Three and in – not just another football blog

“Neil’s keeping a low profile.” murmured Johan Mjallby last Friday to an assorted press pack before Celtic’s – postponed – Scottish Cup tie with Inverness.

Even before the one-sided “Battle Of Parkhead” Lennon had taken to sending his hulking Swedish assistant, or Alan Thompson his affable Geordie first team coach, to conduct media duties.  Why? Most managers would be revelling in their teams relative successes. Especially successes which have seen you out gun your main rivals in the league then dump them out the main domestic cup.

No, Lennon has taken police advice. In the last month he has been woken in the middle of the night by Strathclyde Police three times to be moved to a safe house after credible death threats were received. Numerous internet boards and facebook pages have threads or groups asking for information on his whereabouts so he can be killed or suggesting ways how he can be killed.

Bullets have been posted to him. He is now under 24 hour Police guard.

He probably feels safer sitting in the stand and though that was enforced – he is current serving a 4 match ban which was recently increased to 8 – the police might have instructed him to do this anyway. Lots of wide open spaces on the touchline.

At the recent Old Firm summit, a sickening political photo opportunity masquerading as a purposeful meeting, this was not one of the main agenda items. The Scottish press report but will not condemn the treatment that the Celtic manager is receiving.

Rangers, who the guys issuing these threats are linked with, have been silent also.

The issue is being skirted around because the general feeling that is that Lennon has been passionate, over the top, and mouthy – so basically he deserves this treatment.

In my numerous years watching the game, I have seen Ferguson, Wenger, Muhrinho, Bruce, Pardews and other assorted touchline ranters behave worse than Lennon. I’ve seen them defend their team to the hilt and question perceived injustices. Squaring up to other managers? Aye, tick that box also.

Have they received death threats?

Lennon reveled in his status as hate figure when he was a player. He has done things that he shouldn’t be proud of and I’m sure he isn’t proud of them. His niggling, jack russell round the ankles pest type style of play, added to an unbelievable desire to win was fueled by his perceived image.

He was never a dirty player. He was prone to the odd hot-headed outburst but it’s never been questioned why he was found so despicable that EVERYONE bar the Celtic support in Scotland hated him. The party line was it’s his manner and the way he plays.

Over the years there have been more loathsome men to take to the pitch in Scotland than him. In the last 10 years only three players have been roundly abused in every ground they have visited. Lennon, Aiden McGeady and El Hadji Doiuf. I’ll let you spot the odd one out.

The Old Firm last week got the blame for Scotland’s social problems. Domestic violence, drink abuse and sectarian behaviour was all laid squarely on the doorstep of the clubs. I suppose it’s easier to blame others than take a good look at yourself and ask what can we do to stop this. Firstly let’s start addressing the main issue.

Why does Scotland hate Neil Lennon? There’s a prize for the correct answer.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at The Celtic Blog.

Just watching the Old Firm derby and, as expected, the Senegalese striker is getting plenty of stick from the Celtic fans.

However, to be fair to Diouf, while certainly a thoroughly dislikable person and footballer, he isn’t the worst thing in the world. Here’s our list of 10 things worse than El Hadji Diouf.

1 – Cancer

2 – Having to eat your own poo

3 – Being trampled by elephants wearing Doc Martens

4 – A weeping, pus filled boil on your helmet

5 - Giving your dad a blow job

6 - Phil Collins

7 – A snot pie with a spunk crust

8 – The quality of the football in this Old Firm game

9 – Adam Sandler’s movies

10 - This list because there’s nothing fucking worse than El Hadji Diouf.

The clock struck 11pm on the, frankly, ludicrous, Transfer Deadline Day and neither the world or Jim White imploded. Much to the disgust of Rupert Murdoch.

Despite Liverpool courting him, Man United rumoured to be sticking thermometers up his behind and Spurs amateurish efforts, Charlie Adam never left Blackpool. I’m glad. The thought of Charlie Adam as a £10m player would tarnish the image he has in Scotland.

We may have to have admit that he is quite good and that wouldn’t do.

Charlie Adam is a joke figure to the football folk north of the border. He is still that youngster who was unfortunately blessed with excess puppy fat, a face that looks like it had been put on fire then patted out with a shovel and teeth that no dentist would touch.

