If anyone tells you we are about to bid €7m on a guy who scored fewer league goals than Billy McKay last season, and who was signed for €500k last summer, don’t listen to them. Nonsense like this is 180 degrees away from strategy. Where would such a player’s sell-on value increase to? It’s just not going to happen, nor should it, it would be a vanity purchase, the likes of which old Zsa Zsa himself would consider.
The last season we have figures for (season 2011-12), when we had Europa League football, Celtic lost £7m. Since then three significant things have changed:
We’ve sold Wanyama and Hooper for over £17m (before deductions).
We got back into the Champions League and earned an additional £20m.
Season book sales dropped and this season cost £100 less than before.
Cutting £100 off the ticket price will bring in £4m less than last season. All other things being equal (which they will not be), this would give us an £11m deficit before Champions League income and any trading surplus. In short, to retain equilibrium, we need to reach the Champions League group stage more often than not. Money from Uefa is not so much a bonus, it is necessary to push us into the black.
I know we covered this last week, but £17m for Victor and Gary will not, on its own, equate to £17m for new players. Gary and Victor were both on their first Celtic contracts when they left, neither of which was near the top earning position (although both were offered top earning contracts).
We’re not going to spend £17m on transfers and be able to pay the new players from the money saved by not paying Victor and Gary. Instead, the boost to the football budget from these sales will almost certainly disproportionately increase wages, leaving a lesser amount for transfers (if we sign four players for £2.5m each, we’ll probably have to pay each more than the average of Victor and Gary’s wage).
Knowing where they came from, I reckon Victor and Gary cost approximately a combined total of £1m p.a. in wages, the bulk of which would have gone to Gary. If we bring in four players, each costing multiple millions, they could easily cost us an extra £2m per annum in wages, or £8m over their four year contracts.
In short, there is enough money available to buy several good players, for decent money, on high wages (for Celtic). This is a good, sustainable, place to be, but it is not transfer window nirvana. We have moved from a position of carrying a perpetual loss to being able to afford an increase in football budget without splurging into debt to fund it.
This isn’t a detailed budget analysis, there are lots of other variables (McCourt, Rogne etc off the wages, not Murphy, whose wages were off the books already), non-football budget cost inflation, considerable drop in one-off ticket sales (20k seats for £42 each at Rangers games twice a season) and commercial income from 2011-12, variations in season book sales (I hear they are marginally up on same time last year but still down on 2011-12).
The big challenge for the club is to ensure the playing squad is good enough to qualify for the Champions League group stage, and to compete when there, more often than not, without indulging in casino football every year.
We stick to plan, scout and recruit players within budget and with high potential sell-on values. €7m on a striker from Heerenveen? Better stick it on black.
The Kano Foundation have around 40 bucketeers for their annual drive at Celtic Park on Sunday. They could do with a few more. If you can do your bit, get in touch: contactus@thekanofoundation.com.
Check out the 1254125 Great Scottish Run page. I plan to keep this page updated with progress on the event and other resources. When you sign up, let me know and I’ll promote your donations page.
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Brogan Rogan Trevino and Hogan supports Kano 1000
05:53 on 31 July, 2013
The little Stradivarius http://wp.me/p1G95H-Xe
and in person http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RcDUZjSxRA
please help http://wp.me/p1G95H-Xe or text Mack83 £x to 70070
If everyone going to Celtic park tonight gave £5 we could save a life.
Thankyou
Still filling in some memory blanks. I was at Ibrox on a Friday night for a Celtic v St Mirren match. Can anyone provide details ( I think Buzz Bomb scored ) and why the game was played at Ibrox ?
The Horseface
I remember that. Wasn’t there some redevelopment going on at Love Street?
11th May 1979
The signing if this Dutch chap confirms my suspicions on the Balde signing.
Balde has been signed to head the ball.
Ill wager he will score most headed goals in the team this season.
The horseface
I do remember that game – it was played on the Friday because the Cup Final was on the Saturday and moved from St Mirren Park because they had begun work to renovate a part of their stadium. I think George McCluskey got the other goal
Jimbo
A Ceiler Gonof Rust
02:46 on
31 July, 2013
I am not surprised by the child like optimism of our sevconian counterparts. It is exactly this infantile attitude that led them to where they are.
Did Daly and Law and the not play in SPL teams that we were victorious over, and with better teammates to boot, one of their posters actually hit the nail on the head.
