Putting together the diary every day, well, most days, doesn’t require a lot of planning. If there’s hardly any news, there’s always a long running comedy saga on the other side of the city who will provide us with plenty of laughs.

So, although it’s a Celtic Diary first and foremost, I like a laugh as much as the next man, and if that means highlighting the arse they are making of things elsewhere, then I’ll do it.

John Collins, however, has no excuse.

He’s there to talk about Celtic.

The  assistant manager has enough to be going on with without adding to the media spin around the current management at Ibrox. A simple “good luck, ” or “welcome ” or “are you completely off it ? ” would have done.

Instead, we get a senior memeber of staff going down the same road as everyone else -forced to keep the appointment of an inexperienced manager at a lower tier club on the back pages.

You’d think they were trying to shift season books or something, maybe to pay off a couple of loans…

Anyway, Collins fell for it.

“It’s an interesting appointment. I am disappointed for Stuart McCall, however. I played with him at Scotland, he’s a great lad and he went in (to Rangers) at a tough time to try and get them up.

“Mark Warburton did really well by all accounts at Brentford over the last couple of years with results, but it’s a big step up to Rangers, a big move for him, The expectation from Brentford to Rangers is miles apart. You are expected to win every game at Rangers.

“He has a big rebuilding job because they have released lots of players and he needs to sign players.

“But Scottish football needs Rangers up, and they need my old club Hibs.” 

So , er, how’s the hunt for new players going ? Or, how many new books have we shifted-last we heard it was going very well ?

 “David played for a number of years at Rangers. He will be a great assistant because he knows that club inside and out.” 

John, could we get back on topic ?

 “Every manager and team is trying to get a couple in at this time of the year, it’s never easy, and hopefully we can before the Champions League qualifiers.

“These important games come thick and fast for us at the start of the season. We’re back next week, June 23, and it’s an early start because we’ve got the qualifiers on July 15/16.”  

Thats what he said the other day !

Ronny Deila is away on holiday at the moment. Somewhere by the sea, no doubt, in a quiet relaxing little fishing village, where he can walk the dog in the cool summer morning air, pondering the season ahead.

Ronny’s quiet break

Well, I think we can safely say he’s having fun.

And so he should be, the real stuff is just around the corner and we need everybody back with the batteries recharged and the same level of enthusiasm that was evident after christmas.

So it’s good to see him practicing his roar.

Thats because he hasn’t seen this rather depressing and not a little patronising article from football business writer Swiss Ramble.

Everythings gone Green

It’s well written, offers food for thought, but as it is largely a financial piece, then it’s never going to leave you with a spring in your step.

It’s what happens on the park that we remember.

Which should be reflected in the dealings between Lawwell and Deila.

So far, that appears to be the case.

There’s no point in moaning about how little tv money goes to Celtic Park. The reality is that either through a lack of marketing skills or negotiating ability -or both-then all we can do is learn from past mistakes and put it right the next time.

What we have to do nowis adapt and use what we have in the best way possible to make sure that we enjoy it as much as we can.

And anyway, who really wants to see Celtic pay millions of pound in fees and wages on average at best mercenary footballers ?

It’s not, well, Celtic. It’s not in keeping with what the club is all about.

Is it ?

So when I see articles such as Neil Cameron’s piece this morning, there’s a feeling that some who ought to know better still haven’t clicked that Celtic supporters don’t want to go down the path that led to the liquidation of another Glasgow club.

Why Celtic will need to kiss a

few more frogs in their search for

a new King of Kings 

ANOTHER day, another unfamiliar name linked with Celtic as a possible summer signing.  

Unfamilar as in Lubomir Moravcik etc….presumably.

This time, step forward an Italian/Bosnia-Herzegovina striker by the name of Milan Duric.

For those who don’t know much about him, which includes most Bosnian sports writers,  

And Scottish sports writers. Cameron googled him, got a few stats, and told Celtic supporters the club is shopping in the bargain basement again;

In so many ways this is who Celtic should be going for.Young-ish, cheap but someone who with at least some experience of playing at a good level, if not with a top team.

The way some clubs pick their managers, presumably.

