FAO QB - SUFC

[Dave R]

Quiffy, my condolences on today...was a tight thing with 6 clubs going for it in the play off spots...great day for the outsider, and today I was just that, still at least I know we get to play you guys next season, we finally dropped today, maths etc etc...

Did not see us getting 34 goals over that last 2 games anyway...

Looking forward to meeting up with Mr Warnock and the lads once more...who knows, maybe this time we will be head to ead for the Automatic Promotion Slots????

Fingers crossed, for you, and us.

Apologies for no musical references in this post.

"A matter of life and death? - Its more important than that!!"

[Quiff Boy]

ta. see you next season

[Thrash Harry]

OK. So I'm gonna be a tw@t now and p*ss all over your football threads. What is it with you so-called intelligent people and football? The first 'top flight' game I saw was when I came to Leeds in 81, versus Tottenham. Stood in the Kop, surrounded by sh!t-for-brains chanting Ooo Ooo Ooo every time Garth Crooks got the ball. Don't tell me that doesn't happen anymore, cos I was at the Galatasaray home game and the air was full of it. What the hell makes football supporters think they can go to an away game in Europe and shove their scarves up their host's arses without getting a good kicking like they would in the pubs of Manchester?

Edit: Profanity strikes again.

[Big Si]

OK. So I'm gonna be a tw@t now and p*ss all over your football threads. What is it with you so-called intelligent people and football? The first 'top flight' game I saw was when I came to Leeds in 81, versus Tottenham. Stood in the Kop, surrounded by sh!t-for-brains chanting Ooo Ooo Ooo every time Garth Crooks got the ball. Don't tell me that doesn't happen anymore, cos I was at the Galatasaray home game and the air was full of it. What the hell makes football supporters think they can go to an away game in Europe and shove their scarves up their host's arses without getting a good kicking like they would in the pubs of Manchester?

Edit: Profanity strikes again.

Not all fans are like that Thrash - http://www.celtic-mad.co.uk/news/loadne ... &id=132955

[Andie]

Si...

we all know that there are differences between the english and scottish football fans...


but did you need to make it just so obvious??

[andymackem]

Hmm. What's your objection? Football is watched by morons and is thus to be treated with contempt, or football turns "so-called intelligent people" into morons?

The first point is absurd: morons watch TV, go to the cinema and listen to music, but that doesn't make all of those activities unworthy for us self-appointed intelligensia types.

The second argument is more interesting. I know a number of people who I like and respect with whom I won't discuss football at any great length. As a fan myself I know the levels of poorly defined bitterness that my team can inspire in me, usually towards opponents. On the other hand, I don't hurl abuse at opponents except under extreme provocation, and make a special effort not to act like a tosser at away games, whether this is overseas with England or around the UK with Sunderland (or working at West Ham as a neutral). I'd suggest that the NAC Breda fans who were drinking with some of our boys before a pre-season friendly out there a couple of years back would have been left with a positive impression of Sunderland and their fans - I know one of them was left with a tape of a Nick Cave gig and kept pouring Guinness down my neck for the rest of the evening. Does that absolve the muppets? No, but I suspect they'd probably be muppets if they were doing something other than watching football, to be honest. There's one born every minute, and all that.

As for why I like football, as a "so-called intelligent person" (I'll take that as a compliment, thanks!), I guess there are lots of reasons. Some of it is basic, tribal stuff: the sense of belonging and shared experience that comes from joining a crowd with common hopes and mutual fears. Also, having moved away from my home town, following my team is my last tangible link with where I grew up.

In a more general sense, the reason why I decided to follow a career in sports journalism and spend much of time watching games as a neutral is based on the sheer magical unpredictable excitment of watching a match.

Think about football-based films for a moment: Escape to Victory, When Saturday Comes and the like. You watch them and you know they are Roy-of-the-Rovers hocum where the good guys win against the odds and Sean Bean stumbles out of the pub to win the Cup for his underachieving heroes while Sly Stallone liberates Western Europe by saving a penalty. It's pure Hollywood and it's totally contrived.

Now watch the real thing as the underdog has its moment. Because it's unscripted and unpredictable there's something magical about seeing the over-inflated self-importance of Lothar Matteaus (sp) reduced to pawing the ground in helpless rage after his side concede two stoppage time goals and lose the European Cup. It takes a heart of stone not to share in the joy of Ashia Hanson after she wins Commonwealth gold with the final leap in the long jump, winning by a couple of centimetres a minute after her previous best effort had been topped by an Aussie.

Yes, a lot of sport is unadulterated mediocrity, and yes it is now largely a commercial enterprise ruled by obscene wealth, especially at the highest level. But as a means of channelling emotions into something brilliantly meaningless it is up there with any art form. And unlike a drama, a song or a painting it is changing forever. Triumph and disaster, hope and despair, potential achieved or squandered: it is a mirror for life and an enriching force.

So that's why I love it ... and will still love it even after we get beaten on penalties in the play-off final

I fear the above now qualifies for pseuds.corner@private-eye.com

[andymackem]

Si, forgive me, but when I was living in Glasgow I recall Rangers clinching the SPL title with a 3-0 win at Parkhead.

