Sums it up

[IanM]

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

[Jim44]

Very well expressed. Very refreshing compaired to the drivel written in this space by a Sevco moron a couple of weeks ago. I find it hard to understand why the DR gives an opportunity to other teams' supporters to write anti Ugly Sisters sentiments.

[liamh2202]

Out of interest what does the article say. Not giving that rags website any hits

[IanM]

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

BLOGGER Derek Keilloh thinks Hoops fans need to wake up and realise winning the Premiership title with their budget isn't worth crowing about.

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.

[sambajustice]

I'm glad someone has posted on this...

I read the article this morning and I just don't understand this point of view at all from this writer.

What are Celtic and their fans supposed to do? Not support the team? Not win matches? Not win the league and let someone else have a go?

Celtic and Zombie dominance of Scotland is nothing new, they've wrapped up 100 titles between them since the league was properly formed in 1890ish and it can't be far off a similar amount of Scottish Cups.

Granted now, the problem is exaggerated because of the financial gap. I believe the seeds of this were probably sown back in the 90's because clubs were chasing the dream and have paid for it since. We tried to keep up with England when it just wasn't possible. However, it certainly needn't have been the disaster it has been. When there's teams from all manner of countries that we'd class as similar or "minnow" nations that are running the "Pride of Scotland" close or beating them then there's clearly something wrong within the game here.

Anyway, back to the point, are Celtic just supposed to stop playing for a few years? Was there similar cries of "unfair" in the 60's and 70's when they won 9 in row with 11 Scots from Glasgow or thereabouts and the crowds Hibs and others were getting were 20k, 30k, 40k for matches?

There's big teams and there's small teams and that's just life so get on with it. Celtic and The Rangers can't buy EVERY player that teams produce so the clubs just need to start producing better players. Undoubtedly a bit more money would help tie up good younger players for a bit longer and maybe produce a bit of success but generally I think fans in Scotland need to stop whinging.

[GreenCastle]

Agree with most except this next European league idea.

We have the extended Europa League and Champions League already.

Would love the old firm to disappear !

Would rather battle it out with Aberdeen, Utd and the yams for te league

[Jim44]

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I'm glad someone has posted on this...

I read the article this morning and I just don't understand this point of view at all from this writer.

What are Celtic and their fans supposed to do? Not support the team? Not win matches? Not win the league and let someone else have a go?

Celtic and Zombie dominance of Scotland is nothing new, they've wrapped up 100 titles between them since the league was properly formed in 1890ish and it can't be far off a similar amount of Scottish Cups.

Granted now, the problem is exaggerated because of the financial gap. I believe the seeds of this were probably sown back in the 90's because clubs were chasing the dream and have paid for it since. We tried to keep up with England when it just wasn't possible. However, it certainly needn't have been the disaster it has been. When there's teams from all manner of countries that we'd class as similar or "minnow" nations that are running the "Pride of Scotland" close or beating them then there's clearly something wrong within the game here.

Anyway, back to the point, are Celtic just supposed to stop playing for a few years? Was there similar cries of "unfair" in the 60's and 70's when they won 9 in row with 11 Scots from Glasgow or thereabouts and the crowds Hibs and others were getting were 20k, 30k, 40k for matches?

There's big teams and there's small teams and that's just life so get on with it. Celtic and The Rangers can't buy EVERY player that teams produce so the clubs just need to start producing better players. Undoubtedly a bit more money would help tie up good younger players for a bit longer and maybe produce a bit of success but generally I think fans in Scotland need to stop whinging.

Nobody's denying the boring, perennial and inevitable gap in quality between Celtic and 'the rest'. It's the way they always build their excuses for their own failures on the perceived weaknesses of the rubbish they have to share a league with. If they kept their mouths shut and accepted that, relatively speaking, they're not really very good themselves, there would be less whinging from us minions.

[H18S NX]

Wow,i wish i could write an article like that.

[lucky]

The talk is now of a world league not just a European one. With the cash now available in the U.S.A it will be a matter of time before the mega rich clubs go down this line.

[Jim44]

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The talk is now of a world league not just a European one. With the cash now available in the U.S.A it will be a matter of time before the mega rich clubs go down this line.

Does that mean we're stuck with Celtic for the duration?

[NAE NOOKIE]

Totally understand the guys rant to be honest. I agree its not the fault of Celtic's fans ( the Glasgow ones at least ) that their club is untouchable, but as he suggests, when your club has 10 times the budget of everybody else racking up league titles year after year has to eventually lose its meaning. With no Rangers to challenge them Celtic's crowds have dropped dramatically ............ In fact I would be willing to bet that since the demise of their partners in crime the percentage drop at Parkhead is bigger than any other Premiership club, or at Hibs.

