Gazzetta Football Scozia

Doesn't matter a shite to me but someone out there did a google search on "gordon strachan protestant" and was taken to a Gazzetta page which happened to contain those three words...

Google search - "gordon strachan protestant"

I can only imagine it was a paranoid tim worried about rumours in the press which subsequently turned out to be true with Celtic perhaps having a manager not of the faith; either that or a Gers fan looking to see if Strachan was going to betray the Church of Scotland. Whoever it was, they're a sad b*stard.
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What goes beep-beep-beep-beep-beep beep-beep?
The Celtic open-top bus reversing into the garage...

[Cheers Jim]
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A Change of Plan

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There are reports of another food poisoning outbreak in central Scotland after 11 men choked after visiting a Motherwell Butcher.

Celtic's new jersey next year has CARLING on the front. On the back it says "Bottled in Motherwell."

It's the way I tell them steal and repost them...

[cheers Ian and Stewart]
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Not a lot of people know this, but Cary Grant's real name was Archibald Leach. OK, the spelling is different, but if you ignore that then his namesake built some of Britain's finest stadiums, as noted recently in Gazzetta.

[cheers Ian]
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In no particular order:
Andy Davis (linesman at Tynecastle who spotted the foul on Kyriakos)
Tony Mowbray (should have risked Hibs' UEFA spot to save the bhoys)
Martin O'Neill
Celtic plc (fancy way of saying 'biscuit tin')
Hugh Dallas (original, that one)
Scott McDonald (not allowed to score against Celtic)
Gordon Marshall (conveniently ignoring the fact he gave Celtic their goal)
Dirty Orange Bastards
Motherwell
Hibs (referred to as hunscum, no less)
Hearts (?!)
Juninho
Henri Camara
...and finally, a man with some sense: the team not being good enough.

Read - footymad Celtic board
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For the first time in a long time the final weekend of games is upon us with an awful lot still to play for...

While the top-end of the English Premiership has been very Scottish-like this season - with a runaway leader - the relegation battle provided some major last-day drama, and it's the same in Scotland. Any one of four teams can still go down although it's really between Dundee, Livi, and Dundee United; my favourites for the drop being Dundee, as United need only a point at nothing-to-play-for Caley Thistle, whereas Livi should be able to hold Dundee to a draw at home and it's goodnight SPL for the Dens Parkers.

[I could be uncharitable and say that it's good for the Blues that Lee Wilkie will not be playing, but I won't...]

Dundee haven't really looked like relegation contenders until recently, but ICT, Livi, Dunfermline and even United have put little spurts of good results in (often including draws and wins against Rangers which will cost us the league). Dundee haven't, which is why they need an away win against a fellow struggler to survive. Looking back, losing Nacho Novo may well have been the main factor in their slide...?

At the top, it's looking bleak for Rangers, as Motherwell did not impress at Ibrox last week and they're still missing key players. Although I'm sure Terry Butcher will have his team kicking and snapping at Celtic, they just don't have enough quality to get a result, and the Celtic team are too experienced at grinding out results in key games. I can't see them slipping. And let's not forget that the Hibees still need a point to secure UEFA qualification, so they will be no pushover for the Gers... which would bring out the worst-case scenario - Celtic slipping up and Rangers failing to capitalise.

I think it'll all be over by half-time; last week's match at Tynecastle was the big chance for Celtic to drop points. It's interesting that a dodgy refereeing decision went in Celtic's favour but the furore seems to be a lot less than when a similar thing happened to give Rangers a win a month ago... I have it on good authority that Beattie's challenge on Pressley was at a minimum clumsy and should have been a penalty; plus Stan Varga was only spoken to for a similar diving fiasco, yet Pressley gets a red card. Let's all just remember that the next time that nonsense anti-Celtic bias comes out (oh and wasn't the paranoia over Craig Gordon's anti-Celtic bias just a load of the usual delusion, encouraged by a lazy journalist or two, no doubt?).
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Not sure if the whole Croke Park fiasco would have made any difference to Scotland's chances of winning Euro 2008, but now that they've opened the doors to 'foreign sports' you can expect to hear some new phrases on the terraces. Danger Here helps you out... very funny even if you've never seen a GAA match in your life...

