Hail Rangers... and sharing music

By the logic of many Celtic supporters, Rangers are a great team -- since they won the league and cup double today. In four seasons, with 12 trophies available, Celtic won six under Gordon Strachan, of which three were league titles. Not bad. Not great.

Spotify has already been mentioned but drop.io is another music sharing service. Instead of streaming music, like Spotify, you upload and download tracks. I've set-up a shared drop for this blog, including some old classics and song new ones:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Next Manager Poll

How about a free text choice where other names can be suggested?

I have a feeling we will go for a cheap option that has enough "Celtic" in them to shut up the vocal minority. I hope we go for someone who has been relatively successful in Europe within a limited budget.

I also want some others to follow Strachan out of the door (McGeady & Boruc will do to start with).

George Carlin - People's Rights

George Carlin - Religion

George Carlin - the Ruling Class

Posted this as it follows on from the War clip and has a good bit about the Ruling class. The rest of the clip isn't his best ever material.

George Carlin - we like war

From youtube, unfortunately there is a minute of HBO intro credits to skip past. This dates from 1992 but if you didn't know it could easily be 2003. Very Orwellian.

Why bias to the Huns will never be acknowledged

Someone on CQN suggested the idea of creating a spreadsheet to record decisions such as penalties awarded for and against Celtic and Rearrangers, fouls, yellow cards etc. as cold, hard statistical evidence of bias against our club and in favour of The Establishment team. I think this would be an interesting exercise and could indeed come up with significant statistical evidence of bias but there are a few problems in terms of the weighting attached to the data that would be collected.

For example: Penalties. Rearrangers get a Davis-esque penalty against the Diet Huns which hands them a 2-1 win and 2 points, whilst Celtic get a penalty whilst 3-0 up to St.Mirren. There is a big difference between the two, however the stats would read penalties tally = Rearrangers 1 Celtic 1 = no bias at play.

Another problem is quantifying 'negative' statistics i.e. when Celtic or the Huns' latest opponents are denied stonewall penalties or McCurry fails to send off Cousin for a blatant head butt. These are subjective judgements although some are of the blatant variety.

e.g. our "escape" when a penalty wasn't given against us to Dundee Utd early this season was held up as proof that all these things even out, at least as far as Us and Them are concerned

i.e. FOUR NONSENSE FARCE decisions = ONE DEBATABLE decision - according to the Lapdog Loyal.

Another example was the fury and media scrutiny around Zander Diamond's "disallowed" goal against us last season. The Monday after this I was on the end of some rant from an Aberdeen fan who hadn't seen the game to the effect of "don't hit me with yer paranoia rubbish ever again that just proved you lot get everything going from refs". When I politely pointed out that, in the same game,George had a goal disallowed with no explanation and no media scrutiny, the response was a matter of fact "well there must've been absolutely nothing controversial about it then".

The bottom line, the truest lesson I have learned in life is, people will not believe what they don't want to believe no matter how much evidence you present to them. The beauty of the Hun propaganda machine in this country is that the very fact that someone would take the trouble to collate and present data of this type is in itself be enough to brand them paranoid.

"What?? You went away and recorded things on a spreadsheet. You are totally PARANOID!"

Time after time the absence of media scrutiny as far as decisions in favour of the huns allows a mythology to develop such as the laughable notion that the Huns were hard-done by last season in relation to fixture scheduling. In fact references to last season in the Scottish media repeatedly say that Rangers were not granted an extension to the season.

Truly Orwell's vision of a compliant media re-writing history has come to pass.

This really came to the fore with Kenny Misser's "stop your petty moaning Celtic we got nothing last year rant" immediately followed by Nosurname's outburst about the Irishey sounding official. No accusations of being an "extremist" or "paranoid" were levelled at Nosurname, or even any "for gods sake its 2009" type statements (a-la S Dougal on the Masonic episode) in the media. The obvious contradiction that Nosurname's naked attempts to intimidate the match official immediately followed one of his own players telling Celtic to shut up and not be so paranoid, is simply ignored by Murray's poodles. There simply is no contradiction, manipulation or Rearrangers paranoia as far as they are concerned.

