andrew_2010

Are they definitely going to have Umbro on them? A friend was saying that our agreement with Umbro was up at the end of the season, but not sure if he's right...

...and then choose to make the announcement of the purchase on Friday before noon! Funny, or just bad taste?

If you were whyte, would you wait till Friday until an announcement, assuming you did buy the club...?

So they want the money back on an unrealistic schedule, yet when we can better it (by getting bought over) they want to charge us for it? GTF! Something this daft actually has a ring of truth about it...

What annoys me the most is non-rangers and even non-football fans begin to believe this shite, and this b.s. becomes the truth. He obviously hasn't met my friend who was a celtic fan, got a season ticket and swiftly gave it up due to the bigoted pseudo-Irish nonsense. And the embarrassing Neil Lennon.

It's easy to say ignore this rubbish, but the mud is beginning to stick... glad the illegality of singing a song at a football ground has been challenged!

Agreed rbr! It's so obvious, and surely promotes the idea of an earlier start/summer football? Either way, the smaller teams need to do something. Or the league has to help them more.

I guess it would make a good start for an article, particularly with the European football coming up, better than the tripe on the BBC about how McGeady was Scotlands savior... Sadly I'm no writer.

There are many different ways to show the breakdown of this and if there is a better way to make it readable, I will happily do the changes. From a Rangers point of view, take out our contribution, and Scotland would be on 15.75 I think it was, which would mean 25th place. That means the champions have to go through 2 qualifiers to get to the group stage. Sadly, I'm no journo, and tend to get distracted and go off on tangents. Anyone interested in taking the glory can do so, as long as I get a wee thank-you!

also, as it stands, there is no difference between being ranked 14th and 15th.

To finish 13th, and get automatic entry for SPL champs (provided the CL champions gain auto entry though their league spot) we need an additional 10 points...

Minimum possible with progress to needed stage: 1 (win vs psv) + 1 (QF bonus) + 2 (win/lose or draw/draw @QF1) + 1 (SF bonus) + 3 (qualifying from SF plus final bonus) and that's only 8, if we won the final we'd get another 2, I don't know if you get a bonus for winning tournament...

Dream scenario: 3 (win vs PSV + QF bonus) + 5 (win/win @QF and SF bonus) and so a win in one leg of the semi's would get us up to 13th.

Too much maths for a Saturday, I'll leave it there for now

Andrew where are you getting those figures from as I dont think they are right.

 

32 Glasgow Rangers Sco 14.3500 22.0500 0.3750 6.5332 12.7200 , total points 56.028 , last 5 years including this years ongoing total of 12.72

Also Scotland are currently ranked 15th having risen from16th and very very possibly can reach 14th , remember the actual points won in themselves change due to the dcountry coefficient aspect .

 

 

 

 

What is very very important is that we maintain our current seeding poistion of around the 30,s as this guarentees us a good seeding position every year , second place in the seedings doesn't do us any favours to be honest

The difference between the team coefficient is due to the fact that all teams get 20% of the national coeffiicient, hence why this year our coefficient is 12.72 and not 12 as in my table. Also, points gained in qualifiers are not included in team coefficients.

What I have looked at is each clubs contribution to the countries coefficient and not the clubs actual coefficient. Effectively we get an additional fifth on whatever points we accumulate from now on.

For Scotland to get to 14th,, Scotland need an additional 0.7 points, and as we are only one team left from 5, it means we need to get another 3.5 points ourselves. It is possible, but qualification for the quarters is essential. That gives us one bonus point, and we will get there by either winning (2 points) or by pens (1 point) and so would need another positive result in the quarters.

Good to know someone is checking it though

All my numbers came from Bert Kassies fantastic site:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/

In addition here are the expected weighted percentage contributions in order:

22.33333333

12.33333333

22.33333333

4

4

3.333333333

8.333333333

8.333333333

5

5

5

But this is assuming everyone gets equal points, so it's slightly warped in the sense that if one team has a good year, the rest having an "ok" year doesn't cut it, so fair play to aberdeen who are probably the only team to get close to there "share" all teams being equal, and that includes Aberdeen being in europe in the 2008 year.

