Celtic Diary Thursday September 4: A Couple of Major Surprises

Celtic travelled to Spain last night to face Villareal in a special charity game, for a childrens cancer charity.

Former Villareal player Ernesto Boixader lost his son to the disease not long before the European showpiece ten years ago and was so taken back by the generosity of the Celtic supporters he decided to work on the now famous Submari Celtic Supporters’ Club.

The club has now almost raised €150,000 which will fund a future research project for children suffering from the disease all over Spain. 

 ( That bit is from the Scotsman, which doesn’t make it clear which club has raised the money, so don’t blame me for the improvement in literary standards today. )

  John Collins took charge of a largely experimental line up;

Celtic (4-2-3-1) Zaluska; Twardzik, Izaguirre, Breslin, Tierney; Lindsay, Kayal; Thomson, Berget, Boerrigter; Griffiths

Subs: Fasan, Mcilduff, McCart, Miller, Hendry, Higgins

 Interestingly, the team still played the 4-2-3-1 system, and not surprisingly, were cuffed 4-2, despite taking a 2-0 lead, and despite this wonderful effort from Jo Inge Berget, who the Spaniards decided not to mark or tackle because they didn’t think it was worth it.

berget goal

 Maybe he’s not a winger after all, but a straightforward attacker.

The surprises didn’t stop there, Celtics first goal was scored by Beram Kayal, who has upped the stakes considerably in his quest for a new contract.

 Anyway, it certainly wrong footed Villareal, and it took them until the second half to find their feet, and when they did, they scored four times through striker Gerard Moreno.

 Incidentally, Gerard, if you are reading this on your mobile, trying desperately to get a signal in the boot of the car that the travelling Celtic fans bundled you into after the game, disconnect the brakelights. The police will pull the car over and if you bang on the boot they’ll set you free.

 The story relating to the game has a couple of comments below. Its from the Scotsman, and theres a little hint that supporters of Scotlands newest team-and cheapest to buy shares in-Second Rangers are still hurting;

Ah here we go again. The great do-gooders and saints of Parkhead who can do wrong. And of course they have two teams don’t they? One that gets mullered in games like this and the other that can’t beat Caley Thistle and Dundee in the SPL. Wow! I’m impressed. Perhaps one day the sad Tims on here will get off their high horses. Maybe the Co-op will lend you lot money to buy players, that is before the Polis come calling. Pathetic. 

 Funnily enough, he used exactly the same word to end his rant as I was going to use to describe it.

 We’ll drift over to comment about the new club and their latest woes just for a second, because the word is that they are in a little trouble  when it comes to balancing the bills.

 Despite a new share issue, despite several loans, it appears they cannot sell the shares or repay the money they owe. George Leatham, who lent them money last year when no-one else would, has agreed to wait for his repayment, prompting fears that the club are trading whilst insolvent, which presumably is another attempt to mirror the old club that they pretend to be.

 Their new badge should raise a few quid though;

 Sandy Easdale, one of the entreprenueurs who saw investing in the new club as a good idea, yesterday slammed the supporters who he seems to feel have let him and the new venture down.

 “We inherited a black hole the day we took over. A lot of it has been on the cards. The final straw has been the amount of fans and hospitality not turning up.

“We can’t make the numbers work so we brought the share issue forward. We wanted to do a share issue in the new year, going into the Premiership – touch wood.

“I feel we deserve a bit of support because of what we inherited. Considering that baggage, we’re going forward at a good rate with a good business plan. Obviously that plan has been interrupted by the lack of people coming to the games.”

And the shite they see when they get there, presumably.

“But if everybody is so passionate about the survival of the club then they have to come back, no matter their reasons. I’m doing my best, supporting it with my money and time for free.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing for me to ask the supporters to come back and support the club even if they like the board or not. At the end of the day, it’s about the survival of the club not the survival of the board.”

 Then he had a moan about Graham Wallace, the CEO who is due to  pick up a 100% bonus on top of his salary, which if performance related must have set the bar low enough to cause extreme consternation to even the greatest Jamaican limbo dancer.

” I could say ‘that’s a PLC decision’ so it’s above the board I am on but in fairness to Graham and CEO’s of his level, this is something in the format of their pay.

