Uilleam

More probably Blind Turlough O'Carolan.

If memory serves, our referees lost the strike (a walk out unarguably engendered by that New Renaissance Man, Neil Lennon, and sellikfootballclub). Failing to win an industrial dispute of that nature will generally make those defeated think long and hard about repeating the experience. The success of Pinhead the Hand Puppet's false flag operation, flying in foreign referees, under, quite blatantly, false pretences, may help crystallise officials' thinking, although whether it would be as easy for the SFA to repeat the blacklegging operation is a matter for conjecture. A no. of the foreign officials were perturbed that the Scottish football authorities had lied to them about the reason that their services were required. The gentlemen of the media, I need hardly add, behaved like the sellik lickspittles they are, which aided neither the officials' cause, nor the pursuit of truth, one whit. At the moment, the League, unfortunately, is done, and even if the officials decided to withdraw their labour, the teams most likely to suffer are those fighting for promotion, or against relegation, and not the outfit responsible for alienating the referees in the first place. It is, therefore not, tactically, the optimum time to down tools, or whistles and flags for that matter. One rather hopes that the match officials will nurse their grievances, keeping them warm, hopefully red hot and furious, until competitions resume. Next season will, I imagine, see the fhilth cock-a-rahoops with themselves; their hauteur, together with their sense of entitlement, and their control of parties within the Association, and the League, will result in further and increasing disenchantment among the officials. It may prove to be an interesting season, off the field of play.

A friend suggested that Radio Liffey's football gub was, perhaps, on the independent, quasi judicial panel which considered Brown's red mist defence. He has previously fulfilled such an onerous obligation, apparently.

A friend suggested that Radio Liffey's football gub was, perhaps, on the independent, quasi judicial panel which considered Brown's red mist defence. He has previously fulfilled such an onerous obligation, apparently.

Hopefully, the bastard is in the gaol.

The bastard must be in the gaol, then.

Turning shame into success: it seems to me that that is more rasellik way.

Outrageous. They are making hay while the sun shines. Soon, their vile practices will be exposed in the courtroom, once again, and they will pay the penalty.

