This was posted by a man going by the name: “Justshatered” after the defeat at Swinecastle. After I read it I decided that it needed a wider audience.
I contacted him. Told him: “Son, I’m going to make you a star” in that 80’s kitkat advert style. This is part one, part two will be posted at the beginning of the week.
Before you start reading make reference to Video Celts blog regarding football’s rich list.
Enjoy.
Celtic are more than a club …………… a phrase we hear an awful lot about our club and yet there is something lacking. From the top to the bottom there is an indefinable ingredient missing at our club.
From the Boardroom there has been a shift in policy in the last four years which involves buying low and attempting to sell high. Now as a policy this is fine as long as players are being brought into a team that is winning and the pressure is not so great.
However if you are coming into a struggling team playing catch up to their greatest rivals then that’s a different thing altogether. Also if I was another club looking to buy players would I prefer to buy from a club with a winning mentality, hence a player with a winning mentality, or a club with a defined selling policy?
This policy culminated in the selling of Kenny Miller who scored a few goals for us and had great movement. More importantly he came back to haunt us scoring the goals that gave Rangers two league titles twenty odd million pounds in Champions League money just at the right time. All because we were offered a quick buck on a player we signed for nothing.
On to the make up of the board; we are probably the only club with two billionaires on the board and yet we are being run on a budget where the books must balance. This is fine if you are fighting on a level playing field but our greatest rivals across the city are almost bankrupt and yet outspending us year in year out with money they do not have, winning trophies with the players they can’t afford, and now I suspect making plans to go into administration to avoid paying these debts where the biggest hit will be a ten point deduction leaving them with a far superior squad than us.
While I do not expect Celtic as a club to go any where near the possible illegal activities that have gone on across the city surely there must be some form of ‘speculate to accumulate’ plan as the current plan is clearly not working.
At this time bonuses are being paid to the Chief Executive not based on success on the park but on off field activities while the team on the park is not as strong as most of us believe it is!
Moving on now to our Training Facility at Lennoxtown: this on the face of it is a tremendous leap forward for our club developing our next generation of players. However the ‘buying low attempting to sell high’ policy means that the first team squad is cluttered with dead wood that must be played in an attempt to move it on.
The next generation is often overlooked, caught in a bottle neck created by the failed policy above. Remember these are the very players that have won the last nine reserve league titles and also won the last under 19 league and yet only one player, James Forrest, has managed to make his way into the first team.
We seem to have been scouring Europe for young talent for the last few years and signing players for the future. It is surely time that at least one of guys for the future is actually played. In other words the future is now. Finally regarding our Training Facility; how many pulled muscles and hamstring injuries have we had this year? Can money not be found to bring in a yoga teacher to teach the players stretching exercises?
It has worked in far bigger and more successful clubs than us. In fact as I was talking about this today a friend told me that our neighbours have adopted this policy for the last few months and guess what……….. the guy hasn’t been paid. But how many muscle and hamstring injuries have they had?
The cost cutting above has also left us with a rookie manager who, under tremendous pressure, is trying to turn round the club from the last disastrous regime. I have the utmost respect for Neil Lennon in the way he has dealt with the intimidation and media orchestrated witch hunt of last year, while at the same time putting together an entertaining side on the park.
The simple fact remains that he was the cheap option that, from the board’s point of view, turned into a God send. At this point maybe a straight question should be asked; if there was a coach at our academy that had no managerial experience and not yet even passed his coaching badges would you be happy to see him appointed as manager of our club?
I write this after our defeat to Hearts and I don’t yet have the clarity to start on our playing staff.
Celtic are more than a club…… perhaps those at the top should remember that first and foremost we are a football club.
One comment only.
You have written an article that should be considered as one of the best ever on Celtic Cyberspace.
Keep it up
Your good mate
Joratim
It’s something eh?
Wait for part two and three….
🙂
Update: I have linked to Video Celts blog.
I agree with 99.9% of the blog apart from the Kenny Misser bit. He was always at the wrong club. He never suited or style but suited theirs.
Good blog, but another bit I disagree with is about the Huns taking a 10-point hit, then carrying on as usual.
Administration would be a huge blow to them. The squad would be decimated, and they would have to re-build not only from a position of weakness, but using only the money generated on a week to week basis. Oh, aye, and they’d be docked 10 points too…
They wouldn’t honour season books already bought?
Someone better tell the brethren that.
Every penny will go to the biggest creditors, and cashflow will be needed to keep them alive. That means 50,000 mugs paying again every second week for what they thought they’d already bought.
When HMRC, Strathclyde Police, Scottish Power and various lawyers are fighting over the scraps to get their bills paid, I’m afraid Billy, Wullie and Wee Sammy will be quite far down the queue when it comes to getting their 400 quids back!