I think we all know that Scotland is a poor league, but how much are Rangers (and Celtic) doing to save our nations blushes, and maintain a decent prospect of entry into the champions league?

Scotland are currently ranked 13th, and this data reveals that 50% of the coefficient acquired by Scottish teams is due to Rangers. Almost 85% is contributed by the Old Firm.

What I have checked is where Scotland would be without the Old Firm. i.e. the number of points gained by other Scottish teams, divided by the number of teams (excluding the OF). What this shows is the coefficient would be 7.08. That is good enough to be ranked THIRTY SIXTH. Let's put that in perspective: That is ranked LOWER than countries such as CYPRUS, BELARUS, IRELAND, MOLDOVA, LITHUANIA and LATVIA. Barely above lowly GEORGIA and AZERBAIJAN.

In contrast, the Rangers and Celtic, if they were not hindered by the poor performance of their fellow Scottish teams, would have a national coefficient of FORTY SIX if shared between them. That would rank SIXTH in the UEFA Country rankings. Above PORTUGAL and RUSSIA. Sixth place would be good enough for AUTOMATIC qualification into the group stages for BOTH clubs.

Even if you added a third Scottish team (and assumed they contributed nothing) the Scottish coefficient would be 30.6667 which would be 12th, three places above their current 15th position, again, meaning again automatic entry, although only for the champions. Due to the way the dates work across Europe with Summer Football, and needing to know how many places are up for grabs before the season starts, this is in reference to european entry for the season 2012/13.

Thoughts are welcome, and if there are any writers out there that wish to use this for an article, feel free! Thanks to Zappa for best method to get the table uploaded!

haha, well it was what I was doing friday afternoon instead of work, and wanted to share it over the weekend! using an image file, and just wondering now if I can have it full size automatically rather than a thumbnail...

Cheers, will get that up as soon as!

I was wondering if it was possible to show tables (like in excel) on the forum?

I was bored at work being ignored and under appreciated, so thought I'd put my mad maths skills to work and play around with uefa co-efficient points, and got some interesting results!

If it wasn't for the old firm, the SPL would be ranked below the Irish League!

Would be good to let everyone see it!

Ian already made a thread, mate http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/vb/showthread.php?26596-Rangers-and-Celtic-Disunited-they-stand

Apologies, I totally missed it. I actually saw it on facebook from a canadian friend living in Glasgow who has no interest in football!

Quite possibly the best article I've seen in print on the old firm. And what is even rarer, it seems balanced and objective! What do you think?

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/rangers-and-celtic-disunited-they-stand-2236083.html

Rangers and Celtic: Disunited they stand

Yesterday, Scottish authorities set out a plan to tackle Glasgow's football violence. But the Rangers and Celtic divide is part of the city's soul, argues Richard Wilson

Wednesday, 9 March

 

Blue or Green? Billy or Tim? In Glasgow, your identity is reduced to a single imperative, something that your surname or the school that you attended reveals; or the football club that you support. Rangers or Celtic? The Protestant/Catholic division across this city, and the entire west of Scotland, is deeply felt enough to be relevant still, to still shape the behaviour of different generations, that it survives even the erosions of time.

 

The Old Firm clubs have come to be its most lasting, most forceful, on

occasions even its most repugnant expression; nowhere else in world football

is a rivalry based quite so clearly along religious lines, making it

something unique, however thrilling or bleak it can turn. This enmity should

have diminished, since it reaches back two centuries and has never been more

under siege from changes in society, but Glasgow remains vulnerable to its

old tribalisms.

 

 

Many of the segregation lines are now blurred: the city is increasingly

secular, mixed marriages between Protestants and Catholics have never been

higher, the middle classes are spreading in number and influence, and the

old certainties of the Protestant working class voting Conservative and the

Catholic working class voting Labour are now lost. These evolutions affect

the followings of both clubs, so that the two supports have never been more

homogenous, but they still cling to that solitary divide: religion.

