Celtic Banter Archive September 17 2014

17 Sep 2014 19:36:00
Does anyone miss the good old days when Scottish Teams were full of Scots And English teams the same etc? I Know that wasn't always the case but certainly most if not all teams were like this.
Now interestingly enough here is a Celtic team if that was the rules as we would a bought the best.
1 Gordon/Marshall
2 Souttar
3A.Robertson
4 Mcarthur
5Reynolds
6OConnell
7Snodgrass
8Brown
9Fletcher
10McCarthy
11Commons
Subs from May, Armstrong, Mulgrew, Pawlett, GMS.
Anya.
Now I know I could a picked anyone but I tried to base it on players we could a bought easily or were linked with.I estimate this team would a cost us about 10m(1st eleven) if bought at the right time.So my question is 2 fold. Wud this team beat our current 1 and what team would you have?

I don't see how that team would cost u 10 million u must be steamin

For a start there's no way in hell that team is costing anything less than 20 million for the fact of the premier league players regardless of their skill the inflated prices of the premier league is just the way it is. Also O'Connell is Irish and McCarthy plays for Ireland.

Gordon/Marshall free
Souttar 500k
A.Robertson 2m
Mcarthur 700k from Accies.
Reynolds Free
OConnellFree
Snodgrass 750k from Lvi
Brown 2.2M
Fletcher 2.5m
McCarthy 1m from accies.
Commons 300k.
We wudnt have bought the players as they are now we would a bought them before they moved south as we would be buyin up the best talent available.

17 Sep 2014 17:49:43
Celtic has announced it will reopen the Green Brigade section at the club's stadium.

The Parkhead side temporarily banned 128 fans and broke up the section of hardcore fans at Celtic Park in December last year.

The club announced the action following fan disruption during an away match at Motherwell, in which seats were ripped out and smoke bombs were thrown onto the playing surface.

A total of 250 season ticket holders located in Section 111, where the Green Brigade are located at Celtic Park, were moved elsewhere in the stadium.

In addition, 128 fans were banned pending investigation by the club.

On Wednesday, the club officially announced it would be reopening the section for its forthcoming home match against Motherwell on Sunday.

It said the decision to reopen the section followed "positive" talks with members of the Green Brigade.

A club statement read: "Celtic can confirm that we plan to re-open Section 111 in the North East lower corner of the stadium to season ticket holders, beginning with the forthcoming match against Motherwell to be played this Sunday, September 21.

"The reopening follows a period of positive discussions with former season ticket holders within the section, during which it has been agreed that the safety of spectators must always be of paramount importance and that the reputation of the club and its supporters must be protected at all times.

"As is the case with all fans attending Celtic Park, compliance with ground regulations, competition rules and the law must be observed.

"Celtic considers this move to represent significant progress in fan engagement and acknowledge the role played by supporters from the section who have agreed to work with the club to provide positive backing for the team in a safe environment, with further agreements in place that any breaches will result in a review of section usage.

"The club was instrumental in establishing this section for supporters and we look forward to working together to ensure its long-term success in providing strong positive backing for Celtic manager Ronny Deila and the team."

Really glad about this. Criticised them last year and I hope they can keep out of trouble. But I have to admit the atmospheres not been the same.

17 Sep 2014 15:51:15
Heard on celtic page that the green brigade are back at paradise good news if true!

17 Sep 2014 12:28:20
Did anyone catch Frankie Boyle last night on the YES/NO show?

Got to hold my hands up and say that is first I have seen him but given he took the piss out the other half will have to see more

Last night a PMSL at him

ATVB

17 Sep 2014 13:39:17
Kevin bridges dvd even funnier when slags the zombies over the city about the face painter. Saying u could imagine the boardroom running about kidding on they are tigers and stuff. Pmsl.

17 Sep 2014 11:26:33
ED, I hope you don't mind posting this but I thought it was a really well balanced "economic" article with the PROS and the CONS

last post on the matter but I found it quite helpful and maybe some of our co-contributors will find it useful too.

_________________________________________

Here is the bad news if you haven't made up your mind whether to vote for Scotland to become independent - economic analysis cannot give you the answer.

That is partly because this dismal science is not capable of giving wholly (and sometimes even partly) accurate forecasts about the future prosperity of nations.