“Not worried, looking forward to it if it happens. Provided Ally gets the tactics spot on we have nothing to fear in a one off game”
They could have signed far better players than they did and their downfall ( no pun intended) would be having the best young 50 year old manager in the country in the dug out.
A sop of a man who has shown his true nature in recent years and whom I wish nothing but ill will. He is OUR ace in the hole if we encounter the inhabitants of Mordor this season. He, like those of his ilk are cosseted and pampered by the SMSM to the point were no matter how poorly they do their job the are protected from criticism.
So if it happens I for one will have no fear in my heart at the prospect of facing Sevco with the giants of football Nicky Law and Jon (is that how he spells John) Daly in their ranks because the chances are Ally will not have “walked away” and we will put them firmly back in their box.
Good Morning from an overcast Chilterns but the day has potential…
See Mr Paul67 is managing expectations again.
Guess the aul transfer splurge ain’t going to happen.
Well a good result tonight will ease our apprehensions, a bit of day light to take to Sweden should suffice.
Celtic 2 – 0 Elfs
Hail! Hail!
The Horseface
07:55 on 31 July, 2013
1979. Week or so before the famous 4-2, ten men won the league game. 2-0 lennox and mccluskey
Expecting a tough, tough game tonight against the Swedish champions who are already well into their season. Goes without saying we could miss Hoops and Big Vic tonight.
In saying that, I am quite excited about the new bunch of youngsters that are coming through the Parkhead gates.
I am also quietly confident that we have enough quality and experience at this level to do the business against Elfsburg over the two legs.
Bang Bang? Doubt if he would even be on the bench for us – says it all.
CelticTV:
Celtic v Elfsborg
(NON UK&IRE) Live Video starts at 1845 – cannae wait !!!
(UK&IRE) Live Audio
The Horseface
It was in the run up to our greatest ever performance, 4-2.
I was there .
Love street was having work done.
TT
Horseface
Match Pictures | Matches: 1978 – 1979 | 1979-79 Pictures
Trivia
Just 11 days before “Ten Men who won the League”
Alfie Conn was freed by Celtic and signed for Derby County on this day but three days later Derby manager Tommy Docherty departed for QPR and Conn’s contract was cancelled.
Mike Conroy sent home after feeling ill.
Review
This match was played at Ibrox Park as Love Street was in the process of reconstruction. Ibrox itself was in a state of upheaval as the Copland Road stand was almost complete and that summer the Broomloan stand would begin construction. For this reason this was to be the last time that Celtic supporters would stand in their traditional ‘Celtic end’ on the old open Ibrox terracing before it was destroyed. This game was a postponed fixture from December and is another reason for the Ibrox venue.
Despite this being a home match for Saints Celtic had around 20,000 fans in the ground who were hoping that Celtic could continue their march towards the title. Celtic fans packed the old terracing and the Centenary stand with Saints fans in the main stand and enclosure areas.
Celtic appeared nervous and the game was scrappy on a fiery pitch. Despite a poor first half Celtic increased the pressure as the game wore on and it was no surprise when McCluskey headed in the first from a Provan corner. Ten minutes from time Lennox scored an identical header again from a Provan cross and Celtic had won, much to the delight of the green and white mass behind the Saints’ goal.
This game was played on a Friday evening at the request of the police as Rangers and Hibernian were contesting the Scottish cup at Hampden the next day.
Teams
St Mirren –
Thomson Young Munro Fitzpatrick Dunlop Copland Stark Richardson Torramce Abercrombie Docherty
Celtic –
Latchford McGrain Lynch Aitken McAdam MacLeod Provan Davidson (Lennox) McCluskey Burns Doyle
Goals: McCluskey 68 Lennox 80
Attendance 23,000
Ref: D Syme
HH
Morning,
I can’t wait for the game tonight. Get intae them Celtic!
This headline from Newsnow says it all about this Newspaper. Look at which part of the paper it is held under.
Sports Hotline: Are Celtic running scared of Elfsborg – and Mo Bangura?
Daily Record – Rangers
The Buddies were redeveloping their ground and the match was played at Ibrox – which still had hedges at the back of the terrace.
A must-win game for Celtic in a run which included Hearts and Thistle in the final weeks of the season and after tacking the required maximum points we defeated our former rivals with 10 men to win the league.
More than half of the clubs in the new
Scottish Premiership have experienced a
rise in season ticket sales.
