Jinky67

We have been fucking rotten since Taylor went off

Taylor going off and the Joe Hart mistake has rattled us a little. Forrest offers the square root of f**k all in this game and Jura making too many mistakes.

I thought he was calling him fat boy but funny nonetheless

Can only assume the inclusion of Forrest is to help Johnston out a little, big call However it’s some bench if we need to change things

I’d like to think the passing of Frank McGarvey will be acknowledged

Such a shame, brilliant player in his day. Condolences to his family

What was I reaching with? I was taking the piss out of your manager and his daft arse take

We were discussing the lack of confidence you have for the game when your manager believes the gap is only 3 points. Should inspire you with confidence that you can draw level especially at home no?

It’s only a 3 point gap remember

Potential to make himself look rather silly if we see a similar result to last time.

Your manager and Tillman don’t seem to think so

Confident we can maintain or increase the “+3” gap

Lee Johnson doesn’t have to make it that fucking easy though

Aaron Mooy ran that game. Gives the manager a headache for the derby

Lol

John Paul McBride comes to mind. What a talent he was, potential to probably go anywhere had he not been an absolute car crash of a person. Ended up playing for Wishaw some years back and last I heard he was caught for possession of drugs.

I live in Wishaw, went to St Aidans High and once upon a time played for Motherwell Miners in the early 90’s for a few seasons so get what you are saying. I remember we used to get the odd complimentary tickets to go watch Motherwell and was more than happy to go along to watch the matches, Celtic were always my team though so yeah I get I’m part of the problem but all the names you mention are very familiar to me. Back then though I remember most lads who were scouted were done through playing with the school teams and the old Lanarkshire select sides. Two guys I played with at school were Mark McCormick and Colin Waldie who were both picked up being watched playing for the school, Mark went to Livi and Colin went to Raith Rovers if memory serves. I can only remember a couple of Motherwell fans one of whom was John McCrossan who funnily enough was the linesman at the Celtic v St Johnstone game on Saturday Whilst there seems to be more opportunity for kids to get spotted now it’s still difficult for kids and parents if I use Motherwell as an example they have an academy setup through Braidhurst High I believe, one of the girls who works for me is from Armadale in West Lothian and has to take her son to school there just so he can continue playing for the Motherwell youth team, hugely talented boy by all accounts but it’s a big commitment and expense for the parents so these things could be made much easier with the regional format you describe in the Netherlands, we could learn a lot from their methods and that’s even before looking at how they play The claret and amber bunting didn’t bother me in the slightest, it was good to see the community get behind something as it doesn’t happen enough so saddened to hear of the complaints but not unsurprising given what I know about the area.

1. Yes I’ve had a season ticket for close to 30 years and no i wouldn’t say that the decision to buy is weighted more towards getting a ticket for the Rangers game. At the current prices if that’s the sole interest is almost £300 for both games which doesn’t represent value for money at all and could probably buy tickets elsewhere for less if you just wanted to go to that game. I have 4 sons all of which have season tickets and all started out as tickets without Rangers games as the atmosphere as everyone is aware can be poisonous so wanted their experience of going to football to be fun and enjoyable without that additional factor until I was happy they were mature enough to deal with it. Circumstances have now changed, my eldest started as an academy coach this season at Celtic and can get tickets for home games so if again that was my sole interest I would cancel it but I appreciate not everyone is in a similar situation> 2. I want to try give you an honest answer but find this really hard to quantify. As a guess though I’d suggest you typical fair weather or casual fan that just turns up for the Rangers games or other big games is around 15-20% maybe? The fans that sit around me are generally always there and many have been for about 10 years so it doesn’t change that much so it’s a difficult question to answer so it’s my only real gauge. There are a lot of older fans too who sometimes don’t come out during the really cold months which is also fair enough 3. If mandated across all UEFA territories then yes it would be a much less bitter pill to swallow as in theory it would still be a relatively level playing field with those we are trying to compete with in Europe. However we would also have to find ways to increase our revenues because without that we would quickly find ourselves in the red Your thoughts on young players is really interesting as a concept, and I’m ironically typing this as Ben Doak makes his Premiership debut for Liverpool however as you say probably something beyond the realms of possibility mostly due to the cost of ensuring the academies required to ensure the same experience is delivered in every region is maybe beyond our scope. We are now living in a time we too struggle to retain our best young talent but we need to learn evolve and emulate the likes of Ajax who do this year in and out successfully however I’d love to see options that allow us to be able to retain and develop talent much better and receive better recompense if they leave as youngsters like Doak. I know this is self serving and doesn’t really answer your question but definitely open to suggestions that prioritise youth development and ensure more of these kids are given a real chance