He first came to prominence when he went on loan to St Mirren. While watching Soccer Saturday his name would appear often as he scored 9 goals as St Mirren won the first division. St Mirren that season were a decent coupon bet.

Paul Le Guen then flounced into Glasgow promising Gallic flair, style and excitement. Adam got his chance under Le Guen at Rangers but Le Guen was also the master of his downfall (in fickle football supporters eyes, mind).

As Le Guen struggled to introduce any sort of cohesion to a team that flattered to deceive, the manager accused players of not being great athletes and suggested their diets didn’t quite suit the needs of a professional athlete. He claimed that the players regularly turned up for training worse for wear, drank Coca Cola and ate crisps.

It was christened Monster Munch Gate as everything, you know, must become a gate and not just be an incident.

Adam was the perfect foil for this ridicule. His shorts looked like they were two bed sheets sewn together and he was the prime example of someone who looked like they followed a deep fried diet to almost OCD levels.

From that point on Adam was never taken seriously. The Celtic fans sang songs about his sisters pants (we don’t know if he has a sister), which is still sung to this day, and even Rangers fans saw him as a joke figure.

It didn’t matter what he did on the park. He won Rangers Young Player Of The Year in his first full season and has scored more goals in the Champions League than Kris Boyd.

He fell out of favour at Ibrox when Walter Smith started questioning his work-rate and attitude of the pitch. Another nail in the Adam coffin. A parting of the ways was inevitable.

A loan move to Blackpool brought further mirth on Charlie. A donkey going to Donkeyville and a place where people live on chips and beer. I found it hard not to imagine him standing on the South Pier, eating candy floss and ice cream trying pull passing hen nights in a ‘Kiss me quick!’ hat.

As rumours that he might actually be a player started to surface they were ignored. The Scottish Media stated Smith was right to get rid of this bad apple (or kebab in Adam’s case) and that he was just another in a long line of failed Celtic and Rangers youth players.

How times change.

Last week he was hailed as the future of the Scottish national side and a young player called Jamie Ness, who has played a few games for Rangers, was called the new Charlie Adam.

Though I gasped a few weeks back at a pass he played for Blackpool I still see a fat bloke, with a sometime decent left foot whose sisters pants smell from the east to the west.

That will never change.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found, not eating Monster Munch, at The Celtic Blog

Happy New Year.

It’s been a long time since I’ve dived into the cesspit that is the SPL but I figured that it was about time all you Premier League devotees got some poverty porn. You need to see how the others live without the excess of Murdoch.

Yesterday, it was agreed – in principal – that a 10 team SPL is the way forward for a league that is dying on its arse. It’s not the best solution but, as usual, money dictates. The dissenters who wanted a 14, 16 or an 18 team league have u-turned when, we can only assume, the figures were presented to them.

Dundee United chairman, Stephen Thompson, who was one of the whining voices (he actually proposed that after 34 games the top four should playoff for the title!) said like the Mother Teresa of the Scottish Game: “This is about doing something for the benefit of ALL the clubs in the country. I’m willing to give up a little bit of money for the greater good of Scottish Football.”

The broad agreement is this. A top league of 10 and a second tier of 12. Earlier season starts, winter breaks and clubs outside the ‘Big 22′ playing in regional leagues. There will also be provision for clubs who can afford it for ‘Colt’ teams to be entered in these regional leagues.

Will it work? Unsure. It’s not really a massive change to the top flight of the game. Teams will still play each other 4 times a season. I was all for a larger top league but in hindsight I don’t think Scotland has a large enough pool of decent players to make a 16 or 18 team SPL workable. The Dutch have an 18 team league but they have better players than us.

Do we have enough decent clubs also to make it workable? A look at Dundee’s flirtations with disaster suggests not.

Would you rather see your club play Celtic or Rangers 4 times a season or get a trip to Queen Of The South instead? The TV companies would rather have f0ur Glasgow and Edinburgh derbies than find space in their schedule for Hibs relegation battle with Dunfermline. The big clubs playing each other f08r times is more attractive to the casual onlooker.

