PO Box 306, Glasgow, G21 2AE, Scotland
Dear NTV,
Allow me a pissed off rant about Celtic. Let's break things down.
THE TEAM - I agree about all the guys being on the wrong side of 30 and the wasted cash down the drain. However we now need to look further than that. John Hartson is looking for a new three year deal as is Neil Lennon. I believe that Lennon has been a great servant but at 30+ he is now heading in the Paul Lambert direction and needs to be replaced. Big Bad John may wish to continue to eat the pies and score goals in the SPHELL but the guy cannot cut it at the top level either for his club or his country and his goalscoring record in Europe for Celtic or for Wales is less than impressive. Henri Camarra, for what we paid for the guy, is a joke. He is more interested in fancy gold boots and getting his initials shaved into his head rather than putting in performances for the team, the club or, dare I say it, for the fans. Juninho, I have a little sympathy for. The guy tries his heart out but unfortunately he is too wee, too old and I am afraid Martin O'Neill hasn't worked out yet how to play him in either of his favoured tactical formations, 4-4-2 or 3-5-2.
Our esteemed Chief Executive has already told Martin that it's ginger bottles to spend in January and with the list of players able to sign other deals in January - Lennon, Hartson, Hedman, Douglas, Petta, Lambert, Valgaeren, Fernandes, Laursen, Sylla - the squad seems to get very bare indeed. Added to the fact the people are sniffing around Bobo, we are left with guys like Sutton, Agathe, Thompson and McNamara who are all too readily injured this season in particular. I think that leaves us with David Marshall and the rest of the youth. Scary thought isn't it !
THE MANAGER - Time for some reflection on Martin O'Neill, and while the sun stills shines out of his arse in my opinion I do have many quibbles about the man but feel you cannot dare utter them within Parkhead or fear a severe doin'. So here it goes.
Purchases - he has had money to spend bringing in Sutton, Hartson, Lennon, and Thompson and these guys have proved to be worth it but for every good buy there is a Rab Douglas, a Magnus Hedman, a Momo Sylla, Ulrik Laursen, David Fernandez, and stop gap buys like Camarra, Juninho, Varga and Vega which, looking over them all, a less than 50% success rate in purchase of players is just poor.
Tactics - On more that one occasion the Messiah's tactics and team selection beggar belief. The selection of Momo Sylla on the bench in every game and usually the first on as a sub is a complete slap in the dish to any youth team player at Celtic hoping they can make the grade. To not achieve one European away point in the Champions League is extremely disappointing. I don't want to hear excuses of close but no cigar, never was it more evident than the substitution of Hartson for Sylla in the AC Milan game. While I know the players on the pitch have to shoulder a certain amount of responsibility so does the man in charge. His failure to adapt his tactics in situations has lead to trouble on a number of occasions, none more so is this evident than with the purchase of Juninho and Martin's failure to use the wee man effectively in any formation, which usually results in Juninho being hooked after 70 minutes and 20 minutes of the Momo Sylla Show (slapstick stuff it is too!).
THE BOARD - In my eyes nothing short of a disgrace. At the recent AGM Brian Quinn had a cheek to slag off the fans for questioning the loyalty of Dermot Desmond and for asking why he was not at the AGM. It was a case of bow down and kiss his arse at how fortunate we are to have Mr. Desmond. What Mr. Quinn fails to realise that without guys like you and I the club WOULD be on its knees. Season Ticket Prices have consistently risen well above the rate of inflation since the days of Fergus the Bunnet. Merchandising of strips has reached complete saturation point with the news of the new Nike deal which will mean another new home top next year, not to mention Celtic TV and the new Setanta deal, regular Champions League or other European revenues. Surely this must mean the club is enjoying one of it's most financially successful period reflected in the investment of the team. Well... no.
