Today Hugh Keevins drank a farewell toast to Celtic’s “biscuit tin” days.
Nothing better sums up his colossal witlessness.
He was trying to be nice to us, for once, but that he resorted to that ancient standby, that media invention, and betrayed once more how scandalously ignorant he is should not surprise us for a second.
It is time that we nixed this once and for all.
It’s time we got to the bottom of what he and others in the media mean when they used that phrase.
You know, most of the Celtic fans I know have come a long way on this issue. The phrase was a media invention, from the 1980’s and 1990’s when the perception was that Celtic simply didn’t want to spend money, and so we would penny-pinch.
And it was a lie and our fans now realise what a lie it was.
Penny pinching wasn’t the issue at all. It never was that Celtic didn’t want to spend, that we threw the manager crumbs.
Back when this term was first in use, Murray was throwing money about like a man with six arms. We were in no position to match that or even to attempt it, and what’s more we now know that Murray and his club weren’t either.
Celtic has been run rationally.
That is our crime in the eyes of the sports media. It is as fake as the Tories lies about the so-called “winter of discontent” and has lasted just as long, even though our supporters now recognise that it’s why we’re now strong.
It offends me to the core that we are still not given credit for being sane and rational and refusing to endanger ourselves in the way Murray once did.
There never was a “biscuit tin” mentality at Celtic, just varying degrees of caution and fiscal discipline.
At times it has seemed to hold us back, but even as we were not getting deals done for the likes of John McGinn, the underlying truth was that we were strong and stable and winning things.
It was a season, in fact, where we gave the manager more money than we should have, and refused to part company with a single key player, even as COVID raged, that we failed to win a trophy.
That was two years back.
Last season, we spent a small fortune building a team but ended up with a transfer trading surplus; this year we’ve spent, but even if we reach £20 million in total outgoings, that’s exactly half of the minimum figure we’ll coin in from the Champions League.
Not even Keevins is stupid enough to think that represents a “biscuit tin mentality” but that he would even use the term to describe the policies that got us here in the first place, that laid the foundations for the modern club which towers above every other in Scotland, sane, rational and rich, is pathetic and shows how little he understands or wants to.
All these years we’ve eaten shit over being smart and sensible.
All these years we’ve had to listen to this bollocks about how our boards have been skinflint and tight whilst those at Ibrox have “shown ambition” and “pushed out the boat.”
But Ibrox already lost one club on its strategy and the second is so leveraged and scarred by debt that they fluked their way to a European final last season and still can’t scrape together the cash to get its first proper deal over the line.
Their overspending has put them in real peril and they have a single title and one Scottish Cup to show for it in a decade, and one which coincided with Celtic having the greatest spell of dominance in the game here since the Lisbon Lions.
I have had my moments of anger when this board has seemed to be haggling over pennies.
That was a Lawwell trait, which I hope we’ve consigned to the bin.
But even that haggling was done at a club spending more on wages than every other side in the league put together … and even in that shocking John McGinn window we broke the club transfer record to sign Edouard on a permanent deal.
It is time we put this “biscuit tin” garbage to bed.
It was a media invention, at a time when there were so many tongues up Murray’s posterior that there are still people hacking and coughing in the newsrooms of Scotland today. Keevins is one of them.
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yea james….that is correct re the hun murray era….
but celtic were ALWAYS tight…long before the “biscuit tin” term…the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, during the kelly, white and desmond era..was blighted with parsimoniousness, and of course, and there was also had a degree of religious sectarianism thrown in for good measure…
no matter what you think, or. apparently, a certain amount of your readers…the ‘tic are not as pure as driven snow…
I cannot remember when I first heard the “biscuit tin” mentality. I do remember many complaints regarding our reluctantly to spend. Not just from the press, but, from our own support, yourself included James. It’s a term that became a stick to beat us with, however, not without a certain sense of truth. Spending for spendings sake is never the way any company should be run. Celtic has come through our own moment where we were on the brink. We survived, and, maybe the “biscuit tin” was a necessary evil. The rewards are now being reaped. I also think that that infamous tin should still be there to keep us on an even keel.
Celtic should have laughed at themselves and sold Celtic biscuit tins in their shops.
This talk about the Kellys and the Whites: I remember those days, there was absolutely no money to be made owning a football team.
There were no sponsors other than the local fish and chip shop. A stadium holding 80,000 people had to be maintained. Even the tidying up after games must have cost a fortune. There were continuing safety rules coming into force which had to be strictly adhered to and the takings were 50/50. They had to give half of the gate money away. The “welfare facilities” were the walls at the perimeter and there were hundreds, if not thousands, got in free by either being unemployed or by climbing over the wall. Even the children stood outside and asked to be lifted over the turnstiles. The hatred for Celtic was even more rampant than it is now and there was continuous hope that they would go out the game. The referees were worse than they are now and it was George Graham and Geordie Young, the liquidated Rangers centre half, who ran the whole of Scottish football.
Even the ball used for the game was handed in by a “sponsor” just to get their name on the programme.
To be honest, the Kellys and the Whites, etc., must have bankrupted themselves keeping the show on the road
The summer break is a wonderful thing because you get a wee holiday from the likes of Keevins and his Sevco slanted, or maybe its just anti Celtic views.
The thought of it all staring up again and that wee scroat spouting his pi sh evry night on supersahbash is depressing.
Hasn’t got the guts to discuss Sevco and all their financial woes because he knows the consequences but only too happy to have a pop at us because he knows their won’t be any threats or loss of income.
Absolutely zero respect for the clown as a journalist.
And what about the revision in the media regarding a unrequited bigot making him out as Saint dragging out auld bigots like brown the rat glory hole gough it is disgusting it’s a shame he died my prayers for his family but not him FACTS are FACTs god bless Ange and all the Bhoys HAIL! HAIL! COYBIG.
Auld Spew Heavins is a demented dodderer desperately trying and failing to be relevant.
Best ignored.
Back when the “biscuit tin mentality” phrase was first coined the Grants, Whites and Kellys (who had complete corporate control of the club) were only frugal to ensure the club kept them in the manner to which they had too long become accustomed – they were the classic case of boardroom nepotism and should never have been near a fotball club. They had no strategic management or conceptual management thinking or any general business/financial acumen to understand or conceive far lessi mplement the necessary plans, policies and procedures required to bring Celtic into the 20th Century never mind laterally the 21st. The fact they basically bankrupted the club whilst buying players like Biggins, Muggleton, Payton, Hayes, Slater et al shows just how incompetent they were and if that wasn’t bad enough remember the Cambuslang stadium fiasco. Hell mend them for not having the decency to sell out in 1990 when Fergus McCann first offered to help.
We did penny pinch .
Why give him press time hes so insignificant
Ian Wood
They were in no way rich men but they managed to win the European Cup.
Shew Keevins , The Old Fenian Hun.