Filling The Gaps

On Saturday we return to the bread and butter of the SPL with a home game against Kilmarnock and the official team line up will be keenly anticipated to see which of the players from Tuesday nights impressive display will make the starting xi which will surely be bolstered by the other squad members.

Whilst it is not the excitement and glamour of the Champions League, there is a growing feeling about Celtic that the squad is starting to hit top gear again as witnessed against St Mirren last week. The likes of  Miku and Watt will surely come into contention for a starting slot and it demonstrates our strength in quality that you can interchange your front two or three and do it with the confidence that the team performance won’t greatly diminish. Both players will be looking for that elusive first goal at Celtic Park.

My son will be in attendance for the first time this season and I have switched my usual seat for one in the allocated family section in lower 116 next to the away fans. By my recollection this is the first Saturday league match that has been incentivised to encourage families to take their children along for the fantastic price of £5. I’m hoping we don’t need to play musical chairs like we did last time in order to find a child friendly seat in the child section (see blog from last season)http://viewsfromthejungle7.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/hoopy-chips-and-musical-chairs-boys.html  , however I am willing to give it another go.

I had fully intended to purchase the child season ticket this year for the advertised price of £50; however upon the death of Rangers the price shot up to £139 and with him at the age when he will only be attending 3 or 4 games a season it wasn’t making economic sense. Celtic of course honoured the existing £50 renewals but it will be interesting to see the renewal policy and pricing of these ST’s next season as it would be a substantial uplift for many families. An uplift many couldn’t afford in all honesty.

I understand the need to balance encouraging the future generation of Celtic Supporters with accruing the right level of stadium revenue but any short term gain in revenue could lead to some younger fans and families being lost in the long term. It’s with this in mind that I have viewed from my position in the North Stand the upper and lower sections of the areas beside the away support in the rangers end and with the obvious exception of the European games these areas have been sparsely populated. Celtic have received very little revenue from this area of the ground where traditionally non-season ticket holders buying match day tickets are housed.

There is the potential to use this on the majority of match days to both fill the seats and therefore increase match day revenue and a benefit to be accrued from filling the area with parent and child ticket admissions more regularly. The cost of a child ticket for Celtic Park on match days is £18 so a mum / dad taking say a 4 and 6 year old child would pay £36 in addition to his / her own ticket whereas this weekend it’s only going to be an extra £10 on top of his / her ticket. You can see the obvious attraction to attending a match when this offer is available and it really needs to be extended to many more matches a season as possible as the increased numbers and money they are actually spending on Celtic products when they are there must surely outweigh what they are turning over just now for that area.

As a dad who took his son to his first match last season can testify, there hasn’t been a Celtic view or new strip that hasn’t been purchased since his first game and the club now has one lifetime consumer of all things Celtic on the back of a £5 ticket. Now that’s a marketing dream for any business.

But let’s not forget our charitable roots and there was a tweet sent this week from  @ThatPaulArmour to Celtic’s twitter account which pricked my conscious and I thought was a great suggestion. Paul was suggesting that in the final home game before Christmas the club should make this area available to those in the community who are economically disadvantaged. I thought it was a great idea and also a great opportunity for the club to reach out to those that can’t afford to attend the matches due to unemployment or other disadvantages especially at that time of year. A nominal ticket price again in the region of £5 admission would be reasonable and would surely be well subscribed. As a season ticket holder for many years I couldn’t imagine how I would feel if all of a sudden I was financially cut off from watching my team through circumstances so I hope the club can look at this and make it happen.

There may be an argument to be had that if our season ticket holders are paying top prices at the start of the season it is unfair to start reducing prices in other areas but sensible, legitimate demographic targets like kids and unemployed people being given the chance to come and see their team in an area that is lying empty cannot be argued with.

Ghost fans, Zombies & Plain Lies – the Sevco Trademark

Whilst on the subject of tickets;  pricing and attendances it was interesting to read the following post on kerrydale street http://kerrydalestreet.co.uk/single/?p=11820054&t=8731534.

The communication shared with us showed the official attendances for the two matches v East Stirling and v Elgin and cast light on the validity of the attendance figures claimed by Sevco and swallowed gratefully by the Main Stream Media who were happy to project the claim that Sevco had broken the world record for a fourth tier football match. Even when it was pointed out that the actual record was held by a Brazilian club, they still made the claim and continue to do so on many media outlets. But who cares about that – the truth is even more bizarre.

The truth is now out in the open that the figures were inflated by some 7,000 ghost supporters and what an embarrassing, tawdry way to try and project your club in order to seek investment. When you are in desperate states you will consider desperate measures and although the accounts (if they were ever published!) would show match day revenue nowhere near the crowd reported it serves its purpose to perpetrate a PR lie to promote a successful facade. So were these 7,000 given free admission or did they just never exist going through the turnstyle? Don’t expect this proof to be presented to you in any media outlets as it just doesn’t sit with their agendas and their mission to put Sevco back into the big time. God bless the internet bampots.

