letters 130

hacked off

Dear NTV,

I was pleased to see that the Celtic Supporters Association has called for a boycott of The Sun newspaper, following the crass and spiteful comments made by Bill Leckie. Mr Leckie's vindictive and highly personal attack on our manager was little more than poorly-disguised bigotry. Fortunately, the range of vocabulary and grasp of the English language that is possessed by Mr Leckie is unlikely to cause his writing to be published anywhere other than in that newspaper or in the awful books he has written, and therefore his ramblings will be picked up only by those who choose, for whatever reason, to buy The Sun.

Many of your readers will be blissfully unaware that far from being simply a journalist of little (if any) talent, Mr Leckie is also the author of a few books. His most recent effort is entitled 'Charlie Spuds'. Aside from possessing quite possibly the worst title of any book ever written, it is also a work of such pitiable and improbable badness that it is a small miracle it has actually been published.

The synopsis reads, 'A funny thing happened to Mark Weston on the way to the biggest game of his life. He ended up holding the loot from an armed robbery. When he told his team-mates at Scottish Cup giant killers Ochil United they realised they were the only ones who knew where the money was: would they really do the right thing? Or would they give it back?'

This in itself is a bad enough plot, but the actual content of the novel plunges to an even more unfathomable nadir. The constipated dialogue begets a reading experience that is less enjoyable than excess stomach acid. Indeed, next to the 'Customers who bought books by Bill Leckie also bought books by:' section of amazon.co.uk are the words, 'Gareth Southgate'. If Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas or Miguel de Cervantes were alive today they would surely vomit uncontrollably on discovering that this awful work had been allowed to attach itself to their profession.

It says much about the Scottish Media in general that Leckie is afforded air time on STV's Monday night football show, and I find it hard to believe that they cannot find a young, talented writer who could take his place and actually offer some constructive, unbiased viewpoint on the show. Leckie's ridiculous diatribe was the latest in a long line of anti-Celtic mince that has been committed to paper by a variety of journalists. Add to this the regular stories regarding Martin O'Neill leaving the club (none of which were true) and you begin to get an idea of just why so many Celtic fans have developed an inherent loathing of the Scottish gutter press.

As soon as a complaint is voiced, the media responds with the inaccurate and tired old refrain about us all being paranoid. Although as Celtic fans we may be justifiably outraged at the comments of Mr Leckie and others, I believe we should simply ignore him and others like him. Is he important? Of course not. The achievements of Martin O'Neill and Celtic Football Club shall live in the memory for an incalculably long time after the rotten fruit of Mr Leckie's endeavours has been pulped for toilet roll or wrapped around a fish supper.

As a matter of principle, I would never buy The Sun, Record or indeed any tabloid newspaper. This is not purely because of the easily demonstrable anti-Celtic stance that many of them possess, but quite simply because they are rubbish. They contain little more than celebrity gossip, and spiteful verbiage against people they have decided not to like. The quality of writing is, in my opinion, usually pathetic.

It is for this reason that I believe many Celtic fans (and people who are not Celtic fans) would not buy these newspapers anyway. However, if a call for a boycott engenders the same reaction in Celtic fans that caused dwindling sales and a new editorial vacancy at The Daily Record, I would fully support it. It might just cause The Sun and a few other papers to sit up and take notice, and hopefully see an end to the kind of personal, ill-informed bile produced by Mr Leckie once and for all.

Yours in Celtic,

DANNY MAC,
Glasgow.

songs of disgrace

Dear NTV,

I read with interest reports in the papers after David Murray's reply to Martin O'Neill's accusations of bigotry at Ibrox. Working at sea, and consequently with a lot of time on my hands, I watched the Huns v Auxerre match and decided to analyse the community singing - the kind that David Murray has trouble hearing. I have included a full list of songs (and the times at which they could be heard) but I will summarise them in order not to inflict the full bitter repertoire on your readers.

To begin with we were subjected to three sectarian songs within the first three minutes 20 seconds of the kick off. By the time the match had finished the Ibrox crowd had entertained the watching European public with 30 numbers. The ones with sectarian sentiments in them were as follows: Billy Boys (5 times), Derry's Walls (4), No One Likes Us (3), Follow Follow (3), Who's The Fenian in the Black? (2) (Yes, you're right, I've never heard them singing that song during an SPL match either!)

The numbers that baffled me were: The Great Escape (1) and We Are The People (6), whatever that means.

