Celtic Play Their Ace Card-The Bigot

[franker 1]

Last season as the Mowbray�s team took 2nd prize, with Celtic Park a sea of empty seats during match days, the Celtic sites reached bile-ing point regarding refs, conspiracy theories, and masonic plots. Lawell and Mowbray made their way to Hampden to put forward their clarification file to the SFA, a file that contained a substantial number of what they considered refereeing errors against Celtic.(the subtext being these honest? mistakes if repeated could determine the destination of the title)

 

This was no attempt to take part in an exercise to improve the standard of officiating the beautiful game, but an attempt to get their support back on side and their backsides back on those empty seats even if it meant siding with the fundamentalist wing of their support.

John Reid who was in the thick of it during previous governments spin era, knew how to get the message out to the masses. It was a classic New Labour tactic with a leak from the boardroom that told their support about the dossier meeting and, not concerned about the consequences, signalled contempt for the ruling body, an action that should have seen the SFA take Celtic to task.

 

As we now know Mowbrays intention to mimic Catalonia�s finest ended up a disaster-a 2nd rate fake so much so, some people suggest Celtic should be renamed Barras-elona . That was the football side of things, however the off field antics continued and there was an inevitability that they would escalate with the appointment of Neil Lennon.

 

Celtic playing 2nd fiddle to Rangers continued in the first half of this season and we could all see the dreadful touchline behaviour of Lennon, which reached a crescendo with Dougie MacDonald at Tannadice. His confrontation with the match officials provoked a sectarian outburst from the travelling support (noted by the Dundee constabulary)and Lennon could clearly be heard shouting f�king cheat at the match officials. We still await the outcome if any of all of what went on that day.

 

Since our 2-0 defeat at the turn of the year, and with results going his way, he seemed to calm down for a period but returned to his old ways with Rangers signing of Diouf. Lennon in my opinion targeted this player for special treatment with Brown and Kayal in particular taking it upon themselves to dish it out with Lennon himself joining in on the abuse of Diouf in the tunnel at the recent 2-2 cup game at Ibrox.

 

Last night was a repeat of what went on before but let�s be blunt here. We all knew what he was like but more importantly the Celtic board that appointed him knew what he was like but similar to their attitude to the SFA, they seem unconcerned about the consequences,indeed with their attendances improving as well as results, they will feel they have played their cards right.

 

Reading the title of this thread I would not want anyone to think I have thrown my hand in. There is hope we can still win the league, and remember in poker, a Royal Flush beats 4 aces.

[Frankie 8,114]

In some ways, you can't argue with Lennon's strategy. Getting tough and obtaining the backing of the lowest common denominator of Celtic fans was an easy way to make room for himself to settle in.

 

Our management team have been to late to react to their strategy but I'm hoping (again) that last night was the final straw for people like McCoist and Smith - as well as our players. In many ways, I think what happened last night was a boost for our title chances.

[Zappa 0]

Can't argue with much of that Franker, although I haven't followed Lemmon outside of our fixtures against them.