I understand that there were two gatherings of the Sevco High Command yesterday.
The first one mainly dealt with footballing matters.
To that end, I’m told, that the Admirable Warburton was brought in.
He was, as usual, excellently prepared to present to the Blue Room chaps.
The ex-City trader’s plan for the January window was to bring in up to five players that would augment and improve the squad and enable the Engine Room Subsidiary to kick on in the second half of the season.
Sadly, this was shot down rather quickly.
The Admirable Warburton was told that any transfer dealings would have to be either wage neutral or, ideally, lower the wage bill.
To that end, any player coming would have to mean a player going out.
The bottom line is that finances are tight, very tight indeed.
The spin to go out from this was that any influx of players might upset the fine balance in this best of the rest ensemble.
Of course, should Mr David Cunningham King decide to ‘Over-invest’ then the Admirable Warburton will have whatever it takes.
Of course, no matter what austerity measures are required to keep HMS Sevco afloat I’m sure that Lee Wallace will still sit down to a World Class Breakfast at the Captain’s table every morning.
I was heartened to hear that Mr Stewart Robertson was there to give wise counsel on the issues around those excellent Lion Brand fellows.
Selfless to the end, I do hope that there is some help for those heroes.
Dunkirk Spirit and all that.
In the second meeting, the issue of the roofs and your own humble correspondent came up.
One director asked about the putative plans for the installation of nets in the three stands.
The question was put that if this does goes ahead then “are you not then proving that man’s point”?
Dear reader, I think that I’m the man in question.
I’m told that this perfectly sensible interrogative utterance was apparently ignored and the meeting moved on.
One chap stated that the Holding Company Vehicle needed “to get ahead of this” apropos the story on the Ibrox roofs.
Sadly the PR budget has been gobbled up, and the chaps in the Blue Room had not been expecting this story to break.
One thing that the Sevco High Command found most upsetting was the precision of the information contained within my initial story.
My understanding is that they had thought that this sensitive data had been secured within a very small group.
Ah well…
However, I was glad to hear that some directors are starting to have genuine questions apropos the roof issue.
One immaculately coiffed factotum did say that they were in discussions with the Chairman on this matter and it was hoped that he would be able to remotely join that gathering tomorrow.
As the second conclave broke up, I’m told that three of the directors broke away to have an ad hoc meeting apart from the other directors.
Need to know rule and all that.
We can’t have information leaking out as that would be bad…
Discover more from Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
A bit off topic but I see that Celtic have been awarded the lowest number of fouls in the Premiership and are one of the highest for committing fouls. We average 10.9 fouls given to us per game.
Now given that we have probably the highest possession in the Premiership, it seems bizarre that our fouls count for and against should be so far out of sync with our high percentage possession. Empirical, undeniable evidence.
The Dundee game on Saturday our players were being fouled, but the awards were not given. An example, easy enough to check is the foul on Rogic when ODea went clean through him and was rightly booked, but immediately prior to that, Armstrong is fouled twice with one tackle from behind and simultaneously pulling his arm. Madden was only feet away but let it go. The Rogic injury was coming. He received three tackles from behind prior to the one on him which caused the injury.
I notice also that Clancey has an inclination to award very few fouls to Celtic, for example Ross County, we only received five from him.
It would be interesting to see figures on fouls awarded to CFC from certain referees. Clancey’s figures for two games are five and four, while Madden awarded only four. Now that is 13 fouls in three games awarded to CFC, yet our average is 10.9 awards per game.
That strongly suggests that other officials are awarding CFC fouls while some, Clancey and Madden as examples are not, yet on Saturday CFC had 68% possession, but were according to Madden fouled only four times. With 32% possession CFC according to Madden gave away 17 fouls. Similar possession against St. Johnstone and Ross County saw Clancey only give 8 fouls to CFC in total, yet in one game we committed, according to him, 25 fouls.
Bizarre does not cover it, but another word does……….I wonder what it could be …..ch…..g,
Perhaps.
Put this together with Thompson in the ITC semi when he used X-ray vision to see Ambrose make contact, which Sky had to replay several times to confirm, didn’t see a blatant hand ball penalty when Johansen crossed the ball, yet again dawned his X-ray specs to see through a ruck of players to over rule a linesman six feet from the incident and award a crucial throw in to rfc which immediately brough about the equalising goal.
Then we have the myopic foursome at the RC semi final. We all know about that. Muir from six feet couldn’t see what 50000 spectators could.
Bizarre doesn’t cover it. Farrygate, Dallasgate, Dougie Dougie and Res12, Columgate, he with eyes in the back of his head etc etc etc. A retired referee posted on YouTube boasting at an after dinner speech at a ahem, Gentlemens club lol lol about how he cheated CFC by ignoring a foul on John Hartson in a crucial OF game when a named rfc defender “wiped Hartson out. I of course did not see it” accompanied by belly laughter from the assembled gathering which consisted of dullards too lacking in critical analysis to perceive that he was boasting about cheating. Or perhaps, they approved……surely not.