While we still pump in a considerable percentage of our yearly earnings to Celtic we may as well turn up at Parkhead every week turn around in our seats drop our trousers and let Brian Quinn and Co. pump us up the ass, because that's what's happening at the minute. I don't even want to get started on the shambolic running of the ticket office and how poorly the club are accessible to the ordinary fan in the street. If you're an executive seat holder Celtic will build you your own office to come and pick up tickets and deal with your enquiries, otherwise feck off and go and stand in the cold and rain for a couple of hours before you can pick your tickets up.
THE REALITY - I am fed up with my fellow fans saying only if we had won the UEFA Cup, only if we had picked up a few Champions League Away points, only if Henrik had stayed blah blah blah. It's all bullshit and we need to get a reality check now. The team domestically can more than hold their own and supremacy will hopefully continue for another couple of seasons at least. However, with the manky mob from across the way being so piss poor it makes our league look even more unattractive to any possible players who would want to come to the club. A lot of supporters say that we can offer Champions League football, and play in front of 60,000 every second week. So what? What kind of incentive is six top level European games a season plus a few frantic battles with the Huns to today's professional footballer?
The reality is we need competition, unfortunately we need a strong Rangers side to make our league interesting again. This season domestically is the first season I have been to Parkhead and been bored out of my skull at the football on display from both the hoops and the visiting teams including the Huns. European nights have just been down right painful. Mr. Quinn's answer might be to leave the SPL and join the Premiership where he can get his hands on some serious cash but unfortunately for him, the day before the AGM all 20 Premiership clubs voted against the idea of allowing any foreign team, not just Scottish, into their League structure at least for the next three to five years. So the reality is that unless Mr. Quinn changes his mind and loosens the purse strings, or Mr. Desmond has a funny turn on the golf course and we are left all his cash in his will, we have hard times ahead and unfortunately we are just going to have to put up with the turmoil.
Any silver linings? Well as a Celtic Shareholder I have asked for all dividends as long as these funds are exclusively used for improvement of the team or youth set up, to be put back into the club and if other shareholders follow suit especially some of the bigger hitters like Desmond, this could allow a regular budget to be there for the manager to spend. Sounds very simple doesn't it? Just a shame profit comes before passion in many of the hearts and minds of the supporters who sit around you every week.
At the end of the day, it could be worse. You could be a Rangers supporter.
Yours in Celtic,
JOHN BHOY
by e-mail
nobody beats budget
Dear NTV,
I have read with great interest the comments of our board members that we had a transfer budget of £1.5 m in the summer. How the hell can we expect to do anything in Europe with a transfer budget like that? We know that we won't be buying £5 million players but surely the board could have made more available without us ending up in debt like the Huns.
The board have basically said that we can win domestically and we can take our chances in Europe. If we win the league we can take the Champions League money and run. Our manager stated in the early summer that six new players were needed to replace those leaving and the long term injured. We have seen at first hand the folly of not replacing like with like, as fringe players like Joos, Sylla and Laursen are give a run. Without being disrespectful they are not good enough even at domestic level.
If we are not going to spend money on players I can only hope that we are actively pursuing good Bosmans although there are not many around.
Yours etc.
JAMES GALLAGHER
Kirkcaldy
booing the king? yer havin' a laugh
Dear NTV,
So booing Henrik Larsson was just a laugh? Just a bit of typical Glaswegian and Scottish humour? (letters ntv 127) How foolish I feel to have missed the point entirely. Not only that, but it was 'in the best interests of Celtic Football Club.' Whoosh - straight over my head. If that was supposed to put him off in some way, it wasn't very successful, was it?
Another point of Kenneth McGovern's which seems to be 'only understood by some', is how admitting to being one of the booers then going on to say that he concentrates on 'cheering on Celtic players during the 90 minutes', is not ever so slightly contradictory? Can't he just stick to the cheering in future? No? Oh well, next time Neil Lennon comes in for some 'playful booing' around the country for being... er ... Neil Lennon - 'Hee! hee!' I'll say. 'Aren't we Glaswegians and Scots ever so funny.'
Ah, the banter...