“We may not like it but when you go for guys of Graham’s calibre most will have a bonus attached to their wages. It’s hard to explain. It’s not something I want to comment on because he is the CEO and reports to the PLC board more than myself.

“For me to express an opinion would be wrong and there is little autonomy I have over Graham’s contract as I am on a different board.”  

 That lot are always expressing opinions by saying it would be wrong to express an opinion.

“People talk about George Letham’s £1m loan but I have put in £500,000 interest free. I have never once asked for it back and I’ll leave it as long as the club needs the cashflow. 

The guy Letham, fair enough, he brought the interest rate down but he’s still getting an amount of interest while I’m doing it for free. He’ll also get his money back sooner than myself.

“I’m willing to leave it in if I have to. But I don’t get any recognition for that at all. Me and my brother don’t take a salary. I have bought shares and plan to buy more. I have loaned the club money for free. I’m working for free. I don’t know what more I can do.” 

 Unfortunately for the Easdales, the current owners of Ibrox and its offspring have it all nicely tucked up. It’s emerged that they even sold the naming rights to Mike Ashley of Sports Direct for just a pound, which is poor business buy him, considering Craig Whyte got the whole lot for the same amount.

Charles Green then went on to waste £250,000 trying to get the deal cancelled, which incidentally, was reported like this by the Daily Mail at the time;

Rangers have reached agreement to sell the naming rights of Ibrox to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct, as first revealed by Sportsmail in December.
Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United, also has a stake in the Rangers International Football Club plc. Sports Direct already has an agreement as Rangers’ merchandising partner.
The deal is, due to Rangers’ lowly rank in the Scottish football pyramid following their demotion to the fourth tier, worth considerably less than £1million to club. 

 Considerably less. Perhaps they weren’t allowed to print “fucking Rangers have reached agreement to sell the naming rights of Ibrox to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct, as first revealed by Sportsmail in December.
Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United, also has a stake in the Rangers International Football Club plc. Sports Direct already has an agreement as Rangers’ merchandising partner.
The deal is, due to Rangers’ lowly rank in the Scottish football pyramid following their demotion to the fourth tier, worth considerably less than £1million to club. ” instead.

Perhaps they were refused editorial permission to use the phrase “nowhere fucking near “

 With regards to the impending administration of the new club, keep an eye on the SFA. As soon as they have done one of their shady little deals to ensure the clubs survival, we’ll knpow when it will happen. After all, it’ll only be the company that goes down …..

 Third Rangers ? A distinct possibility.

 Anyway enough  about them.

 John Guidetti, still ringing Peter Lawwell on an hourly basis for news of his loan transfer to Celtic, can now  mimic not only Lawwells voice, but the entire message on his answerphone.

 The powers that be will make a decision on Friday, or Monday, whenever their new head of registrations gets round to it. She has promised us a fair hearing.

 Celtic have announced a few fixture changes to accommodate the club  dropping into the Europa league. Effectively, we now play on a Sunday at 3pm. Which is probably as close to Saturday at 3 as we’ll ever get. Three of them are home games, and we’ll moan more about that later as people realise that season books are dropping down their list of things to buy next summer on almost an hourly basis.

 You’ve probably noticed that theres another one of those charity games this weekend at Celtic Park, between a side picked by Paul McStay, and one picked by Rio Ferdinand. Having not played proper football since his ankles were shattered years ago, it will be nice to welcome Ferdinand to Glasgow, but the day will belong to Paul McStay.

 The word legend is applied to anyone who nearly sees out a full contract these days, but McStay fully deserves the title. A Celt all his career, man and boy , as they say. And not a bad player either…

 The official site tells us that Joey Barton is “added to the star studded guest list, meaning its a star studded guest list and Joey Barton.

 If you can support it, go to the game. It’ll be worth it just to see McStay again after -wait for it-he retired seventeen years ago

 Now I feel old…..

 It was his old midfield partner John Collins curling one in at the new Mike Ashley Super Stadium , then Ibrox , in the Diary teaser yesterday.  Which will be shortened to its initials when the new sign goes up. Which could confuse a few of the regulars, if they still have any left by then.

 Today, another triumph over the forces of darkness, but who scored here, what was the game, the score and the year  ?

Incredibly, its just occured to me I was just six days old when this picture was taken…. Now I feel really old.