The countdown continues toward the big clash with the Auld Enemy on ( Ed-Can someone fill in when it is, I can’t be arsed with it -Raplh ).
England manager Gareth Southgate, the only man they managed to find down there whose bank account would stand up to external scrutiny, confessed when he was in charge at Middlesborough, where they make chemicals, he tried to sign Scott Brown from Hibernian.
“I was trying to get him to Middlesbrough in 2007 when he was at Hibs. But he had his heart set on Celtic and I could see his character back then”,
“I’m not surprised that Scott has come out of retirement for this game. I’m aware of what playing in a fixture like this means to the Scots.
“It would also seem that Scott and Gordon have a very strong relationship from their time at Celtic.”
Never before has there been so little interest in what is the oldest international fixture in the world. With Scotlands World Cup hopes hanging by a thread after just three games, its a chance for some to pop down to London, where hardly any English people live these days, and pay about a tenner a pint before re-enacting the movie Braveheart in front of disinterested magistrates on Monday.
The game itself promises to be a classic, as English players you’ve never heard of from the overhyped EPL battle it out with as many second level English based players that manager Gordon Strachan can muster before grudgingly admitting that Leigh Griffiths, James Forrest, Craig Gordon and Scott Brown are the only ones he’s got with any sort of top level experience, apart from Lee Wallace who watches all the games on Sky.
Hopefully, the Celts on duty will make it back injury free, and we can forget about the whole palaver until the next break, and meantime campaign for a return to groups of three so that internationals are played four times over an eighteen month period.
Back at the ranch, and talk intensified around Steven Gerrard joining Celtic on a player/coach sort of deal, which we can safely assume will probably work out better than some other deals the club has done for aging players.
Gerrard has experience and a wee bit if guile that could possibly be passed on to the likes of Henderson, MacGregor , Armstrong and Ajer, although , like Kolo Toure, hes unlikely to feature much as a player, except in a sort of supervisory role.
As long as he doesn’t throw a tantrum, call us all orange bastards and send in a sick note, we should be alright, as that seems to be the norm for one or two ( okay , one )of these imports, then it should work out okay.
Down south, there is talk of Virgil van Dijk leaving Southampton, and if the board at St. Marys need help with deciding his value-the higher the better for Celtic, due to spin offs, they could ask Paul Merson, one of Sky TVs knowledgable team of experts..
“I think he’s got much better since he came down,”
“I watched him at Celtic, and I think he picked up bad habits because it was that easy for him, and I think he got bigged up when he first came here.
Now, I think he’s got used to playing in this league, and the lad can play. I’m surprised nobody has come in for him, when Stones has gone for £50m, there you’ve got more of a finished article than Stones.
The way things are going, I’d say he’s worth £30m. Chelsea need a defender who can play, who can come out of defence and play.”
Another Sky expert, Neil McCann, seems to have hired new scriptwriters, as he tipped Leigh Griffiths to be the man for Scotland
“He provides a different threat to what Fletcher does and what Chris Martin does. I think he has got a more natural goalscoring approach to his game then the other two.
Er, yes. He scores goals.
Ach, who cares.
The long running soap opera at Ibrox appears to have drawn to a close as “rangers ” and Joey Barton have come to some agreement that allows the two to part on good terms.
Well, sort of good terms.
Although an amount has been agreed, it appears Barton looked for something of value to secure against the debt, which suggests he’s not confident of getting his money..
Joey Barton exited Rangers with coffee machine under his arm
after security frogmarched him to clear locker.
Keith Jackson gives us the full story,,,and it might even be true.
JOEY BARTON’S Rangers career ended last Thursday when he stormed out of the club’s training complex for the final time with his own coffee machine under his arm.
Record Sport can reveal Barton reacted furiously after being frogmarched into the first-team dressing room by a security guard and ordered to empty out his locker.
He was also clobbered with the added humiliation of being banned from using the senior players’ car park and canteen as part of a strict ‘off limits’ edict following the end of his two-month suspension for a furious fall-out with manager Mark Warburton.
As part of a peace deal Barton was expected to train with the kids until January when he will return to English football with Burnley and Aston Villa already leading the chase for his signature.