Look at the case of a comparably sized small country, Ireland. A decade ago many economists (and others) saw it as a RIP-ROARING success, that had become considerably richer on a per-head basis than the UK.

Then three years ago it looked like a total BASKET CASE, as its property sector and banks imploded.

Today it can be seen as a model of how a determined small country can RECONSTRUCT its economy in adversity, in stark contrast to the inertia in a bigger country such as Italy.

According to IMF calculations, Ireland is still generating A BIT MORE INCOME PER CAPITA than the UK. But, my goodness! It has experienced misery in the past few years, in the form of savage wage cuts and high unemployment.

So does the experience of Ireland prove the case for or against Scottish independence?

Well it shows the risks of being small and placing too many bets on one or two economic sectors. But it also shows the benefits of a STRONG NATIONAL IDENTITY, which empowers a government to respond fast and boldly to prevailing economic conditions.

Ireland is still CONSIDERABLY RICHER than it was two decades ago. But the ride since then has been, well, a bit hairy.

So if, as a voter in the Scottish referendum, you think Ireland is at all analogous to Scotland, what you would ponder is whether you are attracted by the flexibility and room for manoeuvre that seems to be associated with being a small nation, or whether you prefer the ability to pool and share risks - the shelter in a storm - that comes from being part of a bigger country.

In Scotland, oil and pensions seem to illustrate this choice or trade-off.

If, as seems likely, an independent Scotland was endowed with 90% of the UK's oil-producing assets, it would have the ability to deploy the associated tax revenues to nurture a more diverse private sector and to tailor public services to Scottish preferences.

But there are substantial risks here. What if the oil price continues to weaken and if production declines as rapidly as many analysts fear it will? If Scotland failed to invest the oil dowry fast enough and astutely enough, it could find itself a poorer and weaker nation than would pertain if still part of the UK.

In oil, to labour the point, there are both opportunities from independence, and risks.

The same is true of pensions. With more retired people relative to tax-paying workers in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, the cost of pensions in Scotland is a bit higher than in the UK as a whole. So remaining part of the UK would help make pensions more affordable for Scotland, by spreading the costs over a larger population.

But if the government in Scotland were to encourage immigration, that burden on Scotland could fall. And anyway, Scots may want to pay a bit more for a state pension that captures preferences that are different from those in the rest of the UK - which may be a delayed rise in the pension age, as mooted by the Scottish government.

Again there is a trade-off between safety and opportunity.

There is one other point about Ireland that is worth considering.

Ireland's economic growth as a so-called "celtic tiger" pre-dated its membership of the euro. But that growth became dangerously supercharged when its cost of borrowing plunged after the launch of the euro.

Now there is zero chance in the short term of money becoming perilously cheap in Scotland.

The cost of borrowing for Scotland as a new nation will rise, a bit, for a while. This is inevitable, while uncertainties about what currency it will use are addressed, and as its government acquires a track record as a budget maker and borrower.

And it is not just the direct cost of finance that would probably rise. As social scientist Perri 6 has pointed out, anyone across the border engaging in a long term contract for the supply of goods and services in Scotland is likely to hike the price, to cover the currency-devaluation risk. And that would squeeze the public sector, including the NHS, as much as the private sector.

This increase in the cost of capital could spur Scotland to become a more competitive and less wasteful economy. To use a hideous analogy, this would cast an independent Scotland as an efficient leveraged buyout.

Or it could lead to an economic slowdown and a loss of income that would take many years to claw back.

All that said, what Ireland demonstrates is that a small English-speaking independent country, in the European time zone, with a highly educated population, a culture of hard work and a strong sense of patriotism is likely to prosper in the long term.

What Ireland cannot prove one way or another is whether the immediate economic tariff or price for that putative long term prosperity is worth paying.

ED, the article was about the "economics" and not necessarily about

health provision
schools
pensions
infrastructure
social justice
income inequality
housing
environment

But it does show that where there is a WILL and a DRIVE, setting the turbulence to one side, there are PEAKS and TROUGHS but critically, the sky didn't fall in over Ireland and their gas lamps didn't go out!

The problem with Ireland was that Ireland got Ind . for basically the poor areas of the island . The industrialised North East remains part of Britain . Scotland's oil, whisky, wind and wave farms should be enough to equip Scotland a lot better for an Independent state than most newly Ind
States from where- ever.