It is not making a murderous gesture that is the greatest affront; it is the normalisation of it by opinion makers and influencers. We are asked to believe that it is acceptable for our footballers to make a throat cutting gesture when leaving the field. It is not, never has been, and at no time in Scottish football’s often disreputable history has there ever been such a low point.
There have always been some low-life footballers and there most probably always will be. They are worth our pity as well as our condemnation. Trying to normalise the despicable is new.
I don’t believe any of those who are defending murderous gestures honestly want to live in a society where this is the norm. What they want, is to stop Celtic winning nine-in-a-row, and they are prepared to subvert every ethical value to achieve this.
This is what we are up against – and why we cannot submit.
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WBC- thanks for reply, why can we not get Celtic supporters in positions like that? At least they would understand the fans…..
Trying not to start drinking too early, so had a DR online read. Only got as far as Johnston, ex hun chairman knob, saying we are all mental because we believe they were liquidated in 2012. Will open the bottle now🍸🍸🍸
Bada…Traynor was never a hun. He sure is now though. He is an old-school, attack-dog type. Gets angry easily (remember the radio phone-ins?). Does a job for them…
WBC- Traynor is a poisonous virus in Scottish football, he’s the architect of current day anti Catholic, anti Irish,ant Celtic hatred in this country
Mmhh.
“This is what we are up against – and why we cannot submit”
Rhetorically of course, who is “we”?
We on here don’t submit.
Nor do those who sit in our stadium.
Those who stand certainly don’t.
The Celtic board’s approach to their business is part of the problem here (IMHO).
Clinical to the point of being germ free.
It can create the impression of emotional detachment to the point of indifference.
While I generally support the board they could do worse than, very infrequently, showing anger publicly.
This is not a sign of weakness or poor leadership.
Hail hail
DENIABHOY on 2ND JANUARY 2020 1:40 PM
Our PR department has been a joke as far back as I can remember… As far as the rest of the UK goes, Celtic is a pro-IRA terrorist supporting club that harbours child molestors.
_______________________________
Honestly don’t know what PR could do about it. PR is all about influence. Truth is secondary. Outsiders who are not necessarily anti-Celtic see and hear a support glorify the IRA as freedom fighters. The UK majority loathes them as murderers. Ireland is far too complex for PR.
As I said the other day, we should cut all ties with the SMSM. They have made a market decision that there are more deid team inclined people than there are Celtic minded. So, they pander to the bigger audience. If they are now giving space to anyone claiming that liquidation didn’t occur, there is nothing they will stoop to to promote sevco.
Unless our board can take real legal action against the SFA, I don’t see what difference any statement we make will make any difference, as the SMSM will either ignore it or deride it.
I’s all a bit like Goebbels’ quote ‘A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on’.
Anyway, there’s still some regard for Celtic in England.
I remember Jeff Stelling and Gary Neville looking genuinely delighted after the Barca win in 2012.
I have no doubt that PL is a Celtic man and a Celtic fan. Unfortunately he is also a politician and like most politicians he has conflicting interests. He does not have the stomach to take the establishment on as he knows the fight would be long and bitter and would blow up any pretence that the game here is fair.
Anyone else watching “Fall of the Roman Enpire” on BBC 2? It was the Huns that done it.
My goodness, Sophia Loren was a Goddess made flesh.
PETETHEBEAT on 2ND JANUARY 2020 4:02 PM
That wasn’t Josef Goebbels: it was Mark Twain. But Goebbels did say, ‘If you’re going tell a lie make sure it’s a big lie so that some of the mud sticks.’
Yours in pedantry….
anyone want to make an offer for his original shares ?
——————
Alastair Johnston launches attack on Celtic fans as former Rangers chief comes out swinging over ‘new club’
Rangers fans are regularly taunted by their city rivals over the club’s descent into liquidation in 2012.
SHARE
ByRonnie Esplin
13:41, 2 JAN 2020UPDATED13:43, 2 JAN 2020
SPORT
Former Ibrox chairman Alastair Johnston has launched an attack on Celtic fans who claim Rangers “died” in 2012.
The Ibrox faithful are regularly taunted by a section of their city rivals, and by some from the rest of Scottish football, who maintain the club ceased to exist after it plunged into administration and then liquidation, before re-emerging in the Third Division.
Johnston’s tenure at Rangers ended when Craig Whyte took power in 2011 before the club’s financial implosion but he returned to Ibrox as a director in 2017.
He believes the 2-1 win over Celtic on Sunday, the first Gers victory at Parkhead since 2010, demonstrated the self belief at Ibrox going into the new decade.