The best you will do with a Motherwell/St Mirren/Dundee Utd etc fan when presenting this evidence or argument is a grudging "they're just incompetent not biased".

And no doubt you will be paranoid for going to the trouble of remembering all this and there will be screeds of examples of this kind of favouritism to Celtic that you have simply glossed over yourself.

"Celtic are never out the papers" they will say.

Yeah, tell us about it!

Where are Boruc, Naka and Aiden off to this week?

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How the impartial SFA deal with appeals on red cards in 2009

From SFA website:

Reference to FIFA's rules on serious foul play seem particularly relevant in light of recent events.

St Mirren Sending Off Appeal Dismissed
Tuesday, 12 August 2008

St Mirren's appeal against the sending off of their player Will Haining in this weekend's match against Celtic has been dismissed. In accordance with the appeals process, the match referee Eddie Smith reviewed the incident and is content with his original decision to award a penalty and send the player off. Consequently the player will be subject to a one match ban.

Aberdeen Claim Dismissed
Thursday, 09 October 2008

Aberdeen FC’s Claim of Wrongful Dismissal in respect of the sending off of its player Charles Mulgrew in the match against Hibernian FC on 4th October has been dismissed, following a review by referee Michael McCurry. The player had been sent off for denying the opposing team or an opponent a goal or obvious goal scoring opportunity as defined by Law 12.

Heart of Midlothian's Claim Dismissed
Tuesday, 30 December 2008

Heart of Midlothian's claim of wrongful dismissal in respect of the sending off of their player Marius Zaliukas in the match against Aberdeen has been dismissed, following a review by referee Iain Brines. Zaliukas is therefore suspended for Heart of Midlothian's next match against Hibernian on 3 January.

Falkirk Appeal Dismissed
Wednesday, 21 January 2009

Falkirk FC’s Claim of Wrongful Dismissal in respect of the sending off of its player Patrick Cregg in the match against Rangers FC on 17th January has been dismissed, following a review by referee William Collum.

In explanation of the referee's decision, the following definition of serious foul play as detailed in the FIFA Laws of the Game is provided:

"Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force and endangering the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play."

Hibernian FC's Claim Dismissed
Wednesday, 06 May 2009

Hibernian FC’s Claim of Wrongful Dismissal in respect of the sending off of its player Chris Hogg in the match against Dundee United FC on 2nd May has been dismissed, following a review by referee Stevie O'Reilly.

In explanation of the referee's decision, the following definition of serious foul play as detailed in the FIFA Laws of the Game is provided:

"Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force and endangering the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play."

Accies fail with McArthur Appeal
12 May 2009

Hamilton Accies have failed in their appeal against the red card shown to James McArthur during Sunday's 1-1 league draw with Inverness. The midfielder was sent off by referee Charlie Richmond following a 66th-minute challenge on Filipe Morais.
And Richmond said he was happy with his decision after reviewing footage of the the incident.

McArthur will now sit out Wednesday's Scottish Premier League clash against Falkirk at New Douglas Park. Hamilton manager Billy Reid claimed the dismissal was "really, really harsh".

Pressley loses appeal
17 May 2009

Falkirk have lost their appeal against the red card shown to Steven Pressley during the weekend defeat by St Mirren.It means that the veteran defender will be suspended for Saturday's final game of the season away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Referee Chris Boyle reviewed the decision but decided that he was content with the sending off.

Falkirk had insisted that Pressley had clashed heads with Billy Mehmet and had not used an elbow. But, with their claim of wrongful dismissal being rejected, it means that Pressley will miss a game Falkirk must win to avoid relegation from the Scottish Premier League.

Rangers FC Appeal Referred to Review Panel
Wednesday, 21 January 2009

Rangers FC's Claim of Wrongful Dismissal in respect of the sending off of its player Sasa Papac in the match against Falkirk FC on 17th January is being referred to the Review Panel for consideration, following a review by referee William Collum.
Having reviewed the circumstances of the player's sending off, the referee accepted that an error had been made and that the player had not been guilty of serious foul play.

