Close Season Junkieitis

Like the returning pampered stars of the present, future and past, us bloggers should be returning from their jollies, refreshed, raring to go, ready to rock and roll into the brand new dawn of the season new season ahead.

Instead a fitbaw less month and a bit has made me go a bit stir crazy. Last week a wee bit of R & R was the tonic but ma self imposed news black oot lasted, oh, all of a day when the urge to buy the Spanish Daily R*nger suddenly gripped me like the urge to have another Heineken. Beer didnae dull the urge and off a trotted to the shop.

Now, back home i don’t read any of the sh*te trotted oot in that rag. Keep ma own council to official outlets, E-Tims rumour mills, CQN and "serious",ahem, papers on the net. But on a Balearic Island, the high cost of net access, phoned locked in the safe on Mrs G orders and the English press being more prominent i ran oot of options.

So like George Galloway i relented and joined the massed ranks of the readers of the comic. Why does Mr Galloway want to join the ranks of Burnie, Traynor, Cosgrove and Cowan? Apart from the usual suspect, money, why does he want to preach to the same masses who “bellied” him over a carousel in Glesga Airport?

Anyway, i was oot, sweating like a junkie on methadone and hot footing it to the nearest shop. The offending item was bought and discarded after 10 mins. It really is a comic but the comic had an interview wie oor leaving captain. An interview, which content, apart from one slip of the tongue, didnae annoy me but the fact that he gave an interview to that rag and Keith Jackson really did rankle me.

Could Lenny not have given an interview to another paper and not the one that has sold numerous copies on the back of the bigoted bile thrown at him, not one that had called him and his team mates thugs and thieves and especially not one who likes throwing us in with them and their problems.

Lenny toed the party line of this rag as well. When speaking aboot sectarian Scotland he said that r*ngers and Celtic should do more aboot eradicating it. Celtic?? Oor captain instead of going to toon on the real sectarian clubs and naming and shaming toed the old f*rm tag line. We are all as bad as each other eh Neil?

Why did he not keep his mouth shut? Why did his ego feel the need for one last front and back page 3 day special? He really said sod all of interest. His take on the Cup Final was to be expected, his take on their problems was to be expected and all the rest was tabloid cannon fodder chip poke wrapper stuff.

And i had paid just over £1.50 for it. Bolloxs. Still like a fool, I wondered over to the shop everyday and bought the paper. Really, each day there was sod all in it. My thirst for knowledge was leading me back to the net but I resisted. I just became addicted to Heineken and Sky Sports News.

Now trying to get Scottish fitbaw news, or lets be straight, Celtic news from this Murdoch outlet is terrible. We usually get a line after the county cricket round up or the rugby headlines. I started to wonder why Sky didnae do a Scottish version of SSN, like the news for the neds from chewin the fat. They could have a wee ten minutes every hour presented by Jim White and Charlie Nick and the roving reports by Chic Charnely and Stevie Baggio Fulton in Lacoste trackies and Reebok classics.

But I wisnny missing anything at all-as you can tell by the ramblings of the above. There was nano happening but Durham were doing well in the cricket...

Anyway, news of movements started coming through and one caught ma attention and it bloody annoyed me. News that the smoggies of the Boro had paid two million squid for an Arsenal reserve player who couldnae a get a game because of Craig Beattie, or a game for West Ham or Wolves when he took his sulky French arse to their patches on loan.

Sky Sports News hailed the deal as a great piece of business. All the English papers said it was a great deal. For me and for those who have watched Aliadaire it’s daylight robbery. If he is worth £2million then Kenny Miller a proven internationalist, of sorts, must be worth at least £5 million. Craig Beattie the player who he couldn't shift from the hoops team then has to be worth at least the same or more as at least he has played for his country.

For us to reach oor potential then we must sell on oor deadwood for what they are worth in the English market. We can’t accept £750,000, here and there and think it is a guid deal. If the English money laden clubs are willing to spend spondolicks on failed reserve team players they should be willing to go over and above that for players wie international and european experience.

Maybe I’m just feeling a bit under whelmed by this close season. There is not a lot happening, the market is as dead as a dodo and oor signings so far have hardly been shout from the rooftops. In fact i still have the feeling we are lacking in the wow factor and fear we will still be lacking in the wow factor when the season starts.

Wie the market being as slow and being exposed to the might of the English propaganda machine then being a Celtic fan does make you feel like a 2nd class citizen. Torres, Tevez, Nani, Haregreaves, McCulloch, Henry, Bent and them all, figures upwards of £15 million, £6 million a year wages etc being quoted and yer club name is not in sight.

You try and say yer club could be the biggest in the world to the non-believers i.e. the English, then you see a Wigan, Fulham or Portsmouth spending more on one player than yer budget on a nobody. It’s so bad that you do feel under-whelmed when you sign an ex £10 million pound player from Ac Milan for only £3million. £3million you think, that’s only Darren Bent’s left ankle. You do question whether or not we were priced oot of yer main target, namely Appiah, by a Bolton and Massimo Donati is yer 2nd, 3rd or 4th choice.

You start to look at the other areas of the team that need strengthened. We need a quality striker but you wonder whether the fact we competed wie the EPL for Scott Broon whether that area will be left to a young player wie potential, an older player once quality but now nearing the end of his career or will Kenny Miller get a reprieve as we canny afford the quality needed now.

Only during this time, do I as a Celtic fan feel inferior to the middle order and bottom order of the English leagues. It makes me mad that teams withoot the European standing, history or fanbase of Celtic can outbid and earning 10 times the telly money that we do. We need to exploit this money and ensure we rip these teams off.

Along wie that favour the Bolton’s, Newcastle’s, Boro’s, Wigan’s and Fulham’s of this world do, do us a favour and they dinny even ken it. I mean if a player would rather play for them for an extra £10,000 or £20,000 a week than come up here play CL fitbaw or European fitbaw at least, in front of a sometimes passionate 60,000 crowd and the chance to win honours every season then do we really want them gracing the hoops?

Hopefully the hoops will take of business soon and leave this close season madness to others less fortunate.

Forza The Hoops