The reconstruction is a victim of circumstance brought on by years on neglect. Switching to a 10/12/Regional set up is only the first step to recovery. Even then unless there is a change in mindset, in-terms of coaching at all levels, and also a full clear out of the organisations that rule our game, it’s all just window dressing.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic blog.

It’s been a few weeks since we last hooked up. The SPHeLL is recovering from referee strikes, a cold snap that has seen some fans having to put on jumpers and more white stuff than Frank McAvennie can handle.

We have seen a whole fixture card wiped out and a part-SPL weekend when some of the early call-offs could have gone ahead. Celtic seemed to have borne the brunt of this as their game against Kilmarnock was called off on Thursday. They blamed police advice for this and the police have taken the hump and suggested it was the club and the SPL who made the decision.

As usual when games start falling foul of the weather and parks become rutted like the surface of the moon the thoughts turn to League reconstruction, winter breaks, dancing girls, lager in stadiums and good steak pies.

Neil Doncaster has come out with his plan to save the Scottish game. It’s aimed solely at those whose self interest and greed see only £ signs. The fans? Stuff them they are only muppets; the main aim is to ensure that the money is good and we keep that Mr Murdoch happy.

The plan is for two leagues of 10 with the rest being regionalised. The leagues will start earlier (to avoid European humiliation, heh!), there’ll be a winter break and play-offs to sort out promotion and relegation.

The problem with the SPL is that you play each other 4 times a season. This gives you 38 games a season after a ludicrous split when 33 games have been completed. Only 3 other leagues in Europe play more than 36 games.

EPL, La Liga and Serie A. Next up is the Bundesliga and Eredivisie with 34. This begs the question why the hell does a small league like the SPHeLL play 38?

Well, the pitiful Sky deal we have at the moment (£13m per season) would be even less if they only had two Celtic v Rangers games to show. The chairmen of the other SPHeLL clubs quite like that 4 times a year the cash cow of the Big Two fills their coffers.

This proposal is designed to keep this status quo plus dangle the carrot of increased prize money and parachute payments to the smaller clubs at the bottom of SPL1 and in SPL2.  It won’t improve the product, which is the major problem.

The proposal is being meet with a lukewarm response. Quite right. It’s about time we realised that we are small country up the Baltic end of Europe.

Play less games, allow clubs to install pitches that won’t look like Moxy from Auf Wiedersehen Pet at the sign of frost, place the emphasis on youth development and reward that development, not the fact that you’ve got a fancy stadium you can’t fill.
Then decide when the winter break will be.

Which will be difficult as it’s winter here from about July.

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The Lord of the Wing can be found shivering through the cold at the Celtic Blog

In a sensational twist today the footballing world was rocked to it’s foundations.

One time Rangers fullback, now Tottenham Hotspur striker Alan Hutton, has today been revealed as the man at the center of an nationwide smuggling cartel of what sources are simply calling. ‘The White Stuff’.

Hutton is no stranger to controversy of course. The Scot hit the the headlines off the park not long after he joined Spurs when he went for a quiet all day drinky poo bender with some family and friends in London. This soiree climaxed with Hutton battering the living monkey out of his old man in broad daylight.

This time though the consequences are likely to be somewhat more significant than merely leaving his dad needing medical attention. Experts told us that the cost of valeting his passion wagon could run into tens of pounds. The Metropolitan Police declined to comment.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was Celtic chairman John Reid questioning their honesty. A former Blairite Home Secretary questioning anyone’s honesty is hypocritical. It’s like Katie Price telling young girls not to get their tits out.

So, the Grade One refs in Scotland have decided to call strike action this weekend. It’s not strike action but a withdrawal of service. They cite fear for themselves and their families after an increase in – unreported – abuse. They have no demands like most strikers have. No manifesto of change that they want to see implemented.

Their strike just seems to be in support of their disgraced colleague and boss who have admitted lying to a SPL manager, falsifying a match report, covering up this lie and only coming clean when it was exposed in a paper. That and they don’t like being told that they are not very good at their job.