 

 

Why can a football match between Rangers and Celtic end in a riot, or in a

young man being stabbed to death because of the football jersey he is

wearing? Why is it that players from outwith Scotland can become so inflamed

that three Englishmen playing for Rangers ââ?¬â?? Terry Butcher, Chris Woods and

Graham Roberts ââ?¬â?? ended up in court with Frank McAvennie, the Celtic striker;

or that Paul Gascoigne could receive death threats after miming playing a

flute (in reference to Orange Walks); or that Artur Boruc, a Polish

goalkeeper, could be cautioned for gestures made to Rangers fans, including

blessing himself? Why is it that the police report spikes in assaults,

disorder and domestic abuse in the aftermath of Old Firm games? Or that

paramedics and accident and emergency departments are inundated with drink

and violence-related cases? Rangers and Celtic have become symbols for their

communities, they provide a sense of identity that still relates to the

sectarian divide that was once prevalent in Glasgow; in the songs and

banners of the rivalry, a language of hate persists.

 

 

A kind of madness can arise on Old Firm days, something absurd but also

deep-rooted and vehement. It is expressed in songs that glorify the IRA, or

about being "up to our knees in Fenian blood". They are Scottish

clubs, but the rivalry is shaped as much by Irish politics, immigration,

unionism and republicanism, as religion (the Catholic church and the Orange

Order once feared that the Troubles would spread across the Irish Sea).

 

 

Rather than Saltires, it is Union Jacks and Irish Tricolours that are the

flags of these games. King Billy, Bobby Sands, The Sash, The Fields of

Athenry; an Old Firm match is an untidy accumulation of history, spite,

anger, and confusion. It is a football derby, like those in Milan, Buenos

Aries or Istanbul, but one in which the rivalry has become entrenched in

ancient hostility.

 

 

It is this tension that provokes such an intense environment that matches

between Rangers and Celtic can become overwhelmed by the baggage carried

into them (or make them compelling spectacles). In 1980, the Scottish Cup

final between the two sides ended with supporters fighting on the pitch, and

a subsequent ban on alcohol being served at football grounds. In 1999, when

Rangers won 3-0 at Celtic Park to effectively clinch the championship, Hugh

Dallas, the referee, was hit by a coin in the forehead, and individual

Celtic fans tried to invade the pitch.

 

 

Football dominates ââ?¬â?? Istanbul is the only other city to house three stadiums

with capacities over 50,000, but has a population of 13m compared to only

600,000 in Glasgow ââ?¬â?? because it is the sport of the working man. The grime

of Glasgow's industrial past, the sweat, dirt, pride and poverty that were

for so long the defining influences, still cling to every surface, however

often they have been whitewashed. In the days when the Clyde shipyards and

the narrow housing tenements of the Gorbals were domineering places, men

would surge out at lunchtime on a Saturday and head straight for the

football. The sport combined with drinking to provide the main sources of

relief from the terrible grind of working life. And the city's two teams

became the country's two major clubs by the same forces of history and

culture that shaped Glasgow itself.

 

 

Celtic were formed in Glasgow's east end in 1888 by Brother Walfrid, a Marist

monk, to raise money for the city's impoverished Catholic community, and

also keep the youths away from the Protestant soup kitchens. As the club of

the Catholics, Celtic's early glories prompted a form of indignation in

Scottish society, as the country was resolutely, defiantly even, Protestant.

Rangers were established in 1873 with no religious ties, but the club's

size, success and location in the city's south side saw it become the club

that the Protestant majority gathered behind to stand up to Celtic.

 

 

There were two waves of mass immigration from Ireland to Scotland; one mostly

Catholic, in the 19th century, the other, in the 20th century, more mixed.

The first influx prompted an anti-Catholic sentiment in the west of

Scotland, a feeling that was exacerbated by the second, when workers arrived

to find jobs in the Govan shipyards (in the 1920s there were even

anti-Catholic political parties). Other British cities, such as Liverpool,

Manchester and Cardiff, also received thousands of Irish settlers, and each

suffered sectarian tensions and riots of their own in the early 20th

century, only for them to fade out over time. The division remained in

Glasgow because of its proximity to Ireland, allowing ease of travel and

communication between the two countries, and Scotland's sense of itself as a

Protestant nation.