That is only a list of songs that were sung during the match. I don't know what was sung at half-time or at the final whistle because I was too busy pissing myself at Dougie Donnelly and Gordon Smith's coupons while watching John Collins sooking a lemon to stop himself laughing. Aye John, yer a better actor than Lovenkrands.

These figures are indisputable. If anyone at Ibrox doubts them then tell them to watch the game and listen. The Laptop Loyal's favourite 'minority of supporters' must have been singing the songs we couldn't hear on TV. Maybe they were only being sung by Murray and his mouthpiece from the supporters association.

I challenge anyone from the Scottish Executive to go to Celtic Park and Ibrox and conduct an independent study similar to the one above. I know we are not whiter than white but there is no comparison when it comes to who are the European Champions of Bigotry (while they are at it they could also maybe take the plugs out of David Murray's ears).

Oh, nearly forgot to mention all the booing at the end of the match. I'm surprised they remembered the words. They must have had the same intimidating wee blue sheets of paper with the words on the back as they had at the Manchester United game. Booooo Ha ha ha!!

Good old Eck. He's not good but he's cheap. I'm away for a lie down now. It's been a traumatic night.

WEE ARTHUR PEOPLE
Somewhere in The North Atlantic

in praise of pooh

Dear NTV,

I realise that Hugh Dallas is a kind of cult hero among hacks and commentators and is virtually incapable of making a mistake ever since some half-wit socked him on the noggin with a pound coin that night at Celtic Park. But I feel I have to take issue with Davie Provan's latest bout of selective myopia in the News of the Screws.

Far from putting in what Davie calls a 'seamless performance' I thought Dallas had a nightmare as far as Celtic were concerned. Seemingly intent on winding the Celtic players up as they did at Ibrox, the Huns went steaming in to some cringeworthy tackles during the first fifteen minutes. Had he booked a few of them at that stage Dallas might have calmed things down. Instead, he made a great flourish of gesturing towards each part of the pitch where the offender had committed a bookable offence before wagging the finger. In other words, you're allowed three cracks at them before you'll see a yellow card. He then allowed Alex Rae to have a swipe at Aiden McGeady a fortnight after the ball had been cleared. Dallas clearly saw the incident but once again chose to wag the finger at Rae instead of shoving a well deserved yellow up his hooter.

Careful as ever to avoid giving fouls in dangerous areas around the Rangers box despite Marvin Andrews clambering all over the Celtic strikers, Dallas capped a pretty dismal performance when Alan Thompson's free-kick was obviously deflected for a corner by Alex Rae's arm. Just compare it to the penalty we got against Livingston the week before.

What makes it all the more galling is that Provan was sitting there surrounded by all the Sky TV gadgets and couldn't spot what was glaringly obvious at the game.

Foreign refs? They can't be any worse than Dallas.

PARANOID PETE
Baillieston

cunning plan

Dear NTV, Find enclosed an article from 'Front' magazine. The idea behind it was that they contacted lots of these internet 419 scammers - the ones who promise you $50,000,000 and so on - and pretended to be interested. Then they asked the scammer to prove they were legit by asking them to send in an up to date photograph of themselves doing something daft or holding up a stupid message ('I felch wombats' or 'king of retards'). Some of the pictures were then published in the magazine.

Check out the guy with the fish on his head. He's wearing a Celtic polo shirt!! Has one of Brian Quinn's cunning plans to get the debt down been exposed?

The guy to his left is obviously one of David Murray's employees. The message he's holding up reads, 'I blow my wad into chickens and goats'. I can only conclude that the collapse of the Sky TV deal has led our major clubs to resort to such desperate measures.

WE SHOULD BE TOLD
Glasgow

if it looks like a duck

Dear NTV,

Neil Lennon gets abuse because of the way he plays. Aidan McGeady gets abuse because of the way he plays. Martin O'Neill gets abuse because of the way he... er, jumps up and down. Can any of your readers spot the connection between these three guys? Can anybody in the press?

Yours etc.,

BLIND PUGH
Glasgow

chop souey

Dear Not the View,

The enclosed headline (below) appeared in the Daily Mirror's website and in their newspaper. The story was about the Beast's proposed purchase of Portsmouth striker Yakubu. Read the headline quickly as both the author and the editor of the Mirror obviously has a sense of humour and must clearly have a similar opinion of Souness as most of the rest of us Celtic supporters.

Hail Hail,

SEANNY BHOY
(the St. Petersburg Tim)