Sevco zombies and the cheerleaders in the media have been lauding the support the sevconians have given to their team and the part they are playing in rebuilding their club at their time of need so I thought I would look at a comparison at how much the average Season ticket holder at Ibrox and Celtic Park have shelled out to this point in the season – who is really supporting their club financially?

	SEVCO	CELTIC
Season Ticket	£265.00	£575.00
CL Qualifier	£0.00	£20.00
CL 3 match package	£0.00	£87.00
League Cup Matches	£40.00	£12.00
Ramsden Cup (yer havin a laugh)	£12.00	£0.00
Total	£317.00	£694.00

As you can see if you are a season ticket holder at Sevco arena and taken in all the home cup games you will by now have expended on average £317.00 backing your team. If you are a Celtic Season ticket holder who has taken up all the home game tickets you will have expended £694.00 which means you have paid more than double what a Sevco fan has had to spend supporting their team.

The crux of the Main Stream Medias trumpeting is that the Sevco fans are giving their club substantial and unprecedented financial backing when in actual fact they are paying substantially less than the Celtic fans and substantially less than they paid last year as they watched their club die.

So at their time of need when they need to build the club and back them with their financial support they are again miles behind Celtic fans or 55% behind to be exact, yet they shout from the roof tops whilst we just continue backing the club as we always have. The good thing about having saved money following their team this year is that there won’t be a problem with putting that saving towards shares in the club to secure their future – that’s right surely? But they shouldn’t worry if they miss this share issue as I am sure there will be another one along in a years’ time.

Supporting Celtic at the time of Hillsborough

I feel a bit of a fraud writing this. I have no connection to Liverpool or the events of that day in Sheffield. The only connection I have is that I was a football supporter attending matches at the time and as a spectator experiencing what would be alien to today’s generation of football fan.

The resulting Taylor Report was to have a profound effect on the history of Celtic Football Club after the Scottish Football League made it compulsory that all top level football grounds should be all seated by August 1994. For Celtic this was a massive financial obstacle which the old regime had failed to plan and budget for and would be their eventual undoing. Fergus McCann set about building a stadium that would comply with this mandate and had the vision to build a 60,000 seater stadium at a time when our average attendance was less than 30,000. We decanted to Hampden and returned in August 1995 when the north stand was completed, eventually the phases of the new Celtic Park were completed in 1998.

From this date on the Celtic Supporters have enjoyed the comfort, welfare, atmosphere and safety of an all seated stadium. Thankfully the generation of Celtic supporters over 20 years old will never have experienced the way in which football fans were once treated and looked upon by the establishment and authorities. The average attendance of less than 30,000 was partly due to the poor performances on the pitch but was also largely due to the conditions and environment of the old ground and away grounds along with the stigma placed on being a football fan in those days. It wasn’t really a place for a family day out.     

Celtic, like Liverpool at the time was predominantly made up of a working class support, blue collar workers with a left wing upbringing. At the time of the mid to late 90’s Britain was in the grip of a class war engineered by Thatcher and her government and football fans were seen very much as second class citizens with the potential to cause trouble and violence at every match.  David Mellor serving as a junior minister of the home office at the time prior to his toe sucking days was quoted on Radio Five live today as saying that “its true that Mrs Thatcher was no great lover of football” of course she wasn’t; it was a sport played and watched by the working classes. It is a completely different sport and a different demographic that attends matches now and I am relieved that my son will be watching football in this environment when he starts attending the matches every week.

On the day of the Hillsborough disaster Celtic Park was being used for a Scottish cup semi final between Rangers and St Johnstone. Celtic were playing the following day in the other semi-final in a match at Hampden against Hobs and a minute silence was observed; I wonder if these days the match would have been played at all as a mark of respect. My mum was in hospital at the time and I visited her on the morning of the match; she pleaded with me not to go but I told her it was different up here it was much safer – I was 15 I knew it all. Besides was I just never to attend football again? I suppose she was putting herself in the shoes of mothers from Liverpool who had waved their sons off that fateful morning. The reality is looking back it could have happened at any of the grounds I visited in those days given the same set of avoidable decisions made that day.

I always thought exiting the grounds was the more dangerous as fans bunched on the terracings towards the exit at the end of the game then headed for inadequately sized exit gates down dangerously steep stairs and I remember one incident leaving Fir Park where my feet never touched the ground until I was out in the street. Terracings were overcrowded and hazardous; when you were in the Jungle and a goal was scored you would sometimes take a tumble in the surge down and you knew you had 5 seconds to get back up before the surge returned but you never felt in danger, the jungle was closed usually about 2.15pm every match day.

On away days whether you travelled on one of the football specials or not the Police would try and herd you together straight to the ground and threaten arrest if you attempted to go your own way. There was a real divide between the authorities and the football fan and those of us who were there will have witnessed guys getting lifted for little more than wearing a football scarf. I have been recounted by my uncle of the chaos of the time in 1985 when the police horses charged down janefield street unprovoked causing a stampede and panic amongst fleeing fans.

 The police force at Hillsborough that day were the very same force who had gone toe to toe with the miners four years earlier and had operated on a mandate from the Government to use whatever force necessary. The feeling of class warfare amongst the authorities would have lingered on from those days for miners substitute football fans and the practice of doctoring statements would have been prevalent from those dark days of the strikes.     

