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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Dita Von Teese
Podium?
offski this time……….. adios amigos!
And the final scoreboard sponsored by the SPL
The Spirit of Arthur Lee 70
glasgowbhoy 37
Seven Fishes Four Steaks 32
CQN is changing so am I 22
theglasgowcelticway 20
Vmhan 18
setting free the bears 17
DJBEE 15
hamiltontim 12
Uly aka Signor Mysterioso, Ace bucketeer 3.5
Estadio Nacional 0
Well done TSoAL and indeed everybody for taking part tonight, Apologies for the muck up. Hope the live quiz goes better :-)
Enjoy the footie tomorrow
HH
CRC
Ike & Tina Turner – Honky Tonk Woman 1970
Rino McN
CRC!!!
You made an absolute SEVCO of that last question lol
CRC thanks again ya diddy ( I noticed your earlier comment ) hopefully see you tomorrow :-)
Well done SOAL some score big fella.
Celt4Life
I had a Sebo!!
CRC
Highest Winning Score?
CRC thanks once again
Easy Easy Easy
Deffo drug test for TSOAL, he’s this week’s HT. Congrats and thanks again to CRC..
PODIUM!!!
Well played everyone I would just like to say that in the spirit of the Olympics I fained a sprained ankle going round the first bend as I couldn’t be @rsed and was choking for a pint.
Can’t believe how much I’m enjoying these Olympics…..didn’t think I would,but there you go.
Andy Murray was incredible earlier on.
Anyway…
….c’mon The Bhoys ra morra!
HH !
In the Olympic Spirit, I will enter the CQN quiz at Round 6 in order to set my personal best
glasgowbhoy on 3 August, 2012 at 22:31 said:
Drugs test for CRC, might be more appropriate :-)
HH
CRC
Yeah CRC that was funny if nothing else, can you tell me the answer to the last question I missed it and to parshed to scroll back?
I haven’t amassed 70 points in all the quizzes I’ve taken part in.
Well done SOAL!!
theglasgowcelticway
Thanks
A Sebo!!! Too generous to yourself. Defo a SEVCO
3-0 for the good ghuys tomorrow.
Hooper 2 Sammi
soal
Do a’ not get a thanks??!!
HuffCSC
Thanks for the enjoyable quiz my first time and will certainly take part again.
Looking forward to the flag being raised at Paradise tomorrow.
Hail hail
Fly the flag
And a special thanks to HT aka Florence Nightingale
Hiya
Could we apply for the CQN quiz to be put into the next olympics in 2014, copious amounts of drinks and serious F5 action with total concentration, I think its a goer am off to email sevco, sorry Seb Co.
By the way does anyone know Sebastian’s second name?
DJBEE on 3 August, 2012 at 22:33 said:
Broonie
soal
Cheers honey. Think you could be right about highest point’s total, def the biggest I remember.
JQB
Holiday over?
Ante post prediction time
Who will win the league ?
I’ll give you a clue the first letter is C and the last letter is C
HT,
aye, in the middle of a deep down… doobie doo down down
still, all you need is love
and a hammer… a hammer is good
RBS say they’re happy with their lose of £1.5 billion and it was expected.Well,we all know where Craig Whyte is working now.
Loss,I’m tired.
theglasgowcelticway on 3 August, 2012 at 22:44 said:
look at it this way, thats only 1,500,000,000 in old rangers…. they were poor coin though, even the puggie spat them out
C E L T I C
C e l t i c
That’s the team for me
C E L T I C
C e l t i c
Onto victory
My wife said that joining cqn was the worst thing I’ve ever done because I ignore her all the time or so my son told me.
Well played SoaL
Next hing ye know there will be
EN
Olympic phrases you only remember every 4 years.
Part 1.
“she ran a great bend”
Marvellous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml2NsTHZG0U