Celtic And Inequality In Scottish Football

[Sonoftherock]

Thought this article - from a Daily Record blogger - was absolutely superb and deserved a thread of it's own. Made me laugh out loud a couple of times too!

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/opinion/sport/record-fc-dundee-united-celtic-6323654

 

 

Record FC Dundee United: Celtic could win fifty in a row but it means nothing in the grand scheme of things

 

THAT game was irrelevant. Four games of every season, in effect, don't matter.

 

Due to United being in the same division as Celtic, we might be deluded into thinking they are our rivals. They're not. We happen to share a country with them, but that's more or less all we have in common.

 

That was a reserve team we were up against, by and large. And they were still light years ahead of us. The gulf didn't seem to bother the Celtic fans, with their songs about winning ten in a row.

 

Try singing it to someone who cares.

 

These are the sort of people who in Roman times would have been in the Colosseum cheering on the lions.

 

It's the sort of mentality where your club can sign the three best players of another club, and then complain about a lack of competition. Trying to reconcile that in our heads would give most of us an aneurysm. Not John Collins, though. Possibly because an aneurysm requires ownership of a brain.

 

It doesn't stop their charmless manager doing his cringeworthy roar (twice!) after the game, even though it was about as much of a competitive exercise as killing a spider in your bath is.

 

Celebrating like that after beating a Scottish Premiership side seems like a clear case of punching down to me. The fact they don't see it as embarrassing says a lot, I think.

 

Games against Celtic, and Rangers when they were around, are very much things to be endured, like root canal treatment or brussel sprouts at Christmas.

 

It's hard to know during these games whether to hate them, or Dundee United, or myself, or football in general.

 

Either way, I do feel I need to cleanse my palate afterwards. By watching a nice film, for example. Or listening to one of my favourite albums. Or having a good wash, at the very least.

 

In a wider sense, football is no longer a sport. Not really.

 

Thanks to the erroneously named Champions League, and by television, the game has been corrupted and distorted by money. There was always a glass ceiling to a certain extent, but unless you find an oligarch from somewhere, you're not getting into this club.

 

The bigger clubs are not interested in competition. It's about making money to increase the gap on the poor domestic teams they like to duff up between European games.

 

The rich get richer, the gap gets bigger, and they like to convince us it's for our own good.

 

When the gap gets so big that a club the size of Juventus cannot hold on to Paul Pogba, what chance do we have?

 

The problem exists throughout Europe, to the extent that you'd need to put the mortgage on Bayern or PSG winning their respective leagues to win back enough to buy yourself a pint.

 

But back to Scotland. The Old Firm are trapped. Trapped in a country that doesn't engage, or even interest them. A league they are often in open contempt towards. Kidding themselves that beating teams with about 10% of their budget is any kind of achievement.

 

They are too big for the country they are in, in effect, due to the sheer gravitational pull of Glasgow within Scottish football, encouraged by outdated notions of political and religious identity most of the rest of us moved on from several decades ago.

 

The knowledge that so many buses depart towns up and down Scotland for Ibrox or Celtic Park every Saturday is unimaginably depressing.

They can't go down south, as England don't want them. Although Rangers did get to play league games in Berwick a couple of years ago, which I suppose is a start.

 

I do think a European league is an inevitability as the bigger European clubs will surely push for it over the next few years. The sooner they all leave and let the rest of us get on with it, the better.

 

Despite their desperate attempts to get out over the years, whenever the rest of us suggest we might be better off if they did go, they cry about how we couldn't possibly cope without them. Hoping that Stockholm Syndrome might kick in, I suppose.

 

We'd cope. Scottish football would find a level.

 

OK, that level might be slightly below the current standard, but if there was a drop off it probably won't be noticeable. And so what if it did?

Like I said, we'd find our level.

 

If we lost the Old Firm, we might struggle to hold onto our best players. Luckily, that doesn't happen now.

 

I don't know how I'd cope with having religious ditties sung at me for 90 minutes. Or without city centre pubs being turned into no go areas.

 

Or without having to look at Leigh Griffiths.

 

Or without having lunchtime kick offs, partly for TV and partly because their fans cannot be trusted to behave if the game kicks off any later than 3pm, like they are less evolved Gremlins. I might even be able to have a pint at the game, if I fancied it.

 

I bet our games against Dundee and Aberdeen would still sell out too. Besides, for all the talk of how the presence of the Old Firm boosts attendances, the Celtic game was actually Dundee United's lowest attendance so far this season. Funny how things turn out.

 

You never know. As the rest of us might actually have a shot at winning something, crowds might even go up

.

But at the moment, we have a situation where the financial gap is so huge, than only one side can ever, or probably will ever, win the league. I don't know how that can be in any way satisfying for Celtic fans, apart from anything else. It doesn't mean anything. How can it?