Read - Danger Here - The Croker Phrasebook

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Back in the day when the internet was new (I first saw Mosaic running in early 1994, and used it to keep in touch with WC 1994 news) there were no live score sites; then someone in enlightened Holland put Dutch Teletext on the web, with live scores from all European leagues, and that was it... many's the hour I spent flicking between work and 1970s text screens showing score updates from "Scootland" or "Schottland" or whatever the cloggies call it.

Surprise, surprise it's still going strong... the interface is a bit fancier but it's no easier to navigate for a non-Dutchy:
Visit - NOS Teletekst

You kids today don't know you were born, with your fancy wireless cellphones and RSS feeds and text updates...

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Robot dog soccer - surely we're better than Togo?

Read - Wired News

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Some Gers fans at Ibrox remain optimistic...

...but surely Marvo is the last person that needs to be told?
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Lots of good stuff on the ATAC website these days, including minutes of their meetings with the SFA (which Walter attends).

Read - Association of Tartan Army Clubs - minutes of April SFA meeting

ATAC is a federation of the larger, more organised Tartan Army clubs in the UK, and I think they've done a good thing getting representation at the SFA table, and have already made good changes such as a supporters' club section at Hampden. I like the idea of naming the stands at Hampden after Scotland legends; perhaps we can take the Loony Alba Player of the Year approach and have a Maradona 1986 main stand, a Waddle 1990 west stand, etc?

On second thought we shouldn't because that would be parochial and petty...
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Worrisome body of opinion forming that Belarus may in fact be better than Norway and Slovenia - and more pointedly, better than us. Hey they only have the one #12m-rated central defender, and their top striker has only scored 9 times in Serie A this year...

Tartan Army Message Board - How Good Are Belarus?

Last time in Minsk (97?) we scraped a 1-0 win thanks to a Gary McAllister penalty (somewhat dubious decision if I recall correctly). That was in the days of Darren Jackson, and we've only got worse since then (hard to imagine, I know). Oh dear.
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Lunnainn Albannaich aka Loony Alba aka "The Tartan Army in London" have an interview with Walter Smith on their website - well worth a look.

Visit - Loony Alba's website

A few highlights:

• Walter was in Chisinau for the recent Moldova-Norway game and found it "rather cold and kind of bleak" which is an understatement, to say the least, based on my experience


• All McCoist graduated top of his coaching class at Largs?


• When Walter says he was 'away' for the Scotland-England playoff Hampden leg, he was in fact watching it with Archie Knox in Clancy's bar, NYC


• Love the "Fat? Bald? Ugly?" banner ad on the home page!

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According to this thread on a Rangers forum, The "Scottish" Sun yesterday had, as a front page article, a story stating that Rangers catering had banned eggs benedict from their menu in case it offended anyone (seeing as the new pope is named after the popular brunch selection). Undoubtedly a load of pish but how can they get away with it?

[Registration required for the forum by the way - so you might not want to bother - you know that you'll get in a database somewhere as a Rangers fan.]

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"Keegan for Hearts" - wish I'd thought of starting that one! Might it just be true?

Read - Pie & Bovril forums

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As regular readers of Gazzetta will know, I am a self-confessed "bit of a groundspotter". So naturally I am both a fan of Simon Inglis and a fellow respecter of Archibald Leitch, an engineer who designed some of Britain's finest stadia in the early 20th century. Mr Inglis takes his devotion a bit further and has written a book on the chap.

Read - Scotsman
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Spoiling the prospect of another Celtic-Man U love-fest... that would just be icing on the cake.

Read - Sporting Life - Hoops consider Keane testimonial

If he grew up supporting Spurs, why does he want to play Celtic in a testimonial? Perhaps to cash in on the Irish fan-base?
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Parky was John Robertson's assistant at Tynecastle, and his future is in the balance now as well. Not very well-known fact: Parky used to be the youth and then reserve team coach at Hibs. Even less well-known fact: his son used my Ibrox season ticket for a couple of years when I first moved to the States.

I used to drink in the bar of a hotel owned by Mr P and George Mackie (ex-Harry Wragg and Gordon Strachan's best man). In fact for the first couple of years I went there - about once a week during the football season - I never left sober, or with more than a few pennies in my pocket.
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This whole John Robertson business does not reflect well on Hearts, and it also makes George Foulkes appear even more of a patsy than ever (he was brought in to "save Tynecastle" - all he did was take the heat off Chris Robinson, and he was lucky Abramovich Jr arrived when he did).