Such a shame, he was an excellent goalkeeper for us. Hopefully he can recover and end his career his way

Don’t do that my chest is pretty sore from coughing and that outburst of laughter just about ended me. Probably not the emotionally immature, right wing response you were hoping for mind you

You have zero chance of that if nothing else I’m authentically me like it or not and that won’t change albeit i’m little more kranky than normal being in bed with the rona and missing my Xmas dinner

I have that on VHS, great show but would be cancelled in todays society especially with the references to Jimmy Hill

No they aren’t because it’s hypothetical and based on purely opinion because the notion of having a competitive league without redistribution of current wealth is an ideal which is allowable as an option. Is it realistic? No but none of it is but he asked for my opinion….not yours But thanks for not letting me down and being the first to comment on what my opinion should be. I should have just asked you to write it for me?

Ok fair questions so let me stick my head on the guillotine 5/10 - I can appreciate the tedium of the current status quo for fans of the other teams however I’d be lying if I said winning feels good no matter how many times you have seen it happen before. Last season was up there with some of the best seasons I can remember for enjoyment and I suppose that’s the key - do I still enjoy it and the answer is yes. I can’t explain that but they are in some way all a bit different 8/10 - Absolutely, stronger competition domestically forces us to also be better which can only benefit the Scottish game and help us do better in Europe. This is something I’ve been quite open about that a big thing for me is to be able to see my team win a European trophy again. I do remember watching Dundee Utd/ Aberdeen in the 80’s doing well in Europe and rooting for them. I’d love to see other clubs in our league reach those levels again. 0/10 - just not something I can get onboard with and I know this will not land very well but we are now talking about sporting integrity and fairness and there has to be better ways to address this without it being made to feel you are being punished for being successful. 5/10 - Again this depends on what we are talking about here. If it’s a case of redistribution of all revenues that it is just a flat out no. As I’ve said a bucket list wish of mine is to see Celtic win a European trophy again and significant re-distribution of that revenue will make that in my opinion an impossibility. If Celtic/Rangers were forced to redistribute all revenues this way it would then diminish our ability to compete or even qualify so those European revenues in a few seasons just wouldn’t be available to redistribute so in that sense everyone loses in my opinion, I’d much rather see clubs do better at this level than it become even more of a pipe dream than it is currently. Sharing of domestic TV revenues, prize moneys etc and I’m aware this pales into insignificance when compared to European prize monies but I do think UEFA are part of the problem here with the revenues offered and required to compete. A hypothetical to prove such a point would be that if Aberdeen had to finish 2nd and this season and qualify for the Champions League. The money they receive would put them out of reach of every other club for years. There has however have to be ways to generate more domestic revenue that are explorable to increase the pots available for equal share or could there be some sort of European trickle down payment based on us improving our co-efficient or performance related bonus for the league, let’s say Scottish clubs make £50m of revenue from European completion there could be some sort of multiplier bonus paid out that increases the further a club from that league goes so the club performing retains the revenues it earns but is earning for their league too. What would be realistic in terms of what % of revenue is kicked back and shared amongst the league I don’t know but imagine a 50% revenue kicker back to the league if we happened to win one? it’s a really difficult question to answer. Legally I imagine it’s a monster change of legislation to enforce redistribution of wealth in just Scotland without it happening in all UEFA territories. You also have to get Celtic/Rangers shareholders to be onboard and that’s very unlikely to happen. Other possible things to be looked at is our TV deal, I’ve said many times it’s shite compared to what other countries of equal size can get. Someone mentioned before there has to be opportunity to grow that into other markets though but we have already started such as the Japan TV deal that all clubs profit from with the interest in Celtics Japanese contingent. Yeah it somewhat forces a transfer policy but it’s also marketable. Other things such as wage caps, squad caps, restriction on foreign players. When it comes to loan rules we loan a lot of our players out to other Scottish clubs, allow these players to play in all games including against their parent clubs and I already mentioned UEFA revenues being changed to give a significant performance related kicker back to the parent leagues. Failing that we are talking about Super Leagues and Celtic and Rangers leaving the Scottish game Tried to be as honest as I can be and leaving myself wide open to critique and no doubt MT telling me what my opinion should be however debate is always good if it’s well constructed. I have to be honest I can’t say I do not enjoy my team winning, people say it must be boring or feel hollow but it never has but I don’t take it for granted either. I remember us being pish, very pish but I was still there and will always be there no matter how much or little success we have in the future. Good question though, really had me thinking