Yours in Celtic and taking leave of our senses,
VINCENT
ORR
Cloud Coo-koo Land
tickety boo
Dear NTV,
Let's nail this one before it goes down in folklore as fact. Henrik was NOT booed. The TV pictures showed a close up of Henrik with the sound of apparent mass booing from the fans. This was highlighted by Andy Walker, who was obviously concentrating on his monitor at that stage.
However what was actually happening was that the fans were booing Henrik's replacement, who was at that time gently strolling across the park in no great hurry to exit the park. Henrik's arrival onto the park was actually, and very suitably, greeted with a rousing version of the Celtic Song by the masses.
Also am I the only one who thought it was just a little childish of Henrik to complain about the fans singing 'Bobo's gonna get you' in his post match interview? Has the cosmopolitan air and the sunshine of Barca turned him into a sensitive wee soul? Maybe the irony of the chant by the Celtic fans in an attempt at a bit of humour was lost on our now ex-megastar. I thought it tarnished his legacy just a little by making such a comment.
Don't misunderstand me, Henrik was great for Celtic, but, equally, Celtic was great for Henrik. And he wisnae booed!
Yours,
S. SUTCLIFFE
by e-mail
sound of silence
Dear NTV,
Is it just me or is the current silence emanating from the Death Star most puzzling? I am of course referring to their truly admirable 'Pride over Prejudice' campaign... or rather the total disregard shown for it by the knuckle scraping element among their support. Could it be that perhaps rather than rid the stands of this continuous tirade of anti-catholic bile, that rather the suits upstairs, while putting on their best Jeffrey Archer-we're-telling-the-truth-honest faces, in fact don't want to alienate the assembled hordes due to money being as tight as the proverbial?
The evidence? Take David Murray's announcement on Scotland Today on 1st September. As murray told how he was charging back to Ibrox on his white horse (the very image no doubt had most huns drooling into their Derry's Walls hot-dogs!) to trouble shoot the place and ease the debt, cue a wonderful family-friendly scene from a recent huns home match which more resembled a scene from a buckfast fuelled hybrid cross between a Nuremberg rally and last night of the proms, while the ibrox deejaay lasted over the P.A that wonderfully pc ditty about how they will 'follow on to Dublin' and inoffensive references - in no particular order - to Dundee, Hamilton, the Pope and the Vatican.
A wee note for Scottish Television, by the way. All of the above is offensive and stomach churning enough but at 6.15 pm most of us are trying to eat our dinner thank you very much!
For the benefit of those unaware of the current 'in da house' tunes booming across Kinning Park on alternate weekends and occasional midweeks ( not Champs League nights of course!) include 'Simply the Best' complete with 30,000 contorted coupons giving it laldy with its added extras, Follow Follow, with its references to the Accies trip to Dens Park, the leader of the Papal faith and his Rome penthouse, The Billy Boys - i.e we're up to our knees in.... well you know - And the final trendy medley on Radio Rangers on 1690 mw of Rule Britannia and ...er ... the Dambusters!?!?!? Yeah, they're really pulling out all the stops to re-educate their motley crew of lobotomised loonies with that little lot.
Of course there was the noble attempt to crank up the atmosphere at last year's Man Utd game with sectarian free anthems by printing the words to the Blue Sea of Ibrox, however they overlooked the basic flaw that reading would prove to be more than a touch tricky for more than a few of the crowd that night. Subsequently their plan backfired like a camel that's been force fed a large pot of lamb madras! The result ? One newspaper columnist that night described Ibrox that night as 'a vicious sectarian pit so deep, its inhabitants are visible in Australia'.
And in the year since? Hey presto, the much hyped and lauded, Pride over Prejudice campaign has plummeted out of sight like a Rangers share price after a European match. Strangely enough this great vanishing act has gone by without a mention in the Scottish press or media. You can almost hear that blue rug being lifted and 99p sweeping brush being pulled out the broom cupboard/ trophy room. I wonder when their next 'tangerine' strip is coming out?
DARREN
PARK
Stirling