When spread of Covid in the UK was at its peak in March, two days before Celtic were due to play in front of 50,000 at Ibrox, the SFA took a decision that should have come from Government – football at all levels would stop until they knew how to resume, without endangering the health of players and spectators.
During this period, government ministers and their public health advisors were still happy to send untested patients from hospitals with Covid infections to care homes, pubs and clubs were open, and trains were packed with commuters. These were fatal errors, literally fatal. When the next history of the SFA is written, the Association should get enormous credit that they took the painful steps necessary while governments in both Edinburgh and London froze.
Indoor social and entertainment venues, like pubs, are again open. Outdoor venues, like football stadiums, with their easy to enforce social distancing measures and far lower risk of virus infection, remain closed. The same government ministers who were caught in the headlights in March, again appear incapable of acting in a coherent and evidence-led manner.
Opening pubs while keeping football stadiums closed has nothing to do with public health. No evidence is offered to support this position because none exists. It is a random and incongruous act from a government that knows it sat on its hands while football took painful but responsible steps in March, and which has transformed its stadiums in the subsequent months to make them fully compliant with government safety advice.
Only the Holyrood cabal know why they allow you to watch football at an indoor pub but not an outdoor stadium. It is a terrible policy and shows that their Covid public health strategy remains an evidence-free lottery.
I can’t help but think we are in this mess because Boris Johnson is a disaster of a human being and Nicola Sturgeon’s personal best interests are served if she adopts close to, but not exactly the same as, his policies.
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Not posted for a long time things more important in the world
With regard to fans getting in sorry. I have to say no
Here in oz they have done a great job. Just as it was starting they closed the borders and anybody coming in was marched off a plane by the army and police to an hotel and locked up for two weeks
In last few weeks the ball was dropped in Victoria and some hotels used security guards instead of police and army as in NSW
Some people got out for a cig or something else and bang it soared in Victoria NSW border is closed now but cases got in and about 20 new cases each day and looks as if lockdown will happen again
In WA their borders remained closed to all states and they have very very few cases
So they had about 20,000 at a game last week
NSW won’t allow that as it might spread
Boris made a mess of it leaving Scotland with no deaths but hundreds of cases
Until virtually zero no crowds is the way to go
SETTING FREE THE BEARS FOR RES. 12 & OSCAR KNOX on 20TH JULY 2020 11:48 PM
That has to be put in the balance against his falling for the WMD lie in backing Blair’s illegal war in Iraq, which is a terrible black mark to carry when Robin Cook showed him how he should respond.
The US. and UK governments, based on their military intelligence, both believed that Sadam had WMD and this was proved to be wrong. The French, German and Russian governments all opposed the war in Iraq but the intelligence agencies of all these governments also believed that Sadam had WMD.
Tony Blair was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. It is likely that Robin Cook would have opposed Blair if Blair hadn’t supported the war against Sadam. It is called politics.
SYDNEYTIM
Good to know that your well ,keep safe
BOGNORBHOY
Thank you Bognorbhoy Very grateful and blessed that I live here
One person came across border from Victoria , went to a pub in south west Sydney Now 44 confirmed cases just from that pub
But cases are low here so they can trace people and tell them to isolate
Scotland is no where near that low level
Hence no crowds for a long time at Celtic park I am afraid to say
Hope you and your clan are all well
ST.
Delighted you love your adopted place. I have a fear of small creepy crawlie things. Australia is so far away too.
God Bless you and All the Aussie crew.
I Love the Ashes and always
Huv wanted England to win.. . Explain?😉😁😉
Good to see you posting Sydney. We locked down fully early bells, no mixed messaging, it was post apocalypse empty on the streets. Now we can do anything we want except travel outside of NZ. No one is keen to redo the lockdown so until we have a vaccine isolation from the World is a small price. Saying that I was supposed to be home right now. Would have had a wee side trip to Orkneys with my mum and dad today. Stay well Sydneytim. Hail Hail.
CELTIC have informed supporters two of their retail stores will be shut for refurbishment until August.
The Hoops’ outlets at Celtic Park and Argyle Street in Glasgow’s city centre will undergo an adidas makeover.