The Ages of Fandom. It's easy enough to work out to which one you belong............. The five ages of being a football fan You start off innocent and awestruck, become rambunctious, then detached and analytical, before finally reclining into a place where you say whatever you want By Ian Plenderleith for When Saturday Comes, of the Guardian Sport Network When the Premier League matchday experience has become too intense, it’s time to settle into life in the lower leagues. Ian Plenderleith Wednesday 26 April 2017 10.03 BST There are five ages to being a football fan. In Age One, you are the wide-eyed innocent in your father’s wake, awestruck at every kick, scream and swearword. In the Second Age, you are the young teenager at the game with mates, gleefully and liberally squawking those same swearwords. In Age Three, in your late teens and early 20s, you are the detached, laconic observer, trying to pretend that you don’t care by laughing at your team’s failures, all the while hurting underneath. In the Fourth Age, now in your 30s and 40s, perhaps with a family of your own, you prefer to sit and analyse, making frequent references to players and games from the past. You have reached peak wisdom, because in Age Five, as you hit middle age and beyond, you feel that your loyalty and longevity entitle you to do and say whatever the hell you want. Pay 30-plus quid for a ticket? Why the hell should I? Bollocks to that, I’m off to watch the North East Counties League. Those grimacing pensioners you see at every non-League ground are not just decoration for authenticity’s sake. It’s you and me, in the future. Maybe even now. It’s the logical reward for years of emotional hardship, and all that time and money you invested in teams that would only ever pay you back in the currency of disappointment. I recently caught a glimpse of Age Five, and it’s a comforting place to be. On a recent Saturday morning in north Lincolnshire, my dad and I contemplated the fixture list for our afternoon’s entertainment. Lincoln had already played the night before, and both Grimsby and Scunthorpe were away. So were Louth Town, Gainsborough Trinity, Brigg Town, Lincoln United and Lincoln Moorlands. The final choice was between Hull City v Crystal Palace and Barton Town Old Boys v Bridlington Town in the FA Cup extra preliminary qualifying round. Two decades earlier, we wouldn’t have hesitated to head off to Hull. On this day, we opted for a country drive, a spot of lunch with a pint of ale and then a game featuring lots of blokes called Phil, Dave, Tom and Steve. Not for us the cosmopolitan cut-and-thrust of a high-level encounter in a rocking stadium. We wanted a place where we could sit back, belch, and then smile as the rest of the crowd turned around to see who’d made all that noise. The idea of Hull and 18,000 other fans seemed like too much bother. The whole matchday experience has become too intense. You can no longer amble up to the gate just before kick-off, hand over your cash and find a spot to stand or a seat with a reasonable view. You have to plan, weeks or even months in advance. When buying tickets, you’ve got to be sure there’s enough money in your bank account to cover it. You have to work out how many hours before kick-off you’ll need to set out to avoid the traffic, get a parking space and beat the rush. After all, if you’ve paid all that cash for the privilege, you don’t want to miss a single minute. And once you’re in, you’re stuck with one seat. And so you decide that it all seems like too much hassle. If you don’t bother, you’ll save all that money and petrol. You’ll save the six hours that going to a 90-minute game now demands. You’ll save yourself from drinking cold, crappy beer from a plastic beaker. You’ll save yourself from the bloke next to you who hasn’t washed his replica shirt since last summer. You’ll save yourself from the bloke behind you who is very, very angry about everything that’s happening on the field, and plenty more besides. You’ll save yourself the disappointment of an unhappy result. On this particular Saturday, my dad and I left a village pub south of Barton a few minutes before kick-off, parked right outside the ground and paid a total of eight quid to get in. The grumpy old gate man got aggrieved at my dad for having the audacity to ask what colour the home team played in. Programmes were a quid, as were raffle tickets (prizes – a bottle of wine and “a breakfast”). You got to see and hear every grimace, grunt and foul-mouthed scream of frustration. The 138 spectators watched a 2-2 draw, which was three goals more than they had in Hull, where Palace won by virtue of a chiselling own goal. I can see myself in my twilight years, whiling away autumnal afternoons and sparsely floodlit Tuesday nights to a backdrop of thuds, yells and an occasional twist of real skill. Watching football wherever I feel like it, cheaply and without stress. Shouting out to the lumbering defender: “Oi, Dobson, you’re shite!” He turns around and sees an old man. What’s he going to do? By Age Five, you’ve paid your dues to football. It’s finally time to stand back with a pint and enjoy the game on your terms. • This article appeared first in When Saturday Comes • Read the full WSC back catalogue by subcribing to the magazine • Follow WSC on Twitter and Facebook https://www.theguardian.com/football/when-saturday-comes-blog/2017/apr/26/five-ages-being-football-fan-non-league-supporter

Bookie bankrolls one horse race. Like something out of Damon Runyon. (According to the media, which I believe, implicitly, always, the competition is by Racing Certainty out of Foregone Conclusion.)

They would have to knock the mould off first. The sports' media in Scotland is pretty dire, as a whole; the fitba' writers, commentators, pundits etc., are excepted, only insofar as as they are the most wretched, and irredeemable of the entire species.

They could console themselves with the notion that it would be another "furst furrahoops".... Seriously, a full investigation into the activities of that club is essential. If it is found to have sought advantage in youth recruitment by knowingly prejudicing children's safety, if it is found to have covered up criminal acts (flouting the Law in its own interests), then for either, or both of these wrongs it, and the men responsible, must receive appropriate sanction under Law, and exemplary punishment by the football authorities.

At some point even the corrupt of this land will have to concede that.

Prosecutions -successful prosecutions- will force the issue. It just takes one to crack......

I am sure that I read, recently, that The Knowledgeable John actually "sacked" Torbett from his post @sellikboys'club. This would indicate that sellikfootballclub had the power to fire, and, presumably, hire at the subsidiary organisation, and thus was in control of it. The SFA will, in all likelihood, conclude that there were no regs, or guidelines, or established procedures, or best practice recommendations/requirements, in place, consequently rasellik was not and is not in breach of anything, that it acted no differently from many other clubs, and that while it should perhaps, ideally, have demonstrated rather more of a duty of care, there is no basis for further action. Where it gets interesting, and we have to be careful to separate this out, and be equally careful how we talk about it, is the criminal investigation. If it is established that there was criminal activity over a no of years, and that those in control of the club -and, by extension, and practice, the boys' club- were aware of this activity, and of its criminal nature, and failed to take appropriate action by contacting the police, then we could be looking at something gey close to a criminal conspiracy. If this scenario emerges from the investigation, and if the parties in control of the clubs are found guilty of a cover up,then, given the nature, extent, and duration of this crime, the football authorities would have to take action. In my humble opinion this would involve title stripping, and suspension from ALL football competitions for a minimum - minimum- period of 5 years, if not sine die. Note that it would have to be treated as a unique case, sui generis, and thus the current rule book would not be sufficient to cover it, save under catch alls for criminality, gross moral turpitude, and the like.