Doom and gloom ? Well, thats how it always is for us…

It’s now only a calender month before Celtic play their first game of the season. The initial opponents won’t be up to much, probably. However, with the international players only now getting a proper rest, combined with the difficulty of finding the right player for the right price, right now, getting together a squad even for the champions in terms of where they need to be is somewhere south of easy. 

What’s wrong with these people ? We have lost one centre half who was here on loan, and he’s been replaced.

Deila has spoken of how he finds it strange that the Scottish football world doesn’t get behind Celtic in Europe.

Not too difficult to see what he means.

If only we could have gone into liquidation, stiffed the tax man , the creditors and thousands of our own supporters.

Then the media would love us.

There’s a theme running through countless quotes abput Warburton-about how he’s a good choice and will do a good job. Thats why I was so annoyed Collins fell for it.

They are desperate to shift season books, and it’s apparent that it’s not going to plan.

Hence this sort of headline…

King Cash ? Bees Star ?

Really ?

And a new MD ?

And last years revelation coming back ?

Vuckic could make Rangers return

They are cranking it up another notch.

It couldn’t be because King is a figurehead only, and the real owners want the season book money, could it ?

Not all of them are buying into the latest appeal…the Ninja Man, on Rangerssupporters loyal, for instance

The other day we watched Dave King as he unveiled the season ticket launch, and we listened to what he had to say.

Not a lot, but some of the stuff he did come away with was utterly bizarre.

Reviving Rangers and getting them on a reasonable financial footing will mean that fans are now “co-investors,” he told us. Great, I feel special thanks to Dave.

45,000 of us are expected to buy season tickets. When was the last time that happened then?

All of this season ticket cash is to be used on the player budget if I understood him correctly. Which begs the question: How does the club get funded throughout the season?

We won’t have 45,000 season ticket holders, that’s pie in the sky and simply won’t happen……

……The only people not seeing what’s staring them in the face are some Rangers fans that have got the blinkers on. Wake up call required.

The tide is beginning to turn right enough; the more fans I talk to, the more they are catching on. They’re now sceptical of what’s been happening over the last three months.

How is the club going to be funded over the course of next season? The sums don’t tally.

King said yesterday that the support must trust them and they’ve done everything they said they would…

BOLLOCKS !! 

He said he had the money to pay the Sports Direct loan, then why won’t he pay it? And if anyone tells me it’s so he can use it as leverage to try and get a better deal for the club then you’re deluding yourselves and misguiding others.

It’s not true, it’s a blatant nonsense. Sports Direct have security on assets worth way more than the cost of paying the loan, they also at this moment in time have our intellectual property, not to mention the fact that the retail deal is vastly reduced by not paying this debt.

How many times are we going to trust these shysters that turn up at our club and rip it and us apart ?  

Well, as long as the mainstream media are waving the flags for them, then it’s never going to end .

Which , at least, means we can laugh at them to take our minds off the rubbish they write about us.

Maybe that’s it.

We like to laugh, so the media present us with the mother of all comedies, which means we buy their papers, and it’s cunningly dressed up in the guise of the worlds most succesful about to be even more succesful club so that thier support  buy the papers and get to pretend that they are still the master race.

Or am I giving them a little too much credit here ?

Yesterday our mole spoke of what he’d heard at Lennoxtown, and delighted with the response he was out and about again last night…..in the Shawlands….in a restaurant….. and so were a couple of other guys….

With Ronny away, no-one will be signed just yet, and these two are just pals, and all we’d like to say is that this is Etims…

By the way, Ikeche Anya ? The story won’t go away just because Ronny has…

Yesterday we showed the heart rending picture of Henrik Larsson saying goodbye after his final league game at Celtic Park. I included the picture because i missed the event. You see, it was quite sunny, I was high in the north stand that day, and , like virtually everyone else around me, I was wearing very dark sunglasses….

You know the sort, like mourners wear….to hide any tears.

All grown men as well. Greeting because a footballer is leaving….

There’s more than one headline that’s been catching the eye just lately.

Here’s one, but one or more words appear to have been stolen by the gremlin who lurks on here…

Smith: Rangers  *******        a    *****************

*****       for Warburton

Finally, we’ve been looking at a holiday in Egypt, and it reminded me that of that time, towards the end of our last visit, when a local said to me

“ten camels for your wonderful , beautiful wife ! ”

If she was that wonderful and beautiful, why would he try to sell her back to me ?