Gary Hooper has scored once in his last 23 appearances for Norwich City, an ultimately meaningless goal as his team lost that day. Prior to that, he scored five in eight in games in which Norwich collected 10 points, while he opened his account for them with a brace in the League Cup against Watford. The latter stages of that 23 game desolate run has been marred by an injury he collected preseason, returning to league duty this month.
This is not the player you or I will recognise. Gary was more than capable of going through a dry patch, but he was an undisputed penalty box finisher, who seemed to perform better, the better the competition. Now he has to sit alongside Jos Hooiveld on the Norwich bench, as his in-form club, with in-form players, occupy a play-off place. Think of that for a moment, Hooper and Hooiveld, largely indistinguishable on form for Norwich.
It’s no surprise that Neil Lennon wanted him at Bolton, he knows Gary is a better player than probably anyone in Norwich realise. Norwich rejected the bid, as they were reluctant to weaken their squad, but already this season is looking unlikely to add much to the end of career Gary Hooper Highlights DVD.
Celtic are already on the case to sign John Guidetti on a permanent deal, he’s looked the part since he first touched the ball in a Celtic shirt, but by contrast, Stefan Scepovic has looked awkward. The early goals didn’t come, he looked short of a game plan and when a header missed the target on Thursday night, one guy behind me bellowed the kind of comment you hope a player looking for confidence doesn’t hear.
I don’t know any more about Stefan than you, but I absolutely know we’ve not seen the best of him, just as Norwich haven’t seen the best of Gary. This guy has the background we want in a new recruit, scoring well in the Spanish second tier and wanted by top tier club.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Celtic player as happy to score as Stefan was against Astra. The finish against Kilmarnock will have built on whatever confidence boost he received. The project is back on course. He needs to continue to find the net, and we need to remember how to support a player as he settles into a new life.
We’ve had a great run of momentum with the help of Magners in recent weeks. The club sponsor have offered a couple of premium match tickets, on the back of which we’ve asked for donations from £1 to Mary’s Meals.
It’s been great to see this in action. We get lots of £1 and £2 donations, but plenty of people chip in with a lot more. It’s been a great way of ensuring prizes are open to everyone.
Today we formally launch the bid to build a fourth school kitchen in Malawi for Mary’s Meals. During 2014 you funded the construction of three kitchens, which feed close to 2000 of the world’s poorest children each day. All of them live below the UN measure of absolute poverty.
Over the last 20 years the number of people living below $1.25 per day has halved. Organisations like Mary’s Meals are making enormous inroads. Those kids aren’t just getting a meal, more of them are able to attend school (up 30%) as they don’t need to work for food. This improves their academic achievements and gives them skills which will be with them throughout their lives, increasing personal, regional and national productivity.
93% of the money raised by Mary’s Meals reaches those on the ground. It costs around $12 to feed a child for an entire year. It’s almost incalculable what your money does.
Magners have kindly offered two debenture hospitality seats for The Celtic Suite, including buffet lunch, for the Inverness game on Saturday, which are available for auction here on ebay. The journey we had last year in building those three kitchens was remarkable, I know we’ll enjoy the new project.
Current bid is £1 to get in quick!
Big thanks to Magners, b.t.w. This help goes a long, long, way.
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beatbhoy
20:34 on 28 October, 2014
I knew Brody wasn’t really dead (unlike some I could mention)!
===============================
Zombie Brody.
Undead, if he’s in nets for Thems. ;))
blantyretim is praying for the Knox family
20:35 on 28 October, 2014
Emdy watched homeland
was thinking about getting box set?
===================
Well worth it. End episode of first season one of THE most tension-packed, sweat-inducing Tv hours I’ve ever watched.
What happens is….
;))
Cover versions, Dr hook wild colonial boy, Joe Strummer the minstrel boy, Philip chevron captains and the kings.
Sevco appoint a guy called Leach. Make up your own jokes…..
second best-ever cover
Wedding Present do Orange Juice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IujAVsxjxTs
BT its on the tablet your bro downloaded check under shows :-)
Southboy
Are they shouting that based on the St in the name alluding to Catholics, then Irish priests?