We all pretty much knew what we thought was the truth from the Taylor Report and then Jimmy McGoverns excellent drama Hillsborough but the real exposed truth is hard to take in. The systematic dissemination of a smear campaign blaming drunk ticketless fans that commenced as people lay unidentified in the make shift mortuary seems just too unbelievable. You have to remember there were no mobile phones; internet; fans forums; twitter and people got their news from papers and television without questioning the validity of a story or slant put on it. Eye witnesses from that day had no outlet to tell their story, no way of communicating what actually happened to wider audiences because the smear campaign had already begun, the story was out in the mainstream and people were more likely to believe a police source and newspaper than some low life football fan.

As a Celtic fan I have witnessed incidents abroad first hand in Ajax and in Vigo that were 100% the fault of the police and yet have picked up a paper on my return to Glasgow Airport to find a report from someone who wasn’t there condemning Celtic fans. It’s a tear drop in the ocean compared to what happened at Hillsborough but was for me an insight into how easily it was to smear a group of people and get it into the mainstream without checking the facts. It also made me extremely angry and frustrated.    

On 30^th April 1989; 15 days after the tragedy Celtic hosted a benefit match to raise funds for the families affected and it was to be the first match Liverpool had played since that day giving them the chance to take to the football field away from anfield. The ground was full to capacity that day as 60,000 people took their places at 2.30pm to pay tribute in a minutes silence before the kick off. I have to say it wasn’t just fans of Liverpool and Celtic who attended, I saw Hibs, hearts and Rangers fans there as well, comfortable to wear their team colours in an atmosphere that was welcoming and somber. There was no segregation and Liverpool fans who had made it home safely from the Leppings Lane stood amongst the Celtic fans and together sang one of the most emotionally charged renditions of “You’ll never Walk Alone”. In the Celtic end Liverpool fans unfurled a banner that was split green and blue and read “Thank you Glasgow”; ballboys walked around the perimeter of the terracings with buckets and people threw coins in; a Liverpool banner was carried around the track which was being weighed down by the coins being thrown into it.

Celtic supporters at the game knew they were no different from the Liverpool fans and there was a sense of “there but the grace of god” amongst us; we came from similar working class backgrounds where football was the escape and there was an affinity with the City from its similar history of immigration. Fans swapped scarfs, T-shirts and Strips and the surrounding pubs were full of football fans coming together and welcoming people back to the game they loved at a time when the hurt was so raw.

Liverpool were immense that day and King Kenny made a cameo appearance and typically scored as well; Celtic had played a tough game at pittodrie twenty four hours earlier and from recollection it was the weekend Rangers clinched the title but the score and the performance were irrelevant. In some small way I hope Celtic and Glasgow had helped towards the feeling of letting Liverpool and its fans know that they weren’t alone and I as a Celtic fan will always be proud of this day in my clubs history.

God Bless the 96 YNWA.

A Good Old Fashioned Freak Show down Ibrox way

“Roll up, Roll up to see the incredible bearded lady”

“Roll up, Roll up to see the man with Lizard Skin”

“Roll up, Roll up to see the freak of sport play at Ibrox”

Two of these cries would commonly be heard shouted from the streets of the UK in the mid 19 century through the early 20^th century; the latter cry is heard from the wee temporary porta-cabin along edminston drive. For The The Rangers are the modern day freak show, a side show to rival the strong men and mermaid ladies of the touring troupes of a bygone era when affliction and disfigurement were seen as something to thrill and fear in equal measure.

The The Rangers are a new team playing in the fourth tier of Scottish Football with resources grotesquely outweighing their lowly part-time opponents and in fact almost outweighing the resources of the combined 11 teams in the SPL excluding Celtic.

Ally McCoist has been gifted a squad of 24 first team players backed up by in excess of 30 reserve and under 19 players. Players on high wages have remained at ibrox in the shape of lee Wallace; Lee McCulloch; Neil Alexander, Bocanegra and Goian (all at time of writing!) and have added SPL players on SPL wages in the form of sandazza; shields; black and Kevin kyle.

I tweeted after their last gasp draw at Peterhead that McCoist’s managerial challenge at the moment is akin to starting a game of Football Manager in Div 3, using a cheat code that gives you a salary budget £6 million more than all the other teams in the league. And still he couldn’t win but what does it say about his managerial confidence that he has to play the cheat code? It wont be like that every week as the the Rangers will largely canter every home game at ibrox and narrowly win / draw away from home most weeks - there will of course be the one defeat, its almost inevitable. However the match ups are a sporting freak, there is no other league contest like it in the world, which is why for now the interest in it is high.

The domestic cups will bring them the opportunity to draw Celtic at some stage, but perhaps I’m alone amongst the Celtic fans in feeling that I don’t want that to happen, I don’t want to give that club or their fans one sniff at the big times over the next few years. I want Celtic Park to remain free of their pollution and any observer of McCoist’s cup record last year will view this as being extremely unlikely in any case.

