It’s 15 years now, on the 9th of May, since Celtic faced Saint Johnstone in the last game of season 1997/98. The maths was easy. A victory for Celtic would land them their first league title in…
Throughout the season, comment has been made on the missing thousands at Celtic Park with the media telling us it’s because thousands of us miss Rangers. I…
Recent Celtic games have heard the fans singing loudly - ‘Here we go 10 in a row!’ - after Celtic sealed their second consecutive SPL title under Neil Lennon. And the opportunity is certainly there to make…
Like many I have been greatly exorcised by the league reconstruction debate of late and the perceived lost opportunities to make the structure more exciting and move away from the current flawed split. As highlighted…
In the days and weeks following our game in Turin, I was quite surprised by the sense of despondency among some Celtic supporters. I remember reading a number of…
Within professional football during the last two decades athletism, fitness and mental preparation have started to gain equal importance as sporting ability and skill. Many professional footballers at the very top level are starting to resemble cruiser weight boxers in term of their physiques while the sports psychologist is making a permanent entrance into some backroom teams.
Recently, Celtic continued their form for groundbreaking and innovative backroom appointments when they appointed All-Ireland Gaelic Football winning coach Jim McGuinness - fresh from leading his native Donegal to their first All-Ireland triumph in nearly a quarter of a century – as their new performance consultant.
McGuinness has long been considered a maverick within GAA circles for superficial as well as more substantive reasons. As a GAA player for Donegal, he sported long black curly hair within a sport where the crew cut had almost been mandatory. Off the pitch, he excelled academically in the field of psychology (eventually gaining a Masters in his subject), again at a time when much of the GAA playing fraternity traditionally spurned such areas in favour of more vocational university study.
A few years back I had the disheartening experience of watching Celtic being taken apart in Utrecht by the local Dutch pub team. The rookie manager Neil Lennon could only look on in impotence as time after time, the defence was ripped to shreds by eager, if not technically gifted players. It was clear that Celtic had no team spirit, bickering and finger pointing were obvious even from the stands. Captain Scott Brown was prematurely subbed by Lennon, simply to get him off the field before the inevitable red card was produced.
Making my way back to Utrecht Train Station amidst the teeming rain and the taunts from local neds, I honestly feared for my club’s future never mind that of Neil Lennon.
Last week witnessed an invigorated Celtic qualify for the final of the CL, without doubt the most prestigious and challenging of all club competitions. Quite frankly the road from Utrecht to the last sixteen has been astonishing. The time has come to examine how Celtic has come so far in such a short time.
Harry begins with an explanation as to why there has been no podcast for so long and explains where Eddie has gone. After this 2 minute review he then tries (and fails) to explain that this is just a wee podcast to allow him to find his feet.
This will NOT be in the UK's top 100 podcasts of 2012, so please take it in the manner it's intended!
After the car crash podcast number 184 where Harry Brady tinkered about to see how the controls all worked, this week he has been released to do a full podcast. Harry starts off by explaining that Michael Dolan has crossed the stream but that his history has been taken forward by the special guest Hullbhoy. Harry tries to start the new era in controversial fashion by talking about the disapointing nature of home domestic form, but the two lads quickly get onto the wonderful European run. Oh and at the end there is some Jim Traynor bashing just for old times sake. The Are many ways to get the podcast, most of which are over my head (I just subscribe to iTunes for these type of things). The Feed for the podcast can be found HERE
As mentioned above you can subscribe via iTunes HERE
A ruined churchyard in the picture postcard village of Straide, Co. Mayo holds the bones of one of the key figures in the early history of Celtic.
Social reformer and Irish Republican activist Michael Davitt lies there, close to where the river Moy sweeps by the sleepy hamlet and, luckily, a roadside statue looms large over a small museum to alert passing tourists of the historical giant lying in their midst.
Born in the throes of An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger) in 1846, destitution almost destroyed Davitt’s family.
Rack rent landlords evicted them from their home and to escape the dreaded ‘poorhouse’, where few emerged again, the family fled to England.
Settling in East Lancashire, local Methodists educated him after his arm was torn off in an industrial accident in a mill, aged 9.
Davitt joined the secret, separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1865 and used his new trade as a travelling ‘hawker’ to send weapons to Ireland.
After harsh treatment in English prisons for his activities, Davitt would later immerse himself in the Irish ‘Land War’ for greater land ownership rights, which followed An Gorta Beag (The mini famine) in 1879 and this campaign would fasten his political legacy and weld him inexorably to Celtic.
He used the Land League campaign to forge political alliances between the Irish peasantry and the Scottish Crofters, who were also familiar with Landlordism and famine.
