Toast and chips, if you’re lucky

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So you have money left at the end of the month?  Enough for a holiday, for Christmas?  Chances are if you are a season ticket holder at a UK football club you do.  Even if this is the case, and if you have a full time wage coming into the house, you’ll have noticed the cost of living a normal, socially-connected, life in the UK is not cheap.

Housing, travel, energy are all expensive.  If you want to get or keep a job, a mobile phone is increasingly necessary.  If the only wage coming into the house is low, or if you are bringing up a family, or if you are unwaged, or on your own with kids, you’re struggling.  The heating will be rationed, Christmas is an annual worry you save for 11 months of the year, holidays are something other families talk about.

Life is miserable for many families, demeaningly so.

I heard a politician last week suggest food banks have burgeoned in recent years due to them being better advertised.  I respectfully disagree.  Food poverty exists across the UK, alongside heating and housing poverty.  People eat toast, a tin of beans or a plate of chips as their main daily meal.  Sometimes this is not even an option.

If you’re on a limited wage or keeping a family together on benefits your money will be gone before the next payment is in the bank, pretty much every week or month.  You put the heating up during the cold spell last month and have now paid the bill.  There’s will be no money for several days and there’s no food in the house.  What do you do?

Fortunately food banks exist, not because they are a well marketed business success story, because hundreds of thousands of people in towns and cities across the country have no food before the next tranche of money arrives.

The Penny Dinners Brother Walfrid provided to kids in the east end of Glasgow, which Celtic were started to fund, resonate today.  This is why today, on the 100th anniversary of Walfrid’s death, you are asked to bring a bag of provisions along to Celtic Park.  That food is your way of paying into the social fund that gave you Celtic.  There is a possibility that collectively, you will achieve something magnificent for some of the poorest families in Scotland.

While you’re in a listening mood, CQN’er Tommy Melly, an integral part of TeamOscar, is running the Great Edinburgh Run on Sunday for Neuroblastoma Children’s Cancer Alliance.  He’s also doing the Glasgow 10k in June and the Great Scottish Run in October, all for NCCA.  You can do your bit in memory of Oscar, and for those kids who fight on, here.

Have a great day at the football, I hear the banners on the stadium at the top of Celtic Way will be worth photographing.

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397 Comments

  1. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    Zico Maltese Bhoy

     

     

    Spikeys auld man has same initials as myself SF

     

    I am reminded of this because he was sent of in a match and I was called up for the suspension

     

    Many years ago. 8))

  2. Delaneys Dunky on

    Dena

     

     

    Heartwarming sight on the train to Dalmarnock. Full of Tims with bags of groceries. Usually it is kerry oot bags, though a few beers are being shared out for personal consumption. ;))

  3. BigChipsUK…………..Daryl Murphy was always considered a talented footballer and let’s hope the two old Bhoys gain promotion.

  4. !!Bada Bing!!

     

     

    Every once in a while is the Starry Bhoy speechless, this is one of those rare moments, I’ve said from the beginning of the season they wouldn’t make it out of the Championship but by God are the authorities trying their damnedest to hump them up into the SPL, I wonder if Rent-A Gob Houston will have something to say, he had plenty to say about us over the years..

     

     

     

    Good luck and thank you to all the Celtic Collectors and Volunteers tonight.

     

     

    Hail Hail Glasgow Celtic

  5. San Diego bhoys condo with Celtic tv and Christina Hendricks bar maid’s sounds like a dream destination everyone should add to the bucket list.

     

     

    we off course need photos evidence of the bar staff

  6. Dubaibhoy-Ur they still deid? on

    Paul,

     

     

    Nothing wrong with Beans on Toast. Staple diet when I was studying. Staple pre match meal for many a professional footballer before Food Science was invented.

     

     

    Do not patronise the poor.

  7. Gordon; Matthews, Denayer, van Dijk, Izaguirre; Brown, Bitton; Commons, Johansen, Forrest; Guidetti

  8. South Of Tunis on

    Just another day.

     

     

    Number of desperate wannabe migrants rescued in Sicilian water today = @ 2000.

     

     

    Number of dead desperate wannabe migrants in Sicilian water today. = 46.

  9. Lennon n Mc....Mjallby on

    Mark Guidi absolutely shaming himself by offering up excuses for,wait for it,that the spfl hasn’t sent a follow up email to hibs to tell them that their game will be moved to a Sunday too.

     

     

    Ole Mark’s comin’ out wae statements like “it’s been a busy day at the offices” and ” they must’ve forgot”.