Celtic's fans seemed a bit less sporting that night. Wasn't the referee's house vandalised, in between running battles around the East End of Glasgow?

I've no axe to grind with Scottish football (Berwick were my adopted team, despite their obvious problems, and I avoided the whole Rangers/Celtic battle like the plague) but I found the atmosphere in town on Old Firm days extremely unpleasant. I also recall no end of trouble when Rangers came to Sunderland for a friendly back in the 80s, so I wouldn't single out Celtic for this.

Congrats on the UEFA award though. Good show. (non-patronising smilie)

[Big Si]

Si, forgive me, but when I was living in Glasgow I recall Rangers clinching the SPL title with a 3-0 win at Parkhead.

Celtic's fans seemed a bit less sporting that night. Wasn't the referee's house vandalised, in between running battles around the East End of Glasgow?

I've no axe to grind with Scottish football (Berwick were my adopted team, despite their obvious problems, and I avoided the whole Rangers/Celtic battle like the plague) but I found the atmosphere in town on Old Firm days extremely unpleasant. I also recall no end of trouble when Rangers came to Sunderland for a friendly back in the 80s, so I wouldn't single out Celtic for this.

Congrats on the UEFA award though. Good show. (non-patronising smilie)

I've been up here 4 years so I've only heard about it from my mates who were there. Never given out any sectarian abuse, but I've been on the receiving end of it, but that's what happens when you walk back from the match through Bridgeton

p.s. I've got good mates in both Glasgow and Belfast who support either team. Thankfully the sectarian diehards are getting fewer and fewer each year!

[andymackem]

p.s. I've got good mates in both Glasgow and Belfast who support either team. Thankfully the sectarian diehards are getting fewer and fewer each year!

Hope you're right about that. Two fine stadia and if you take away the arseholes, some fantastic supporters.

Out of interest, would you want to see the Old Firm move to the English league?

[Big Si]

p.s. I've got good mates in both Glasgow and Belfast who support either team. Thankfully the sectarian diehards are getting fewer and fewer each year!

Hope you're right about that. Two fine stadia and if you take away the arseholes, some fantastic supporters.

Out of interest, would you want to see the Old Firm move to the English league?

Well the board would want it for the TV revenue, but as for the players and the fans we'd get to play/see some great matches. Some of the league games after european nights have been extremely dull, but that's the quality of the opposition up here!

[andymackem]

p.s. I've got good mates in both Glasgow and Belfast who support either team. Thankfully the sectarian diehards are getting fewer and fewer each year!

Hope you're right about that. Two fine stadia and if you take away the arseholes, some fantastic supporters.

Out of interest, would you want to see the Old Firm move to the English league?

Well the board would want it for the TV revenue, but as for the players and the fans we'd get to play/see some great matches. Some of the league games after european nights have been extremely dull, but that's the quality of the opposition up here!

I kind of sympathise, but I'm not sure upping to play in another country is the answer. Firstly it would render the rest of Scottish football even less attractive than it is at the moment, which would rather knacker the national side.

Secondly, it seems a bit unfair on the English clubs dislodged from their own league to make way for Rangers and Celtic .... and I can't imagine they would be willing to start out in the Cumberland County League and work their way up the pyramid, somehow? Putting the Old Firm straight into the top flight would be even worse than the Airdrie United fiasco in terms of distorting the notion of fair competition.

Finally, I have a recollection that UEFA have imposed restrictions on teams qualifying for Europe if they play outside of their home country. I understand that is why the likes of Cardiff and Swansea no longer enter the Welsh FA Cup, which used to regularly get them into Europe. These days it's the likes of Cwmbran and Aberystwyth who get the chance to lose against some bunch of Albanians.

On the bright side, putting them in the league would be a boost for our game. A few Anglo-Scottish clashes would add a bit of excitement, though it might be a struggle accommodating travelling fans down here given the relatively low allocations for away fans at a lot of Premier clubs. Can you imagine Celtic being satisfied with less than 3,000 tickets at Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Charlton etc?

[Thrash Harry]

Ooooh! That was really brave of me wasn't it?

Congratulations on your restraint people. Your point was well made.

Time I checked-in to rehab again, I think.

[Quiff Boy]

Sean Bean stumbles out of the pub to win the Cup for his underachieving heroes

was that for me?

thanks

[Big Si]

Ooooh! That was really brave of me wasn't it?

Congratulations on your restraint people. Your point was well made.

Time I checked-in to rehab again, I think.

Not at all Thrash, you created a good topic for discussion.

And out of interest, the other side to the old firm - http://www.celtic-mad.co.uk/news/loadne ... &id=158517

[trappist]

[quote="doktor wolf"]

Did not see us getting 34 goals over that last 2 games anyway...

quote]

only another 31 to get against Chelsea - you never know, all their players could get sent off!

[Dave R]

I reckon you meant Spurs then???

Its a moot thing now, we drew at Geodie Land....so we were the last club to relegated, which is better than I hoped for!!!

Que sera sera etc etc....

We can but dream....