Freak show performers in the 1890s could command up to £20 a week, the equivalent of £1,500 today; although I believe Davie Dodds commanded a fee much higher than this and these huge sums even led some without genuine disabilities to get in on the act. Which leads me on to the players who have signed - Sandazza; Shields and Black who have dropped three divisions to pick up wages that could not have been offered by any other team showing an interest. They can talk about their love of the the Rangers and the high profile of the club but the bottom line is they have chosen to dumb down and halt the progression of their playing development for the lure of easy money and easy games. 

Every great side show needs a showman to promote it and draw the crowds in, step forward the modern day P.T Barnum Mr Charles (its nowt to do with us) Green. The showman would often have an alter ego; a stage persona that became a public identity that his audience could recognise, they rarely allowed their freaks to be seen before the show in order to preserve the element of shock and surprise – although green had one of his out in the ticket queue serving teas this week.

Green like his 19^th century counterparts has stirred up the audience by appealing to the lowest common denominator in the support by igniting their favourite mantra “No-one likes us we don’t care”. His claims of bigotry being the motivator for putting the club in the position it is in today is all that was needed to rally the masses and create the siege mentality and “we are the people” drama. Sometimes it’s not the show itself which attracts the crowd but the tale they are told to get them there.

The average showman was also often times susceptible to the spreading of the occasional mis-truth in order to extract a little extra cash from his crowd and create further interest in his show with fake acts. Green has spoken of further investment coming into the club to the tune of £20 million; talk of investors in the shape of Mike Ashley and he has spoke of giving the fans the chance to name Murray Park – none of which has materialised. His latest performance to the queue at ibrox was text book and was just the final bit of icing on the cake, “whilst them lot over there are against us, I’m not leaving” he said pointing ambiguously towards Hampden / Parkhead. The perfect showman and of course his sideshow is going unchallenged in the mainstream media.

I haven’t really seen any commentators questioning the pheasability of what is going on under the circus tent. A quick calculation of the wage bill of the 54 playing staff comes up with an approximate cost of in excess of £6million a season alone. Add to this the running costs of staging the games; back office staff; coaching staff costs; maintenance and running costs of ibrox /murray park and you have yourself a sizeable liability in the region of £12-£14 million to fund. Given the likely income from season tickets and gate receipts based on an average through the season of 35,000 (being generous) is £8-9 million (depending on number of concession tickets) there is a big gap to filled by hospitality / advertising / TV income. Never mind it will never happen again will it??

And so to the fans, the ones who are propping up this freak show after kneeling at the altar of false gods in the shape of walter (mitty) smith and john bomber brown they have no option other than to put their blind deluded loyalty into the showman. Like the crowds who rolled up in yesteryear Victorian times the the rangers fans are seeking an escape from the hardships of life, something to take their minds off their financial woes and seek out a form of entertainment to fill their empty weekend. For a small entrance fee, they can enter a world of sporting wonder and human oddities, unlike anything they’ve ever seen as their financially over inflated team take to the field to show the lowly part timers they really are the people. Headlines screaming today of world record attendances at lower league games must make them proud to show the rest of Scotland their defiance and the crowds will remain for the first few months at least.

However like the freak shows of the past the interest will start to waiver amongst even the hardened blue nose hacks who when all the fervor of the opening games is stripped away are left with the reality that they are reporting on a mis-match week in week out in division 3. The crowds will start to realise that once they have seen one bearded lady you really have seen them all and what have you got to look forward to next season? More of the same types of games and clubs visiting. I may be showing my ignorance but If you said the name of one of the bottom 20 clubs to me I couldn’t tell you if they were in division 2 or division 3. How many fans will leave the bosom of their family on boxing day to brave a 90 mins at ibrox watching the the Rangers play clyde? The alternative derby. Those who have bought season tickets will soon become the showmen as they try to entice their friends to take their seat when they can no longer stomach it.

Its at this point Green with the help of his obliging media will have to pull something big out the showman’s hat or just simply shoot an enemy of "the people" out of a cannon at half time every week to keep the crowds in.

Penance in the Pound: Rangers will never wipe the slate

The life of a football fan is punctuated with levels of extreme high when your team scores a goal, wins a match, wins a cup or wins the league. Sometimes a single goal in a match midway through a season is celebrated more than seeing your team lifting a trophy, its all about the build up to that moment and the occasion surrounding it.

Similarly your life is punctuated with extreme lows when your team loses a goal, a match, a cup or a league. Nick Hornby stated that the natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score and there’s an element of truth in that. Sometimes the memory of that crushing feeling of defeat and loss far outweighs the memories of victories and celebration.

As a Celtic fan of some vintage, I have been witness to some scarf over the face moments; Inverness Caley Thistle, Clyde and Ross County being three most notable moments. I have felt the disappointment of losing the uefa cup final in a manner that left a real nasty taste in the mouth; however none of these memories linger too long or inflict a feeling of dread.

Nothing compares to the two league titles that were lost on the last day of the season in 2003 and 2005. I can recollect every moment of these games, every emotion during the 90 mins and the hours and days in the aftermath of them, more so than any title win.

