The Evening Times is experimenting with fan-based blogging.
Is this a new thing?
Not really, but in some ways that paper has always belonged to the fans with typewriters, and they’ve more often than not been of a Sevco persuasion.
This was the newspaper that gave us Chris Jack, after all, and which had Derek Johnstone writing pro-Ibrox drivel for years.
Today they’ve put forward a “fan view” piece which is about as dishonest and one-sided as anything I’ve read in a long time. The writer is either stupid or assumes that the rest of us are. For the paper to print it shows how far it’s fallen from what were once high standards.
Of course, as Jack and Johnston and Neil Cameron have demonstrated over the last couple of years, standards have been slipping there for a while … but this is the nadir.
Let’s start with this; why are these pitiful bitches still whining about the loss of their vote?
Wasn’t this week’s ago now?
Their club isn’t even fighting this battle any longer; they’ve realised it’s a futile fight and aren’t interested.
But the lunatic fringe of their support will be holding this against Scottish football for years to come, and spinning fantasies out of it.
The writer of this piece has made it clear that he belongs in that category.
For openers, Celtic had very specific allegations and they were backed up by evidence. We believed that OldCo Rangers had cheated the taxman and the game by withholding crucial documentation which is the key to player registrations. This was proven.
We have occasionally asked for more transparency in refereeing and in the decision making process of the discipline committees. This is nothing that other clubs have not repeatedly done. We have made comment on specific matches where sometimes unfathomable decisions have gone against us; again, every club has done this over the years.
What Celtic has never done is make wild accusations against named individuals and demanding their removal without offering a shred of evidence. In the case of the EBT’s and with Resolution 12 we were reporting on instances of corrupt practices which have been documented and proven beyond the slightest doubt; in other words, we went after it when it existed, in much the same way as Fergus was able to remove Jim Farry after proving that he had behaved dishonestly.
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Sevco levelled unsubstantiated allegations. When asked to prove those allegations they offered up not one shred, not one morsel, of actual evidence for them. This is why Celtic did not support the call for an independent inquiry; there was no basis on which to order one.
“What does seem strange, however, is that the same people who have been at the front of the queue to criticise Doncaster in the past, now seem to be among his strongest defenders,” the article reads. It then poses a rhetorical question. “That simply couldn’t be because Rangers are the accusers now? Could it?”
I’ve answered this repeatedly, but I don’t mind doing so again. Neil Doncaster is probably the most incompetent football administrator this island has seen save perhaps for Gordon Smith, whose appointment as the chief executive of the SFA still ranks as one of the most unpardonable scandals in the recent history of the game.
But in this particular instance, Doncaster did nothing wrong.
I don’t care what past sins the man might have committed; we don’t hang people for things they didn’t do.
That’s just not the way it’s supposed to work in a sane and just world.
The man did his job in this case, and he did it with the best interests of the sport in mind. Sevco’s behaviour was deplorable.
It’s just like a Sevconut to allege that our failure, as a club, to support such an unjust campaign was because it originated at Ibrox.
I find it particularly amusing that the writer called the current Ibrox club “Rangers”, because that’s only possible because Doncaster himself publicly stated that the SPL recognises them as the deadco. If he’s suddenly become an enemy of their club this will be the first any of us have heard about that.
I’ll tell you what people inside Celtic Park do know for a fact; only Sevco would have initiated such a witch-hunt and acted so disgracefully in the first place.
Aside from indulging in the usual claptrap which accuses Celtic of being motivated by spite, the article repeats a number of claims which have been demonstrated as entirely without foundation, such as the allegation that Motherwell were given a loan from SPFL funds, which the writer then backtracks on and accepts was an “advance” instead. He dismisses this as a “form of words”, as though that makes his claim factual instead of nonsensical.
He then puts the Dundee vote thing – which has been explained God knows how many times, including by the directors at the club itself – as a product of “the world’s most convenient spam filter”, which is an undisguised way of calling all involved liars.
This is not disingenuous writing; it is flagrantly dishonest. At least the next section was not. It was wholly factual, and more revealing than the writer appears to be aware of.
“Something clearly wasn’t right there, so (Sevco’s) goal changed to wanting an independent investigation into the whole matter. That would have led on to the REAL end goal of removing Doncaster, Rod McKenzie and Murdoch MacLennan from their positions.”
And why those men in particular?
Well, Doncaster is seen as a Lawwell puppet, McKenzie works for Harper and McLeod who are Celtic’s lawyers, and Murdoch MacLennan, who had no role in the voting issue at all, is believed to be a Parkhead supporter who a Private Eye article alleges once said some nasty things about Rangers fans.
This is the Unseen Fenian Hand again … and the writer fully acknowledges that the end goal here to curb its deadly influence over the Scottish game.
Read this for garbage. I mean, honest to God …
“Secondly, the idea that (Sevco) should have gone straight to the SPFL with their evidence is ridiculous. That’s not how whistleblowing and the uncovering of corruption works. In the same way that Mark Felt didn’t go straight to Richard Nixon.”
First, had there been actual evidence giving it to the clubs would have been exactly the right thing to do.
To label this “uncovering of corruption” is hyperbolic pish; there is zero evidence, nada, none, that anything untoward took place here.
Allegations of corruption are speculative.
No proof whatsoever exists for it except in the fevered minds of these lunatics.
Mark Felt was alleging that Nixon was involved in the cover-up at Watergate; he was also alleging that the entire upper echelon of the US government, including its intelligence gathering agencies and the FBI itself, who he worked for, had been compromised … comparing this with Watergate goes to show you how far into lunacy these people have drifted with this.
He goes on to write this ridiculous line.
“I’m sure this is far from over, however, and I expect (Sevco) will be working hard behind the scenes and weighing up the best legal action to take next …”
Uhuh. And if you believe that, you clown, I have a bridge to sell you. I repeat; there is zero evidence to support any such “legal action” and it would put the Ibrox club in tremendous peril if they were to even attempt to take these pitiful allegations outside the sport.
This is how he closes out the piece; two delusions from the price of one.
“When even Aberdeen are backing (us), you know something is up. Although I was more interested in the support (we) did not receive from our friends across the city. The same people who have spent decades telling us the game is corrupt passing up on the opportunity to prove it? That doesn’t make sense.”
First, Aberdeen did not back them as they have clarified over and over again.
They did not believe that there was any wrongdoing and did not believe Sevco had produced any.
Aberdeen believed that the allegations were so damaging to the reputation of the game that an inquiry was necessary to clear everyone and shine the spotlight on Ibrox where it belonged.
And to suggest that Celtic have “spent decades” telling anyone the game is corrupt is another lie, I’m afraid. We’ve raised specific grievances at specific times and have always been backed up by evidence. There was nothing to prove in this case.
The allegations Ibrox were levelling at people were absolutely bonkers and all the foot stamping in the world has not changed that.
I understand why none of this makes any sense to the writer though. He lives in a bubble with a distinctly blue tint. Inside that bubble reality itself is routinely ignored and warped. It must be very confusing when confronted with actual facts and truth.
The Evening Times thinks that this is a great new feature; if they are going to persist with it they are going to need better writers than this geezer.
This kind of thing is frankly embarrassing and it gives fan writing a bad name.
It is badly written, ignores facts, it is selective with its interpretations and it reeks of Sevco paranoia.
It is the kind of article that should never have graduated from the Follow Follow forum floor.
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