As I say…..bizarre does not cover it.
I get a strange feeling CFC will NOT BE ALLOWED to win the game on NYE.
You’ve been calling for an “outbreak of journalism” at the Daily Radar for a long time now Phil.
Well, your wait is over.
“Record Sport have seen contracts that show Queen’s Park have ended almost 150 years of tradition and are in blatant breach of national minimum wage regulations.
We have been investigating the failure of the SPFL and its clubs to tackle low pay legislation and can reveal the Spiders are riding roughshod over their own heritage by offering the illegal, peppercorn salaries”.
They have been “investigating”, yes, that’s right, “investigating”,
Fearless, that’s the word that c omes to mind. No matter what the fallout may be from taking on the mighty Queens Park FC and exposing their malfeasence, the Radar has tenatiously followed their leads and have gone to press in order to expose this sharp practise in Scottish football.
With HMRC on their case, what could the ramifications be for the Cathcart outfit?
Any threat to the existence of this great Glasgow institution could spell “ARMAGEDON” for the game in scotland.
Dark days ahead, perhaps, down Mount Florida way…..
Eloquently put sligojoe
Sligojoe,
Do not fret. The club cannot be liquidated, but would join Third Lanark RFC floating in the troposphere over Hampden.
Jabba’s spin off the Christmas festive menu? I wondered why the Daily Rubbish published the Sevco FFP non compliance story, which the Brothers at STV quickly moved to tone down with the unsurprising Grant R obfuscation. Guess STV do it all for free.
The functionary sticking the knife to Malky MacKay tonight I hear.
For the 1st time in my life I am ashamed to be Scottish..For a wee country that gave so much ..we are being defined by our “media “…I used to be proud to be Scottish and what we stood for …a country that gave you Livingstone/Logie Baird/Conan Doyle/McEwen/ Burns/Connelly/Stein/Shankly/Ferguson/
Mcllaveny/Lynch/ to name a few and this what we are are reduced to a once proud and great wee country now we accept the mediocre pish ..
if Dk does hinself do an inspection of the said overhead faults would that be fiddler on the roof
Severe gales expected across Scotland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-38365819
Hi Phil,
And thank you again,you are the cat among those pigeons,and no mistake.It must give you a very warm glow inside.But,it is all their own doing,and you shouldn’t feel bad about your warm glowing inside,unless,of course,your under that roof…
I had just been reading about the Two World Class Delusionists,Lee Hodson and Kris Boyd,who regularly perform on different stages,the daily rancid for Boydy,and £1rokes for Hodson.These two are a fine double act of World Class Delusionists,and,although they appear on different stages,at different times,that fact hasn’t hit home yet.Still,there is always hope.
Then I read your article,which had me in hysterics,after reading those two.BRILLIANT.
go raibh maith agat go mór go deimhin
The roof and nothing but the whole roof
To misquote Marcellus Wallace in the basement of that pawnshop
‘I’m pretty fuckin far from the whole (t)roof.’
You can’t handle the ‘roof’!
I see Warburton is banging his gums again to the media about how his players should be in the Scotland squad, yet only a few games ago he didn’t have them in his own team lol.
He was barely in Scotland five minutes and he was telling us how to reorganise Scottish football and he has been asked how good a job GS is doing……lol
Only thing this plank hasn’t commented on is who should be sacked from The Apprencice or The Scottish Budget.
Thank God we have BR. A very diplomatic and sensible manager, who side steps issues which have nothing to do with him.
It’s the ‘Master’ syndrome, Alfie.
They’re indoctrinated into it from birth and then spend their whole lives following whatever the nearest master orders.
The concept of an original thought is like a foreign country to such peepil.
And there I thought this was a fitba site…’Masters’ syndrome…doh…teehee…⚽
The Hat must be on board with the January window, one in, one out policy as he’s quoted that he expects things to be quiet on that front……..but whatever you do don’t mention a lack of money!
I doubt if that will go down well with the Bears, though their climb to be best of the rest has, for the moment, calmed the majority of their fans.
However if a drubbing, or even any kind of defeat, is visited upon them on Hogmanay then the mood will change quite quickly.
Going into the New Year 20 plus points behind was never part of the plan.
As King has made it clear that European football next season is critical, his words not mine, the issue of the licence will be front and centre.
The compartmentalisation of data that is thought to remain unimparted somehow keeps finding its way onto these pages.
They must be pulling what’s left of their hair out.
Who’d be a number two, eh ..?
Isn’t it rather odd that the directors and shareholders on the board – who have considerable business experience – are looking to the convicted, non-executive chairman for wisdom / permission / over-investment?