That is a hell of a hate stretch, even for them
Cover versions
Mink Deville Little Girl (original Crystals Little Boy) Great track
Elvis Presley Tomorrow is a long time (Dylan cover)
Country Comforts Rod Stewart (Elton John)
It Ain’t me babe Bryan Ferry
The Dolphins Tim Buckley
every one a winner, trust me
Cheers bhoys
don’t think I’ll bother as beatbhoy said he was deid like the orcs. ?.8))
If Sevco don’t get their penalty, St Johnstone will lose in a penalty shoot out after extra time.
TwoEmbarrasinglyPoorTeams CSC
Come on mcFadden . Get on here and end the chance of us meeting this lot.
Mrob. The dolphins by Tim Buckley, great track. Died at 27 as did his son Jeff. Bizarre
i will go for 72mins Sevco penalty
Hun penalty must be close.
notthebus-when MON turned up at CP, Charlie said we were 10 years behind Diedco, we know how that panned out….
BT- great show watch it !! I’m on season 3 just now – hh
OLLOWING wins in the UEFA Europa League and the SPFL against FC Astra and Kilmarnock respectively, attention now turns to the third competition in just six days for the Hoops.
Glasgow rivals Partick Thistle are the visitors this Wednesday night in the quarter-final of the League Cup, where a win would keep alive Celtic’s hopes of silverware in all competitions this season, and you can catch all the action on Celtic TV.
The two clubs last met in the Scottish League Cup in December 2003 when Craig Beattie and Jamie Smith secured a 2-0 win over the Jags at Firhill.
The year prior to that saw the sides meet at the same stage in the competition, this time at Celtic Park. Thistle pushed the Hoops all the way that night, forcing penalties after the match finished level at 1-1. Celtic had led at half-time through a Paul Lambert header, before Burns equalised in the second half for Thistle.
That led to a dramatic shoot-out which was eventually won by Celtic thanks to a successful Momo Sylla spot-kick before David Lilley missed for Thistle to give the Hoops a 5-4 shoot-out win.
Ronny Deila will be hoping that progress can be secured in a less dramatic fashion on Wednesday night and you can be there to cheer the Bhoys on to a place in the semi-final draw.
To sign up for tomorrow night’s game (Kick off 7.45pm Celtic Park time) CLICK HERE>>
CELTIC KICK OFF CHRISTMAS APPEAL WITH £10,000 DONATION
CHRISTMAS should be a time of joy for all of us but it can be a difficult time for many individuals and families, who face poverty, hardship and disadvantage.
Our target is to provide a proper Christmas meal for around 200 local families and gifts for the younger family members, who otherwise would go without. If we don’t help them there might not be a Christmas in those households.
That is why Celtic FC Foundation, the charitable arm of the football club, is delighted to launch its 2014 Christmas Appeal to honour our founding principles and help those in our community who are most in need.
Celtic has kicked off the appeal with a magnificent £10,000 donation and this has set the Foundation well on its way to securing a record total in 2014.
We are also aiming to support local charities who care for those experiencing the torment of homelessness or other disadvantage.
The generosity and compassion of the Celtic Family is unique and unsurpassed, and Celtic FC Foundation is requesting your support once again for an appeal which epitomises the very essence of our club and truly honours the founding principles of Brother Walfrid.
As long as wee Mrs Brody is still alive.
Ra peepul demand ra penalty
Tom English and a lack of Lambbias in his diet
http://bbc.co.uk/sport/football/29808342
Rangers saga ‘an affront to the senses’
If you sought to catalogue all the risible claims by all the chairmen, chief executives, financial advisors, commercial directors and sundry other hangers-on in this unending black comedy at Ibrox then you’d require a ledger as thick as War and Peace to write it all down.
We’ve had enough war and not enough peace. We’ve had false prophets on a grand scale, some of them hailed as heroes among the support before being denounced as crooks.
