And so this is christmas, as John Lennon began his immortal tune. Thats the tune thats immortal, not him. He was shot on his way home from work one day by a looney who disputed which one of them was John Lennon.
Aout for looneys. Once upon a time, the sight of the coca cola truck trundling towards you would fill you with the spirirt of the christmas. See it today, and you duck for cover.
Celtic face Hamilton at lunchtime and after Aberdeens win over motherwell yesterday, its important the hoops get all three points, because as the BBC put it..
The top two, of course separated by a mere fourteen points, and the Dons an insurmountable four behind newly promoted “rangers “.
The BBC have always had trouble when it comes to categorising elements. Miranda Hart, for instance, is lumped in with comedians, and Sportscene is classed as entertainment.
Captain Scott Brown has blasted the Hamilton pitch, getting in his excuses early one might judge, but he does have a point..
It’s always hard on your calfs, always hard on your body. But we push on to Hamilton – and a nice artificial pitch now. It’s horrible. Horrible.
“It’s always hard going from grass to astroturf. You train on grass every day, you play your home games on it, then you have to go and play on that.
“But it is what it is, we have to deal with it, try to get the three points and do better than we have done there in the past few seasons, when we’ve struggled.
“Hamilton is one of the worst. I don’t mind the Kilmarnock pitch. When it’s wet, you can move the ball and pass it quite well. Then you just have to deal with the stiffness in your body and recover the next day.”
And a Merry christmas to you, too, Scott.
Still with /brown, the Record’s Craig Swan dealt clumsily with the awkward bit at the beginning of an article that makes people want to stick with it and see what its all about..
Scott Brown was a tearaway teenager with a red mohawk who may have thought GPS were a team from Holland.
Now a responsible father of three with a Celtic captain’s armband, he realises the science of football is not double Dutch.
Brown’s form, fitness and understanding of the game has blossomed under Brendan Rodgers.
Science is nothing new in football. Even Ronny Deila used it.
It’s how it’s applied which has clicked the bulb above the skipper’s head.
Personally, I’d have used “that ” instead of “which” in the above line. And I’d have ditched all the other words and replaced them with something that made sense.
Though Browns words in the article are quite revealing;
“When I started out? I was 17 with a red Mohawk. I didn’t listen.
“It was a wee bit different, you just ran and ran.
Ah. The Broony of old…
“We were at Hibs, we were training on council fields, wherever we could.
“We got told in the morning, given half an hour’s notice of where we were meant to be for training that day.
“The coaching staff had to quickly leave, go and set up the cones, check the pitch and all that.
“There was no GPS, no heart rate monitors.
“We wore them here last year, but we didn’t do the comparison we did now,
looking at it from game to game to game. So now everything is compared.
“We’ve got ProZone all over the stadium, so we know how many touches you’ve taken, how many tackles, how many aerial battles you’ve won.
“Everything is there in the stats. It’s become more and more Americanized as we’ve gone along.
Well, I suppose that does explain a few of Craig Gordons tackles.
“But it’s good, especially for young players coming through.
“If you know how many touches you’ve had, how often you keep it, how many times you give it away, that shows you what you need to work on and it’s the best way to do it because the stats don’t lie.
“The gaffer is huge on his players, especially in central midfield, to keep the ball and make passes.
“Whether those passes are 10 or 25 yards, as long as you keep the ball moving to a team-mate, you are doing not too bad.
“Most of my passes are back to big Craig Gordon, right enough!
Which then leads to an opposition throw in…
“The Champions League is hard because you need to win the battle, but you get time to play the ball.
“Up here, everyone wants to run after you and smash you. It’s a different game.”
not everyone, surely. At least one guy is -or was-trying to teach everyone how to play football, as he’s in a different league.
“The gaffer looks at your GPS stats and makes sure you’re not battering your body.
“He can see how far you’ve run, how well you’ve done and how you’re recovering.
“We wear heart rate monitors to make sure everything is back to normal.
“So the gaffer knows when he can push you and when he can’t, how training needs to be, whether we need to work really hard or just take a couple of days to chill.
“We had a day off this week, we had a light session on Thursday because we’d had a tough game on the Tuesday night, things like that.
“It always does affect you, playing on the artificial turf. It takes a bit more out of you, because it’s solid underneath.
“It’s always harder that way. But you have to cope with it.
Incredibly, it’s christmas Eve and Celtic stillhave three games to play before the year is out, so it’s going to take a tremendous effort to get nine points and continue this relentless charge to a sixth consecutive title.
Only one is at home, ross county on Wednesday, with the two away games taking place at the “horrible” New Douglas Park..
and the neglected Ibrox Stadium…
Celtic will have James forrest back if selected, and the Forrest Sinclair combination, perhaps with Roberts as well, behind Leigh Griffiths would give us all a wee christmas treat when we settle down to watch the game.
Ah, Christmas, and those childhood memories..
The attempt by supporters from Ibrox to get themelves into the charts surpassed all expectations. They were
and achieved a splendid position of number 31 in the Christmas charts with the Dave Clark Five-similar to the Guidford Four and the Birmingham Six- number Glad Its all Over, a song about when the vile traditions of the original Ibrox club were expunged from the history of Scottish football.
Well done chaps, we’re proud of you.
However, as the record hit number one in January 1964, we hear that the Blue Bears, or whatever they’re called, are raising money to buy the history of the song from the band, to claim it as their own.
Though there were disturbing rumours a story was about to break as the establishment was rocked by another holiday disaster-mind auld Liz has a cold..
Any truth in the rumour that every member of The Dave Clark Five were assaulted by Hibs fans after the final chart @tedermeatballs?
Tedermeatballs is, of course , the badly written twitter handle of Keith Jackson, the Records top investigative reporterer. (sic )
As with all seasonal ventures into the charts, money raised from the record will go straight to Dave Clark, who is apparently a distant relative of John Clark, who was a member of the side that won the big cup that started their demise. Which kind of completes the circle.
Just to show that I’m wrapped up in the christmas spirit, I answered a tweet from Free Radio in Wolverhampton when they asked if drug addled former pop star Robbie Williams, a man who doesn’t know good career advice when its offered to him, and trust me, had he listened to me I’d have done society a favour, could have hos tune Candy Girl or something considered as a Christmas tune.. prompting the Radio station to ompare me to a well loved dickens character.
Free Radio Retweeted Richard McGinley
*SCROOGE KLAXON*
Free Radio added,
Today the Amsterdam court found another Celtic fan NOT guilty. Score: 4/4. 5 cases still pending
We will just start again, use the same assets and call it “The earth”
Today, what is this all about ? What is the master telling the apprentice ?
Whatever you are doing this Christmas, i hope you are doing it with the people who matter most to you. I hope that whatever you want, be it an expensive present or just peace of mind, comes your way.
wherever you go be safe, and make sure those who go with you are safe too.
All the best this Christmas from all of us at Etims.
Me, I’m going to watch a completely new version of the nativity story.
