Celtic Diary

Tuesday September 11

 International football hogs the headlines again as Craig Leveins swashbuckling Scotland play host to Macedonia tonight. the game is on Sky sports at eight o’clock, and should help those with sleeping problems. The manager has moaned about the booing that he got from the crowd after the debacle of the Serbia game, complaining that fans shouting for a player to come on will makre no difference to him. Go down that path, he says, “and you might as well let the fans pick the team”

 Works for me. They are not going to do any worse than Leveins Wattenacio style. Ihad a ticket for saturdays game, but refused it. The fellow who got me it began the conversation with a hearty”I’ve got you a ticket for the Scotland game! fancy it?”

 I said “you can’t make me” , and put the phone down.

 Maybe when the crowds dip to around 25,000 Levein and the SFA will get the hint. Anything less than a convincing win tonight, and Levein will have cost us a World Cup finals place before most of us have learned to recount the names of the country in the group without checking in the paper.

 Theres half a dozen fixture changes to delight us over the next three months as Santa Claus starts to rear his ugly head. As ever , its the away games for tv schedules that mean those of us who have to travel will be starting at unearthly hours and embarrassing ourselves by being drunk when most people are wondering how many slices of toast they want with their morning coffee. The visits to St. Mirren, (Oct 20 which follows a UCL game) Aberdeen on Nov 17 and Kilmarnock on December 8 are all lunchtime kick offs, while the visit to Tannadice has been moved to Nov. 4 A date for the postponed Dundee Utd game has also been announced, its on Wednesday December 12

 The African paper “The Daily Nation” has claimed that sh1.3billion rated Victor Wanyama is about to be offered a new contract, which will probably incude Thomas Rognes wages. The rating makes Wanyama our first player worth over a billion , although the strength of the currency may be called into question.

 Andreas Hinkel, the full back who was the subject of an assassination attempt from Kyle Lafferty during a game against the now defunct Rangers club, has announced his retirement from “pro football”. he intends to stay within the game, but feels he doesn’t want to prolong his career by taking a contract with a team just to run down the clock. In a world of mercenary footballers, who these days often don’t even know which club they are signing for, sometimes even after joining, his attitude is refreshing and honest. Always a favourite with Celtic supporters, certainly as a person, and we wish him all the best.

Meanwhile, over in Lalaland, the real world appears to be somewhere that other people live, as Charles Green, the man who has undertaken the task of putting Rangers back at the top of Scottish,European and World football continues to burble his defiance, pandering to the Rangers support.

 “There are powerful representatives from clubs within the SPL,-not all of them by any means,who appear hell bent on inflicting as much damage on Rangers as possible.”

 Of course, its debatable whether anyone could inflict as much damage on the club as David Murray or Craig Whyte has already done, but the doolally Yorkshireman doesn’t mention them. Its those nasty people at the SPL who are out to get him, and with the dual contracts issue being discussed today, he still doesn’t seem to understand that his club broke the rules for years, have yet to be punished, and no amount of playing to the gallery is going to change that. However, it does perhaps explain the statement a few weeks ago that rangers might well refuse to re-enter the SPL as a way of protesting against their treatment. If the case goes against them, and it should, then a possible punishment is a ban from the SPL, perhaps lasting quite a few years…

 He has refused to attend todays hearing, either in person or via proxy, saying

 “The club cannot continue to participate in an SPL process we believe is fundamentally misconceived. Neither the SPL, nor its commission, has any legal power or authority over the club because it is not in the SPL. for that reason it has no basis on which to appoint its commission. The club ceased to be subject to the SPLs rules when it was ejected from its league.”

 Where do you start with that?

 It wasn’t ejected, it went into liquidation.

 The crimes were commited, alleged crimes that is, when they were in the SPL.

 I think he’s really gone this time. Has the chemist run out of his tablets?

He continues

 “The SPLs silence on these issues is deafening”

 They are probably still staring at the statement, jaws on their chest, wondering if anyone can really be that stupid.

 In a game of bat and ball over in New York, Andy Murray retained his British nationality, and won the American Cup, or something. so well done to the dunblane dynamo. Andy is normally a depressing and serious type of chap, so its nice he won his first big trophy on  World Suicide Prevention day.