Reflecting on the dark days of 2012 and the fall-out, Johnston insists that Rangers not only survived but are now thriving.
“I left after we won the title for the third time in a row in 2011 and I wasn’t believing my ears about what was going on at the club and where it was going,” he said.
“You were hearing all the words like the Rangers have disappeared, they have died, it was a new club and all the stuff which self-interested people tried to maintain.
“I always wondered about the mentality of certain Celtic supporters, not by any means most of them, who basically said our club died in February, 2012.
“You know what? If that was the end of Rangers and Celtic and if that was the end of the big game that started in 1888 (the first Old Firm meeting) all the way to 2012 – we won that game.
“The way you determine it by the number of times (54) we won the top division.
“We were ahead in February, 2012 and in head-to-head victories, we were ahead of Celtic in 2012.
“So if you wanted to say the old Rangers of 1872 died – we beat you 2-0 and when the game started again in 2012, it will be 120 years or so before you can tie with us.
“So you were dealing with that sort of mentality, with Rangers fans being defensive.
“But the reality is Rangers survived and not only did they survive, they started to thrive again.
“What we are seeing is much more of a thriving Rangers than a surviving Rangers.
“We have left survival behind us and it is now all about thriving and seeing how far we can go.”
PARKHEADCUMSALFORD on 2ND JANUARY 2020 4:02 PM
There may be something in that. Circulation of print newspapers is at its lowest for a century. Coupled with that, the football sections are possibly the widest read. These papers now need Celtic more than we need them.
Great rallying call, Paul.
Directed to the wrong audience.
This ‘audience’ has been well and truly converted for some considerable time.
Perhaps your pal (Water) Pistol Pete could be enlisted to the struggle.
HH jg
WBC
Traynor was a hun & still is.
Airdrie boy
Bada…so you’re not a fan then? :-)
Fritzsong – thanks for the correction about Goebbels.
I always say to somebody who has to make a speech to start with a Mark Twain quote.
He came out with loads of memorable ones.
So the board were ‘surprised’ at the LNS findings and are now merely ‘astonished ‘ at Christie’s citation.
Are they all on Valium?
Deniabhoy
As “businessmen” they are not prepared to kill the cash cow, as toxic as the Hun brand is.
Scottish football is boiled down to a perennial “old firm” battle between Glasgow’s big Two….blah blah blah…and that’s all Sky, BT Sport et al are really interested in.
Alastair Johnston.?
Hopefully he”ll explain why the cut n shut entity that was created in 2012 needed a Temporary /ConditionaL Licence to play a game v Brechin.
Celtic are more fondly regarded in Englandshire than they are in Scotland.
We will never be popular with the right wing that follow some clubs and the English National team, bringing shame wherever they go. But to the ” silent majority ” we are generally well liked.
However it is a ” complex ” situation watching Celtic away from home sitting in a room full of English. ( No songs debate please )
HH.
Remember when Big Billy KO’d Gerry McNee with one punch for berating Celtic? If you could pick one man for Scott Brown to do the same who would it be? Has to be Jabba for me.
Adi_Dassler…So, Airdrie boy…and not Airdrie bhoy…? More fool him!
Looks like Morelos is getting away with the throat slitting gesture. They win again. Just imagine Scott Brown or Neil Lennon had did this at Ibrox.
Paul. Why don’t you call the board out for what they are?
They don’t give a flying feck about the ordinary supporter and are delighted that the new incarnation of Rangers are now back in the fold and challenging us. They are more than happy to put the boot into us yet fail to condemn the injustices that we have had to endure since “Rangers” came back. Could you imagine how Fergus would have reacted to the lies and slurs of the last few days? As long as this board are running our club we will continue to sit at the back of the bus and doff our caps to our betters.
The right wing thugs that follow the English national team and many others club teams do not represent English people. Not all english people are pro empire royalist blind to the injustice behaviour of their government.
Celtic as a club are clearly seen as the opposite of rightwing, empire, royalists etc. and that is fine by me. I don’t think everyone that supports Chelsea is racist and I don’t think everyone that supports Chelsea think all celtic supporters are pro IRA. If any do then there is a good chance I don’t want or care to be engaged with them and I certainly would not change my support of political values based on their narrow world view.
HH
UPTHEHOOPS on 2ND JANUARY 2020 5:01 PM
Looks like Morelos is getting away with the throat slitting gesture. They win again. Just imagine Scott Brown or Neil Lennon had did this at Ibrox.
………..
Only sevco could make a strong defence by pointing to previous bad behaviour going unpunished as good cause to throw out current complaint.
