hackwatching

alfie conn's defective memory and the pain in spain

conn article

No sooner had Celtic announced the news that Kenny Miller was joining the good guys in the summer having once plied his trade at the Death Star than the Daily Rectum had trotted out Alfie 'He used to be a Hun but he's alright now' Conn to give its readers an insight on what it was like to 'cross the hate divide'.

As part of a series of articles penned by Neil Cameron, Alfie 'HUTBAHBHAN' 'Revealed the agony of how his Celtic career ended after Billy McNeill refused to play him in Old Firm games... When Jock Stein left and McNeill replaced him as manager it was the end of Conn's Parkhead love affair.'

Conn is quoted as saying: 'I never played in a single Old Firm match when Billy was manager - not once against Rangers. I always seemed to get dropped for that game. I played the week before and the week after but never in the Old Firm match. Read into that what you will.'

Well, having read the latest issue of the Celt, the only thing that's possible to read into it is that Alfie is blowing it out of his arse.

As Stanley Koslowski points out, while Alfie might lead us to believe that he was always picked to play against Rangers by Jock Stein, the reality is that he turned out for the Hoops three times out of a possible seven starts between signing for Celtic in March 1977 and Stein's departure in May 1978.

In big Billy's first season in charge of Celtic there were five games against Rangers. Two of them were played in May 1979. Conn had been given a free transfer in April, therefore he was available to play in only three of them. He was not in the squad for two of them and was an unused sub in the League Cup semi-final of December 1978.

The assertion that he always played in games immediately before and after the three derbies he was available for is also untrue.

The first was in September 1978. He played in the game before it (v Dundee) and missed the game following (v Burnley).

In November he played the game before Rangers (v Motherwell) but missed the game following (v Hibs).

In the last of his possible derby appearances, in December 1978, he was a sub the game before (came on v Aberdeen for Tom McAdam), was also a sub for the Rangers game (didn't come on in a match Celtic lost by 3:2 after extra time) and played in the following game (v Dundee United).

In all he made 57 appearances in three seasons while with Celtic , mainly because of recurring injury problems. He was never the same after the knee problem he sustained on the opening day of the 78-79 season. Hardly 'baffling' (see headline above).

Memo to Cameron: check the facts before you put them in print - especially when you might be misleading people into thinking the worst of somebody like Billy McNeill.

wipe that smile off your face

It's bad enough having to listen to Jim Traynor, Chick, Gordon Smith and the latest rent-an-Orc (see Billy 'Let's hope Rangers do something with this free-kick' Kirkwood or Billy 'We've had to put up with Celtic scoring perfectly good goals for over a hundred years now!' Brown) on BBC radio during football broadcasts. But after the 2:0 win at the Death Star my ears were assailed by Richard Gordon's comment about Neil Lennon.

This was where he thought it his public duty to highlight to all listeners, that when leaving the pitch victorious, Lennon had committed the heinous crime of smiling at the Orcs in the stand with malicious intent.

Surprisingly it was Traynor who expressed some measure of disbelief and asked the sheepie to explain his argument (presumably in the rush to make himself the centre of attention JT forgot the party line).

This only led to what can be described by rearranging the words - Richard Gordon hole digging further himself into a.

So let's recap on the experiences of recent Celtic victories at Ibrox: First, goal celebrations over the touchline are not allowed (Petrov); then goal celebrations still on the pitch are not allowed (Bellamy); then waving to your own fans isn't allowed (Lennon/ O'Neill) and now smiling isn't allowed. It'll get to the stage soon where the opposition have to crawl out of that place on their hands and knees to placate the Laptop Loyal.

On the other hand, flicking the V-sign at opposition fans after you've been sent off (Bammy), giving the V-sign to opposition fans after you've just scored a penalty in a derby game (Malcolm FTP) and throwing ice at the opposition dug out after you've lost a goal (Bammy) are all perfectly acceptable behaviour.

crisis - what crisis?

16/02/06 Evening Times and the banner headline reads - 'GERS SPANISH RIVALS IN CRISIS'. Yes and everything is coming up roses at Ibrox just now isn't it? Must be due to all the manure about the place.

Didn't read the article closely, but the 'crisis' probably referred to something like the Villareal players having obtained numerous stomach injuries due to laughing so much when watching the previous three Rangers matches.

The rag stopped short of printing a graphic showing the Villareal badge cracked in two.

comedy central

On the subject of the Orcs' comedy value, the previous day this little gem appeared on the BBC website:

Amid his frank assessment, Cabello (Villareal coach) was full of praise for Chris Burke on his recent spying missions, while hinting that the winger could prosper elsewhere in the future. 'I saw Rangers against Aberdeen and Celtic and the player who really caught my eye was Chris Burke,' he said. 'He has everything and I expect him to have a tremendous future. It was exciting for me to see him taking the ball and trying to go forward. Rangers have a real prospect. I will not be surprised if this boy ends up playing for a big club very soon.'

Doesn't this foreign upstart realise that Murray's works team are one of the hugest and most influential clubs in Europe??!!

