Five years ago when CQN’er Kano was confined to hospital with a debilitating illness Pablophanque was first to issue the call, “We need to raise the money to bring Kano home”. In the weeks which followed the Bring Martin Home campaign launched. The campaign succeeded and then some; the Kano Foundation is its lasting legacy.
While working in Holland in May 2011 Pablophanque took ill suddenly and died a few days later, leaving two young-adult children to deal with matters a long way from home. As the news filtered through of his death, the call went out in the comments section here to raise money to bring his remains home. One day later Pablo’s son was told the money was there and to confirm arrangements.
Pablo’s estate has recently been settled and his son and daughter wanted to repay the generosity shown to them when they needed it most. Mary’s Meals are now in receipt of £4500 from them towards our CQteN Malawi School Kitchen Appeal. It is an enormous gesture by two young people and shows the level of appreciation they have to those who helped them in 2011.
Raising money is hard and I remember telling Pablo his idea was ambitious, to say the least. There has never been a spontaneous movement like Bring Martin Home and the Kano Foundation. Many of those who made the call for Pablo were inspired by Bring Martin Home. The cumulative impact of this generosity is quite stunning.
My thanks to Pablo’s son, daughter and brother for this fantastic support, inspired, as it was, by the wider Celtic community. I never use the ‘Greatest fans in the world’ line, largely as I don’t think there is much competition, but the Celtic support are among the finest human beings you could hope to meet.
Thanks also to everyone who booked a seat or table for the CQteN St Patrick’s Day Party at the Kerrydale Suite on Friday 14 March, where we hoped to raise the bulk of the money for the school kitchen. If you want know what it’s all about, read Friday’s article.
SOLD OUT
All 470 tickets for the event have gone. Any applications received from now on will go to the waiting list.
Brilliant response. Many thanks.
There are just a few posting days left to order your CQN Annual in time for Christmas. £5 from every sale is going towards the Malawi appeal, get yours here:
[calameo code=000390171ece27dd9e54e lang=en page=98 hidelinks=1 width=100% height=500]Sean Fallon, Celtic’s Iron Man:
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PF AYR
Will a draw for England seem just like a new signing?
Oops,wrong sport…
bmcuw,
You must have some thoughts on Glenn Loovens?
Wish it was this time next week !
At least I’d be aff work :-)
Re sandman & PL
The surprising thing is…I don’t think PL has lost the “majority” of Celtic fans!
2 quick wickets for the Aussies!
Glenda?
Seriously…. Nooooo!
Make that 3 wickets!!!
Justafan
CQN is a very moderate board friendly blog
Many on CQN are very unhappy with the current situation
On other blogs he is reviled
IMO …tis you who may be surprised ..
England briefest ashes holders in history!
You gotta feel for them….
pfayr,
I think I might apply for the West Brom job now that I’ve finished with the cricket!
AR
Ole barmy army tail collapses ..again
Poor cricket
AR
I jinxed them
They had to survive an hour after lunch without loss …instead they served up their usual capitulation
pfayr…
Could well be. Was just highlighting the impression I get from many fans I know. And I’m talking real fans here.
Was thinking we need to be more aware of that. It is by no means certain, in a free vote, that PL would lose!
ANTIPODEAN RED
I didn’t think we saw the best of him. The move to us hurt his career.
Moving back will probably finish it.
Justafan
What’s a “real” fan ?
pfayr…
Wasn’t meaning anything ‘political’ (lol) by that.
Simply guys who go every week or at least every home game.
JUSTAFAN
It doesn’t take a genius to gauge someone’s opinion on these pages-misunderstandings notwithstanding.
The loss of support from many quarters on this blog,previously very pro-PL,should be a concern to him.
Losing the bedrock of your support base is never a good idea.
justafan,
I think it would be fair to say that there is a real split in how the fans feel about PL, it is clear enough on this blog. I think that PL and the board need to seriously look at how they communicate with us fans as well as seriously looking at the entire public relations set-up at Celtic Park. The only thing I ever get from Celtic is e-mails asking me to buy all sorts of merchandise or asking me about three game packages. Sure they have to try to sell but many fans live overseas and we still get e-mails for three match packages in January or whenever. What’s the chances of many of us being in Scotland for these?