Petec. Cricket 🤔. Explain ? Big creepy things
In Scotland I would just avoid spiders
Here I run a mile as they will get an Uber and catch ya
Tauranga Indeed you were best country in world at doing it
Oz learned very quickly that it was overseas travellers that were spreading it. They changed it from telling people to quarantine at home ( where they went to shops and walking and spreading it ) to marched off plane by army and locked in hotel. Then it stopped
While NZ and oz were doing that
500,000 people walked off planes and ferry’s in uk and off it spread. Criminal what happened there
God bless your prime minister
X Men: Class of ’21
Mohamed Elyounoussi, Stephen Welsh, Patryk Klimala, James Forrest
Ryan Christie, Ismaila Soro, Scott Bain, Christopher Jullien
Hatem Abd Elhamed
Greg Taylor
Nir Bitton
Jeremie Frimpong
Callum McGregor
Oddsonne Edouard
Tom Rogic
Who did we persuade to press 1 followed by the * key during this window?
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Alnitak, Alnilam or Mintaka? The debate rages, though Alnilam will always be my favourite.
https://news.stv.tv/sport/football/scottish-cup-final-to-take-place-five-days-before-christmas
Sydney Tim
Good to see you posting. Hope you and yours are keeping safe and well. My brother, who lives in Mount Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula, was telling me the other day that 2 football teams from Victoria had just played in Perth, WA? His point, I think, was that there are rules for some, and rules for others…
HH
Scottish cup Semi finalS 31/10 and 1/11 this year
Final 20th December
BT- Final on a Sunday
Bada
No change for me then , mass PV then just stay for game 😂😂
FRIESDORFER Not sure one rule
They shut WA borders to rest of world and rest of Oz in March Yes March with all arrivals locked in hotel for two weeks
Just announced its 100 days in WA since they had an unsourced COVID case Ie all cases were tested in quarantine and there the postive cases stayed till after incubation Period
So yes they deserve their 20-30,000 at the AFL game in Perth
Uk is 4 months behind that. Actually further than that as no locked up quarantine
Lock them up coming into the country for 2 weeks and uk will be the same in 4 months. But have to start now
So calls for fans could happen in December if they start now
Syd ye urnae vicious, yer voice is Important howevaah.
Magical in fact.
No players will be cup tied, not sure if Craig Gordon played earlier in our previous rounds anyway
Means Johnny Hayes could play against us in final if both get there
Petec. More like something that comes out of the rear of a male coo :)
BT – dont think JH can play against us in final because hopefully we will have knocked Aberdeen out in the semi.
HH
D :)
D66
For some reason I though we had Hearts in the semi
We need football back
The financial aspect aside, wouldn’t mind if we weren’t in Europe this year.
We now have 4 domestic trophies to win.
Sydney Tim
👍👍
Sydney Tim- Glad to hear your healthy and I agree that OZ did a much better job with the Covid than we did.
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Westcraigs- Not buying all of that. Robin Cook’s stance was a principled one and , whether he planned a future leadership challenge, he made that principled stand. At the time, it would not have earned him much leverage in the challenge for the top job, probably the opposite, given the number of MPs who backed the Blair position. As it turned out, he died 2 years after his resignation, without a leadership challenge mounted.
I am sure that the CIA made a convincing case to all Western Governments on the existence of WMDs but this convincing case led to the invasion and the failure to locate the same WMDs for which such a convincing case had had beeen made for their existence.
Only 3 conclusions could be made
1) They never existed- unlikely since convincing evidence was prepared of their existence.
2) They existed and were destroyed- unlikely again- since there were so many defectors and collaborators within the Saddam regime- that evidence of how and where they had been destroyed would have been volunteered.
or 3) The US had supplied the WMDs, had kept control of them throughout their “existence” in Iraq, and “disappeared” them back to the US or to a friendly Middle Eastern State until they could be deployed as evidence of hostile intent again the next time they needed to declare a state rogue. Iraq was part of a destabilising package that included Libya and drove so many desperate Arabs and Africans into the arms of IS nutters- now we do have a real and menacing foe.
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An Tearman & others
Can anyone point to the sentence in Paul 67’s article where he calls for “crowds” to be allowed to attend? Or where he calls for a mass movement or transit of people to and from grounds? I cannot find such a sentence.
Do we really believe that an indefinite ban on anyone attending, even a select spaced small number, is justifiable, when similar leisure industries are opening up? You worry about the number travelling from all over to enter CP but you must realise that there are going to be a lot heading out to pubs to watch this game- a bigger mass movement than will head to CP.
My basic question is why does the number allowed to attend have to be 0?
