{"id":8934,"date":"2016-04-15T08:50:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8934"},"modified":"2016-04-15T08:56:45","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T07:56:45","slug":"be-careful-what-you-wish-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8934","title":{"rendered":"Be Careful What You Wish for…."},"content":{"rendered":"

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I<\/strong>ancelt67<\/strong> commented earlier in the week that he wouldn’t be too keen to see Neil Lennon return to Celtic, and one or two replies indicated that he perhaps could have put his reasoning a little better.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
\u00a0 Here he outlines what happens when clubs are forced to ditch their heritage and tradition, something which many see as a solution to the problems associated with the Celtic- “rangers ” fixture, which is about to become a little more regular next season, and why we should be careful what we wish for. Do we really want \u00a0sanitised football in Scotland ?<\/em><\/div>\n
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I recently made some comments about Neil Lennon’s possible return to Parkhead . I ended up complaining it may be a mistake due to his fiesty nature being provocative , and the level of attention he received from detractors via threats in his mailbox and physical attacks on his person There has always been an incendiary feeling and a mutual revulsion between bothe sets of fans of Celtic and ‘Rangers’ Maybe Neil was in his element at the helm or maybe he acted angrily at times , affronted by the invasion of his privacy and the threat s made to his life . Whatever it was., it was a period of time that left a bad taste in a lot of mouths.The flashpoint with ally the gardener made world news and for one reason or other it conjured up memories for me of another derby in my adopted homeland Australia which has been subjected to unfavourable attention by Australian mediaThey are\u00a0Bonnyrigg Eagles (Serbian) vs Sydney United (formerly Croatia)<\/p>\n

For your information these clubs play in the second tier of Australian Football. The A league, the top league is made up of new franchises with the constraints of having a salary cap and a banishment of ethnic representation and is laughably identical to the MLS
\nGo figure.<\/p>\n

We have the Newcastle Jets. The central coast Mariners (rogic) and the Melbourne heart<\/p>\n

The negative media attention is largely due to the many altercations between both sets of fans spanning five decades, and the propensity of the fans to use the game as a platform for their respective political agendas
\nSound familiar?<\/p>\n

I won’t bore you with the government interventions that lead these two clubs to change their names or how they were ordered to shred any paraphernalia and merchandise that represented political statement of a provocative nature . But it happened much to the chagrin of the clubs who were under the impression that they lived in a country where freedom of speech and expression was a constant and something the original migrants never took for granted under totalitarian rule back in the old country<\/p>\n

The clubs involved many violent skirmishes not unlike the old hibs csc and the Aberdeen or Motherwell casuals. But this wasn’t for fun it was real. Most of us are privy to the atrocities in the Balkans pre and post world war 2 and believe me the hatred is as real as the Hun \/ good guys dynamic<\/p>\n

I spent two years as a footballer playing for the Croats and I’m not joking there were times during the games when some of our players were aiming at the opposing fans with rocket shots There isn’t a rule in the rule book that states you can’t kick the ball out of play. I left the club for saner pastures after that.<\/p>\n

Pity, \u00a0I was getting nearly as much money from my paid job at the time and the club looked after me. Only ethnic clubs paid players at the time and they carried the game over here without them it would have been looked upon as an oddity for white skinned poms and scots and a few dark skinned ” wogs “. ( to use the local term )<\/p>\n

Australians were a xenophobic lot obsessed with Dennis Lille and jeff Thompson and aerial ping pong or Aussie rules. History is important to a club and too have it relinquished is a human crime<\/p>\n

Imagine bins outside paradise with militia confiscating anything with a shamrock on it. So in reality the aim was to homogenise the game.<\/p>\n

In fairness though the A league, \u00a0albeit filled with players of non anglicised names, \u00a0is growing in stature and clubs are perennially reaching and winning the Asian champions league so something has been done right<\/p>\n

Anyway back to the derby<\/p>\n

In 2005 a massive battle ensued between these two rivals that would emulate anything in Europe<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"PoliceIn Australia sporting events are policed by user pay policemen meaning that the clubs have to fork out for police presence so it’s fairly minimal. \u00a0The crowds at these games are nowhere the volume as those of old firm games but they aren’t a kick of the arse off say, hibs v hearts games so there is scope for disaster and security is well equivalent to the stewardship at Parkhead.Fairly lightweight.<\/p>\n

Where am I going with this ? Some of the derbies between these sides have been crackers and I believe the passion of the game is partly due to the history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Do we really want to see a politically correct version of Celtic \u00a0take to the field one day, \u00a0stripped of our \u00a0heritage, forced upon us by an over enthusiastic government?<\/div>\n
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Are ‘Rangers , really dead or more importantly will these future games between these two produce some of the massive battles of yesteryear ?<\/div>\n
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Only time will tell. Bring it on…<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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  Iancelt67 commented earlier in the week that he wouldn’t be too keen to see Neil Lennon return to Celtic, and one or two replies…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/bonnyrigg_wideweb__430x261.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2k6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8934"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8939,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8934\/revisions\/8939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}