I would suggest that most of us on the blog could come up with at least one suggestion that could improve the club in some respect, unfortunately the club does not seem to be tuned into what many of us are thinking at the moment, IMO.
AR
Bobbym….
Well yes but I was pointing out the confident use of ‘majority’ was probably not right. There are lots I know who are as upset with GB arrogance
antip…
Agree! Tho I guess visitors from abroad may more often be over at this time of year ;-)
I’d bet if it was a money making idea they’d be on to it in a flash!!!!!!
bobbym…
I’d wonder if PLs loss of popularity is more down to signing policy than GB issues?
JUSTAFAN
I accept that you may well be right. However,you may be overlooking the fact that many of the people who have misgivings about PL have already voted with their feet.
Many more,bar a major seachange,will do so in future.
If you think back two years,Tesco made an almighty cock-up with their Christmas campaign,with prices too high and quality too low. They misjudged the extent of customer loyalty.
They are still a long way from recovering the market share they lost.
Now,as Celtic supporters,we can’t buy elsewhere. But football isn’t food. We don’t have to buy it,and many have decided not to.
Now I don’t think very many people would choose to go to watch Celtic because of the GB. And I doubt anyone would go because of PL.
But I’ll guarantee that there are a lot more people have chucked it because of PL than ever would over the GB.
JUSTAFAN 0615
Could be. Should he be in charge of signings?
He should,at best,be responsible for allocating a footballing budget,not with the last word on how it is spent.
A fine article from another blog.
A friend who works in a restaurant in one of Glasgow’s posher suburbs tells me that Peter Lawwell, the Chief Executive of Celtic FC and a frequent customer, is quite nice on a personal level. That’s the thing about those at the top, the bankers, CEOs and politicians – most of them are perfectly polite if you happen to bump into them. But pleasantries aside, it doesn’t stop them being utterly ruthless bastards when it comes to the things that really matter.
Like many football clubs, the origins of Celtic are steeped in mythology. “If you know the history, it’s enough to make your heart go sad…” blares the PA system at every home match, and ask any ‘tic fan what “the history” is and they’ll no doubt be able to fill you in on how the club was set up as a charitable effort “for the maintenance of the dinner tables for the children and the unemployed” in Glasgow’s impoverished east end towards the latter end of the 19th Century. It’s the kind of thing which allows Celtic fans, players and board members alike to claim that we’re “more than a club” – and for a community which has suffered centuries of discrimination, Celtic remain an important symbol of Irish identity and heritage in Scotland.
Fast forward to 2013, and poverty still blights the East End of Glasgow. With Celtic being a major employer in the area, it would surely follow that they would pay their own staff enough to “maintain their own dinner tables”, particularly in light of statistics which show that most of those in poverty are in work. Such was the intention of a motion put before the club’s AGM last month, which would have ensured all employees receive at least the Living Wage of £7.45 an hour – the basic amount required to cover living costs. The disconnect between the mythology of Celtic FC and the reality of Celtic PLC became glaringly apparent as the motion, proposed by campaigning shareholders’ group the Celtic Trust, was voted down by the mass block vote of Peter Lawwell and his chums. Celtic FC: alleviating poverty through poverty pay since 2013.
Lawwell explained that to bring the 180 sub-£7.45 an hour employees (so presumably discounting the high number of outsourced staff employed by the likes of G4S on match days) up to the Living Wage would cost around £500,000 a year. Small change for a football club with pre-tax profits of £9.74m this year, less still for a director whose annual remuneration comes in just short of £1 million? Shameful stuff, but there was a catch which the media at least could jump on even if everyone else saw through it instantly. The catch being that, wait for it, most of the 180 are just part time staff, so why should Celtic be paying them more when they all have other jobs anyway?! Lawwell may live in a fantasy world where part time service sector staff spend their weekdays in “other jobs” with gold plated salaries and just come along to Parkhead at the weekend to punt overpriced merchandise and lukewarm pies for the fun of it, but unfortunately the rest of us to do not. The idea that part time work at a football stadium is a jolly weekend pastime for anyone defies the nature of precarious work in the 21st century.