Clearly the last sentence there would have been edited for the Daily Rectum's readership to something like, 'I would not be surprised if the boy ends up knocking back a £10 million move to AC Milan to pledge his future to Gers'.

Anyway, all this posturing and attempts to boost the flagging morale seem to be centred round the statistic - given great prominence by all the red tops - that Villareal were in disarray having failed to win in their previous 8 games before having to play a resurgent Rangers, having scored only three goals in the process, a strike rate of 37.5%.

Yes - and Rangers had only lost their last three during the same period with an aggregate score of 0:6, which I believe equals a strike rate of 0%.

It was also interesting to see who had been the opposition in Villareal's poor run, as I hear there are one or two half-decent outfits in the Spanish La Liga who could give Inverness Caley or Livvy a run for their money.

The theme was resumed the next day by the BBC website. Not sure what red top they lifted this one from, but the headline read - McLEISH ADMITS TO TOUGH DECISIONS 'Alex McLeish says that a timely return to form will make it difficult for him to make changes for Wednesday's Champions League against Villareal'

So it seems that one 2-0 win demonstrated a 'return to form', even if it equated to one win in four games.

Mind you, I suppose it did represent an improvement on the shite responsible for the earlier ten game winless streak.

The Daily Ranger went one step further with its propaganda drive prior to the Champions League match (first team to reach the last 16 dontcha know) - VILLA STAR FEARS A REAL DOING By Colin Duncan.

The only logical conclusion that could possibly have been drawn from that headline was that the Villareal players were planning a pub crawl round Kinning Park after the match.

However, neither beat the McLeishball that appeared in several rags on the Friday - ECK'S IMPOSSIBLE DREAM - in which Big Feck was quoted as saying 'I would have like to have seen out my time here with a trophy - who knows, maybe the impossible dream of winning the European Cup will become a reality'.

Yes, and in that very same dream, he rides to the stadium on Shergar and has a portion of Bears Pakora with Lord Lucan before dueting on Derry's Walls with Elvis in the dressing room pre-match.

vive la difference

Celtic go abroad, and get UEFA awards and the continentals open up Celtic Supporter Clubs in every corner of the globe. The Orcs continuously disgrace themselves, and this time it must have been really bad to actually get some publicity in the Scottish papers. Yet we still get tarred by the same brush. Thank goodness that at least abroad they know the score.

Let's just hope that UEFA go through them good and proper.

As far as the Villareal v Rangers game was concerned, the media would have us believe that Dignity FC were unlucky! Humped 2-2 at home in the first leg, and winning one game out of eight to get as far as they did - that's real championship winning material.

Big Eck for Real Madrid.

Despite the fact that some of the trouble was hard to ignore, you can compare for yourself the reports that appeared here with those in the Spanish press, for example el Periodico Mediterraneo (see www.elperiodicomediterraneo.com/noticias noticia.asp?pkid=213112 for original article) 'Security was at its highest both inside and outside the stadium, but the police found it hard to contain the amount of Rangers supporters that were highly intoxicated as they had been drinking long before the game.'

'We (as in the Spanish) were extremely disappointed with the Rangers fans, which have been branded as 'hooligans'. They threw bottles and crates of beer at the yellow bus breaking one of the windows. The police intervened and arrested some of the Scottish supporters who did not resist.'

'Alcohol and fake tickets: They behaved uncivilized and were despicable inside and out of the stadium. Up until the early hours they could be heard and seen throughout Valencia and Castell—n, It was like a procession of blue making lots of noise going to the stadium. However it was joy for all the yellow followers here as we drank beer like never before to celebrate our victory. Joy too for all the bars in the area who have never sold so much.'

'However the worst incidents of the Scottish supporters did not happen in the province of Castell—n, it happened in Benidorm. There the National police arrested in the early hours of the morning 8 supporters although 600 people participated in throwing stones, bottles and glasses to the security personnel and police there. Apart from the arrests there were 6 police officers injured and one in a serious condition as a result of the English (yep they said English) fans beating the man. He is now in intensive care at the Hospital de la Vila Joiosa.'

Meanwhile, back on Planet Moonbeam, the Daily Rectum (among others) was allowing Rangers' security chief Lawrence McIntyre to virtually blame everything on the local police. Of the Villarreal team bus being attacked, McIntyre said: 'One window was smashed. Actually, it didn't break into the vehicle, the glass was fractured and frosted over and it wasn't as if the players were hit by breaking glass.

'That is not condoning what happened (trying minimise it perhaps? cynical Ed). The truth is we don't even know for sure it was a Rangers fan who did it. (Of course the Villareal fans might have been attacking their own team. Why didn't that occur to anybody? It's so obvious now that you've mentioned it! Extremely sarcastic Ed)

'Could it have been a policeman on a horse swinging a baton? (No. Ed)

'Horses were in that street and officers had long batons out. We don't know.

'Or was it one of our fans throwing a can? I have not been able to establish the exact cause.'

Lawrence McIntyre - coming soon to a courtroom near you. Just make sure he's not on your side.

TONY BANANAS & HACKWATCHER