We’ve had the surreal sight of Dave King being acclaimed by a section of the Rangers fans as the saviour despite his epic conviction in a South African tax court and the now famous laceration of his character – “a glib and shameless liar” – by a respected judge in his adopted land.
To call it a farce wouldn’t be right. It’s an affront to the senses. When Sandy Easdale, chairman of the football board, bore down on Ibrox on Monday morning, he was greeted by a group of journalists seeking answers to the latest eruptions in a deeply dysfunctional club.
Easdale was asked about Mike Ashley’s ever-tightening grip on affairs and his response was just another addition to the volume of noise we’ve heard from those in power at Ibrox for close to three years.
Tom English
“When the finance medics fetch up, they are only ever carrying sticking plasters rather than the full surgical apparatus that is required to put this club on a healthy footing.”
From David Murray’s ‘I was duped’ declaration to Craig Whyte’s uber-whopper about having the club’s best interests at heart to Charles Green’s claptrap about ‘Rangersitis’ (and many, many more other barking statements besides), Easdale’s assertion about Ashley’s motivation has its place in the pantheon of pap.
Easdale said that Ashley “wants to help the club” as if the businessman were some kind of angelic figure sent from footballing heaven for the benefit of the Bears. Ashley’s modus operandi has always been about the betterment of Sports Direct. He’s never made a secret of it and there’s nothing wrong with it.
His ambition lies in the advancement of Sports Direct; Newcastle United – and now Rangers – are mere vehicles in that pursuit. And he’s masterful at it. He is a brilliant strategic thinker with, as he has said himself, “balls of steel”. He gets involved in distressed businesses, cuts costs and makes them profitable, all in the glory of Sports Direct.
Sports Direct is the beginning, the end and the in-between of his aspiration. There might well be some beneficial offshoot for Rangers, but for Easdale to trumpet Ashley’s involvement as a desire to give the beleaguered club a dig-out, and nothing more, was laughable in its simplicity.
There was a time when some Rangers people – and, yes, some journalists – might have bought that line, but surely the era of gullibility has passed for most.
Instead of attempting to portray Ashley as the great redeemer, Easdale would have been better off admitting to his own shortcomings, and the shortcomings of all the other executives at Rangers. An admission that they have taken a shambles and turned it into something even worse would have been a start.
Sandy Easdale, front, is chairman of Rangers’ football board, while his younger brother James is a non-executive director of the Rangers plc board
Rangers might dispute that they were ever 48 hours from administration – that BBC story didn’t fall out of a tree – but they were in a parlous state, of that there is no question. Emergency funding has become a familiar phrase at Ibrox. The numbers 999 might as well be placed alongside 1872 in the club’s literature.
The trouble is that when the finance medics fetch up, they are only ever carrying sticking plasters rather than the full surgical apparatus that is required to put this club on a healthy footing.
The Easdales – Sandy and James – have overseen Rangers’ plight of late. Sandy has, in the recent past, flagged up the gravity of the situation at the club without, it seems, accepting that the deterioration has had anything to do with him, his brother or their cohorts.
When he spoke on Monday, a simple “sorry” would have been appropriate. Few in the Rangers support would have expected it – and even fewer would have accepted it – but they would have deserved it.
In that, they are hardly alone, of course. So much damage done and yet nobody explains and nobody says sorry. People have been flitting in and out of this horror show and they’ve all managed to make it worse, not better.
Ashley has played this majestically. He has fed off the desperation of an administration at war with itself at Ibrox and has the place surrounded now.
It’s been said that he fought a power battle with King. To call it a battle would be overstating it in a pretty major way. King had friends in the media. Ashley had friends in the boardroom and in the City of London; shares and influence. King took such a painfully long time to make his move that, when he did, the club was already locked down by Ashley.
If it was ever a battle, the minute King’s head appeared from the trenches, Ashley directed his bazooka and took him out. End of battle.
What Rangers need more than anything is not more empty words or a transfer “war chest” – God help us – to stop Celtic’s march. They need stability and cold fiscal reality.
Nobody knows what Ashley’s intentions are right now, but his past record would suggest that home truths about the way they are doing business will soon wing their way to Ibrox. And not before time.