If I were celtic I would be drawing on previous sfa action to call them out in the event that they don’t act. I would also be questioning different way sevco are treated and taking them to task. Don’t care about the backlash, the SFA are meant to be fair, if they cant be trusted to deal with issue then maybe we would tell them we will not recognise any decisions against our players,
HH
HH
Former Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston accuses Craig Whyte of the ‘murder of an institution’ despite being cleared of fraudulent takeover
Former Rangers owner Craig Whyte has been cleared of a fraudulent takeover
The jury returned a not guilty majority verdict after a six-week trial in Glasgow
Whyte was accused of acquiring Rangers by fraud in 2011 but denied the charge
By BRIAN MARJORIBANKS FOR THE SCOTTISH DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 00:33, 7 June 2017 | UPDATED: 00:33, 7 June 2017
Craig Whyte stood accused on Tuesday night of the ‘murder of an institution’ — despite being dramatically cleared of all charges relating to his controversial takeover of Rangers.
Whyte had been accused of acquiring the Ibrox club by fraud in May 2011 and faced another charge under the Companies Act.
However, a jury returned a not guilty majority verdict after a six-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
A long-term vocal critic of Whyte, former Rangers chairman Alastair Johnston returned to the Ibrox board on Tuesday after being ousted following the controversial takeover six years ago.
And, speaking to the BBC, Johnston launched a savage attack on his old adversary, whose damaging stewardship of Rangers ended with the club liquidated in July 2012 and forced to apply to join the bottom tier of Scottish football.
Speaking before the court verdict was returned, Johnston said: ‘If indeed Mr Whyte is found not guilty of being in contravention of the Companies Act, it doesn’t exonerate him from his villainy towards Rangers Football Club.
‘Candidly, he should have been charged with murder — murder of an institution. Destruction of people’s passion. Destruction of the spirit of hundreds of thousands of Rangers fans. That’s what he should have been charged with. Then it would have been a no-brainer.’
After the verdict, the Scottish FA said it would consider pursuing Whyte over an unpaid £200,000 fine in 2012 for bringing the game into disrepute.
At the time, Whyte was also banned for life from Scottish football but declared then that he ‘couldn’t care less’.
Scottish FA chief executive Stewart Regan said on Tuesday: ‘The money has never been recovered. That will be something we will take advice on and should the opportunity present itself then we would consider it.
‘Every person that comes forward has to be considered on their own merits. But as far as Craig Whyte is concerned, he won’t be coming back in to Scottish football.
‘The situation that unfolded five years ago was regrettable. I think it was a unique set of circumstances that were presented to everyone involved at the time and we dealt with it in the best way we could.
‘We considered the facts and issues, we took advice, and we came up with what in our view was the right steps to go forward. We had to deal with the situation at the time and we did that. There are no regrets.’
The Crown had alleged 46-year-old Whyte pretended to then-owner Sir David Murray that funds were ‘immediately available’ on an ‘unconditional basis’ to make all required payments for a controlling and majority stake in Rangers.
Advocate Depute Alex Prentice QC told the court Whyte did not have authority over the funds used in the takeover and ‘induced’ the Murray Group to sell.
But defence QC Donald Findlay described the accused as ‘the fall guy’ in the case.
After two hours of deliberations, the jury found Whyte not guilty on both charges and Judge Lady Stacey told him: ‘You have been acquitted and are free to leave the dock.’
Whyte thanked the judge and jury before leaving the courtroom. He was jeered as he left the court and on the way to his car he told reporters: ‘I’m just delighted with the outcome.’
During the trial, the court was told Rangers was sold to Whyte for £1, but the deal came with obligations to pay an £18million bank debt, a £2.8million ‘small tax case’ bill, £1.7million for stadium repairs, £5m for players and £5m in working capital.
The trial heard that Whyte arranged a £24m loan from financial firm Ticketus against three years of future season- ticket sales before he took control of Rangers.
Findlay said his client had met the conditions of the sale by paying the debt and investing in the club. He blamed Murray’s advisers, saying they ‘let him down very badly’ in the deal and did not ask where the takeover money was coming from.
Summing up the defence case, Findlay said: ‘They were not interested in where the money came from and we know this absolutely categorically.’
WESTCRAIGS on 2ND JANUARY 2020 12:42 PM
Sorry , pal.
There is no country called Columbia.
Embdae think that the cowardice and silence from Lawwell and Co,is baiting money men to buy DD out?
WBC
Yes exactly. He’s a hun.