What I fail to grasp with these jokers is why they have to wager on football, at all, there being immense, almost unlimited, scope for betting elsewhere, on almost any field of endeavour, human, and animal, world wide, on course, off course, on line, off line; unless they are, despite all protestations to the contrary, at the madam.

Apologia pro vita sua From Joey B's website The FA have announced I am banned from all football for 18 months and fined £30,000 and costs for offences against The FA’s Betting Rules. I am very disappointed at the harshness of the sanction. The decision effectively forces me into an early retirement from playing football. To be clear from the outset here this is not match fixing and at no point in any of this is my integrity in question. I accept that I broke the rules governing professional footballers, but I do feel the penalty is heavier than it might be for other less controversial players. I have fought addiction to gambling and provided the FA with a medical report about my problem. I’m disappointed it wasn’t taken into proper consideration. I think if the FA is truly serious about tackling the culture of gambling in football, it needs to look at its own dependence on the gambling companies, their role in football and in sports broadcasting, rather than just blaming the players who place a bet. I am not alone in football in having a problem with gambling. I grew up in an environment where betting was and still is part of the culture. From as early as I can remember my family let me have my own pools coupon, and older members of the family would place bets for me on big races like the Grand National. To this day, I rarely compete at anything without there being something at stake. Whether that’s a round of golf with friends for a few pounds, or a game of darts in the training ground for who makes the tea, I love competing. I love winning. I am also addicted to that. It is also the case that professional football has long had a betting culture, and I have been in the sport all my adult life. Given the money in the game, and the explosion in betting on sport, I understand why the rules have been strengthened, and I also accept that I have been in breach of them. I accept too that the FA has to be seen to lead on this issue. But surely they need to accept there is a huge clash between their rules and the culture that surrounds the modern game, where anyone who watches follows football on TV or in the stadia is bombarded by marketing, advertising and sponsorship by betting companies, and where much of the coverage now, on Sky for example, is intertwined with the broadcasters’ own gambling interests. That all means this is not an easy environment in which to try to stop gambling, or even to encourage people within the sport that betting is wrong. It is like asking a recovering alcoholic to spend all his time in a pub or a brewery. If the FA is serious about tackling gambling I would urge it to reconsider its own dependence on the gambling industry. I say that knowing that every time I pull on my team’s shirt, I am advertising a betting company. I say none of this to justify myself. But I do want to explain that sometimes these issues are more complicated than they seem. As for the scale of my football betting, since 2004, on a Betfair account held in my own name, registered at my home address and verified by my own passport, with full transparency, I have placed over 15,000 bets across a whole range of sports. Just over 1,200 were placed on football and subject to the charges against me. The average bet was just over £150, many were for only a few pounds. For the modern footballer, downtime and rest are important and I spend much of my time away from training in front of a TV screen, channel hopping across a range of sports, and betting on the outcome of games. I like watching sports and predicting the outcome. Set alongside what we are privileged to earn as footballers, my betting stakes are relatively small. Betting for me, is less about how much money I win or lose, and more about whether I can correctly predict the outcome of the game I’m watching. I hate losing more than I like winning, and this mindset has helped prevent me from placing big bets, for fear of losing big. Raised at the hearing was that between 2004 and 2011 I placed a handful of bets on my own team to lose matches. I accept of course that this is against the rules, for the obvious reason that a player with an additional financial stake in the game might seek to change the course of it for his own personal gain. However I’d like to offer some context. First, in every game I have played, I have given everything. I’m confident that anyone who has ever seen me play, or played with or against me, will confirm that to be the case. I am more aware than anyone that I have character issues that I struggle with, and my addictive personality is one of them, but I am a devoted and dedicated professional who has always given my all on the pitch. Second, on the few occasions where I placed a bet on my own team to lose, I was not involved in the match day squad for any of those games. I did not play. I was not even on the bench. I had no more ability to influence the outcome than had I been betting on darts, snooker, or a cricket match in the West Indies. I should add that on some of those occasions, my placing of the bet on my own team to lose was an expression of my anger and frustration at not being picked or being unable to play. I understand people will think that is childish and selfish and I cannot disagree with that. Third, I should point out that the last of these bets against my own team was six years ago (and in a reserve game), when I was going through a particularly troubled period, and when the FA were not nearly as hard on gambling as they are now. One thing I can state with absolute certainty – I have never placed a bet against my own team when in a position to influence the game, and I am pleased that in all of the interviews with the FA, and at the hearing, my integrity on that point has never been in question. I could not live with myself, nor face my team-mates or the fans of the clubs I played for, if they seriously thought I would bet on my team to lose a game whose outcome I could influence. The Commission that heard my case made clear in their reasons on a number of occasions that “there was no suggestion was involved in match fixing” and I am publishing a list of my bets because I want the full facts of my case to be known. A ban of 18 months is longer than several bans handed to players who played in matches where they bet for their team to lose and – unlike me – were found to have had an ability to influence the games. The only players to be banned for 12 months or longer bet against their own teams and played in the matches in which they placed those bets. Players who did not play in the matches they placed the bets in have never been banned for longer than 6 months. I feel the ban is excessive in this context. Throughout my career I am someone who has made mistakes and owned up to those mistakes and tried to learn from them. I intend to do that here. I accept that this is one more mess I got into because of my own behaviour. This episode has brought home to me that just as I had to face up to the need to get help to deal with alcohol abuse, and with anger, so now I need to get help for my issues with gambling, and I will do so. I want to thank the Burnley FC board, management, players and staff for their faith and understanding, and their belief that I would play for them, and play well, even with this hanging over me, and I want to thank the Burnley fans for the support they have given me throughout. They have been brilliant. Having consulted with my friends and lawyers, I have decided I will be appealing against the length of the ban. I hope that I shall be afforded a fair hearing by an independent Appeal Panel. If I am, we are confident that the sanction will be reduced to a fair one that both reflects the offences as well as the mitigating factors and the fact that there was nothing untoward or suspicious about the bets I made. I’m keen to be open about it, here are the thirty most pertinent bets as determined by the FA: http://www.joeybarton.com/betting-statement/ You may view, if you wish, the 'pertinent bets' at the above address.