In 2003 we travelled back from Seville on the Friday and headed down to Rugby Park on the Sunday more in hope than expectation as most of us had in the backs of our minds the realisation that Rangers would be able to do what was required, even if we scored 9 goals that day. My disappointment was compounded that the team that had given me one of the best of seasons of my life had finished with no trophies to show for it. It was a hard double blow to take in the space of five days and weren’t we reminded of this fact by gloating rangers fans.

The press would eulogise in the aftermath, pointing out how good a team Rangers must be and what an achievement for the club to beat a Celtic Team in the League and League Cup Final. A Celtic team that was generally agreed was the most talented Celtic side in decades, what an achievement for Rangers, what a manager they had.

Well now we know the truth of the matter, Chris Sutton was half right when he said we were cheated that day, we had been cheated for years. By utilising the EBT tax avoidance scheme and not declaring side contracts / letters / additional payments to the SFA and SPL they intentionally cheated. It was a club policy to pay players in this way; players who would have attracted the highest tax rate were able to be paid twice as much as the club could have afforded otherwise. By doing so they were able to employ players who ordinarily they couldn’t attract or afford and covered up the fact they were doing it with the SFA / SPL.    

Heres the Rangers Team That played against Dunfermline the day they won 6-1 and pipped us to the title;

Klos (EBT),

Ricksen (EBT), Moore (EBT), Amoruso (EBT), Numan (EBT),

Ferguson(EBT), Arteta (EBT), Caniggia (EBT) (McCann 45 EBT), de Boer (EBT),

Mols (EBT) (Thompson 62 EBT), Arveladze.

Of the 13 players involved that day 12 were recipients of the Employee Benefit Trust, 5 of the goals were scored by EBT Players; they were managed by someone in receipt of an EBT.

Fast Forward to 2005 and we are standing at Fir Park watching the most gut wrenching end to the season and you want someone to vaporize you on the spot, you’re numb from shock and disbelief. You can’t even begin to analyise where it went wrong, although some are already doing so as you leave the stadium. I just want to be alone with my thoughts but it’s a long crowded walk back to the car and you can’t escape the collective feeling of disappointment and downright heartbreak. 

Again we had this loss rubbed in our faces, it was dubbed Helicopter Sunday and the celebrations and eulogizing lasted for weeks, the feeling of disappointment still remains. Alex McLeish was quoted recently that nothing has given him as much satisfaction as snatching the league title from Martin O'Neill's Celtic in the final three minutes of the 2004/05 campaign.

But again we were cheated, heres the Rangers Line up that day;

Waterreus (EBT),

Ricksen(EBT), Andrews (EBT), Kyrgiakos(EBT), Ball (EBT),

Arveladze, Ferguson (EBT), Alex Rae (EBT), Buffel (EBT),

Prso (EBT), Novo (EBT).

Subs Not Used: McGregor, Thompson (EBT), Malcolm (EBT), Burke (EBT), McCormack, Steven Smith (EBT), Lovenkrands (EBT).

Apart from Arveladze, Mcgregor and McCormack the whole team and substitutes bench were being paid in contrivance of the SFA / SPL rules and of course the manager who rates this as his greater ever achievement was also evading his tax. Without breaking the rules Rangers would have been unable to field any of these players, they would have had to operate within their means and utilise a squad that would have been considerably under strength.

In the EBT years Rangers were able to entice players on salaries they could not afford and then subsequently sell them on for massive profit which they were then able to reinvest in the squad. By recruiting Boumsong and Cueller alone in a short space of time Rangers netted almost £14 million in profit from there sales. So on top of the money they have cheated from HMRC that’s another £14 million they accrued that they wouldn’t have been able to outwith using the EBT’s

In reality since the days of Graeme Souness sweeping into ibrox (Note: Only Rangers men sweep into anywhere) whether it’s been from excessive borrowing, EBT Tax avoidance or bank funded share issues we haven’t seen the real Rangers. Before this when I started watching football Rangers were a shell of a club, dwindling support, substandard players (not aided by their sectarian signing policy) they had not won a league title since 1978 – nine years of wilderness. For the people who talk about the league needing “a strong Rangers” back in football I would ask who are the real Rangers? Because they have been operating artificially and outwith the rules for the best part of twenty years. 

Spare me the claims of those deluded followers and journalists – Jim Traynor especially who’s over exposure in the written, radio and television media has allowed him to popularise the myth that they have been punished enough. The Rangers fans have had their celebrations, title parties, flag days and triumphalism for years on the back of these cheated titles. The good times they have enjoyed have been so plentiful that the punishments so far imposed and the potential punishments awaiting do not out weigh that in my opinion.

The old Rangers are in a sack filled with bricks at the bottom of an ocean getting devoured by plankton, this new club which as yet have no where to play are lying like injured road kill on the side of the road awaiting one final juggernaut before they are terminated too. All of it self inflicted but don’t expect any contrition or making amends as decades of entitlement and “we are the people” have removed the ability to see what is in front of them.

In the words of Thomas Aquinis three conditions are necessary for Penance: contrition, which is sorrow for sin, together with a purpose of amendment; confession of sins without any omission; and satisfaction by means of good works.