 

You know what? Win ten in a row. Or twenty. Or fifty for all I care. No-one cares except you. It's utterly irrelevant.

 

Sorry.

[ChutneyLove]

Defeatist shite from a typical Arab cunt. Smeltic are so badly managed that a well organised side are able to still be in with a shout near the end of the season, despite the financial mis-match. Dundee United would be one of the sides capable of mounting a challenge if their chairman wasn't revelling in the profit he can make by selling their most productive assets.

 

A couple of wins against them this season for The Dons and that league is definitely winnable. I don't give a fuck what some sour-grapes faced jute cunt has to say about it.

[The Boofon]

Defeatist shite from a typical Arab cunt. Smeltic are so badly managed that a well organised side are able to still be in with a shout near the end of the season, despite the financial mis-match. Dundee United would be one of the sides capable of mounting a challenge if their chairman wasn't revelling in the profit he can make by selling their most productive assets.

 

A couple of wins against them this season for The Dons and that league is definitely winnable. I don't give a fuck what some sour-grapes faced jute cunt has to say about it.

 

 

Spot on.

[tup]

Dundee United set themselves up as Celtics feeder club when they handed the dodgy contract to McNamara.

 

No sympathy for them, sack the manager and you stop this subservience to Celtic at a stroke.

 

Total defeatism from the jute, pathetic.

[The Boofon]

 

 

I bet our games against Dundee and Aberdeen would still sell out too. Besides, for all the talk of how the presence of the Old Firm boosts attendances, the Celtic game was actually Dundee United's lowest attendance so far this season. Funny how things turn out.

 

Our end would. jute minker

[Dynamo]

He does make some decent points but he's got to look at his own club too in selling those players to them. They weren't forced to. A complete embarrassment and insulting to their fans when they sold GMS and Armstrong before their cup final against Celtic.

[Pudgie]

He does make some decent points but he's got to look at his own club too in selling those players to them. They weren't forced to. A complete embarrassment and insulting to their fans when they sold GMS and Armstrong before their cup final against Celtic.

Aye, I find myself agreeing with both the quoted article and @@ChutneyLove, which seems daft as it looks like two opposing points. The original article is right in saying the gap is too big. If we were to stop registering for European football, it would help as Celtic wouldn't be getting millions of pounds per year and the gap would lessen but that's never going to happen. I think the best thing we can hope for is a Rangers(oldco)esque European collapse. Was it 1 game in their final 25 Euro games they won? I think that has a massive say in why they went bust. Then again, there was 2 seasons they got to the CL group stages, but I'm sure their exits to Kaunas and Malmo/Maribor were financially crippling events.

 

I don't know what Celtic would do if they had a genuine fear of a title challenge. Most of the club would see us as a minor inconvenience at the moment I assume, but if they had say a 40% chance of losing the league, would they be able to justify planning for Champions League football every season? Would the board cut the budget or would they invest to try and buy the league again?

 

Hopefully we find out in the near future.

[RAZOR]

Can we start another thread about Celtic just to ensure we aren't obsessed with them.

 

Abergreen

 

Bahhhh

[Guest RosemountRed]

He sums up what a detestable organization Celtic are and their supporters are (and managers and thumb boy).

 

The reference to Ronny Roars is hilarious.

[Sonoftherock]

He sums up what a detestable organization Celtic are and their supporters are (and managers and thumb boy).

 

The reference to Ronny Roars is hilarious.

 

I laughed louder at the John Collins comment!

[Clydeside_Sheep]

A Tangerine Retard displaying his inferiority complex for all to see.

 

After - by his own admission - losing to a reserve side, he resents their natural triumph at the win and says they are "punching down" at Dungdee USh*ted.

 

A reserve team "punches down" at USh*ted.

 

So by his own admission, they are inferior to even sellick reserves, never mind sellick. This loser mentality show up everything that is wrong with Scottish football, Scotland in general, and Dundee / Dundonians in particular. The guy should give up football and just stick to eating pehs.

 

There is not a team on God's earth which "punches down" at Aberdeen FC.

[BWG]

I do think there is merit in what he's saying. The arse cheeks celebrate beating clubs whom they dwarf financially as if they've own the champions league. Obviously this is due to these sad fucks having absolutely nothing else in their lives whatsoever but it's still cringe worthy.

 

We're not going to see an end to it until clubs like Dundee Utd take a stand against Celtic though and stop selling their best players to them. In just one season that club have managed to both significantly strengthen an immediate competitor and weaken themselves. We need 2 or 3 clubs that can consistently take points off of Celtic and that's not going to happen if other clubs keep selling their best fucking talent to them.