 

 

There was a time in the west of Scotland when certain jobs and firms were

widely known not to employ Catholics, a stance mirrored by Rangers' never

having signed a high-profile Catholic player until Mo Johnston, the former

Celtic striker, moved to the club from Nantes in 1989. Johnston was

protected by a bodyguard, and some fans were aghast at his arrival, until he

scored the winning goal in an Old Firm game. Now, Catholics have captained

and managed the club, and a player's religion is no longer relevant.

 

 

Bigotry remains the background noise of Old Firm matches, even although the

majority of fans no longer even practise their religion, and the encounters

often teeter on the edge of malevolence. There are Celtic-only and

Rangers-only pubs, supporters travel to Ibrox or Celtic Park on pre-ordained

routes so that they cannot encounter each other, the matches kick-off at

midday on a Sunday to prevent drinking beforehand, and the city tenses, so

that you feel something fraught in the air. The derby is combustible because

of the religious divide ââ?¬â?? which provides the means of expression, the

context of the hatred ââ?¬â?? but also other factors.

 

 

Rangers and Celtic are Scotland's two dominant clubs, so their games

inevitably influence the title race and the outcome carries a great weight

of meaning; Scotland is so small, and the teams so big that it might be

described as a national derby (more people followed Rangers to the 2008 Uefa

Cup final in Manchester than attended the papal mass in Glasgow last year);

there is an element of supporters living up to the game's reputation, so

that the theatre of it ââ?¬â?? the noise is deafening and relentless ââ?¬â?? is

self-fulfilling.

 

 

It is a football rivalry, but one that is darkened by its surroundings. Heavy

drinking is rife in the west of Scotland, Glasgow has an entrenched gang and

knife culture that treats violence as customary, and there are areas of such

poverty, low life expectancy and unemployment that the sense of identity

provided by Rangers and Celtic is clung to desperately. There are good and

bad elements to both sets of supporters, and the flares of anger and

resentment on the field are no worse than other derby matches. Alex Salmond,

Scotland's First Minister, is not the first politician conspicuously to

intervene, but his time might be better spent promoting anti-sectarian

education (although many Scots believe that support for Catholic schools,

which separate children from a young age, is a mitigating factor) and in

tackling the problems of heavy drinking.

 

 

Sectarianism is no longer prevalent in Scottish culture, and religion no

longer the central influence in people's lives. Yet the Old Firm game is

blighted by the language of its enmity, the history it drags back into

prominence. The football rivalry exists within this last remnant of hatred,

so that the occasion reflects Glasgow's old antagonisms.

 

Richard Wilson is writing a book on the Old Firm called "Inside The

Divide" that will be published by Canongate

The Old Firm: What they say about football's bitterest rivalry

 

2011

 

"We've both got a lot of experience of this fixture and know that

sometimes, in the heat of the moment, things can be said and words exchanged."

 

Celtic manager Neil Lennon after his touchline fracas with Rangers' Ally

McCoist after last Wednesday's game

 

 

"The unedifying sight of two of the country's most recognisable and

respected coaches engaged in an angry confrontation was not only unsavoury

but exacerbated an already incendiary atmosphere inside the stadium and

throughout the west of Scotland."

 

SFA Chief Stewart Regan after last Wednesday's violence

 

2005

 

"There's a thing in a football ground called a 90-minute bigot, someone

who has got a friend of an opposite religion next door to them. But for that

90 minutes they shout foul religious abuse at each other and we've got to

handle in the first instance the 90-minute bigot."

Lawrence Macintyre, head of safety for Rangers FC

 

"I have never identified football with religion. Today there are probably

more Catholics playing for Rangers than there are playing for Celtic. I

agree there is still vitriol but you have to look at it in the context of

where it is coming from. There are hardcore elements within the two sets of

supporters. It works both ways."

