Celtic Banter Archive March 21 2014

21 Mar 2014 22:12:33
Nice one Stevie. not planning on much sleeping though. was going to head for the Rock Bar but our company is a wee bit mixed so maybe not the best idea. maybe sneak up there myself though

21 Mar 2014 23:35:50
Not a good idea to go out at night with a zombie Eddie, especially to the Rock

21 Mar 2014 21:17:44
Going to belfast tomorrow morning. anyone know a decent city centre snoozer that will be showing the hoops game?

21 Mar 2014 19:35:50
Anyone seen the ridiculous story in one of todays rags that we're battling Deadco for the signature of Macheda of Man Utd. Talking of Man Utd I think the aggregate score in their CL quarter could be embarrassing

21 Mar 2014 15:27:59
Just had brief convo with Phil Mac and god that man is frustrating he gets too emotive and is quite an attention seeker sometimes to boot. Don't think he got my point. But I think it is a perfectly valid one to raise apologies for the length.

This is about the supposed offence (the emotion/feeling, not the offence as in crime as much) that is caused by the singing of certain songs and chants and general racism in football grounds and life in general.

I should point out Racism, bigotry, sectarianism or whatever you want to call it is deplorable in any shape or form. And should not be spouted by any human being towards another regardless of any supposed reason.

We have to consider what people want to gain by spouting the nonsense that they do whether it be a jibe based on skin colour, religion or what colour of socks you happen to wear.

The form of offence shown by certain people is exactly what these Neanderthals want, they want a reaction! They want a reaction that causes the person receiving the abuse to retaliate with their own Jibes, feel pain, mess up or make equally 'offensive' remarks or acts. Yes these thoughts are sometimes deeply held beliefs but 9 times out of 10 it is attention seeking, see the BNP or Westboro Baptists for a perfect example of this mix.

What does this negative 'offended' reaction get us? Well in my opinion it enforces that the opinion or belief the person exposing the vile behaviour is worthwhile. It enables them and validates their opinions, as let's face it the types who go in for this are not the brightest.

I'm not saying we should just ignore this sort of behaviour, there are plenty of laws floating about (some right some wrong) that are there to punish people who are willing to overstep the mark, however we can also stop this moral outrage and tit for tat attacks that occur when something happens. A racist is a racist a bigot is a bigot a person willing to insult, berate or demean another person no matter the other reason should not be hated they should be pitied. We should not enable their behaviour by acknowledging it via fear, offence or retaliation using the same methods they do. We should remove their power and essentially grow a thicker skin and laugh at their petty ways. The sooner these people realise that their hate fuelled opinions and beliefs no longer hold an impact on others the sooner they will re-evaluate those beliefs. Where there is wrongdoing highlight it is not acceptable via appropriate authorities (where they can be trusted, but this is a separate point completely)don't enable the person or people by going off on moral crusades stating its causing you offence as it's what they want.

We are no longer living in days where widespread racism/bigotry is accepted by what would be deemed as reasonable people, yes it still happens and it will take quite a few generations yet to breed out these persons, but please don't feed them by showing your offence (a stupid idea for an emotion if ever I saw one) it plays into their hands as it allows them to say essentially "look I've hit a nerve, I must be right otherwise they wouldn't notice"

The more we tell people that what they are doing is wrong and reprehensible and that we are offended by what they are doing the more likely they are going to continue acting in the same way or come up with different ways of doing the exact same thing but under a slightly different guise. When you know someone is in the wrong you will generally tell them however there are those who go in for this type of behaviour that simply do not have the capacity to learn via reasonable people pointing out the error in their ways.

People are always going to hate, but why meet this hate with further hate? We are a supposed advanced civilisation so where has meeting hate with hate ever got us in our lives or history as a race? We shouldn't just be looking to vilify or punish people who hold dangerous, incorrect, outdated or ignorant views. We shouldn't be getting angry with them and as I've said it enables their beliefs. They need shown in no uncertain terms that society is not set up to allow hateful behaviour and that their opinions hold no sway in the world at large, that they are an isolated group of nobodies that society doesn't want unless they are able to see that essentially we are all on the same boat. Being offended by these things is not a progressive way to feel when confronted with it. It leads to so many areas of doubt and uncertainty and we end up with ridiculous bills like the Offensive Behaviour at Football as decisions to tackle the behaviour are made on emotion and impulse rather than logic and reason.

I'm not saying we just sit back and allow a free for all on what is said or done, but maybe if people in the wider context of things controlled themselves from feeling the pain these acts are designed to cause, a better approach can possibly be found to eradicate this sort of despicable behaviour.