The suspensions incurred by the player as a result of the sending off have therefore been revoked and the player is free to play in the club's next match against Aberdeen FC this Saturday. It was decided that the claim be upheld to the extent that the offence be reduced to a caution.

SFA Reviews Ibrox Red Cards
18 May 2009

Rangers' Madjid Bougherra and Aberdeen's Charlie Mulgrew have won the first stage of their appeals against red cards they received on Saturday. Stuart Dougal viewed footage of the match, which Rangers won 2-1 at Ibrox.

And he decided that Bougherra did not deserve to be sent off for violent conduct against keeper Jamie Langfield. It will now be up to the review panel, which will meet on Friday morning, to decide what action, if any, should be taken against the players.

But both Bougherra and Mulgrew appear likely to be cleared to play in Sunday's climax to the Scottish Premier League season.

A curious question
This evening (Tuesday 19 May 2009) it was reported (very briefly funnily enough) on BBC Scotland News that Bougherra will be available for selection on Sunday. Begs the question (if you're not a Murray media lackey lapdog) - if a decision is not being made on the matter until Friday, why is it already common knowledge that Bougherra's red card will be rescinded?

Answer
Nudge nudge, knuckle grab, wink, apron, trouser leg etc. = Scottish Football in 2009

Stuart Dougal will enjoy like-minded company on Friday evening (5th May) at 7.00pm

1986 - Can we do it again?

1984 will always have a place in literary history

1986 will always have a place in Celtic folklore

2009?

Mental Advisory Content - Hun Perma Rage caller phones David Murray

Some very bad words here but absolutely hilarious. This is genuine footage from a poster on youtube edited and mixed with a David Murray interview. When I first saw the first film below I thought the other guy must have been a Celtic fan on the wind up, but no the footage is lifted from a cream bun's drunken tirade post-Kaunus. I've posted the original rant below as well as it is funny in its own right.

Famine Song Court Case

The verdict will be interesting.

Nottingham Forest v Celtic 1983

This is a bit random, but there are loads of great archive clips like this at Celtic Underground

Forest from Eddie Pearson on Vimeo.

Pub after Hearts game

Denis, John & Diggy are going to the Press Bar after the last game of the season. Anyone else fancy a pint?

Rangers 1 Celtic 0

I was working yesterday morning, so caught the game in two pubs in Glasgow. I left the first one at half time since the guy beside me liked to call Rangers players "orange bastards" or "black bastards" or "orange black bastards". He wasn't the only one in that pub. Celtic's problems in this regard may be much less than Rangers', but it's still there.

I thought we played OK. In fact, it was like Celtic playing a diddy team... we dominate, they score, and hold on for grim life until the end of the game. On another day (and with two centre forwards which would not include Hesselink) we would have scored at least one goal. As Diggy posted recently, if you don't invest in the team, you get days like this.

I don't think the league is over. Wee Gordon has an amazing knack of pulling things out of the fire. I'd be surprised if both teams win all of their remaining games. The problem is that Celtic are as likely to drop points as Rangers but if we can keep the pressure on, who knows. If we do lose the league, we'll lose it to one of the poorest Rangers teams I've seen.

Game report.

End of season

I'm not confident about the end of the season. I watched the Celtic game and most of the Rangers game. I think we have the better team. Whittaker and Dailly are weak in defence so I hope they play against us. Rangers look very jammy and this is my worry. The first goal is crucial and we always look like we could concede. I am unsure about Hartley though I don't know if we have a replacement as Robson hasn't played for a while.

I was also watching that Paddy McCourt on Celtic TV and although the opposition are reserves he is phenomenal. Could it possibly be more entertaining to watch a lower level game with McCourt than a really dull Barcelona v Chelsea? Just a thought, it would cost a lot less as well.

Post 704 - good going.