The Scottish Football Association is writing to Ashley to determine the extent of his influence and to establish whether he is in contravention of an agreement struck with Stewart Regan, the SFA’s chief executive.
The SFA is, to an extent, whistling in the wind. If Rangers as a club go to Hampden and say that the agreement is no longer in their best interests and that the best way to progress is with the billionaire Ashley as a major shareholder then will the SFA deny them?
A former managing director of Newcastle, Derek Llambias has been hired as a Rangers consultant
It remains an if. Nobody knows how involved Ashley intends to get in the day-to-day running of Rangers. But there’s a feeling that if he ever wants to challenge the SFA on the agreement then he will win. He doesn’t often lose.
Ashley is such an obsessively private person that everybody’s guessing at what he will do next. And that’s the way he likes it.
The appointment of Derek Llambias, his friend and his former managing director at Newcastle United, as a consultant is another brick in the wall he has built around the club’s powerbase. And he’s done it all, relative to his wealth, for the price of a cup of tea.
In his turbulent years at Newcastle, Llambias was routinely described in the local press as “forceful”, “unvarnished”, “spiteful” and “contradictory”, a man who was a ferocious negotiator and who introduced a philosophy that brought security to a club that was previously a basket case.
Llambias was the man who got £35m from Liverpool for Andy Carroll. In football parlance, whatever else he is, he’s no mug. No doubt, Sandy Easdale would tell you that Llambias is another man who just wants to help Rangers, a la Ashley. He should save the “goodness of their heart” stuff for the tourists.
The realists know that Sports Direct will be the ultimate winner in the Ashley age at Ibrox. That’s not to say that Rangers won’t benefit also. Until we know what exactly he’s got planned then it’s hard to make that call.
If there is one certainty, it is this – Rangers are at his mercy now.
mrob1967
20:38
Elvis Presley Tomorrow is a long time (Dylan cover)
Country Comforts Rod Stewart (Elton John)
two great shouts. I’m sure Dylan’s on record as saying that’s his favourite cover of any of his songs.
On covers and specifically Dylan’s covers John Martyn’s cover of It Ain’t Me Babe is terrific.
Surely the best cover version mentioned on here tonight has to be Frankie fae Rome covering Chic Darwins`best ever “Evolution”ah think he`s trying tae reclaim the old “infallibilty”label.!!
CardinalsspewingbileatPapafrankCSC
Watching St.Pauli v Dortmund…young man directlly behind Jurgen Klopp wearing a Celtic scarf which is always nice to see
Doh not it ain’t me – Don’t think twice …
BT,
Get with the “Peaky Blinders” ….Magic.
Tonight’s autumnwatch a bit of a smut fest.
More like carry on up the bird reserve.
Heard Chick Hun on Shortbread tonight, like Greyfriars Jobby pining for his master, lauding SDM, truly pathetic. The misinformation from these clowns is frightening
Covers- have a wee look at nouvelle vague -great covers of teenage kicks and just can’t get enough – then when your mammy isn’t in the car ” dead kennedys – too drunk to f…”
Hh
Bada bing -I mean anyone would think SDM has something on wee Chico ????
Sorry, BT.
Posted just before you asked about the programme.
But Brody’s existence was mentioned as much as a question as a statement.
So, happy viewing!
Hail Hail!
Covers you say?
Hard to beat the Belfast postie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfRq7Rc86V8
Surely all those bhoys who are worried about der hun reaching our league must realise that they are no match for us.
Lots of cover versions that are better than the originals..Nothing compares 2 you Prince/Sineade O’Connor immidietly springs to mind.
Ger67
Only four players according to Charlie nicknick
HAL from 2001 would make a better commentator than that wee space cadet on
the BBC.
Baba Bing
I think you will find Charlie Nick is one of the games great thinkers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZUIzPtWu_g
Harvest for the world Isley Brothers/Christians ?!
Ole Ashley seems to be fleecing the Huns …..most of them seem oblivious to it .. Great