It was all beginning to look a bit embarrassing for the board of directors, home of such social justice luminaries as Brian Wilson and, not so long ago, Lord Reid. But as every tinpot dictator, has-been Labour politician or tabloid editor knows, the only thing to do in such a situation is to find a distraction and react to it with such enormity that it sidelines any other discussion. Fortunately, such a distraction was just around the corner.
Step forward the Green Brigade, a couple of ‘controversial’ banner displays, some broken seats and a flare. Few could have foreseen quite how quickly things would escalate to their current point – with anti-fascist ‘ultras’ group the Green Brigade all but forced out of existence, or at least any presence at Celtic Park, by the actions of the club. Some background is probably useful in explaining how we got here.
It’s a situation which has been bubbling up for nearly two years now, since the SNP’s showpiece “anti-sectarian” Offensive Behaviour at Football Act was pushed through the parliament in April 2012. Widely rounded on as a poorly thought out mess of a law, full of gaping holes over what comes to be deemed as “offensive”, this hasn’t stopped Police Scotland trying their hardest to enforce it. But enforcing an unworkable law isn’t the easiest job, particularly when existing legislation was more than sufficient at dealing with er, offences… So instead the police have chosen some selective targets to make it look like they’re doing something. When it comes to Celtic, that’s primarily involved throwing charges at those seen singing the Roll of Honour, a tribute to the ten Irish Republican hunger strikers who died in 1981. Read the lyrics and judge for yourself if any reasonable person would be “offended” if they heard it in the vicinity of a football match (for that’s the basis of the law), but you’ll be hard pushed to find any sectarianism or religious hatred, unless that’s what calling England “a monster” is. The result of this has been that the Green Brigade have been pushed into singing Roll of Honour as a point of principle; whether this has been the wisest move or not is really not the point.
In recent weeks, two banner displays have made reference to this, highlighting the irony that Celtic supporters are being prosecuted under a law proposed by the SNP, a party who to this day idolise dubious “national liberation” figure William Wallace and, in fact, close their conference every year by singing Scots Wha Hae, an ode to er… fightin’ the English! It’s lucky there’s no football going on, or the lot of them could find themselves locked up under their own law.
Maybe they should have seen it coming. Alas, most onlookers in civil society, fellow fans and the media alike seem to have deliberately missed the finer nuances of the point the Green Brigade were seeking to demonstrate about Scottish Government hypocrisy. No, instead all they saw was a massive banner of BOBBY SANDS!!!!! Matters weren’t helped when 10 days later, a Friday evening game at Motherwell’s Fir Park saw extensive damage to seating and a flare chucked on the pitch. Not particularly big or clever, nor however was it the actions of the Green Brigade, who did still accept responsibility that much of the overcrowding had taken behind their banner and that they should have self-policed more effectively.
It was enough though. For Lawwell, the PLC and the press pack, it was too good to be true. A moral panic ensued, with overblown headlines warning that if Celtic didn’t clamp on the Green Brigade… SOMEONE WILL DIE! Fortunately for everyone not interested in dying, clamp down on ‘bams’ they did, with 128 fans banned and the entire section where the Green Brigade are located closed off. A perfect coup for the PLC. Previously, Lawwell had released a statement proclaiming that:
“We are a non-political organisation… Regardless of political views people hold, football stadia should not be used to promote these.” PL
I can’t quite believe I’m about to quote Gandhi, but I believe it was him that said “poverty is the worst form of violence”. That’s poverty – primarily caused by low pay – equating to violence, Mr Lawwell, not broken seats and a picture of Bobby Sands. But nevermind that, SOMEONE WILL DIE!!!!
bobbym…
I don’t think many people have given up directly because of PL or the GB!
Only my opinion….
1. Serious financial pressures.
2. Realisation that we can’t fulfill heightened ambitions of glory in Europe or new league access.
3. Fewer (none?) real star players.
4. Lethargic football & limited excitement.
5. Hate to say it….they’re deid
CL participation is really all that’s keeping the numbers falling off a cliff.
If Celtic really went for it, signed big etc. that would do wonders for confidence levels and re-energise the whole club. The introspection would cease immediately.
As I said…just my opinion.
Bobbym….
Of course PL should not, NOT, decide on players to sign!