HH
Former Ibrox vice chairman Donald Findlay says Rangers are a ‘new entity’ which must establish ‘its own history and tradition’
Donald Findlay feels sorry for Rangers fans who have stuck by the club
The former vice chairman does not know if Rangers will be promoted
Findlay is saddened to see a great club struggle
By STEPHEN MCGOWAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:25, 1 November 2014 | UPDATED: 10:54, 1 November 2014
To the chairman of Cowdenbeath nights with the directors of Rangers are not the occasions they once were.
Donald Findlay QC should be comfortable in the midst of David Somers and co. He was once one of them. Vice-chairman of the company indeed.
But these days he neither recognises the faces or names of the Rangers board. Or, indeed, the ‘new entity’ – his words – that they represent.
‘Welcoming them to Central Park will be no different to welcoming anyone else for me,’ Findlay tells Sportsmail, a vague waft of pipe tobacco detectable in windowless side room in Glasgow’s High Court. ‘Why should it be?
‘I don’t have many old friends there now. None on the organisational side.
‘I know Alistair McCoist and Durranty. But I don’t actually know who is involved there any more.
‘Rangers coming is a big occasion for the club and the town of course. The last time they played Cowdenbeath in a league game was April 1971. The game was originally scheduled to have been played on January 9 – but was postponed because it was the Saturday after the Ibrox disaster.’
This appreciation of the history of Rangers is a feature of the conversation. Findlay, trademark whiskers now greying slightly, is wistful on the past and shows no compunction over turning his legal mind to one of the most heated and prolonged debates in Scottish football.
His learned friend Lord Nimmo Smith may have declared otherwise. But to Donald Findlay the Rangers which visits Cowdenbeath on Tuesday is not the same Rangers he once served.
‘It is a different club,’ he tells Sportsmail bluntly. ‘They may play at Ibrox and they may play sometimes in royal blue jerseys.
‘But you cannot pass on that which is undefinable. And that is spirit and tradition and all the rest of it.
‘To me this is a new Rangers which has to establish its own history and tradition.
But it’s not the Rangers I know. To me, genuinely, it is a new entity.’
In Rangers circles this kind of thing is heresy. When liquidation became inevitable Charles Green, the former Chief Executive, insisted vocally he had paid £5.5million for the assets and history of the oldco in May 2012. Recently, Livingston’s programmed editor lost his job after wading into a contentious topic in a match programme.
Asked why he flies in the face of the consensus among Rangers supporters – that they remain the same club they always were – Findlay insists his view is a personal one. In his mind – he is now 63 – things have changed.
‘Well, the view I have is one expressed to me by a lot of other Rangers supporters.
‘There is just not the same sense of things being done the Rangers way.
‘A lot of Rangers supporters – and these are the guys I feel sorry for – paid their money and remained loyal and followed the team through thick and thin. And they tell me there is just something missing now.
‘That’s not only my view. It’s what I am told by people from the inside in the sense that they go to Ibrox. Something has changed, something is missing. It’s just somehow… different.’
This sense of creeping disenfranchisement with the running of Rangers is not unusual. Among fan groups talk of boycott is now rife.
Suggesting that a club playing at Ibrox in blue jerseys before Rangers supporters might be a ‘new’ Rangers, however, triggers a fresh stream of consciousness in one of Scotland’s great adversaries.
‘You can buy assets,’ he concedes, ‘but you can’t buy history. You can’t buy tradition. History and tradition are in the heart and in the mind. You can’t buy that.
‘I don’t care what anyone says.You cannot buy Ibrox, you cannot buy the Blue Room, you cannot buy the trophy room without actually understanding what it means.
‘I mean what every little piece of it means right down to the crests on the radiators in the Blue Room that were made in the same shipyards which made the Queen Elizabeth liners.’
There is the sense that Findlay, a formidable adversary and hired gun paid to represent some of the most notorious criminals in the country, has given this some thought.
‘You could argue that if they (Rangers) had moved from Ibrox to a brand new stadium at the time the whole thing collapsed, called it Rangers and played in blue that you would automatically be taking all that history and tradition with you.
‘Well, maybe some people can. That’s fine. Good luck to them.
‘But for me personally tradition and history is in here.’
He jabs a finger on his left hand towards his heart, an imprint on his black waistcoat clearly evident.
‘It’s not in material things. It’s understanding what the material things mean.
‘It’s understanding what a genuine privilege it was to walk up the marble staircase.
‘Not every Tom, Dick and Harry should trail up the marble staircase at Ibrox you know.’
In recent years, of course, a long process of Tom, Dicks, Craigs and Charlies have done just that. Findlay won’t be drawn on what he thinks of this.
‘So I’m told,’ is all he offers.