Even after seeing Rangers die and even after hearing that titles may be stripped it still doesn’t erase from me any of those memories of gut wrenching disappointment we suffered on those two specific seasons, the slate will never be wiped clean and the penance will never be paid.

...............................................................................................................................

Just to end, with summer upon us many of us will be heading off for a holiday and will be cut off from our usual Celtic Fix, if you want to fill your I-Pod with some entertaining, engrossing Celtic chat (and some rubbish too) you could do worse than download some of the recent interviews from Beyond the Waves.

Some of the recent interviews with Matt McGlone, tictactic, jim from Greece and many more are worth checking out – some are so long they might even last the whole flight – can be found at the link below.

http://www.spreaker.com/page#!/user/homebhoys

A Helicopter Sunday with a difference – Pay Back Time

In the late 1970’s there was a short lived science fiction series called “sapphire and steel” featuring David Murrays failed conquest Joanna Lumley. In it she plays a character called Sapphire who has the ability to take back time; rewind it to replay the past and at the request of her fellow investigator “Steel” she could also pause time. How David Murray must have prayed for Sapphire to walk back into his life last night, take time back to 7.59pm and pause it their perpetually.

Like many of you I was no stranger to the world of Internet Bampotery and through various blogs, podcasts and twitter I believed that I had the full picture of Rangers all covered and in many ways I had but the way it was presented into your living room in full glorious HD Technicolor was absolutely jaw dropping at times. For those who don’t partake in internet bampotery or who only believe it if they see it on TV it must have been hard to fathom that it was real at times and not a hogmany episode of Only and Excuse.

Paul Baxindale Walker who was like a junior version of fellow egotist and pipe smoker Donald Findlay – how much was this struck off lawyer paid to give Murray the tax advice that has brought the club to its knees?

Joanna Lumley’s rebuff of the risk taking, smooth talking, Edinburgh steel magnate was held up as an example of David Murrays confidence and his attitude to business. In the same vein then Frank Macavennie must be held up as potentially being the next Mark Zuckerburg. Its all their for the only an excuse team – job done, David Murray and Frank Macavennie hanging about Vicky’s taking shots at Joana Lumley whilst Prince Albert of Monaco looks on.

Then laid before us was the list of EBT beneficiary’s, their amounts received and the presence of a side letter – BANG. Here it is if you need reference to it

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18148818

Some of the names are a reminder of the fact that despite throwing money about like a man with no arms they still bought some amount of shit – Dan Eggen anyone? Alex Rae - £569,000 from an EBT with only 34 games played? Kevin Muscat £1 million? The amounts are eye watering and leave you asking a few questions: -

How much will EBT Beneficiary George Adams Director of Ross County be compromised in the SPL Newco Vote?

Why was Souness paid thirty big ones almost a decade after leaving the club and prior to making large transfer commitments from his current club to Rangers?

How will the devout Christian Marvin Andrews wrestle with his conscious about tax evasion?   

With Sky TV employing a player Neil McCann who was in receipt of a side letter will they take advantage of this opportunity to interview him on it and give us his insight into how it was arranged?

With Steve Davies in receipt of an EBT will his every appearance result in Rangers losing every game he has played in 3-0 meaning relegation this season at the very least?

How much of Nacho Novos EBT money did he waste on Tattoos and how much will he donate to the RFF? 

Why are we funding via a license fee Billy Dodds to appear on the BBC and lie about being in receipt of an EBT and cast doubts over the motives of those accusers.

And who are the names not revealed in the report?

There should be no tears shed for the Rangers supporting garage mechanics of this world who will admit to loving the good times and got the benefit of those good times, the title celebrations, the flag waving triumphalism, the champions league nights. It was all achieved dishonestly by paying players undeclared amounts of tax free money that as it transpires was funded by the Bank of Scotland. Its payback time now for years of cheating in an effort to keep on the coat tails of Celtic throughout a decade and beyond of guys like you and me paying thousands for season tickets in a competition that was tainted and heavily weighted in favour of one team.

There should be a new Helicopter Sunday, a day when the helicopter flies over and lands on the centre circle of ibrox and removes all the titles, trophies, players medals, league flags that were won during this period. And the stands should be full of those Rangers fans who witnessed it and revelled in it all along with all the players, managers and directors who perpetrated in the cheating. David Murray should personally walk into the Blue Room and remove each tainted prize and walk to the helicopter to hand it over.

  

If I were a Rangers fan I would be mortally embarrassed by the history of my club and be more than tempted by the chance to start again a fresh in division 3 and try and build the club up from an honest and untainted base line. But more worrying for Rangers fans is that it is clear that there is no one with any credibility or money left who is going to save the club dying. Even if the Green fable comes to fruition it’s going to be another case of people in charge of the club who are 100% motivated by making money and sucking them dry.  

One final reminder though that will stand me in good stead for the rest of my life and I will pass down to my future generations , always remember “pornography will not make you go blind but the mis-use of EBT’s will”  

The SPL is the Football Equivalent of the Eurovision Song Contest

The eventual result of the SPL vote on financial fair play would be no less credible if it were phoned in on a crackly line live from Oslo with barbed commentary from Terry Wogan over the top of it. For decades the Eurovision has been viewed as a contest that is not credible in terms of providing the intended outcome and has been subject to open criticism that voting agreements are struck; or that countries cast political and geographical rather than “artistic” votes, even though there is no political issue at stake.