After that , we can have a scientific evidence led assessment of allowing 100 in to the larger stadiums, followed by 500 at the next match, followed by 2 to 3,000 if the initial 4 or 5 matches have gone well. It does not have to be a choice between 0 and 50 k; we can be cleverer than that.
Pubs are opening up, hairdressers are back open, the Tourism industry are taking tentative steps and foreign travel is allowed. These are all non-essential activities, just as football is. None of these are worth a single death but they are allowed and there is a demand for it from the public and not just from the businessmen providing the service.
There is no demand from the majority of footbal fans or from those inside the industry for an immediate return to crowds. There is a demand that they be allowed to provide the same flexible solutions for their industry, that restaurateurs, Hotel and B & B owners, and coiffure artistes are allowed to develop for theirs.
Let’s answer the real points made by Paul and not some twisted version of what we imagine he said, even if he was OTT about Nicola.
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SFTB
My point was that football stadia are not public houses
Our local church has the opened with 50 people being allowed in.
These are local places with less chance of a spread as a result
Football without fans or football with a select few ? . that is another issue
Widespread outbreak but I’m sure you know what I mean, it keeps it localised unlike sporting or concert like events
An Tearman – on reading back I noticed you said I had said something when you came into the pub on Friday, I hope I never said anything to offend you although I am sure I did not. It was great to meet you and hopefully I will get the chance to buy you a drink soon.
Hail Hail
D :)
The Scottish government was woefully unprepared for any kind of Pandemic. But then again it could not shut down ports, airports, road or rail. It covered up the source of a Covid 19 outbreak, a Nike conference in Edinburgh in February. February. It carried out testing early doors around Edinburgh, possibly related to that outbreak, but stopped doing so almost immediately, not unlike London. It failed to isolate and protect Care Homes, even on the Isle of Skye. More recently it has, rightly, been more cautious than London. Boris Johnson has set October as a date for outdoor events, but he is also setting August 1 as the date by which employees should have returned to work. That’s only ten days away. Lets see how that pans out.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=art-I-2Lbl0
By the rivers, now I see what 16 roads, Jamesie, wanted me to see @ early o’clock. Amazing Man.
Downpatrick. Amazing.
Just seen the news that Turnstiles has installed a beer garden- Wonder if they could control a drone with a camera to get their own Unique Angle beam back from the stadium 100 yards away
Depends how many are allowed in 😂
SFTB. Indeed OZ and NZ done it right
Your point about pubs being open etc is not a reason to open grounds up
Pubs being open is just plain wrong with the number of cases in UK
Yes the UK. Unless they can shut the Scotland and England border , the risk is too great
Two wrong moves don’t make it right
Only way is to follow rules that OZ had
Shut all borders and lock down for about 6 -8 weeks
Without that it will be lethal :(
BT
“Football without fans or football with a select few ? . that is another issue”
Exactly! Like you I would be concerned if the “select few” were just the well heeled but I do think they have to be the well behaved, so I doubt the GB standing section would be allowed in first.
For it to be fair, it would have to be completely random and you would have to forego the privilege of passing on your ticket to someone of your choosing. Accurate names would ahve to be kept for track and trace, however.
If say 10 of a randomly chosen 100 SB holders, could not or would not take up their place, they should inform Celtic and 10 more randomly drawn names could be allowed to attend. This can be controlled, with a bit of coperation.
Mininimal rules- Don’t turn up drunk. Don’t approach the field of play. Wear masks. Don’t stray within 2 metres of your nearest spectator or risk being told to leave. Enter and exit in an orderly fashion as directed by stewards.
If our pilot fans can manage that, we can win approval for an expansion. If they can’t or, if there is a large 2nd wave anyway, most likely to come from somewhere other than football- (have you seen the shops?)- then all bets are off.
What is unacceptable is for Cricket and Rugby to get privileges that we don’t get.
ST
In a setting where pubs are shut, restaurants are shut, hotels, clothes shops, garden centres, DIY and hairdressers are shut, I can accept football being asked to make a similar sacrifice.
In a situation where thay are being given some experimental leeway, I would expect football to be given the chance to do likewise.
All I seek is fair’s fair.
We all know that, if there is a significant second wave, all bets are off.
SFTB. The 1st wave in uk hasn’t finished Never mind chatting about a 2nd wave
Due to Boris being Asleep at the Wheel in March and April and May , the UK goverment has given up
new article posted.