LotW I decided to stop reading any further when I read “This policy culminated in the selling of Kenny Miller who scored a few goals for us and had great movement.” Lets examine that statement, he scored precisely 11 goals in 46 appearances, 7 goals in 33 league games, 3 of which came in the first two games of his second and final season. So in his first season we got 4 goals in 31 games, Samaras had a better scoring average last season than that! So we were offered £3m for a striker who scored, and he was right, a “few goals” and the author of your article thinks Celtic should be criticised for accepting that?
I think most Celtic fans liked Miller when he was at Celtic, I did although he was frustrating and yes like most Celtic fans when he was sold said “maybe he was just about to come good” but £3m was a superb offer for a player who had just had a very ordinary season and for me Celtic were perfectly justified in accepting that money.
Now I’ve got that off my chest I might read on…..
Brian, I agree about Misser…I didn´t write the blog (just posted it).
I never saw the point in us signing Misser. He was never going to suit.
Sorry LotW, I tried to refer to the Author as I knew it was not you.
Whether you agree or disagree about the merits of Kenny Miller as a footballer the simple fact remains we took a quick buck on a player we got for nothing. When we sold Miller did we not keep Hesselink! What one of those two would you have preferred to keep?
Accurate and well thought out comment. A really good article. Thank you.
I’ve been recently told that my wee cousin has just been employed by celtic as a yoga coach to all levels. She is one of the best in the Scotland I’ve been told.
Just come in from the pub!
Thanks for your comments.
As regards our cousins across the city I’m beginning to suspect that when the hammer does fall that a plan has been hatched. Will the tax man really pull the plug or will he accept 10 pence in the pound. Remember he won’t be the main creditor. If he does then they will get to keep everything including the squad and then we really are in a bad place.
Excellent article. Look forward to the rest of it.
I have little knowledge of the ins and outs of administration but, like the author, I wouldn’t be surprised if the playing staff remained largely intact.
If they go into administration, there must be a plan to show they can continue as a going concern. That means they have to show how they can keep paying the wages. Cashflow.
The recently announced friendly against Liverpool (and their legal disputes) indicate that is already a problem, even before admin.
HMRC will only take a “pennies in the pound” deal if there is really nothing left to sell. That also means the wagebill being slashed for the foreseeable future.
The big question – how loyal will their fans be if they are asked to fork out again to watch lower quality?
Rangers will still exist. However, in future they will have to rebuild while spending only what they generate, and also have to ringfence money to pay rent to whoever buys Ibrox.
By all means we should be getting our own problems sorted, but don’t worry about Rangers. They are, in the vernacular, fucked…
Good article, but just reminds me how depressing it is being a Tim. We are a laughing stock, but still I will proudly wear my colours when visiting my local hostelery today. Not so proud when asked what is happening to my team though! How low will this BOD and management allow us to go!
reading this I don,t see a future for our club untill we get rid of the board or they change there policy.A realy good read hail.hail
It’s time for the board to accept responsibility, they can’t be allowed to hide in the background counting their pennies while another manager is thrown to the wolves. We need to pressurise the board into backing Lennon financially regardless of whether Rangers go into administration or us winning the league.
Great article makes you wonder where we could and should have been with a bit of ambition from the board.
I’ve had my fill of Mr Lawwell although a very good businessmen, Celtic fc are more than a business.
GBNL.
Brilliant article.
I hate the boards policy. They have been laughing at us fans for far too long and I’m sick of it. We are the only financially stable club in Scotland yet we can’t beat the worst teams Scotland has produced for years? Something has to give here and we need change asap. How can DD have the majority say in the club when he comes to one meeting a year and only owns 1/3 of the club! He is a dick and I personally think he is single handedly dragging our club to the ground. He should go NOW and take his bum buddy PL with him!
Had Celtics board been serious football fans there would probably have been a new record for consecutive league titles. Under O’Neil the foundations were laid for a strong future. The board however refused to look to the future and were happy to crow about the £20,000,000 from the UEFA run ,.
Exactly right, i don’t know if we would have won the last 3 titles because Rangers are always so consistent in the league even when under strength (with the odd honest mistake!), but we would certainly have put up a stronger challenge and seeing the fine line it was last season shows that a single goal like the Samaras penalty flop can decide titles, an experienced, established player in the mould of Keane, Bellamy, Sutton or Hartson would have relished an opportunity like that and revelled in rubbing into the oppositions noses on top of that. You see Davis, Mcgreggor, Naismith, Lafferty, Weir, Mcculloch and others who just love to stick it right up Celtic, not many players at Paradise seem to have that fight in them and we won’t spend any decent money to get players that do.
I really wish we would stop looking over to the other side of the city and getting out knickers in a twist about what MAY happen to them,( I hope nothing but bad luck on them). We have more than enough of our own issues to sort without concerning ourselves with what they do and dont do. With regards to the board, I am no lover of them either, however we should be very careful of what we wish for during these times,we shouldnt be accepting second best to anyone, we might just find ourselves in a lot worse position than at present.
They have conned the fans season after season on the renewal of season tickets and what they sow they will reap.
Just a word of caution.