The second non-decision of the SPL board and member teams was frankly predictable given the sound bites given out previously by Neil Doncaster and his continual quoting of the mantra that an application of the Newco is at the discretion of the SPL board. It is quite clear from Steven Thompsons interview on Sunday and the subsequent resolution yesterday that the members of that board other than Topping and Doncaster have been intimidated by the  threats of retribution from all under the Rangers banner and want out of that particular decision making process.  

Its not hard to understand that they would prefer the vote to be taken by all clubs collectively but the date of 30th May plays perfectly into the hands of Doncaster who’s raison d’être is to have the most commercially viable league in terms of crowd numbers, TV deals and sponsors. If the NEWCO application is received prior to 30 May it is up to the SPL board members and Doncaster has already made it quite clear in interviews if you cut away all the fluff, that the application will be accepted. Furthermore there is probably no legal mechanism to issue sanctions once accepted. If the application isn’t received before the 30 May then don’t be surprised to see the decision adjourned again.

The startling thing for me was the reason behind the delay. It was at the request of Duff and Phelps to postpone it to give Bill Miller time and in addition no representative from Rangers was there. The attendance at a bigot fest in Linfield was obviously a bigger draw to the Rangers Reps rather than the future of the game in Scotland. 10,000 of them marched to Hampden when it was shut but when invited to attend not one of them bothered.

So here we have a court appointed administrator and a largely unknown trucking “Tycoon” from Tennessee who hasn’t set foot in this country and who hasn’t put a single penny into Scottish Football dictating to the SPL – and the SPL allowing this? It beggars belief and to quote Terry Wogan from one of his stints on the Eurovision -  'Please don't ask me to take it seriously'. It’s a ludicrous situation and the newco situation seems to be gathering less criticism in some quarters than the decision this time last year to allow Celtic a one match SPL postponement to play in the Dublin Cup.

The people who do put money into the Scottish game are the fans and we are being asked to blindly cough up for money in Season Tickets in advance of any decision being made? With one chairman already stating that commercial considerations will out-weigh sporting integrity when he comes to vote then what is it we are actually paying for if its not a fair sporting contest? I personally will renew my season ticket as I always have even at my lowest motivation in watching Celtic – the year spent at Hampden - I renewed.

Given the current situation I will add to my self imposed boycott of Ibrox, all the other away grounds in the SPL. The time, money and personal sacrifice I expend to attend these games is no longer worth it; I have weighed up my own commercial / time considerations against the perceived sporting contest and will not be attending.

Celtic have the biggest proportion of season ticket holders than any other club and as such have a lot more to lose, a lot more customers to safeguard and a major financial consequence should their customers vote with their feet. Throughout history the custodians of the club have rallied against the decision makers at crucial points in order to protect our position and Peter Lawell must look to Kelly and McCann if in doubt about how to go about it.

A lot has been made about certain clubs breaking rank and expressing how they would be likely to vote and Celtic have remained silent on the issue. Some take this to be a weakness or a sign that Celtic have no objections, however until this charade plays out we cannot judge and something tells me that when we look back, the history will not read that Celtic were willing and compliant in a sanction free Newco.

One of the exceptions to the voting pattern of the Eurovision was in 1981 when the choreography of Bobby G whipping Cheryl Bakers skirt off to reveal an even shorter skirt was enough to sway the votes, presumably those who voted hoped the winning re-run of the performance would reveal even more. It is going to take a similar “skirt pulling” moment to force a major swing in the SPL vote and break the voting cabal – An announcement by Celtic; the broadcasting of a damning documentary so breathtaking that it makes a yes vote impossible; the result of the FTT or a Tennessee Tycoon walking away.

Any of these events could provide that “skirt pull” moment which forces the SPL to finally cut their indecision and make their mind up (sorry) the sporting way.   

Neil Lennon - becoming of a Celtic Manager? No Question.

The decision to award a penalty to Hearts on Sunday in the final minute of the match spoke for itself, don’t waste your time replaying it as it just gets more baffling and incredible the more you look at it. Our manager Neil Lennon didn’t let the decision speak for itself, he took to his heels at the end of the game to let everyone know what he and Celtic thought of it, we were left in no doubts as to his feelings and sense of injustice and for that I am thankful.

This came just a few weeks after Celtic were denied a Penalty in the final minute of the league cup final and Anthony Stokes was booked for diving. The referee was lauded for being brave and as it was repeated in various medias – you need to absolutely certain before you give a penalty in the last minute of a match of such importance. No matter from what angle you look at it, this was a penalty and no matter the cries of how we underperformed that day the fact remains goals change games. Had we converted that who could argue that we wouldn’t have gone on to win in extra time by 2,3 or 4 – 1?