     

     

    Aye good yin Mark,see the buttons n the backy our heids…..

  10. Its beyond time that Guidetti starts delivering. I just have a feeling that tonight will be the night.

  11. Kilmarnock must be due a hiding !

     

     

    4-0 @ 7/1

     

     

    Kris Commons 1st goal same score 20/1

  12. Dilemmas dillemas.

     

     

    my usual never winning bets.

     

     

    4-0, 5-0, 6-0,

     

     

    and a celt to score a hat Rick.

     

     

    but who.

     

     

    Kris or John.

     

     

    that is the twin question

  13. South of Tunis, not meaning to divert from the serious nature of your post but just to say I’m off to Sicily on the 20th May for a week. Tis a place I’ve been talking about going to for years but every year something or another turns up. Its booked and paid for now so please God this year, I’ll finally get to visit.

  14. This is the biggest admission of bigotry since they allowed the new club in. Put every penny you have on the huns coming up, they are not even embarrassed. This would not happen in ANY other country in the world. I am sick at lack of coverage on BBC Scotland.. they are the the biggest drum beaters out! and i am paying their wages.

  15. skyisalandfill on

    Coca cola in Kerrydale as I’m driving

     

    Bag of groceries dropped off at the burgeoning food bank station. Quite depressing an uplifting at the same time.

     

    COYBIG

     

     

    HH

  16. With Commons, Brown and Guidetti in the team that game’s as good as won.

     

     

    Zaluska in goal would make me feel a little more secure, though.

  17. South Of Tunis on

    corkcelt

     

     

    Good ! Late May – mid 80s.If I can help in anyway – please let me know.Where are you going.?

  18. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    Mini can relax as tbj has finally showed up at Cqn corner

  19. Bhoys if you can please donate to your local food banks as often as you can. Many local stores have collection points so dropping of an item or two every time you do a shop is hassle free. It angers me that well in to the 21st century that families and individuals, many of them working, living in one of the worlds wealthiest countries have to resort to using food banks in order to stave off hunger.

     

     

    ‘Yes, friends, governments in capitalist society are but committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class’. James Connolly

  20. Lennon n Mc....Mjallby on

    Apparently the spfl’s “massive oversight” will be open to conspiracy theories (aye that’s right,were paranoid again) but yet in the next breath wee Shug’s snappin’ his back to tell us there will be no sponsor for the league next season if there’s no old firm games.

     

     

    James Forrest tweeted in to ask if it was plain incompetency that there’s been such a massive oversight (or words to that effect).

     

     

    Naw,naw,nothing to see here.

  21. blantyretim is praying for the Knox family on

    I’m sure bgx will be on later to tell us there is no advantage. 8))

  22. oh celtic when are you gonna pack scottish football its full of cheats and they dont even hide it .

  23. The Little Gentleman In The Black Velvet Waistcoat on

    Guys, any idea of good pub in Dingle to watch game, if televised.

  24. corkcelt

     

    18:50 on

     

    15 April, 2015

     

     

    NatKnow 16.36. Thanks for that gave me my first laugh out loud moment of the day.

     

    ———————————————————-

     

    To be fair mate, I’m only paraphrasing what Martin Fletcher, the writer of the book said :

     

     

    “The revelations are contained in a book written by Martin Fletcher, a Bradford fan who lost three generations of his family in the stadium fire. Fletcher believes the fire was not an accident and says he and his family are no longer willing to “live the myth”.

     

     

    Fletcher managed to escape after the timber main stand at Valley Parade turned into a death trap during Bradford’s game against Lincoln City on 11 May 1985. His brother, Andrew, 11, was the youngest victim and his father John, 34, uncle Peter, 32, and grandfather Eddie, 63, all perished. Martin Fletcher, who was 12 at the time, has spent the past 15 years investigating what happened and his book, Fifty-Six – The Story of the Bradford Fire, is published on Thursday 16 April.

     

     

    The book, serialised by the Guardian today and tomorrow, reveals there had been at least eight other fires at business premises either owned by, or connected to, Stafford Heginbotham, Bradford’s then-chairman, in the previous 18 years, resulting in huge insurance claims. Fletcher does not make any direct allegations but he does believe Heginbotham’s history with fires, resulting in payouts of around £27m in today’s terms, warranted further investigation. “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?” he asks.”

     

     

    Amazing that it has taken a guy like Martin Fletcher to bring this to light. I hope there are appropriate consequences from his revelations. The main suspect is already dead, but surely there must be others who were aware? I hope he and the other victims get justice.