between the Dandy Dons fans and the Hoops when we sing about the plight of The Rangers?
;))
I think there is a possibility.
I thought I’d slip this in before the quizmaster starts the ball rolling……
an auld favourite from the jungle, a song everyone can join in.
The Holy Ground
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66HQWjeHelQ
HH
Uly or S&M for short
:¬)
NEW ARTICLE POSTED
Evening Bhoys & Ghirls and Welcome to the Friday night footie quiz, supporting Wee Oscar.
5 rounds of Celtic magic.
You are all welcome to join in or just lurk behind your keyboard.
Rules are simple. No googling and to score any points in any rounds, your post must published (with some right answers) before the answers are published by myself.
Good luck and c’mon don’t let HT get 2IAR :-)
Round 1 follows shortly
HH
CRC
Vmhan cheating already!!!!!!!!
Vmhan on 3 August, 2012 at 20:59 said:
Is it no time for your bed?
:-)
CRC
Round 1: If you know your Opening day History?
(2pts per first correct answer: 1pt per answer if you are correct but not first. Remember only 1 submission per round)
1) What team did we start our SPL campaign against last year?
2) Who scored the 2 goals in the above game?
3) In season 2010/11, what team did we start our SPL campaign against?
4) Who scored the only goal in the above game?
5) Which player did we sell for £9.5m the previous day re Q3 & Q4?
6) In season 2009/10, we started our SPL campaign against Aberdeen. What was the score that day?
7)Who was the Aberdeen manager in Q6, and who scored for Celtic that day?
Hooops I meant to post “let the quiz commence” bloody eye phones…..
HH
Vmhan
I’m turning 50 shades of red now…
SM
Jocky Wilson…nobody could drink like Jocky and still be wizard of the hockey…a true rebel…refused to brush his teeth, drank pints in the bath and even banjoed an official…Andy Murray disnae get a look in!
1 hibs
2 stokes ki
3
4
5 aiden
6 3-1 celtic
7 mmcghee – aiden x 2 skippy
1) What team did we start our SPL campaign against last year?
St J
2) Who scored the 2 goals in the above game?
Hoops
3) In season 2010/11, what team did we start our SPL campaign against?
Killie
4) Who scored the only goal in the above game?
Foorest
5) Which player did we sell for £9.5m the previous day re Q3 & Q4?
McGeedie
6) In season 2009/10, we started our SPL campaign against Aberdeen. What was the score that day?
5 – 0
7)Who was the Aberdeen manager in Q6, and who scored for Celtic that day?
Jolly Jambo Jim Jeffries
Sandman on 3 August, 2012 at 20:50 said:
—–
:O) Andy hasn’t really achieved anything in his sport yet, and you think he’s our greatest sportsman. You are his Ma
3 ict
4 pmccourt
1. Hibs 2. Stokes Ki 3. Ict 4 hoops. 5. McGeady 6. 5v0 for tic 7. Mcghee
1 Comrie Young Team
2 Cheech and Chong
3 The A Team
4 BA Baracas
5 Anton Rogan
6 5.9 5.9 5.6 (Pesky Russians) 5.9 5.8
7 Peter Ustinov/Garry Kasparov
Vmhan
1) What team did we start our SPL campaign against last year?
Hibs
2) Who scored the 2 goals in the above game?
Stokes?
3) In season 2010/11, what team did we start our SPL campaign against?
DU?
4) Who scored the only goal in the above game?
Hooper
5) Which player did we sell for £9.5m the previous day re Q3 & Q4?
Aiden McGeady
6) In season 2009/10, we started our SPL campaign against Aberdeen. What was the score that day?
3-3
7)Who was the Aberdeen manager in Q6, and who scored for Celtic that day?
Mark McGhee
Scott Brown, ach I cannae remember
1 Hibs
2 Stokes and Ki
3 ICT
4 P Mcourt
5 Aiden
6 3 1
7 mark Mcghee Mcgeady and mcdonald
I have 2 points out of 7 methinks
HH
Whose locked up HT?
Is the blog broke?
I’ve decided to leave the evening to the quiz junkies and solemnly retire for the night with a cool ice-bitten pint of cider and the second series of Deadwood.
Peace One & All.
Hail Hail.
Glasgow’s Green and White
Glasgow’s Green and White
Glasgow’s Green and White
Glasgow’s Green and White
oh-ohoh-ohohoh-ohohohohohoho-ohohohohohohohohohohohohoh
Repeat ad infinitum…COme on you bhoys in Green!
Bhoys in Green 3 Aberdeen 1.
excelent article Paul 67
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en-GB&client=mv-google&v=f-RttNgkaAs
1. 50mm
2. Left, beside the carpet shop.
3. Green with white trimmings.
4. Joe McBride, Hibs 1986.
5. North Stand 406, seat 128, row AA.
6. Furcrissakes, left at the carpet shop.
7. It was in yer drawer, its no ma fault ye lost it.
8. Tennents
9. Just a wee bit.
10. Toshley McKinley
CRC
He has done more time than a Rolex
I won’t be surprised if Neil rests s few players tomorrow….big game on Wednesday….
67Heaven … I am Neil Lennon..!!.. Ibrox belongs to the creditors on 3 August, 2012 at 21:12 said:
I won’t be surprised if Neil rests s few players tomorrow….big game on Wednesday….
Only sheep they can have a wee rest on the pitch
Answers to round 1
Hibs
Stokes & Ki
Inverness
Paddy
Aiden
3-1 Celtic
McGhee; McGeady (2), McDonald
FULL HOOSE
The Wee Oscar scoreboard after round 1
Seven Fishes Four Steaks 16
The Spirit of Arthur Lee 11
glasgowbhoy 7
Vmhan 4
DJBEE 1
Uly aka Signor Mysterioso, Ace bucketeer 0
Round 2: In Celtic’s opening SPL game last season against Hibs, name the 9 different nationalities that were represented by our starting line up that day
(2pts per first correct answer: 1pt per answer if you are correct but not first. Remember only 1 submission per round)
So basically….Billy Dodds is asked……..”We robbed 100 old aged pensioners of their pension today to pay your wages…..do you care where we got the money from to pay your wages?”……..”Erm …….I’m just a daft football player and I don’t care where my wages come from…….was that the right answer?”
1 ya beauty!