[tup]

The most galling thing about Celtic screaming about lack of a challenge is that they actively created the landscape in which no challenge could possibly come forward.

 

So they are the architects of their own shitness.

 

Their lack of self awareness is massive. It's a cultural thing. These folk are not the brightest.

[Ke1t]

United sold the Victims their best players right before a cup semi against that very team, didn't they?

 

United are fucking wretches, with the same lack of self respect that Aberdeen has had for the last 15 years.

[Dave Bus]

The more inequality the better, we'll win the league and it'll be hilarious

[strachanmcgheegoal]

Two factors to be considered. A decent manager meaning we're punching above our weight (or if you want a competent manager dragging our weight back to where it fucking well should have been in the first place) and secondly that unique blend of arrogant complacency and tight fistedness that is Celtic FC will leave that door just ajar for us for now.

 

Exploit it too quickly though and the cunts will just buy themselves out of trouble in January.

[Dom Sullivan]

Gossip suggests that the Manky Mob to bid for Caley's Ryan Christie.

 

Well, there's a shock if true.

 

Yup, Joan Collins is absolutely right in what she says about the rest of Scottish football - letting the Manky Mob down by not providing decent competition.

[tup]

His faither played for Celtic but bottled it with homesickness and hardly kicked a ball for them.

[muttonhumper]

United sold the Victims their best players right before a cup semi against that very team, didn't they?

 

Even worse, it was a Final!

 

they had just beaten us in the semi.

Which was lucky as fuck as well.

[RAZOR]

 

Even worse, it was a Final!

 

they had just beaten us in the semi.

Which was lucky as fuck as well.

 

Amazing to think how many games we've bottled due to having a pish GK.

 

Things will change now imo.

[BWG]

Here we fucking go again Celtic FC are buying players that they've indirectly said are shite just days before.

 

I really hope Caley don't sell him but considering who their manager is it's likely to happen.

[Pudgie]

Gossip suggests that the Manky Mob to bid for Caley's Ryan Christie.

 

Well, there's a shock if true.

 

Yup, Joan Collins is absolutely right in what she says about the rest of Scottish football - letting the Manky Mob down by not providing decent competition.

I was championing him for a Scotland call up. Looks like I won't be wrong for long.

 

 

Cunts!

[spamspamspam]

If the team they put out against utd were their back up players haven't they broken the league rules?

Thought it was written in that the strongest available team had to be fielded.

[BWG]

If the team they put out against utd were their back up players haven't they broken the league rules?

Thought it was written in that the strongest available team had to be fielded.

 

Not sure but that's kind of an impossible rule to enforce though. Unless Celtic come out and say "we fielded the weakest team we could" then you can't really do anything. All Deila has to say is that he fielded what he thought was the best team and they're untouchable. We also did it last game of the season vs St. J because we needed to rest players.

[RTYD]

Defeatist shite from a typical Arab cunt. Smeltic are so badly managed that a well organised side are able to still be in with a shout near the end of the season, despite the financial mis-match. Dundee United would be one of the sides capable of mounting a challenge if their chairman wasn't revelling in the profit he can make by selling their most productive assets.

 

A couple of wins against them this season for The Dons and that league is definitely winnable. I don't give a fuck what some sour-grapes faced jute cunt has to say about it.

Totally wrong from you there. The boy hit the nail on the head. Rather than them leave us we should have left them, then we would have football worthy of attending. I haven't for one fucking second missed the Huns coming to Pittodrie, I wouldn't give a flying fuck if I never saw the minkers again.

[strachanmcgheegoal]

I come at it slightly differently.

 

I would wish Celtic every success in their endeavours starting in the GM conference or even some European bastardisation franchise league. The reason being it would make the huns fucking heads explode if they got to go without them.

 

Laugh? I'd fucking soil myself.

[DD1903]

I come at it slightly differently.

 

I would wish Celtic every success in their endeavours starting in the GM conference or even some European bastardisation franchise league. The reason being it would make the huns fucking heads explode if they got to go without them.

 

Laugh? I'd fucking soil myself.

Why care about what the huns would think!?

[The Boofon]

Why care about what the huns would think!?

 

 

Exactly. Too many folk still care too much about a club that doesn't exist.

 

Updates on their score when they play and so on. Who fucking cares?

[RAZOR]

I come at it slightly differently.

 

I would wish Celtic every success in their endeavours starting in the GM conference or even some European bastardisation franchise league. The reason being it would make the huns fucking heads explode if they got to go without them.

 

Laugh? I'd fucking soil myself.

 

You are one sad bastard. Surely nobody can be that obsessed.

[boboisared]

 

You are one sad bastard. Surely nobody can be that obsessed.

To be fair, it's nae as bad as being proud of having the most forum meets.