Sadly ceos and ‘directors of football’ all over the land seem not to agree with us!
Heerenveen striker not ruling out move to Celtic in transfer window
Staff Writer
Tuesday 17 December 2013
Alfred Finnbogason, the Heerenveen striker, has appeared to suggest that he would be open to a move to Celtic next month.
The Iceland internationalist was linked with a move to the Scottish champions during the summer, only for Celtic to baulk at a £5m fee.
The 24-year-old has since scored 13 goals in 14 appearances in the Eredivise this season but intimated yesterday that he would consider a move away from the Netherlands. Celtic might be convinced to rekindle their interest in a move, with the club having conceded that they need to add to their front line after an impoverished Champions League campaign.
When Finnbogason was asked about where his future might lie, he said: “England, Germany, Scotland . . . who knows? I just want to score goals, be it in Holland or somewhere else.”
Is it just me who’s so glad DU are holding onto players for, well, at least 18 months (or £3m)?
Doesn’t seem that they feel they’re facing Armageddon!
I didn’t go last Saturday, for the first time due to being sickened off with PLC and their divide and conquor attitude. They won’t be happy until we are all being sprayed with disinfectant and wearing gimp masks while they rape us of our cash.
MWD just my opinion.
MOONBEAMS WD
So which side of the fence will you be on when you finally get fed up wi the splinters?
BMCUWP
Stillto decide. :)
MWD
MOONBEAMS WD
Haha,great answer!
Top of the morning to you all from a still-dark Fife.
I will no doubt be in a small minority by declaring that I am disappointed that England lost the Ashes this morning in Perth.
Test Matches are something that I love and Ashes Tests are one of the few things that can get me out of bed in the early hours of the morning. I love them, and have watched them for most of my adult life whenever possible.
I don’t know exactly when I got hooked on cricket, but hooked I am and to steal the words of that famous song: “I say I don’t like cricket oh no, I love it.”
Love it because in the vast majority of test matches there is always something interesting going on even when one side dominates or is better than the other there are so many sub-plots to keep one entertained.
Sadly, this test series so far has been far too predictable with Australia simply flattening England and outplaying them in every department. No contest. No entertainment.
I don’t take sides normally and can support India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, or whoever against England and even on occasion, like now England, as I normally side with the underdog, but there has got to be a contest and in this series so far that has been missing.
So after dragging myself out of bed for five mornings on each of the first three test matches I have nothing really to look forward to as far as cricket is concerned until the summer.
But then on reflection there were signs from England youngster Stokes this morning that he has what it takes so maybe England are in with a chance of avoiding the 5-0 whitewash.
Yes maybe I will get up for the next test.
Big Nan… but will the players get up fot it??
I’m not anti Peter Lawwell, I don’t think I’ve ever said a bad word against him. I actually believe he is doing a decent job for Celtic, however I think he could do better. I think he bites on command too quickly; I think he loves his job more than others love principles.
I know he is as much a Celtic Supporter as I ever am, more so even – maybe even more accurate; but I know this, if I was told to sanitise the support and our culture, I’d do a Gordon Strachan and leave and they could shove their precious coin and dividends where they’ll constipate them the most.
I hope somebody buys Peter Lawwel a copy of “Long Walk to Freedom” and I hope he reads it too.
Sir Robert Kelly CSC.
Big Nan:
There are at least two of us that are disappointed then.
desertbhoy
07:04 on 17 December, 2013
Big Nan… but will the players get up fot it??
“..”……………………………….”.
Now that is the question!
kitalba
07:21 on 17 December, 2013
Big Nan:
There are at least two of us that are disappointed then.
…………………………..
CQNCC
Pfayr, last night:
I thought Andy‘s article was worthy of a SMSM tag yet much of its sentiment has found replication on here. I posted the link because I thought this paragraph might illustrate to some the sort of company they are keeping and give cause for reflection:
“Sorry but I have to disagree, Celtic Football Club is not a charity it is a business and therefore must trade as so. Celtic rightly donates money to charity each year, but why should it pay those who are on a second income more than what others work for? In fact if they are not happy in said positions at the relevant wage structure – why work for such a low wage at all as a second job?”
Macjay’s post in response suggests otherwise….
Frank:
Not that is a good article….