There never seems to be a shortage of talking points these days does there? Boumsong’s transfer, Barry’s return, Buffel’s arrival, Henchoz, Novo’s oh so predictable suspension etc. Then there is Jhack the Lhads latest anti-sectarian meeting, the assembly meeting with Queersie. Our manager’s strange tactics and team selections as well as his pre and post match statements.
Though probably best to start where I finished in the last issue of the fanzine and one of my biggest gripes with our club (there are so many to choose from though eh?) the PR department. It seems that Gill_D is no longer replying to e-mails and had hoped this was due to her being too busy dealing with the numerous lies and half-truths told in the media about the club and the fans. I have a sneaky feeling it’s not that though.
After giving some faint praise to Leckie it came as no surprise after the OF cup tie he resorted to type with this "Rangers fans were noisier, but most of it was filthy bile....Celtic Park awesome when YNWA is being sung..." I watched the game in the pub having decided a number of years ago never to go back to that place and I am fairly sure the most prevalent song from the scum contains the line “soon there’ll be no protestants at all” YNWA was only really heard once and ended abruptly thanks to Ricksen. So for me the fans singing about the genocide of protestants are the main culprits in the singing of bile.
I would like to know what the threshold for “most of it” being filthy bile, was Leckie sitting taking notes marking down what each set of fans were singing, does it become “mostly” after 1, 2, 3 , 4 songs or is it “mostly” when it’s 50% of them 75% is there a criteria Bill or is it just you selective hearing again? I really do wonder is it the frequency of them that matters Bill? Surely it’s none at all, zero tolerance you should be aiming for or is the odd song about protestant genocide acceptable?
Leckie’s Match Report Notebook.
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Talking of yahoo fans masquerading as objective sports journalists Ronnie Culley at the eve. times must be amongst the best of the worst with this headline appeal to the board at the cesspit of moral filth - "C'mon Celtic, let's tie up those deals" on the Tuesday after the cup tie. Culley is also the most regular of the yahoo fantasists, they could have fielded around five teams in the SPL and beaten the best sides in Europe with the number of players he links them with. I really do think he either writes for or picks up stories from e-tims, now if any of you have never seen this site have a wee peek in though you are in danger of splitting your sides at some of the fabrications in there.
TRANFERS
Now for our transfer sagas, none of us are in the least surprised that JAB left it is entirely the timing that has stuck in the throats of most bears. My own cynical point of view is that it really was a strange coincidence that shortly after the announcement that the rights issue was £6million short of expectations that Newcastle’s interest seemed to step up a gear or two. Yet strangely the loss of one of our best defenders in years is seen as a good bit of business by some, I despair. There is a great deal more to this story than is being made public, likewise with that of Barry Ferguson and at the time of writing his possible return.
Where the JAB fiasco seemed to have united a large number of bears in their disgust at Murray, Bain, Mckay and Souness the possibility of Barry’s return looks to have us all split again. Maybe the cynic in me would contest that this could be another part of a Murray masterplan to have us take our eye off the ball again just when even the biggest murrayites had their eyes opened to him. Me personally I don’t want to see him back for a few reasons though a blind man can see we are screaming out for his ability in midfield. What everyone needs to remember we are not in the business of being a business, we are a football club a club with a fine tradition and history a club with an ethos, a soul and should be treated as such. Still if some bears are happy being run my Murray like Ian Beale would his “business” more fool them.
MANAGER TALKING BOLLIX
Earlier in the season I was amongst those wanting Eck to go and no I really don’t have anyone in mind to replace him, that is the “custodian’s decision”. When I say earlier in the season I mean after the Newcastle tourney, he started with that ill-fated 4-2-4 formation and made like for like substitutions, which were to prove costly in the early part of the season. Now while he now seems to have realised we need a creative midfielder I still have little confidence in his tactical awareness and substitutions.