St Johnstone to Hibs? Sic transit gloria, Swanson......

Hopefully, the thin end of a large judicial wedge for Gessler.

The 3 clubs, and Osasuna, were allowed, in 1990, to retain their status as 'socios', owned by their members, unlike the other teams, which were obliged by statute, to reconstitute themselves as public limited companies. This extraordinary decision by the govt allowed significant tax advantages to accrue to the 4 'socios'. Murray, Whyte = Amateurs.

Do Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Athletic Bilbao not have 'Club' as opposed to 'Company' status enshrined by Statute in Spanish Law, allowing them tax advantages not open to their 'competitors'? I am sure I have read this, in a respectable newspaper/journal.

Aye, right.

I will say this for Brown: he plays the role of sellik captain to something approaching perfection; classless, graceless, charmless, moronic. I don't think, however, that he is a graduate of the Method School of acting.

I didn't accuse you of "creaming yourself", actually. That was M. Rosseau, who kens you better than I do. I suggested merely that you exhibit a tendency to gush over Barcelona and Messi, similar to that shown by El Chico in his more impulsive, ill considered moments, of which there have been many, and not merely pertaining to football. I explained why Barcelona football club (which is all that it is), and the torrents of over embroidered comment which accompany its every move, is not to my auld Scots Presbyterian taste. Actually, the effusive cant, the self-righteousness, the constant, hypocritical, attempts to seize the moral high ground, and its ludicrous, self inflated, self image, all conspire to remind me of nothing so much as a certain football club, domiciled in Glasgow's East End, and its tribal followers. Apart from that, can't stand it.

Distinctly possible, in my view. I feel that players should not be judged after one season, or, as with M. Dembele, part of a season, but after their second campaign.