He walked up the stairs for the last time 15 years ago. The events which led to a humiliating public resignation have been well documented. Captured on camera at a club function singing ‘The Sash’ he was subsequently reported to considered suicide. He has no wish to rake over old coals.
‘It’s so far in the past I’m not going back there. Things happen to you, you deal with them and move on.’
He has revelled in running his hometown club of Cowdenbeath for the last five, fraught years on a simple rule of thumb. Frustrated by the lack of media attention – ‘your paper and others treat us like s***’ – the Fife club spend only what they earn.
Asked if the history of Rangers might have been different if he had hung around longer to espouse this manta he is mildly dismissive.
‘Ach, I don’t know. I can’t say if I could have changed things if I had stayed longer.Many people have come and gone since then making decisions of which I know very little about.’
Rangers, he claims, were living within their means when he left. The more extravagant spending of the Advocaat years had yet to begin.
‘The budget at that time was managed and in control and covered. If you are taking a financial risk it has to be against a background of knowing you can cover that risk.’
He won’t deny that the spending at Ibrox was far higher than anywhere else. Rangers unashamedly ‘lorded it’ over their rivals, including Celtic, and savoured every minute.
One reason, he believes, why there was a marked lack of sympathy among rival clubs when they hurtled towards the fiscal cliff two and a half years ago.
‘Looking back on it you do think that sometimes what goes around comes around.
‘I mean, come on …. to win nine championships in a row? You are entitled to lord it a bit over the opposition then – and I think we did.
‘You knew perfectly well that when you were beaten and your opponents said ‘thank you very much’ that the minute you left the room they would be aiming a one arm salute at your back. That was fine.
‘There was a terrific relationship with the old Celtic board you know. There was nothing personal about it. Chris White and others were personal friends.
‘But, yes, it probably did heighten the sense of schadenfreude two years ago. But it was definitely good for business.’
Ally McCoist’s Rangers, in action against Hearts, are currently playing in the Scottish Championship +5
Rangers will have to beat off competition from Hearts and Hibs if they are going to earn promotion
The presence of Rangers in the Championship is equally good for business for Cowdenbeath now. Findlay is under no illusions their presence is a short term situation. How short term is the million dollar question.
‘Is it inevitable Rangers will go up this season? Absolutely not.
‘I said that before the season started. There is absolutely no guarantee Rangers will go up, far from it.
‘They would be one of the favourites from the play-offs because of the resources they potentially have.
‘But Rangers, Hearts and Hibs? One of them will be in the Championship next year- guaranteed. Queen of the South and Falkirk are also ambitious clubs.
‘So it’s by no means guaranteed Rangers will go up.
‘I could be selfish and say that suits me fine. I want them for another season in the championship but for the good of the wider game in Scotland it’s time Rangers were back in the Premiership.’
He is unrepentant on this. Rangers and Celtic, he believes, are simply too big to fail in a Scottish context.
‘They are not just football clubs – they are national institutions.
‘They have a presence in sport and also make a contribution to the economy which is huge.
‘Of course it’s sad to see a great club the way it is. To see Rangers reduced is heart-breaking.
‘People lost a lot of money and something had to be done about that. It was wrong the way small businesses and shareholders lost money.
‘But has it benefitted the game Rangers being in the lower divisions? Is the game better because of it? I’m not sure it is you know…’
is this the same johnson that runs(ran) arnold palmers business.
I noticed since the AGM that the hotel project has been kicked into the long grass. Has the money been earmarked for something else?
It seems that Celtic are always ‘walking on eggshells’ when there is an apparent reason to kick up a fuss about the running and decision-making of Scottish football.
This ‘light-touch’ happens every time there is a contentious issue, whether EBT, LNS, Res12, or various other happenings like Sunday.
Have the powers that be got ‘something on’ Celtic – are they suppressing something on the basis that Celtic don’t ‘rock the boat on other matters?
I know it sounds conspiratorial, but how else can we explain our club’s reluctance to ‘get the gloves off’ every single time.
I must admit that the historical situation with the Boys Club crosses my mind – things have gone very very quiet on that front.
Paddy Roberts joins Middlesbrough on loan.
Middlesbrough are 16th in the Championship.
McNut
Surely that would be blackmail?
DESSYBHOY on 2ND JANUARY 2020 2:46 PM
I have met many English people on holiday, never and I mean never have they asked me about Celtic being a pro IRA club or the support pro IRA, so please dont generalise about what the population think of Celtic fans.
===============================================================
At how many games featuring Celtic , have you heard pro IRA songs ?
Or , perhaps the more appropriate question is have you NOT heard pro IRA songs ?