{Ed007's Note - Ah the Sage of Donegal, you shouldn't waste your time talking to him mate, you're better than that. He sees himself as the pied piper of the perma-offended uber fans, he's the equivalent of McMurder and just about as sensible, they are both nothing but self serving egomaniacs. Usually I just delete any posts that mentions him.
I've known him for over 20 years and he was far from impressed when he found out that the Guinness sponsorship story was an April Fool's joke I had started, according to him when he 'broke' the story it had came from his well connected and impeccable sources from Dublin!
He's the only person I know who happily and blatantly asks CFC supporters for money to help keep his blog going, it's a blog ffs, there are months when the guys that own these sites are out of pocket paying the charges for servers etc and we have hundreds of thousands more hits, the adverts we carry don't pay much because people just don't click on them so anything that comes in just goes towards the running costs. If it was that important to him the money shouldn't matter, hasn't he sold enough books to subsidise running a blog? Have a read through this:

http://goo.gl/XPIQ9h

It's not often I've agreed with Ed recently but I'm right behind him on this one Evinguu

The guy is a total roaster and so far up his own backside it's embarrassing. Thankfully I've only known of him for the past 2 yrs thanks to social media but he's someone I could gladly of went through life without ever knowing about.

He wrote a book about Rangers and tried to flog it to the Sun newspaper. Last week Celtic, quite rightly, had a piece on their website about the charity single released for Anne Williams who lost her Son at Hillsborough and campaigned for justice. I don't know about Ph*l but his sidekick took it upon herself to retweet the Celtic piece.

If you had any compassion at all about Hillsborough, you would not associate yourself with the Sun newspaper. EVER!

All this proved is these folk are false and in no way offended about anything!

The sooner some fans stop lapping up everything they say, the friggin better.

We might not all agree about the Club etc but this person is on a different level.

{Ed007's Note - I thought you might have had something to say about him lol. Even without the Hillsborough thing, he has made his name by preaching how incompetent the MSM is, then he gets a book serialisation with the lowest scum form of the MSM - The S*n!
I wonder what he thinks about them hacking NL's phone?}

The best thing to do with Phil Mac is ignore him, and eventually he'll go away. While people give him the attention his ego will continue to grow and he'll think people care about his obscene opinions. The man's a hypocrite!

Can't stand him or his sidekick Ed! Remember the 'scu*mbag' incident as well?

They treat Celtic fans as if they are daft and it really bugs me lol

I do ignore them HB but when I seen that about Hillsborough last week my temper resurfaced.

They talk absolute sh*t.

{Ed007's Note - There's that many things they've came out with that have backfired they are like a parody now, it can be funny sometimes.}

Oh I agree with most points above about about mr phil his fob off response to me of "that 'reasoning' is risible, i'm busy goodbye" basically summed up my entire point of how taking offence defeats the purpose of what you want to change! He didn't and doesn't get it, offended for offendeds sake, blind to see that this Is aslo part of the fuel to the fire in the bigotry/racism debate.

It's the words he uses the the way he'll word sentences that I can find funny.

I had a wee look at his twitter there 'risible', I have higher English and never used that word in my life. He's 'risible' :-)

You're right, way too much has backfired and he is a bit of a laughing stock.

He's also a bigot, everything he claims to hate! Most of us can be 90 minute bigots (not excusing it) but he's a full time one.

Mrs E, I must've missed this. What did he/they say about Hillsborough?! I'm not even sure I want to know, my stomach's turning at the thought of what it is!

HB, never actually said anything. It was just trying to flog the book he wrote to the Sun, a newspaper I don't even know if you can buy in Liverpool!

Then has the hypocrisy to congratulate Celtic and make a point of tweeting about the charity song.

Football fans are very often discriminated against and made out to be a shower of drunken louts - for whatever reason. Him and his sidekick have jumped on that bandwagon more than once just has the Sun did after Hillsborough with their lies.

Let me know if I'm being a bit extreme with this but I don't think so!

21 Mar 2014 13:37:09
Ed, I wrote quite a lengthy post this morning. Did it come through alright? I know I've had issues in the past with writing longwinded efforts then they don't reach you! If not it was the following:

--------------------------------------------------

Back to normal Celtic business. Probably going to get shot down for this as I've not moved on or gave up, but here goes.

If we're to qualify AND compete in the Champions League group stage next season, either for the Last 16 or the Europa League spot, first and foremost we need to retain Forster + Virgil. I also believe we need a manager who isn't tactically inept, capable of coming up with a plan B and willing to mix it up when players are out of form/fitness.

The dead wood I'd cut from the team would be: Ambrose, Samaras (leaving on a Bosman already), Stokes, Boerrigter, Mouyokolo, Griffiths*, Kayal + Forrest. I'd also like to see us bring in Alex Buttner [LB/LW] (£3.5m), Marco Capuano [CB/LB) [£1.6m], Aron Johannsson (LW/AM/CF) [£4m], Jonatan Soriano (AM/CF) [£5m] and I'd still like us to go after Alfred Finnbogason [£9m] (LW/CF).