This came a few weeks after Victor had been red carded for a high tackle which never connected with his opponent and yet we had to watch Ian Black commit a red card, over the ball intentional foul on Ledley who was left with stud marks embedded in his leg. In addition to this Black would deliberately handle the ball later in the match with no caution. Again we have cries of evening things up with Celtic being awarded an off side goal, but with 8 minutes remaining and Celtic having wave after wave of attack who’s to say we wouldn’t have got an equaliser anyway? Look at Hearts – in the space of two minutes they got a corner, a penalty and scored it – decisions change matches.

On the back of these match defining decisions we have now come to learn that officials of the SFA fabricated an offence against Neil Lennon which saw him banned from managing his team in the second half of a league decider at the home of his biggest rivals. The second time in two seasons officials have been found to be lying directly in connection with Neil Lennon.

Okay now put all that together and tell me how you feel if your Neil Lennon and Celtic? Do you think it’s personal? Too right you do and you would be right, it’s personal against Celtic.

But this isn’t a Blog about referees; I want to question the thinking and mentality behind those who take to the airwaves claiming to be Celtic Fans and holding the view that the Championship Winning Manager should be removed from our club because of his actions in fighting the clubs corner. I love debate about Celtic, I enjoy discussing and questioning line ups, formations, substitutions and transfer hits and misses and defend anyone’s right to do this on whatever forum or format they wish to choose.

But I struggle to comprehend that people who could be sitting around me at Celtic Park would decide to take to the airwaves and wait in line behind narrow minded bigots who have a pathological hate for Neil Lennon to be put through to sub standard journalists and washed up ex footballers and feed the frenzy that is an illogical campaign against Neil Lennon. Lennon Bashing is a National Sport for this great wee country of ours always has been and will be but it sickens me to hear alleged fellow Celtic fans forming the same view.

The recent hysterical reaction is nothing to do with his recent spats with the officials and peoples outrage at his behaviour on the touchline or running on the park. The character assassination of Neil Lennon just now is because he won the league; this perennial figure of hate for Rangers fans and general bigots won the league and they can’t stand it. The sight of Neil Lennon being successful and winning the title to put him into Celtic folklore caused a frustrated, volcanic bitter rage within these people because of who he is but they had no outlet to vent these views or they would have been shown up for the bigots they are. As soon as they saw Neil Lennon jog onto that on Sunday pitch that was it, the pressure valve was released and they had a reason for making public their irrational hate of the man in the guise of it being about his behaviour.

It goes beyond his behaviour on Sunday, its there for all to hear they don’t like the fact he is a winner and those Celtic fans who have been enticed into this train of thought that he is tarnishing the reputation of Celtic and that his behaviour is unbecoming of a Celtic manager need to have a serious think about who they are.

I heard Hugh Keevins on Monday night targeting his manifesto to the older generation of Celtic fans and comparing Neil’s behaviour to Jock Stein and Tommy Burns and found that pretty crass. It has been well documented via twitter and other blogs about the way Jock Stein, Davie Hay and Billy McNeill rallied against officialdom without the national shockwaves Neil Lennon causes.   

For me in Tommy Burns we had a man who fought Celtics corner all through his life and wasn’t afraid to offend those who didn’t care to listen if he felt he had a point to make, he respected the Celtic history and served the club with distinction. However Tommy Burns had run-ins with officials much in the same way as any of the aforementioned managers and Neil Lennon. The Tommy Burns side of 1996/1997 had eleven players red carded during that season, quite a remarkable disciplinary record for a team we remember so fondly for playing football the Celtic way.

During the match against Rangers at Celtic Park, Tommy Burns was sent to the stand during a 1-0 defeat due to his reactions to perceived injustices against his team to the match official; again Tommy was an emotional, passionate supporter of Celtic just as Neil Lennon is. Tommy Burns rallied against officialdom and the SFA in the aftermath of one of the most famous off-side decisions awarded when Cadete scored against Rangers at Ibrox whilst in a clear on side position.

 After the match referee Jim McCluskey refused to speak to a fuming Burns to explain the decision. Some days after the match Tommy Burns was still vexed by the decision and in his following media conference stated “While you were sleeping I watched the game again on video. Jorge assures me he never used his hand and he certainly wasn't offside. But we know what we get accused of at this club if we make too much about these incidents.
I think somewhere along the line we should get an explanation. We're entitled to that because it's a mystery why that goal didn't stand. Referees are the same as everyone else. Everyone makes mistakes but as long as there's honesty involved you can accept that.” 

 

So what is behaviour becoming of a Celtic Manager? For me it’s Passion; a will to win; a desire to bring to success to the club; standing up for the club and fighting our corner. All the successful Celtic managers have had that – and I include Tommy in that list too. For the Celtic fans who want Neil to calm down or be removed I would ask what type of manager they want? A Tony Mowbary who takes everything on the chin? Who turns away when his player Andreas Hinkle is subjected to a potential leg breaking assault by Lafferty? No thanks. Do they want a dignified patsy who is more interested in his attire and appearing statesman like and dripping in dignity? No thanks. 

Remember last game of the season last year? Something inside so Strong? 60,000 turning out and staying till the end to pay tribute to Neil Lennon? Well it should be the same this season; only this time we have a championship manager to honour.