The SFA and the SPL were caught by surprise. You see the men in the middle have never informed them of ‘unprecedented levels of abuse’ despite them having regular meetings with the refs. True, Willie Collum did receive some abusive phone calls after the Glasgow derby four weeks ago when he gave a penalty he didn’t see.

They weren’t the death threats that have been reported, Collum has admitted that. Also, the mass media reporting that the linesman involved in Tannadice-Gate, Stephen Craven, resigned due to death threats, again, denied by Craven, are wide of the mark after Craven came out and admitted he resigned due to his treatment from Dougie McDonald and Hugh Dallas in the wake of the Tannadice incident.

The SFA are planning on bringing refs from other associations if an agreement is not reached with the spit-the-dummy officials. This has seen an unprecedented level of vitriol and abuse from the press with the word scab being used to stoke the fire of ill-feeling. A word so outdated it was last used when Aberdeen were successful.

Officials from the SFA and assorted rent-a-gubs have been making sinister quips that this whole thing has sectarian undertones and certain clubs should stop this innuendo. Do you think they are talking about ref’s chief Hugh Dallas who seems to be on gardening leave after being caught sending an e-mail concerning the Pope and child abuse? Or that UEFA have again warned Rangers over their fans witty repertoire?

No, I don’t think so.

Instead of being thanked for having the face to stand up to and point out to the SFA the deteriorating refereeing standards since Hugh Dallas took over as boss – see Craig Thomson’s performance last night in the Ajax v Real Madrid game – plus trying to force the SFA to modernise from the current warren of committees, meetings, lack of transparency in their disciplinary procedures – which saw a referee admit he lied, falsified a match report, cover it up but still keep his job -  Celtic are being vilified in a massive smear campaign that deems them sectarian bigots.

Make no mistake Celtic want blood in all this. Dallas and McDonald must be the first to go. If the refs go on strike this weekend then they should all be sacked for bringing the game into disrepute.

Rip it up and start again.

If that doesn’t happen, can we come and play in England?

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic Blog

Last week saw the SPL’s bad boys take centre stage. David Goodwillie and Derek Riordan got all the headlines on Monday.

Lets start with Dundee United striker Goodwillie. At 4am last Wednesday morning Goodwillie and three of his United team mates were involved in an incident in Glasgow City Centre. The incident saw one of his team-mates receive hospital treatment after an ‘unprovoked attack’ and one of the attackers receive hospital treatment.

Goodwillie and Riordan were nearly as bad as the photoshopping

Goodwillie was arrested along with the attacker and a United youth player, Those three were charged while Goodwillie was released without charge but the matter is still ‘under investigation’. Not the first time Goodwillie has been in trouble during a night out.

In June 2008 he was fined £250 for an unprovoked attack on a man in a night club then in September 2009 he knocked out a first division rugby player – also in a nightclub – which saw him receive a £200 fine. Add to that being thrown out a trendy Dundee nightspot -  if there is such a thing – for having sex in the toilet then we have a package that can be labelled a character.

He is currently Scotland’s young player of the year and has scored 8 goals in 10 games for Dundee United including 6 in the last 6 games which, I think, could be a record for United. It’s hard not to see the Duncan Ferguson comparison. Both are from Stirling, both played for Carse Thistle Boys Club – like the author of this article but not to any great standard – and then both signed for Dundee United. Will Goodwillie end up at Rangers?

Well, rumours are that with Kenny Miller for the off then Goodwillie is seen as the perfect replacement. He plays on the shoulder of the last man, has pace and would suit Rangers style of play.  The problem is his charge sheet. Some will look at it as a 21 year old being a bampot due to his status. Can this be changed in time? Hibs Derek Riordan suggests that it can’t.

Riordan started the whole young player with a dead ferret hairstyle and an attitude towards nightclub bouncers syndrome. He was prone to the odd mishap in a nightclub, which usually involved bouncers being struck and is banned from every pub and club in Edinburgh.

Like Goodwillie, Riordan has talent. Gordon Strachan thought he could change Riordan but failed because Riordan simply didn’t want to. In the last week Colin Calderwood gave Derek Riordan the captaincy of his beloved Hibs. Riordan spoke of his new found maturity to anyone who would listen.