Read - The Scotsman - Hearts force Robertson out

Also Phil Anderton, who did such a wonderful job with Scottish Rugby, is another one whose role I'd be questioning if I were a jambo (*). A Chief Executive is supposed to be exactly that - an executive, and the chief one - so if you're at odds with the majority shareholder's strategy, what exactly are you doing running the organisation?

All the nice statements in the press releases can't hide the fact that Hearts have screwed John Robertson, and that Foulkes and Anderton are just figureheads for Romanov's cronies to hide behind. Depressing.

(*) thankfully I'm not
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You might think this headline refers to a trio of Vicki Vale (aka Kim Basinger in the first Batman) fans swapping great Uncle Bulgaria from the Wombles for Keith Chegwin of Swap Shop/Cheggers Plays Pop fame. But you' be wrong - three Deveronvale player will miss their mate's stag do in Bulgaria to make the Highland League Cup final. Against (you guessed it) Keith!

Read - Aberdeen P&J

Kids - don't do ambien when writing,
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If anyone ever tried to start a 'Mexican wave' at a Scottish football match, I hope they'd get a punch in the mouth. Load of shite for people who can't be bothered creating a real atmosphere. F*** off with it.

Read - Yahoo! - When did people first start doing "the wave" at sporting events?
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Vaguely amusing article by failed Jags co-manager Gerry Britton, and I do like his description of Scottish chip-shop pizza: "a deep-fried circle of dough covered with tomato puree and rubbery cheddar." Mmm, rubbery cheddar...

Read - Scotland on Sunday
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There are working men and women in Scotland who have grown up knowing only Rangers and Celtic ever being Scottish league champions. Infancy, primary school, secondary school, and work; or maybe even graduation from college. New Firm but a piece of dim and distant history. Dundee and Dunfermline in Europe - the stuff of pre-history.
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This article in the Sunday Herald really got my goat. Not just because Michael Grant seems to be in love with UEFA Chief Bureaucrat Lars Christer-Olsson; nor because Grant gives him a free ride because he isn't treated like a parochial hack from a joke football nation.

No, it's because our man Lars - the chief of UEFA's executive - is quite happy to pontificate that Scottish football should remain absolutely as is, and he neither offers nor is challenged to offer an alternative to the stifling Old Firm domination.

Read - Sunday Herald

This quote in particular is a beauty:

If you look at the ‘rich list’ of clubs, Celtic and Rangers are in the top 20 but that doesn’t help them in winning the European competitions. So it’s not only a question of finance.

You're right, Lars - it's a question of having a competitive league to play in every week.

Questions Michael Grant could have asked, but didn't:

• does the UEFA Chief Executive believe it is healthy for two teams to share their nation's league title for 20 continuous years?


• how does UEFA believe competition can be introduced in Scottish football without handicapping Rangers and Celtic, thus making them even less competitive in Europe?


• why does UEFA continue to favour rich clubs from big nations getting richer, with their policy of distributing Champions League TV revenue not on merit but on the size of the TV audience of the team's host nation?

He could have asked these questions; but he didn't.
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I tuck away odd notes on my Treo to remind me to whine about stuff here, and I just came across a comment from the CIS Cup Final that I couldn't ignore.

Basically, where the f*ck are Motherwell supporters every other day of the year? They had, ooh, getting on for 10,000 at Hampden against Rangers, but the only time you ever see a crowd like that at Fir Park is when Rangers or Celtic visit. I know that 'Well fans call us the Mould Firm (ha ha), but it's better than being a PART-TIME SUPPORTER.

Check out their ticketing arrangements - unrestricted public sale - whereas Rangers season ticketholders were turned away. I say again, PART-TIME SUPPORTERS.

Visit - Motherwell footyMAD
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I received this a couple of months back via email, and thought about posting it in its entirety here; for reasons of laziness, I didn't. Turns out Scottish writer Christopher Brookmyre is the man behind it - or so he claims!

Anyway it's a brilliany piece of writing - absolutely spot-on in every way.

Read - Playground Football
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Or, just play the "how many places have I been" game. I scored 23.5 out of 58, which I thought was not bad, considering.

Buy - Loony Alba Merchandise


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