Celtic Diary Tuesday July 23

Wee Oscar Knox will be Celtics mascot tonight at the Cliftonville game.

The brave four year old from Belfast has fought and beaten an aggressive form of cancer, all the while winning a place in the hearts of the Celtic family worldwide. I hope the crowd raise the roof for him, a chant of theres only one wee Oscar would bring the a huge smile to his face, and a lump in our throats.

Its what Celtic is all about, as far as I’m concerned.

Enjoy your night wee man, you deserve it.

The game itself puts me in mind of a darts match i played a few years back, in the midlands superleague. At that level you are playing against internationals and people who wanbt to be internationals. These guys took it seriously, and I remember one guy beating me so quickly that I was still figuring out whether to throw the arrows pointy end first.

He apologised, and said he needed the average for his England chances.

In the same way, Celtic should not footer around tonight, because a win is still needed for the co-efficient. Which at the moment is the most important aspect of any european campaign.

The club are fairly confident, though, with tickets for the Elfsborg game going on sale immediately after tonights match. They are on general sale, £22 for adults, £12 concessions, with £2 being knocked off the price if you have a season book, taking the total savings this season to a stunning £102 already. But, take off the price of a new sponsorless home top with a name printed on it, and you’re down to less than thirty quid-or an Elfsborg ticket, a pie and a bovril.

Speaking of the qualifiers, it seems Andrea Pirlo hasn’t given up on his dream move to Celtic, alright, my dream of his move to Celtic;

While Efe Ambrose has to be commended for wanting to improve on last years European run. Though Neil Lennon moved him swiftly away from the microphone-and presumab;ly the crack pipe

Actually, fair play to the big man. He wants to do better, and he himself can do much better now he’s settled in, commented the diary author, in what could become the sentence most often dragged up next season every time Ambrose makes an arse of it.

Things do come back to us here at Etims. Repercussions and so on. For instance, after me  moaning about the price of the top in the superstore, Paradise Road author Stephen O’ Donnell got in touch to re-assure us that the shop had not put up the price on his book, now in stock in the shop, in what was easily the most shameless plug of the season so far.

Still talking about  the club and its money making schemes, the Paradise windfall is back, with a reduced jackpot of £12,000, which , of course, we would all refuse if we actually won it. Its still the biggest half time prize in Britain, and the top money has had to be reduced because the lotteries commission says that 20% of income has to go to the Celtic Youth development fund. Still, the club proudly points out that £3.125m has been awarded to winners, and £300,000 is up for grabs this season. None of it to me , though.

Gary Hooper is back in the squad for tonights game, and Neil Lennon has refused to give up on keeping the former Scunthorpe man.

” Its between Gary’s representatives and the club in question, but for the time being he’s still a Celtic player. You never say never. If things aren’t agreed, or things don’t go through, he’ll be here for at least another year anyway. I’m hoping to speak to him, i haven’t had a chance in the past week or so. His mind may be elsewhere,( Has to be the understatement of the year -ed ) , this has been protracted for a few weeks , but I’ll just make it clear he’s welcome here and we want him to stay. ”

Based on the theory that Hooper is listening to the last person he speaks to, expect a new contract signed this week. Probably in Kris Commons kitchen.

The problem is that although a very capable striker, he just isn’t a big enough name for the top clubs in the English league, and the middle clubs want a big name so they can pretend to be big clubs. That leaves the wee clubs, and unlike victor wanyama, Hooper ( he still gets a capital letter until he goes ) knows he is above that level. Its a difficult situation for him, but he has a ready made stage to earn a move to a European club here in Glasgow. He just has to knuckle down and be patient. His England chance will come, if he wants it enough, firstly because he is good enough, and secondly, England don’t have any prolific strikers.

Even if he stays, Lennon wants to “beef up” the strike force. Poor Kris Commons. One minute he’s getting told to lose weight, then he is being told to beef up. Explains a lot of the confusion.

A lot of names are being bandied around in the papers again, Kevin Doyle, Barry Sharp, Leigh Griffiths, but none are suitable for the royal baby, who came screaming and crying into the world yesterday, surrounded by the papparazzi,  in much the same way  as his grandmother left it. ( talking of royalty, anyone else notice that now she has produced a heir, Kate is strangely reluctant to allow Charles to arrange the transport home ? )

No, baxk at the football, the one to watch is Ibrahim Toure, who spent the last Monaco game sitting on the bench looking at his phone. He wants out, and its time for another Diary prediction. It could be him.

Then there is Humphrey Ochieng Mieno, a Kenyan midfielder on loan at Azam in Tanzania,  and virtually impossible to track down on line. This might be him.

Here he is looking very intellectual winning an award. Well, it might be him. He looks like the cunning midfield schemer we need-he wears glasses, like all intelligent people do, and a suit to show he cares about himself.

Oh hang on, he’s rolled his sleeves up. Where did we find him ? 1980 ?

I think we are going to sign him. Because he fits the usual Lennon signing of never being heard of until just before he joins. And if I’m wrong, I’ll just think of someone else until we get one right.

Andy Ritchie was the maverick forward who was on the end of the cotton wool advice from Jock Stein, and Ritchie had this to say on another Celtic player, during his time as assistant to Davie Hay in the scouting team. Who is he talking about ?

” I got to imagine this giant in a hoops jersey bullying Richard Gough. ”