And only two of the 12 clubs have reported a
drop in numbers compared to the same period
last year.
Seven top-flight outfits say figures have
improved, with three clubs telling BBC
Scotland their business is on a par with last
summer.
Competitive Record v Swedish Teams:-
21/08/2012 CLQ3/1 Helsingborg AWAY 2-0 Commons (2), Samaras (75) 12,200
29/08/2012 CLQ3/2 Helsinborg HOME 2-0 Hooper (30), Wanyama (88) 51,566
P 2 W 2 D 0 L 0 F 4 A 0
AMDG
Welcome BOOOOO-RICHTER
Unrelated, and indeed, apparently randomly, I thought Celtic should have signed Willie Pettigrew when Dalglish left.
Cheers guys. Still can’t picture either of the goals but I can picture every goal from a week or so later, including the CJ og into the Celtic end, which appeared to be in slow mo. What a night!
The Horseface
07:55 on
31 July, 201
http://www.thecelticwiki.com/
Decided to sign up,, via Paul67s Links to the 10K Great Scottish Run and to do my little bit for the old 1254125. Wonder if Paul Will Bring out a Snazzy New Line in CQN Running vests.
Apologies for the Random capitals. New Phone so if anyone Knows how to correct this I’d be Obliged (Huawei Ascent Y300)
TBB
I remember a picture of Pettigrew in the paper alongside a story about Motherwell having insured his legs for £100k, or some other daft amount of money.
I also remember him well from my collection of footballers cards. He seemed to be in every packet!
Whither the cash strapped scrofulous hillbillies the day?
Thanks for the suggestions for rules for CQN users. I will post it again on Friday night for the moonhowlers who don’t come out in the day.
Rules For CQN posters
1- Neil Lennon must put out the strongest team for every single match, whilst resting players for Europe and bringing through the youngsters.
2- We as Celtic supporters want a competitive league but if we fail to win every game 5-0 with silky play we should sack the Manager/ Board / Bored.
3- Peter Lawwell is the devil incarnate for selling all our best players
4- Peter Lawwell is the devil incarnate for not selling our best players before they get injured, have a run of bad games or just don’t fancy it.
5- We as fans will be faithful through and through until we are 3 down against Aberdeen… When we win 4-3 it is important that you post stating you had no doubt we would win.
6- New signings will be given approximately 45 minutes to prove their ability.
7- If you posted that player A (who went from Hibs to England and did well) should have been snapped up by Celtic you must mention this at every opportunity.
8- If you posted that player B C D E F G H I J (who left Scotland to end up playing for Scunthorpe reserves) should be snapped up by Celtic), you can forget about it.
9- We are all Celtic fans together, unless you have a different view on politics, music, breaking bad and how you make toasted cheese/ cheese on toast.
10- CQN is the best Celtic blog ever… except when some idiot says that Joe Ledley had a great game… FFS he hardly touched the ball in the second have… and that goal he scored was a fluke….and what about…..
11- Tito Villanova sold David Villa so he could assemble his dream front 3 of Messi, Neymar and McCourt!!
12- Gary Hooper has been holding Anthony Stokes back (and with him now leaving) Stokes will score 50 goals this season (70 if the Elvis impersonators leave him alone!!)
13- Tony Watt and Dylan McGeouch are saviours of Celtic, this is not open to challenge however if you do challenge this you are either 1. Anti Scots players being at Celtic, 2: a follower of Sevco, 3 Don’t know anything about football anyhow.
14- Don’t mention signing players or mentioning weakness during a transfer window
Paul will soon write a new header or send in his bhoys to say spending money is anti-Celtic
Must keep peters bonus on track :))))
15- You are either a Happy Clapper or a Mineshafter, one or the other.
Jo Ledley had a good game – Happy Clapper
Jo Ledley was a bit quiet – Mineshafter.
16- Any player sold by Celtic will get better the longer he is away.
17- When posting live updates of the game normally reasonable and sane posters should be overcome by a temporary madness.
18- If you disagree with anything I say you are a hun..
19- Before a match post that you will take a scrappy 1-0 win off a dodgy deflected last minute goal. After the 3-0 win complain that we should have scored 5.
20- As a CQN poster you will give help, advice and encouragement to people who have lost someone, suffering from an illness or generally having a rough time. You will put your hands deep into your pockets to give money to people you don’t know from countries you have never visited and do it with humour and modesty. You will climb mountains, jump out of planes, cycle across countries to raise money and publicity for sick children here and abroad. You will give up smoking and drinking and give the money to those in need and mention it once. You will stand outside Celtic park in the pouring rain with buckets collecting money because you know it’s the right thing to do.