Maybe I have him wrong and his only money spent in the summer had worked out and Mlado turned out to be the creative midfielder we need. He has also developed the annoying habit of saying the wrong thing before and after important games. For any gers manager to say before an OF cup tie he would accept a draw sets the wrong tone and then afterwards to say the defence done well apart from the goals was bizarre, THAT’S THEIR MAIN TASK ALEX - stopping goals. Yes they were not helped by the sudden departure of JAB but still!!!
He also said Mutton and Fatson have troubled bigger teams than us, so what deal with them have a game plan tactics work on them before hand. On the plus side I was very impressed by Djordic, I know only one game and it is easy to look good in that wide left slot so lamely filled by PL for most of the season. He was strong and fearless in the tackle and rarely gave the ball away cheaply. Alex Rae was a BIG disappointment, his only decent forward pass of the game brought about the equaliser. What about set pieces do we ever practice them? We need to get a good run going in the league now, start scoring goals away from Ibrox, lets hope Buffel can give us that attacking edge so badly required. Who knows if Barry returns and Henchoz signs we will have a decent looking squad if the manager plays them in the right positions and got a book on tactics for his Xmas.
Just after New year I was lying in bed one morning listening to the radio. Some guff on radio Scotland about Scots being negative and pessimistic and this guy has set up a site called Positive Scotland urging us all to think more positively. Can’t remember who the presenter was but he does RS from 10 after Fred Mcauley's show. He asked his other guest a sports journo Neil something (might be Cameron) if he was negative and his reply was, "sure we have a lot to be negative about with the OF game coming up and all the sectarian bile that goes with it AND John Orr’s report on parades out at the end of the month".
Now why would this be negative for a sports hack?
Scotland has the worst health record in Europe, a child obesity epidemic, poverty in Glasgow etc etc and the most negative thing is a report into parades and a footy match and as with Leckie earlier I am fairly sure who he would be directing the accusation of bile at.
Might be a New Year Bears but it is the same old agenda.
Which leads us nicely into Jhack the Lhads anti-sectarian initiative or as it is know in the Scottish labour Party HQ the Anti-huns/OO/Proddybassas initiative. How can anyone possibly take him seriously until he makes some kind of reform to the apartheid schooling system in this country? How can anyone take him seriously when he allows pro-IRA parades in his constituency? And bizarrely he sees them in the same context as an OO parade. How can anyone take him seriously given his relationship with Frank Roy the former republican band member? And is it not strange that our media give him a hard time over a holiday with a news presenter and not an IRA sympathizer? Anyway the media bought his ant-sectarian spin hook line and sinker as he managed to divert their attention away form villagate and Kirsty.
The media was full of this initiative and offered many yahoos the opportunity to spread some more lies and spin. I will try and keep this short and only a few examples as I really could fill the entire fanzine with them and don’t want to duplicate stuff written by other contributors. Matt McGlone (formerly of “Once A Tim”) was on Radio Scotland and gave us a couple of crackers (I will have to paraphrase slightly as I can’t remember the exact phrase) “Why should RC’s respect the national anthem when an RC cannot be King or Queen?”. Here’s a wee clue Matt the Queen is the head of the Church of England how can she be any other faith? Is he trying to justify any yahoo’s FTQ attitude? Does this mean I could be justified in not respecting the Pope/Dalai Lama etc as no Protestant can perform their role? His next was then in contradiction “we should see more lion rampants” hey Matt that’s the queens standard she gave Scots permission to fly it, so I am all for that one Matt.
Now to Jim Divers (septics supporters’ mouthpiece) he said in the evening times that “Scotland is becoming a more secular society”, sorry Jim I just don’t see it. For me Septic are their most bitter I have ever known in 20 odd years. Not just them the RC church does not even want kids sharing canteens/gates etc, teachers sharing toilets and staff rooms very secular. It was not that long ago Winning wanted an all RC Glasgow within 50 years, he also wanted RC nurseries, separating kids at 3 and not 5, not very secular Jim. Finally thanks to gomacgers (hopefully covered elsewhere in the fanzine) the current leader of the RC church were exposed for the gers/protestant/OO hating bigots we knew they were again not very secular Jim.
MISTA EX