One thing the guy said I totally agree with and have said myself on this forum more than once: Even before the demise of Rangers games against the 'old firm' had began to have less and less meaning for me, they were just games to get out of the way .... if you got a result 'brilliant' it was like winning bonus points for the 'real competition' but to be honest if you lost it became less and less of a big deal. The attendance of home fans at games against the old firm at many clubs is no bigger, and in some cases less, than games against more direct rivals like Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hearts etc. Back in the day you could guarantee your biggest home support of the season would be one of your games against Celtic or Rangers, but now you are just as likely to see a bigger home turnout against one of the others.

Perhaps one day the OF will play in a European league, but run teams in Scottish football as well with a budget linked to the average of all the other teams in the Premiership .... now that would be acceptable.

[jacomo]

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Does that mean we're stuck with Celtic for the duration?

Hopefully they'd get the franchise for Doha or somewhere and properly f*** off.

[Nutmegged]

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Totally understand the guys rant to be honest. I agree its not the fault of Celtic's fans ( the Glasgow ones at least ) that their club is untouchable, but as he suggests, when your club has 10 times the budget of everybody else racking up league titles year after year has to eventually lose its meaning. With no Rangers to challenge them Celtic's crowds have dropped dramatically ............ In fact I would be willing to bet that since the demise of their partners in crime the percentage drop at Parkhead is bigger than any other Premiership club, or at Hibs.

One thing the guy said I totally agree with and have said myself on this forum more than once: Even before the demise of Rangers games against the 'old firm' had began to have less and less meaning for me, they were just games to get out of the way .... if you got a result 'brilliant' it was like winning bonus points for the 'real competition' but to be honest if you lost it became less and less of a big deal. The attendance of home fans at games against the old firm at many clubs is no bigger, and in some cases less, than games against more direct rivals like Aberdeen, Dundee Utd, Hearts etc. Back in the day you could guarantee your biggest home support of the season would be one of your games against Celtic or Rangers, but now you are just as likely to see a bigger home turnout against one of the others.

Perhaps one day the OF will play in a European league, but run teams in Scottish football as well with a budget linked to the average of all the other teams in the Premiership .... now that would be acceptable.

I agree with your last point, if & when Celtic and Sevco move to a European League I fullyy believe they'd still be represented in Scotland's Premiership with "B" teams

[micka_weer]

I've always thought it must be utterly unfulfilling to be an old firm fan, you expect to win every match and are only disappointed when you don't

[Pete]

Celtic now after Ryan Christie from Inverness. No doubt we will have people telling us that this is also good for our game.

The game up here is just one big **** joke.

[Pretty Boy]

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I've always thought it must be utterly unfulfilling to be an old firm fan, you expect to win every match and are only disappointed when you don't

After Celtic beat us in the SC final a couple of years back I saw more than a few (I'd say at least a dozen but probably more) Celtic fans who beat Hibs supporters back to where our bus was parked as they hadn't even bothered to stay and watch the presentation.

There's something well wrong there imo. That would be up there with the greatest day of your life for supporters of 40 clubs in Scotland, for the other 2 it's about getting once closer to or moving one further clear of the other.

Whilst it will never happen, and I'd rather it was neither of the 2 clubs currently looking most likely to do it, I would love if another club beat Celtic to the title in the next couple of years.

[Smartie]

I don't see why people get so upset about Celtic taking the best players from other teams.

Football is a big food chain, bigger and stronger teams take the best players from lower teams and their poorer players drop down levels. Real Madrid are at the top of the food chain and are probably the only club in world football that isn't a selling club.

We happily take the best players from smaller teams than us. That's life.

The problem is when idiots like John Collins come out and try to blame the shortcomings of his team on anyone other than his own team and his own club. To point at the teams you've taken players from as being the reason for you failing is nonsensical.

[Sir David Gray]

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I don't see why people get so upset about Celtic taking the best players from other teams.

Football is a big food chain, bigger and stronger teams take the best players from lower teams and their poorer players drop down levels. Real Madrid are at the top of the food chain and are probably the only club in world football that isn't a selling club.

We happily take the best players from smaller teams than us. That's life.

The problem is when idiots like John Collins come out and try to blame the shortcomings of his team on anyone other than his own team and his own club. To point at the teams you've taken players from as being the reason for you failing is nonsensical.

I think that is a big part of the reason why people get so worked up about it though because Celtic and previously Rangers (RIP) were/are quite happy buying up the best talent in Scotland from other clubs and finish about 20-30 points ahead of the rest but then when they get horsed out of Europe, they then blame it on the lack of competition that they face in Scotland and that causes them not to be ready to face decent European sides.

They can't have it both ways.

[whiskyhibby]

Personally I think that for Hibs, Hearts, the infirm and other large city clubs like Dundee to move forward we need a British league.

The SFA are a completely biased organisation with a Glasgow view who hold back the rest of Scottish football and should be dissolved, to only attract £2M pounds for a competition such as the Scottish cup says that nobody is interested in Scottish football

A British league will potentially give us the access to far greater pool of cash, Edinburgh as one of the UK major cities will always be an attraction a.nd after a few years I could see Hibs, Hearts, the Infirm etc being there or there abouts as Premier league teams....thoughts?