He showed this in the Edinburgh derby when, with Hibs 2-0 down with two minutes left, he assaulted Hearts player Rudi Skacel getting a straight red card for his troubles.   Riordan and Skacel have previous. 5 years ago Riordan was filmed singing “Rudi Skacel is a f*cking refugee” in an Edinburgh pub with a dozen or so Hibs fans. Hearts manager Jim Jefferies highlighted this after the game.

Riordan is now 27. It may be to late for him and he may regret in later years not screwing the nut and getting out of Edinburgh. Goodwillie is 21 and should be looking at Riordan and seeing a road that he doesn’t want to go down.

Would the goldfish bowl of Glasgow really be his best option?

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic Blog and certainly not biffing rugby players in nightclubs.

As Stewart Regan squirmed his way through a press conference where he was explained the decision the SFA had reached over Tannadicegate (when Celtic were awarded a penalty then referee Dougie McDonald changed his mind) he must have known that he was becoming the Chemical Ali of the Scottish game.

How he could read a statement that said “the post match administration process had not been completed to the required standard” without mentioning that the post match administration contained a lie that was concocted straight after the game by referee Dougie McDonald and his assistant Steven Craven and expect to get away with it is beyond me.

How he could sit there and not lambast the parties involved in the initial lie – a lie that saw the referee supervisor and Neil Lennon lied to plus a match report completed that was false – and the subsequent cover up means that he is already a dead man walking only months into the job.

The match report states and Lennon was told that the penalty was over-turned due to Dougie McDonald being called over by linesman, Steven Craven, who was meant to have shouted: “Dougie, Dougie” to attract the referees attention.

This was the work of fiction. Craven recalls the incident as:

He then ran towards me and said ‘I think I’ve fucked up. Did the keeper get a hand on the ball? I told him I believed the goalie played the ball and that it wasn’t a penalty so he decided it should be a drop ball. To make it clear Dougie approached me, I did not call for him to come over.

Dougie McDonald admits this was the correct version of events.

It’s when the pair return to the referee dressing room things get really dangerous and makes you question how many times things like this have happened. Craven continued:

Dougie said that we should tell the referee supervisor (Jim McBurnie) that I called him over to question the penalty award. He claimed it would give the decision to overturn the spot-kick more credibility. I went along with it because I wanted to be supportive of Dougie and back him up.

McDonald has a slightly different version of events. In numerous interviews after Cravens revelations, in a Sunday newspaper – which claims not to have paid him for the story – he pleaded:

After the match we were in our dressing-room and Stevie pulled out the wire on his communication device before removing my earpiece. Then he asked ‘what are we going to say to the supervisor?’ I just said ‘I don’t fucking care what we say to him. Just say that you called out Dougie! Dougie! and that I came over to you. The supervisor (Jim McBurnie) came in, sat on the edge of the bath and asked what had happened .We told him and later when Neil Lennon came in we told him the same thing.

McDonald claims that because he didn’t initiate the conversation about the incident the idea to lie about it came from the linesman. There seems to be a detachment from his stated fact that he came up and went along with the lie.

He has arrogantly stated that it was only a ‘white lie’ and like telling children about Santa. This guy really does live in self absorbed bubble. Like most of the press in Scotland he seems to believe that because he didn’t cheat on the field of play then this should be swept under the carpet.

The authorities have already tried to do that with a whitewashed investigation and have only been forced to reveal all after one of their own blew the lid on what had happened and claimed that head of referees, Hugh Dallas, tried to cover up the lie.

Dallas and McDonald claim that they set the record straight the following day and that Hugh Dallas’s integrity should not be questioned. Dallas said of the incident the day after it happened:

Dougie, after having given the decision, then received information from the assistant referee that the goalkeeper had played the ball from the better position that the assistant referee was in.

At this point all parties involved agree that Dallas knew that Lennon and the referee supervisor had been lied to and a falsified report submitted. The above comment puts the full blame on the reversal of the decision on the linesman.

But wasn’t this a perfect time to clear up the whole incident rather than not mention what really had gone on? After Steven Craven resigned the SFA only called an investigation.

Before the investigation was complete the SFA had leaked to the press that Steven Craven had resigned after the incident (see last weeks blog) due to threats to his family and that he had a long standing injury, which meant he was going to resign at Christmas.