Enjoy the season and whatever happens we will be Celtic supporters and no-one can take that away.
The Horseface
08:31 on
31 July, 2013
J.C.?
Willie Johnston ruffled his hair in mock gratitude?
Morning all
Waiting on train to work.
I don’t like to comment too much on Hunnish matters – especially on the morning of a very important match for Celtic- but reading some of Charlotte’s latest offerings has disturbed my usual sunny nature.
I remember years ago – during the Dr Jo season- meeting a friend to watch a midweek game and in the pub another guy whom I’d never met before started spouting off about all sorts of wild conspiracy theories about Rangers being allowe’d to win 9-in-a-row as a sop to the unionists of Ulster and that it had all been agreed at the highest level-papers to be releassed thirty, fifty, seventy and even 100 year rules would show this. I dismissed this as rubbish.
I still do but the Charlotte revelations (Whyte being Charlotte presumably) and the role of Jack Irvine – head of a non-event Scottish PR firm by day but a rich man’s Alistair Campbell by night apparently- has made me wonder if my then soon-to-be-friend might have been onto something.
One of the most surprising facets of the Rangers’ tale has been the almost total disinterest of the MSM south of the Border as highlighted by Roy Greenslade recently. I know the English sporting press doesn’t pay any real attention to anything outside their green and pleasant land but this is an amazing story in their backyard. But Private Eye and Alex Thomson aside they have simply regurgitated the same lies their Scottish cousins half.
Anyway I am looking forward to tonight’s match. I’d expect us to win over the tie but I’d be surprised if it’s ‘over’ by the end of tonight’s match
IvereadMachiavelliCSC
TBB @ 08:31,
Think Pettigrew would have been a good call, he was very quick and a great goal scorer.
Still did we replace any of the quality street gang when they left?
If we did it was not with the same quality, led to a decade with few trophies (relatively speaking) lets hope we don’t make the same mistake with the quality ghuys in Lenny’s squad at the moment.
Have even
Morissey the 23rd @1.24am,
Below is the latest from Charlotte posted by Morrissey the 23rd in the early hours.
Would any of our posters with a background in the legal profession care to comment on whether Mr.Irvine’s message would warrant investigation?
From: Jack Irvine Date: 2 September 2011 15:26
Subject: HMRC
To: Irene Munro , Carol Patton ,S tephen Kerr , Ramsay Smith , GaryMcQueen , Lois Boyle , Ali Russell, Gary Withey
Cc: Craig Whyte
Dear colleagues
The Chairman and I have had a conversation about HMRC and the never ending torrent of leakscoming from that organisation.
1. Craig wants Gary to send a letter to London based Dave Hartnett, The Permanent Secretary atHMRC asking for an investigation into these leaks. The very least he can do is pick up the phone tohis Scottish colleagues and demand to hear what is going on.
2. When Gary’s letter goes in we will leak the matter to national and Scottish press. (It’s OK for us to leak!) HMRC after all could be facing charges of Breaches of the Data Protection Act and possiblyThe Official Secrets Act which can carry a jail sentence. We are the innocent party.
3. If Craig and Gary agree, could our own internal security people (they are ex cops after all) makediscreet inquiries with their still serving colleagues if they know of HMRC leaks?
4. Could all PR people (Media House and Ibrox) lean on their contacts to try and determine who theleakers are.
5. Do we have any (sensible) fans who might be in a position to know where the leaks are comingfrom? Remember I outed one HMRC Shotts employee on Twitter. Has he been investigated?
6. Remember Stephen organised pictures of the four HMRC men who visited Ibrox a few weeksago. Should we give them to a trusted editor?
It’s time we started fighting fire with fire. One thing I remember from my Sun days is that civil servants,who are in the main anonymous, are terrified when the spotlight is turned on them.
Please get back to me asap with all available intel.
Regards
Jack
Jack Irvine
Executive Chairman
Media House International Ltd
London:020 7710 0020
Edinburgh: 0131 247 7520
macjay
JC= Colin Jackson
Derk Boerrigter first learned about Celtic in unusual, and for a time, terrifying circumstances.
While out cycling with his family around his native Oldenzaal Derk’s mother was bitten by a deadly pit viper which had escaped from a private collection.