 

Jack Ramsay, the head of the Orange Lodge in Scotland

1998

Seeing Beattie in recent times, he looks alot fitter and leaner.

 

Our fitnes training must be pretty poor. But it's consistent with the rest of our 'training and development', in that we're not very good at it and players struggle to do the basics well. As we're clearly not working on our touch, control, composure, passing, awareness and overall technique, then what chance does our fitness development stand ??

I'm sure I've read that we don't really "train" during the week. As we have so many games and such a small squad, everybody is basically involved in the matches, then there is the recovery from a game... It is concerning that Beattie looks so much better now, but part of that may be the fact he gets more space, or in fact we helped get him out of his slump of not playing in ages, and now he's back regularly Blackpool they are seeing the benefit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he's only away on loan?

Anyone else reminded of the Fawlty towers episode with the German visitors? He keeps talking about the war... Then the Germans complain:

"Vy do you keep talking about ze vor?!"

"You started it!"

"No ve didn't!"

"Yes you did! You invaded Poland!"

kinda like celtic victimising diouf, which is OK, because he started it the last time the tims had a run in Europe... when was that again?!

Those stats are incorrect.

 

Old Firm mayhem indeed.

Out of interest, do we find out what these stats are? and how they were split between the teams?

I'm sure there are plenty idiots on our side that deserved it, I am not ashamed to admit that, just cos an idiot supports the same team does not mean I should support him, especially if he is shaming my team and myself as he sullies the name of Gers fans in the process. I just have this perception that the "crimes" of singing Gers songs is targeted more than singing Celtic equivalents, and singing is barely a crime... unless you count the x-factor/Britain's got talent stuff...

I will say right here and now that his world should be brought to an end today."

Metaphor or no metaphor; This type of language is distasteful at best, if not verging on threatening. What if some lunatic takes his words seriously?

I'm not particularly for the EHD signing, but I'll be damned if I'm going to condemn him when, you're right, "he's done nothing" to warrant this witch-hunt other than a previous crime for which he served his punishment. As far as I'm concerned, everyone from day one has been out to wind him up, and most of the "trouble" has found him. None more so than what the perpetually offended CFC have dished out.

What has he done since arriving that has been anything worse than the likes of Novo, Brown, Alex Rae Sutton, and even the angelic saint himself, Neil Lennon have done to wind up the opposition and/or defend themselves?

Until he does something worthy of universal condemnation, as a Bear, I'll do my best to support him as well as anyone else from the rest of our team!

At least someone has gone on the record and pointed out it is a scottish society/drink problem and not just "big bad Rangers".

Scotland should be shamed at the persecution of Diouf, there's no other word for it. The ref fell into that plan far too easily. Shambolic.

The most "explosive" game prior to last nights farce, in my mind has to be the game in which thompson and Sutton got sent off, Celtic got done, and unlike last night the ref seemed afraid to yellow card celtic players, the main benefactor of which was the current celtic manager who probably did enough to earn 2 red cards... After the match Martin ONeill "lost the plot".

We seemed to be given yellow cards solely on the reaction of the crowd, and the ref seemed to ignore multiple fouls on our forwards/midfielders while penalising them for next to nothing (e.g. whittakers first yellow)

I can't remember the media reaction, but I'm sure it was Lovenkrands (i think he was involved in thomspons red card) and the ref that got the blame, not celtic who played like animals. Yes we had a few bad challenges, but it wasn't a thuggish display nor a particularly dirty game. It was just poorly refereed. Anyone who says that didn't influence the game is obviously ignoring the fact that with 10 men you change a game, and whittaker was just beginning to get some joy down the right with the diagonal flick ons where the celtic fullback struggled. He got sent off before we could exploit this properly.

Apologies if I've mixed up incidents in games, but Celtic as a club disgust me, they are liars and cheats, and have everybody except us believing them or glorifying their averageness...

unfortunately we both played with the same ball...

hmmm, a strange one indeed! Still, I like the video

only problem is both teams played with the same ball! Surely that's why the keepers check the ball before a game? and the ref let them play with it? surely they have other match balls?!