hackwatching

shaun maloney, the scottish media’s selective
agenda and another giant sized box of winalot

I was very pleased to see Shaun Maloney back at Celtic Park and a bit bewildered by some of the fans I was talking to just prior to his signing who tried to argue that he wouldn’t improve the team/he’s a money grabber we shouldn’t have him back etc. etc.

It’s plain to see he’s far superior to those in the current squad with the exception of Naka (when he’s fit and in the mood) and McGeady (when 2 or 3 defenders aren’t marking him out of the game). So why cut off your nose ?

Having more technically gifted players in the team has a cumulative effect because now the opposition have to do more than stick two guys on McGeady or try not to give Nake a free-kick to nullify us (Shaun is not bad with a free-kick either).

Another argument was that he is indeed a good player but not worth £2.5m.

Leaving aside £9m for Hutton and Gordon, we have another case of fans being suckered by tabloid spin.

Daily Record headline: “CELTS PAY £2.5m FOR MALONEY” - dig a bit deeper and you’ll find the quote: “the champions [must sicken them to say that] COULD end up shelling out AS MUCH AS £2.5m with add-ons”.

Either Lawwell or someone at the Record has a crystal ball and is able to assure us that Maloney’s performances will trigger payment of all additional clauses in the agreement. After this is the lottery numbers.

Either that or it’s just the usual spin.

Nearly had to turn the radio off during the St. Mirren game (BBC) as every five minutes the commentator had to refer back to Celtic’s controversial opening goal that “may have gone in off McManus’s arm or shoulder”.

The commentator’s angle seemed to be that even if the ball had come off Mick’s shoulder it was such a close call that he should really have chalked it off anyway. [See Pressley not being sent off at ICT for not committing a foul Dec ‘07 for precedent of loyal media twisted logic].

Describing the second goal he also remarked, “and the linesman failed to raise his flag”. A curious way to describe the goal I think you would agree. Why he couldn’t just have said Samaras was onside/not offside could only really be explained by the man himself.

There was nothing debatable enough about that goal to warrant much comment from anyone else on Sportsound so maybe it just stuck in his throat. Also a number of references were made to the “fact” that the free-kick from which McManus scored was a dodgy award.

With the huns getting a goal wrongly disallowed on the same day at Pittodrie [swoon!] there was much hand wringing and gnashing of teeth by Fat DJ, Wishart & co about the standard of refeeing and the need for video evidence followed by a deluge of paranoid hun callers complaining about the conspiracy of the unseen fenian hand.

It’s hilarious really - Celtic get the benefit of a couple of debatable decisions [all decisions against us swept under the carpet] and suddenly there is a refereeing crisis with a summit being arranged at Hampden Park to address these distressing developments and the media going into meltdown.
I say - video evidence? Bring it on.

Video evidence would have shown that the Nakamura free-kick against St. Mirren back in Feb WAS a free-kick.

Well if the media can keep raking it up 6 months later so can I.

Think how many decisions in favour of the Huns would have to be reversed. Maybe this is why DJ, Pishart and Ned Flanders were against the idea on Radio Snide.

Interestingly, one caller to Snide pointed out that the free-kick that led to the huns goal against Aberdeen was of the highly debatable variety. Quite sensibly Wishart and co dismissed this as a valid concern pointing out that Aberdeen still had the opportunity to defend the free-kick. You know, the same argument they used to defuse all the fuss about Celtic’s corner at Motherwell last season... ahem... anyway...

I will make my own crystal ball prediction. It’s all well and good getting one or possibly two decisions your way in August, but I will bet you my taxi fare home that if the league is a close thing in April/May, Rangers will benefit from at least one Davis-McCurry special.

To hell with it... make it my taxi fare and kebab money.

anyone for winalot?

“SO THERE they were, a year ago in a London hotel, Sir David Murray, his right-hand man Donald Wilson and his football man Martin Bain on one side of the table and the new buyers of Rangers Football Club on the other.”

Shove up David Murray’s rectum Keith, Darryl, Derek and company, there’s a new kid in town. This was from a column by Tom English in Scotland on Sunday (August 17th) post-Kaunas and Carlos. Minty Moonbeams was laying it on with a trowel about how much Rangers means to him and how he would never sell to just any old Tom, Dick or Billy.

The date is vague, the location vaguer still and the identity of the new buyers non-existent, so this would be a difficult tale to verify.

Nonetheless, English goes on: “Not a lot to be said now. Not a lot of money talk, not a lot of legals. Two months
in the making, the transfer of ownership of one of the great institutions of the British game was close to completion. ‘It’s true, (as if we’d doubt him) we came within a few hours of selling the club. We were all ready to go. Donald had negotiated it for months with complete
confidentiality. Everything was pretty much agreed and then I said, ‘Look, gentleman, before we do this, can you tell me how you’re going to run this club?’.

So, after ‘months’ of negotiations, presumably involving Minty’s crack hand-picked- ninja-private-jet-lawyers, just minutes before they’re about to sign on the line that is dotted Murray gets round to asking them what their plans for Rangers are? Shouldn’t that have been the first question??

Yet, we’re led to believe that for the last few years, ever since the angry mob has been baying at his windows, he won’t sell to anyone who doesn’t have the best interests of the club at heart

So why not these mystery buyers?

“I’m sitting there with all the legal documents in front of me and they outline their plans, ‘We’ll carve this up and we’ll sell that off’ and after a while I said ‘Enough, we’re not doing the deal’. We got up and walked out. We took our
papers and went out the door. It wasn’t for Rangers. In my opinion they did not want to take the club forward in a football way. They saw property angles. That’s the closest I’ve come to selling; a few hours last year in a nice London hotel.”

“Carve up”, as in the catering contract at Ibrox? “Sell off”, as in the Albion training ground, or the media rights to NTL or the merchandising rights to JJB?

More of Tom’s interview anon. Meantime, let’s just be thankful that Scotland’s second biggest institution after Charlotte Church is in safe hands.

More paranoid ranting available at www.celticparanoia.blogspot.com

 

TONY BANANAS & HACKWATCHER