Antony Stokes, who happened to be passing while en route to Amsterdam to visit Ann Frank’s house and the paintings in the Rijksmuseum quickly took stock of the situation and applied the correct pressure immobilisation technique.
[ as this is not a cwboy movie he did NOT attempt to suck the venom out!]
While waiting for the ambulance to arrive to take Mrs Boerrigter to the nearest specialised unit to receive anti-venom, Anto kept the family calm and distracted by recounting his exploits in the Scottish Cup Final, when he laid on 2 chances on a plate for a teammate, who’s since got a big money move to the high rolling EPL.
Horseface
A wee footnote to the St Mirren game at Ibrox (which I attended).
As others have mentioned, it was played on a Friday night to avoid clashing with the Scottish Cup final being played the next day.
You may also recall that that was the last SC final to go to a replay: in fact it went to 2 replays, the first 2 games ending 0-0.
I think I’m correct in recalling that ‘The 4-2 Game’ (21 May) was played on a Monday night because of the fixture congestion caused by the replays (the 3rd and deciding replay was played on Monday, 28 May).
Note to self: try get out a bit more often.
FF
Horseface
J.C………Jim Craig :-)
Diff. game.
McAlpine`s fusiliers?
Thinking back to this time last year and after a 2-1 home win 4 out 5 of us in pub afterwards thought we were out due to abject away record.
If we even drew 1-1 tonight I think 5 out of 5 would think we will qualify. I would say that measures the progress we have made under Neil.
If you disagree, refer to point 18 of the yorkbhoy post.
TnT
Footie cards… Days when a card was a card and came with a cardboard flavour chewing gum. Days when the game was to flight the card, Frisbee style, to the wall, upwards of 10 guys in each round. Closest to the wall scooped all the cards, closest being actually on top of the wall.
Then there were the ‘long games’, where the target was a tar joint in the playground asphalt or a kerbstone or some such marker maybe 20 or 30 yards away.
I was unbeaten for years playing Sammy Miller of Clyde. Got to the point where his fame in the my schoolyard was such that a game versus Sammy Miller had odds attached, typically 3 to one – that is, you had to beat Sammy Miller 3 times in a row to win the card. No one ever did. Pretty sure it’s in a box in my Dad’s loft.
Oddly, Marshall Poulton of Airdrie is another who stood out.
In a twist of fate, years later Sammy Miller was my Maths teacher, and the school team coach. He never knew the reputation he had to live up to. Nice guy as I recall, but on balance, much more effective as a football card than a coach (or indeed Maths teacher…)
Of course school football went out coincident with the demise of fitba’ kerds, the latter being replaced wholesale by pitchy.
Ah, pitchy. Now we’re talking.
Brief visit before Golf. Today could be defining moment of our season. A good win to ease our nerves for away game. Buy ourselves a bit of time to (a) get another 2 signed up (b) an extra bit of time to get the team up to speed and to get new lads bedded in. Be in top shape for our final qualifiers. Get through and then we can relax, moan, celebrate, criticise and enjoy the season.
For anyone remotely interested old Blotto has started his blog up, the first offering has some rather undignified “he said she said” name calling, you will not be surprised to learn that Charles Green is once again a snake oil salesman.
Laughable trash.
Can be found in the usual place.
Everyone on CQN ……… and tell all yer mates :
YOU KNOW YOUR OWN BOOKMARKS……KEEP THEM SMSM CLEAN
DELETE YOUR ‘NEWS’ BOOKMARK FOR DAILY RECORD
Celtic supporters go on about all the terrible stories on the DR website knowing fine well how these people (not journalists) work. They annoy us with their comments and the grapevine ensures they get all the visits from us disgruntled Celtic supporters wanting to take a sneeky peek at what was written. JOB DONE – YOU HAVE JUST ENSURED THAT THE NON JOURNALIST GETS A PAT ON THE BACK FROM HIS EDITOR. Although we say “dont read their online site it just gives them hits” (which is their endgame) we always go back. I believe that a good way of reducing those automatic one click visits (via your bookmarks) is to delete them. Once you delete this bookmark and replace with CQN and other sites you will soon stop your automatic trawl through your daily must have bookmark football fixes which may currently include SMSM who actively work against you and the club…….just sayin like.
YOU KNOW YOUR OWN BOOKMARKS……KEEP THEM SMSM CLEAN