Before anyone says we can't afford those fees. It's £23.1m on 5 players, we could possibly get them for less than that - especially if Lawwell is as good a businessman + negotiator as people make him out to be. This season we've spent £14m on 10 players - 1x GK (loan), 2x DF, 3x MF + 4x FW. Rather than spending it on players that aren't all going to make the squad/starting XI, let's bring in impact players. Dermot Desmond was telling the press the other week how he's proud as punch to be at Celtic and how big a club it is - going as far as saying we're the best performing club on and off the park in the UK. If that's the case then let's see him invest a few million of his own personal fortune, he's a billionaire so it'd be a drop in the ocean for him!

If we got those players in + out, our squad would be: Forster, Zaluska; Izzy, Virgil, Mulgrew, Lustig (vc), Fisher, Fraser, Chalmers, Toshney, CAPUANO, BUTTNER; Matthews, Biton, Broony (c), Commons, Rogic, Johansen, Herron, Irvine, McGeouch, George, Henderson, F Twardzik, JOHANNSSON; Balde, Fridjonsson, Pukki, Watt, (Griffiths), Atajic, SORIANO, FINNBOGASON.

Bare in mind that Fisher, Fraser, Chalmers, Toshney; Herron, Irvine, McGeouch, George, Henderson, F Twardzik; Watt + Atajic are all youth players from our own academy. So it's not a massive squad. About 20 first team with a backfill of youth players.

My starting XI would be: Forster; Lustig, Virgil, CAPUANO, BUTTNER; Broony (c); Matthews, Commons, JOHANNSSON; SORIANO, FINNBOGASON.

Subs: Zaluska; Mulgrew, Izzy; Biton, Rogic, Johansen; Watt/Griffiths.

* Personally I don't want him at Celtic, but I doubt we have much choice and most seem to be happy to accept him at the club.

Thoughts?

{Ed007's Note - I'm just online HB so I don't know if it came through or not.}

We have long missed the boat for finnbogasson. He is not coming. He is not interested and his agent has publicly stated that AS Roma is his most likely destination this summer

Well take away Finnbogason and go after even a UK based player such as Danny Ings (AML/CF) [£3m], Jordan Rhodes (CF) [£8m] or Charlie Austin (AMRL/CF) [£4.5m] alongside Jonathan Soriano. Philipp Hosiner (AMR/CF) [£3m] still hasn't left Austria Wien! A last resort cheap option, which is right up the board's street, is Ivan Santini (CF) [£1.5m] from Kortrijk in Belgium. Scored 13 goals in 29 this season for a middle of the table team!

{Ed007's Note - As you know HB I watch a lot of Bundesliga football and I heard someone on TV mention that Aaron Hunt from Werder Bremen is out of contract this summer. I done a bit of digging and found out that Bremen want him to take a drastic wage cut which he is not happy about. Wages in the £25k-£30k bracket and a decent signing on fee seems to be the kind of money being bandied about and Southampton and Newcastle are sniffing around.
His mother is English (and I'm led to believe she stays there) so he would be more open to a move to the UK than most German players would, they tend to stay in Germany. I know it's only Youtube but here's a short video I found:

21 Mar 2014 16:17:54
Your in dream land HB there is no way in the world we will spend that kind of dosh finbogasson is a non starter johanson miby but would doubt it! Do think we will spend big on a CF to partner girthis miby shell out five million tops on the right player also will be expecting a winger in and would like to see a number 10 playmaker! Chances are we are gony lose VVD and FF so then they will need to be replaced think we should be lookin for upwards of 12.5m for vvd and miby 9-10m for FF!

Kieran

{Ed007's Note - Can you make sure you log in Kieran, cheers.}

Jordan rhodes would be ideal if we could get him. can't see him at blackburn rovers for too long

Aaron Hunt's a cracking shout mate, would easily become a fans favourite and a £5m plus asset to the club in the future.

Kieran, I've given plausible reason how this could be possible. And by buying bigger means receiving bigger when selling on. If we can convince Southampton that Wanyama, a £900k signing, is worth £12.5m after only two seasons; we convinced Norwich that Hooper was worth double what we paid for him in 3 years; and Swansea that Ki was worth treble his signing value within 2 and a half years. Imagine what we could do with a £5m plus signing?!

This is how Dortmund, Ajax, Porto, etc have increased revenue as well as the quality on the pitch.

What I see as plausible, and what I expect from the PLC, are two entirely different things though buddy. I expect us to see the back of Forster + Virgil in the summer with two mince replacements such as "Aberdeen cup winning superstars" Jamie Langfield + Russell Anderson!

Nothing will ever change while Celtic: a) remain in Scotland; and b) under the current regime.