Celtic Diary Saturday December 20: If You Want to Keep The History

Nearly Christmas already. Still, at least the wife doesn’t ask me what I’ve been looking at when I slam the laptop shut if she suddenly enters the room.

Christmas is a time for remembering, and a bit further on , we’ll talk about how one society is remembering and protecting a little bit of history.

But we’ll get the usual shite out of the way  first, and with the festive fixtures about to begin, spare a thought for Aleksandr Tonev-he’ll be away home to Bulgaria for a few days after his appeal against racist behaviour was turned down, and his seven match ban will be enforced.

Now, personally, it matters not a jot if someone is black or white, unless my wife just gave birth to him, and its fairly unlikely that Tonev is racist. He may have said something in the spur of the moment, but theres always a danger that an unhealthy incident is amplified, and perhaps its better he goes away for a while, and maybe has a wee think about things.

Scott Brown, the captain, is right behind the winger;

“He’s been fine. He was a wee bit devastated with the news that he was getting the ban, but when it’s one versus one, what can you say?

“At the end of the day, he’s got the ban and he’ll have to continue training. He’s been fine in training, looking sharp and will be a miss in games.

“Everybody feels for him that he’s going to be out for six matches. It’s hard because he wants to play in games and he was just beginning to get a run.

“Now he’s going to miss out until halfway through January, so it’s a hard one for him to take. He’ll enjoy getting sharper in training.” 

 With that out of the way, Brown went on to look forward to tomorrows Tannadice trip;

 “The game at our place was the best performance we’ve produced from start to finish.

“We could have scored eight, nine, 10 goals as we created that many chances.

“It will be a different game tomorrow – it’s always more of a battle at Tannadice in the first 15 minutes.

“Jackie [McNamara] and Simon [Donnelly] have got them playing really good football. They get the ball down and try and play.

“I’m not too sure what the pitch is going to be like – hopefully good – as both teams like to play football.

“I think that showed at Celtic Park in the last game.” 

I can remember that game. After the match, our CSC met up on the Celtic Way, ready to head for a swiftie before the run back, and to a man we agreed that total football was here, and that great things were ahead.

It hasn’t quite gone as smoothly as that since, and we could spend all day trying to work out why, and we’d all have different answers. But it is getting better, and the game itself could be a christmas cracker !

Paul Paton, the man accused of duffing up Lukasz Zaluska in an alleyway won’t play for United. He’s suspended after being found guilty of spitting at an opponent, even though the opponent says he didn’t, theres no footage of the incident, and he doesn’t even play for Celtic.

Tough shit.

Zaluska probably won’t start, but he deserves a few minutes at the end of the game. Theres no reasoning behind that, but it should liven the crowd up a bit.

There are a couple of players in the Tannadice line up who could cause problems, according to Scott Brown, and he singled out Stuart Armstrong for particular praise.

Not intending to unsettle him in the slightest, of course, brown offered his opinion on whether or not Armstrong would handle playing at Celtic;

‘I don’t see why not. I’ve seen his attributes when he’s been away with Scotland, too, and what he does.

‘He understands that you’ve got to show some respect but when he goes on the park he wants to win games as well. I love that about players. He works hard and wants to win games. You get disappointed if you don’t. He’s one of those lads.

‘It’s not really up to me who we sign but there are some great Scottish players out there. We signed Leigh (Griffiths) and Charlie (Mulgrew), while James (Forrest) has come through the youths as well. We are bringing in Scottish players as well.’

‘He works hard and always wants the ball. That’s the main thing. Especially in Scotland, people can go hiding and don’t want it and don’t want to play in the big games.

‘He’s a big-game player and he always seems to do really well against us. He’s aggressive, strong and is direct as well. That’s what I like about him.’

Many , many years ago, I watched a young Scott Brown go toe to toe with Neil Lennon at Easter Road. It was like watching father and son. Brown was a little wilder at the time, perhaps a little too raw, but you could see a lot of similar traits between the two.

I’m not kidding when I had a clear vision that Brown would one day replace the Irishman, as long as he had Lennon as a mentor.  Maybe Brown sees the same thing in Armstrong…

Want some gossip ?

Magnus Eikrem. Free at the point of asking.

The Norwegian has just had his contract terminated at Cardiff, where he hasn’t featured at all under the current manager, and his career stalled.  A loan deal so we could have a look at him would be a good idea.

Now, have you had to do this secret Santa shiute at work ? Its where you spend a tenner on a gift for a colleague whose name comes out of a hat, and where someone buys you something on a similar basis.

Instead of blowing a tenner on that, have a look at this instead.

m

I’ve no idea why its come up as the letter m, but click on it anyway.

Its the merchandising page of the Celtic Graves Society, who do sterling work restoring and preserving the graves of Celtic legends, some of which had fallen into decline. Well, if you know anything about history, you’ll know it needs to be preserved.

The Celtic Graves Society was formed by a group of Celtic fans after a poster on Kerrydale Street (I think it was a poster called Maleys Spirit?) had tracked down the grave of Willie Maley. It was in a state of disrepair. This then begged the question that if the great man Willie Maleys grave was in a state of disrepair, then of how many other Celtic Legends are in a state of disrepair? So a group of like minded fans got together in a Glasgow pub and formed the Society.
We are a Society formed by fans with the aim to repair and mark , if required, the resting places of old Celtic heroes. We are also trying to keep the memories alive of these great men for the future generations of Celtic fans and give them their rightful place in that they deserve in Celtics History. We are honored to have Jim Craig the Lisbon Lion as our patron and also delighted to have the support of the Club itself. We are also very lucky that we can call on many Celtic Historians who help us in our research and commemorations. 
In 2015 we are looking at various projects, which we will be sitting down shortly to discuss. The Celtic Support have been wonderful in their support of the Celtic Graves Society and we look forward to this continuing. Without the support of the Celtic Support we could not fulfill the aims that we have as a society. 

The  website is www.celticgraves.com.