So Celtic got comprehensively outplayed on Wednesday night, the 3-2 scoreline hardly reflecting Barcelona's dominance. An exclusive photo from the Celtic bootroom gives us all some valuable insight into what went wrong: http://i29.tinypic.com/33tqeqb.jpg
Copied without kind permission from some blogger or other.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
This doesn't look like happy ever after
Ah, Gretna FC, the fairytale club with a place in all our hearts. Once bumping around in English non-League football, they got bought by charismatic uncle-figure Brooks Mileson, jumped ship into Scottish football, and powered their way up the divisions into the SPL.
Or a tiny provincial club that became the play thing of a multi-millionaire, who despite their delapitdated stadium and average attendances in the low hundreds, bullied their way to the top table simply through spending way more money than anyone else.
They may be fondly spoken of at Hearts, ever since their 2006 Scottish Cup final together, but most of Scottish football regards them with little affection. Once in the SPL, Gretna struggled, but rather than use the January transfer window to get in some more players, the club released most of their higher earners, leaving them pitifully ill-equipped for survival. As a result, the relegation "battle" is dead - Gretna are certainties to go back down, as they are currently 9 points below a surely uncatchable Kilmarnock.
You could reasonably ask what the point of it all was, but events took a dramatic twist when the players weren't paid on Monday. Gretna implied this was merely because Mileson is in hospital and unable to sign the cheque, which at the very least shows how utterly dependent the club is on one man. But it also suggests that things could be much, much worse than that... if Mileson either won't or can't prop them up anymore, the club will be in serious financial shit. Chief exec Graham Muir today admitted that administration is a possibility.
To their credit, the players said they were more worried about the sick boss than their wages. Somewhat charmlessly, the management team - Davie Irons and Derek Collins - jumped ship to Morton.
Mileson seemed to think he could buy his way into the big time, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Ambitious clubs need to grow organically, attracting bigger crowds and building the infrastructure as they do so. Clubs like Falkirk show it can be done.
But the SPL is no place for village pub teams.
Or a tiny provincial club that became the play thing of a multi-millionaire, who despite their delapitdated stadium and average attendances in the low hundreds, bullied their way to the top table simply through spending way more money than anyone else.
They may be fondly spoken of at Hearts, ever since their 2006 Scottish Cup final together, but most of Scottish football regards them with little affection. Once in the SPL, Gretna struggled, but rather than use the January transfer window to get in some more players, the club released most of their higher earners, leaving them pitifully ill-equipped for survival. As a result, the relegation "battle" is dead - Gretna are certainties to go back down, as they are currently 9 points below a surely uncatchable Kilmarnock.
You could reasonably ask what the point of it all was, but events took a dramatic twist when the players weren't paid on Monday. Gretna implied this was merely because Mileson is in hospital and unable to sign the cheque, which at the very least shows how utterly dependent the club is on one man. But it also suggests that things could be much, much worse than that... if Mileson either won't or can't prop them up anymore, the club will be in serious financial shit. Chief exec Graham Muir today admitted that administration is a possibility.
To their credit, the players said they were more worried about the sick boss than their wages. Somewhat charmlessly, the management team - Davie Irons and Derek Collins - jumped ship to Morton.
Mileson seemed to think he could buy his way into the big time, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Ambitious clubs need to grow organically, attracting bigger crowds and building the infrastructure as they do so. Clubs like Falkirk show it can be done.
But the SPL is no place for village pub teams.
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