[Sir David Gray]

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Personally I think that for Hibs, Hearts, the infirm and other large city clubs like Dundee to move forward we need a British league.

The SFA are a completely biased organisation with a Glasgow view who hold back the rest of Scottish football and should be dissolved, to only attract £2M pounds for a competition such as the Scottish cup says that nobody is interested in Scottish football

A British league will potentially give us the access to far greater pool of cash, Edinburgh as one of the UK major cities will always be an attraction a.nd after a few years I could see Hibs, Hearts, the Infirm etc being there or there abouts as Premier league teams....thoughts?

Why would England want to open their leagues up to Scottish teams, when they already have one of the most successful leagues in the world?

[whiskyhibby]

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Why would England want to open their leagues up to Scottish teams, when they already have one of the most successful leagues in the world?

Perhaps they won't but for me a British league is the way forward

[whiskyhibby]

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Why would England want to open their leagues up to Scottish teams, when they already have one of the most successful leagues in the world?

But perhaps their paymasters could see the benefit

[Sir David Gray]

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Perhaps they won't but for me a British league is the way forward

Not so sure to be honest, teams like Aberdeen, Hearts, Dundee Utd and us, when we eventually get our act together, currently have a chance of winning a cup every now and again and representing Scotland in Europe (even if it is only for two games). If we moved to England under a British league set up, we would have almost no chance of qualifying for Europe or winning a cup.

You could almost guarantee that we would lose the Scotland national side as well. There's lots of people within UEFA and FIFA who already resent the fact that there are four national sides coming from the United Kingdom, when none of those nations are sovereign states in their own right. If we then lose the Scottish league system and converted to a British league then that would give those people the ammunition they need to press ahead and campaign for one UK national team, which would almost certainly consist of a team full of English players plus Gareth Bale.

[Pete]

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Personally I think that for Hibs, Hearts, the infirm and other large city clubs like Dundee to move forward we need a British league.

The SFA are a completely biased organisation with a Glasgow view who hold back the rest of Scottish football and should be dissolved, to only attract £2M pounds for a competition such as the Scottish cup says that nobody is interested in Scottish football

A British league will potentially give us the access to far greater pool of cash, Edinburgh as one of the UK major cities will always be an attraction a.nd after a few years I could see Hibs, Hearts, the Infirm etc being there or there abouts as Premier league teams....thoughts?

It probably won't happen but it would give us all the potential to escape this rotten situation and grow.

[whiskyhibby]

I am not so sure about not able to win any cups, there are many examples recently where less fashionable EPL teams have won something, it's the access to funds that's key, one thing for sure Hibs will never ever again be the force they were in Europe that they were in the 50/60/70's in the current GFA set up.

I,would happily lose the Scottish national side over a Hibs team being a major European force, Scotland are a diminishing power and to be honest due to the mismanagement and institutionalised bias of the GFA I am unlikely to see them qualify for a major tournament again in my lifetime

[Pretty Boy]

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It probably won't happen but it would give us all the potential to escape this rotten situation and grow.

An argument I have always put forward as well is that Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are by no stretch of the imagination smaller clubs than the likes of Leicester, Wigan, Watford,Charlton ****ing Bournemouth and more than a few others who have graced the EPL over the years.

The money on offer down there has bloated the big clubs into global giants and a lot of ordinary clubs into something they are not. It's no wonder clubs like those listed above would be resistant to any Scottish infiltration as it would risk a smaller slice of the pie for them.

[whiskyhibby]

Is it any coincidence that the Scottish National side were at their best when we had a much more even playing field in the SFA set up...

[rcarter1]

Great enjoyable read, and totally agree with most of it. I love the bit here..

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

In short, Celtic and the SPL -
In Europe I'm happy to support them, but its not anyone else's fault if they cant step to the plate. Join a bigger league, or eat lemons for all I care.

[whiskyhibby]

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An argument I have always put forward as well is that Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen are by no stretch of the imagination smaller clubs than the likes of Leicester, Wigan, Watford,Charlton ****ing Bournemouth and more than a few others who have graced the EPL over the years.

The money on offer down there has bloated the big clubs into global giants and a lot of ordinary clubs into something they are not. It's no wonder clubs like those listed above would be resistant to any Scottish infiltration as it would risk a smaller slice of the pie for them.

Agree but the paymaster calls the tune.....

[whiskyhibby]

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Great enjoyable read, and totally agree with most of it. I love the bit here..

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

In short, Celtic and the SPL -
In Europe I'm happy to support them, but its not anyone else's fault if they cant step to the plate. Join a bigger league, or eat lemons for all I care.

I'm the opposite. I want them to lose,the European money only exacerbates the gap, cutting it off means change is more likely to happen