But he signed off on the sick with stress on Friday morning after just one training session with the kids.
And Record Sport can reveal that, before he left, he walked into the first-team dining room to take back a top of the range coffee machine he had bought for his team mates.
A source said: “A few weeks before his bust up with the manager Joey bought a coffee machine and had it put into the first team dining room. It was a gesture of good will.
“But after all the humiliation he was put through on Thursday he decided to take it back. It was clear at that moment that he would not be returning. The next day he was signed off with stress and he’s not been seen at the training ground since.”
Ah wait, he paid for the coffee machine. someone else no doubt brought in the coffee, someone else the cups, and so on. All workplaces do this, as it keeps costs down.
And lets face it, no vending machine company is going to put a machine any where near Ibrox, in case it gets broken into or the cash profits turned into shares.
Sooner or later, the true story surrounding Bartons stay at Ibrox will come out, and we hear that it will shock the footballing world.
The likeable big Scouser apparently took all the orange ones out of a bag of Opal Fruits-now trading as Starburst but its the same sweetie, and flung all the orange ones at Andy Halliday as a subtle condemnation of the clubs traditions and heritage.
Like the one where they hold huge parades, but not dignfied silences any more, to honour the war dead during Remembrance Month/quarter/season.
Whilst other clubs, such as Celtic , simply donate a lump sum to the associated charity.
Mind you, its not just “rangers 2 who go a little overboard, bordering even on disrespectful, as the country tries to show it remembers the war dead more than its competitiors.
Such as this puppet, who may have lost a relative in combat..
Or these pizzas, respectfully created by Tesco so that you can show your respect from inside as well..
Or Sainsbury’s , lovingly recreating the dead bodies of soldiers on their car parks in a suitable prone position, to remind us how they actually fell.
Stop the world.
I want to get off.
A feeling which became stronger this morning when news broke that Donald J Trump, the loud mouthed right winger whoi blames foreigners and minorities for the ills of the USA somehow ended up as president, in yet another tragedy to befall that wonderful big country on 9/11.
The good luck messages flew in, and this one, for those of you who believe that we are forever destined to repeat the failures of the past, is rather poignant..
Still, with the divisions created by what one pundit termed a “whitelash “, they’ll be too busy fighting with each other over there, which should give the people of the middle east a chance to rebuild their houses and go out scavenging for food without a bloody great bomb dropping on their head in the name of democracy,
Well, at least until someone sees through Trump and shoots him, in exactly the same way the Germans failed to do until it was too late.
So we needn’t really worry about Trump and the nuclear button, illustrated here by Arsene Parcelie on twitter..
And Hilary Clinton, all you had to do was answer the question about what you had done in 30 years..
Tomorrow , she’ll have to come to terms with being publicly outed as less popular than Donald Fucking Trump, so its fair to say she has finally achieved something.
Something I wouldn’t have thought anyone could manage without first setting fire to an orphanage, eating several small children on live tv before driving a truck through the pensions queue at the post office on a Thursday.
See what international football does to my normally cheerful, happy go lucky state of mind ?
There were far too many quality answers to the Caption comeptetion yesterday to pick one out, so I’d suggest a wee read of the replies if you have five minutes.
Among the ones that stood out were..
Skeleton on left- is this the queue to the rangers? I heard they were coming?
Skeleton on right- don’t hold your breath mate. I was the same shape as you when i got here
November 8, 2016 at 11:01 am · Edit · →4
Just stand there until Sevco win the league they said
November 8, 2016 at 11:04 am · Edit · →
Caption
Two of the Ibrox creditor list still waiting on payment!
Still loyally waiting for 55. Bless
Caption ‘ Monti and Charlie Saiz continue their disputes after death’
Which is which leave it up to you.
see if you can keep the quality high as you study this.. taken when the Japanese American owner was evicted in 1942 and the shop under new ownership…
forget that, too depressing.
How about this one… ?
As I finish this off, confirmation is arriving that Donald J Trump will be the next, and probably last, President of the United States, as this political map, showing the results, tells us how the United States looks from today.