Craven states that the reason he resigned was due to him being made the scapegoat for the decision, he does admit that his son got some school ground banter over the incident and that he had suffered bullying and harassment at the hands of Dallas and his cronies.

Dallas denies all allegations and may be seeking legal advice. No word yet if it’s from Tommy Sheridan.

There was some football played……but whos’s interested in that?

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The Lord of the Wing can be found at the Celtic Blog and not bullying officials children on their way home from school.

As Glasgow – ok, Scotland – does what it does best by feasting over the rotten carcass of the first Glasgow derby of the season one thing seems to be missed.

Rangers are unbeaten in all competitions this season. Only Man Utd and Valencia haven’t lost to them and they are on their best run since 1929. A team on the crest of a wave and their superiority over a transitional Celtic side – who have over-achieved domestically this season – their 3-1 victory shouldn’t come as a surprise. The feeling that if you won a Rangers player in a raffle you would hand them back may have to revisited. They are a perfect example of a well drilled team who are more impressive than their individual parts.

Kenny Miller makes the international "I've scored two goals" gesture

So to the controversy. In typical Glesga fashion it’s paranoia on one-side and selective amnesia on the other. Both managers were asked to comment on the referee Wullie Collum (yes, it does sound like a sex toy). Lennon was rightly critical of the referee after he gave a penalty to Rangers after being caught out by an outrageous dive from Kirk Broadfoot.

What made matters worse, for the green half anyway, was that the referee had his back to the incident. TV pictures quite clearly showed this to be the case. At the time of writing the SFA have not backed the referee as they have other things on their mind (more of that later). Rangers boss Smith advised that Celtic should stopped heaping pressure on referees before these games and by constantly questioning decisions and writing to the SFA for answers . This from a manager who in the past has been known to openly question impartiality without censure. As a linesman called Murphy will testify too.

Lennon said of Collum before the game that the referee needed to be strong as he was making his debut in this game. Nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t heaping pressure on the referee but just stating a fact. You could say more pressure was put on the referee by a paper who stated in an article that they found it ironic that a religious education teacher in a Roman Catholic School was being put in charge of this fixture. Only in Scotland would this have been commented on.

We will never know if the decision not to award the penalty, Rangers were 2-1 up at the time, would have had a bearing on the game. The SFA can’t back the referee on this occasion as it’s clear the decision is wrong. It will be interesting what happens to a referee that was one of the rising stars of the Scottish game.

The SFA are under pressure. They would have wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon after the previous weeks events in Dundee when Celtic were awarded a penalty by Dougie McDonald whom then changed his mind – on advise from his linesman, Steven Craven – and awarded a drop ball that he didn’t allow Celtic to contest.

Tv pictures show that it was a dubious penalty and that the Dundee United goalkeeper did touch the ball before taking out Celtic striker Gary Hooper. There could have also been another penalty award just before that challenge when United defender Gary Kenneth pulled back Hooper.  So what’s the fuss over a referee changing his mind and awarding the perceived correct decision? Well, there seems to be some inconsistencies with the explanation of the reversal of the decision.

Afterwards the players said that the referee said that the linesman told him he made a mistake. When the penalty was awarded the linesman took his place behind the goal. No flag and no attempt to call the referee over. The referee went over after the United players sent him there. Lennon stated afterwards he had asked for an explanation, got one and accepted it. He wasn’t happy and Celtic wrote to the SFA for further clarification.

The twist in the tale is this. The linesman has resigned as a professional referee and dependent on what paper you read it’s either because of the personal abuse he has received since the incident – it’s reported today that Wullie Collum has also received death threats since Sunday – or that he is not happy with the reporting of events and feels that he is being hung out to dry by Dougie McDonald and Hugh Dallas (head of the referees), who is trying to protect his top whistler.

This will either see Celtic vilified or bring down a house of cards for the SFA.

Heh, I haven’t even mentioned the singing about killing the Pope and burning down chapels, the Irish famine, about some Boys Of An Old Brigade or throwing seats at rival fans while celebrating goals.

Glasgow. Smiles better.