Well done Celtic

[d000hg]

I blame the decline of kickabout football since the sixties/seventies,

There's always kids playing football at school and out and about. It's only the soft middle classes who are too scared to send their kids outside in case the pedos are waiting.

Probably why footballers are mostly chavs, they come from deprived areas where kids still play outside. Wow, that could be a genuine research topic for someone

[Doggy Styles]

I blame the decline of kickabout football since the sixties/seventies, where most of the British greats learned their basic skills when very young. It's difficult for us to manufacture those skills at schools or academies.

I suppose that's due to disappearing open spaces (as ministrone says), too many cars on streets, and in the last couple of decades too many other things for kids to do.

It's true of England as well, and when the Welsh start using cars and get the internet, it will be true there too.

[TestMangler]

Actually, the start of the slow descent of Scottish football to where it is now can be traced back to the introduction of the ten team league in Scotland (1975). This was put there using the excuse that it would make the league more competitive and would improve the national squad.

And before 'experts' like Doohg decide to have another pop at Scottish football, bear in mind that around that time (early seventies to early eighties), all the top English teams had several Scottish players on their books.

The strange thing about the really successful Scottish players in England during that era is that with only a few exceptions like Dalglish, Hansen etc, most never actually played professionally in Scotland (think Bremner, Lorimer, Morgan, Harvey, Holton, Law, Hutchison, The Gray Bros, McQueen, Burns, Robertson, Gemmell, etc etc etc).

I fully believe that English football is on the same slippery slope and has been for a good eight years now. Too many imported players in a league dominated by TV. In ten-fifteen years time, you'll all be watching Spanish or Italian footy on Sky and bemoaning the loss of your national league and team to the doldrums of world football, just like Scotland have.

[minestrone]

Other than that there is a road called fifty pitches road a couple of miles from me which did have 50 blaze pitches on it but now they are gone, local PFI new build hospital got built over 8 blaze pitches.

30 years ago there was probably 100 full sized pitches within walking distance, now I would think that is 4 or 5.

tulipe state of affairs to lift a quote from trainspotting.

[minestrone]

There was an acrimonious teacher strike by the EIS (educational institute of Scotland) when I was a lad, 85 maybe, It was school out for a year basically for me but they refused to do school football for years before and after that.

It get complicated after that, Aiden McGeady who played for celtic and who was sold to Moscow for 10 million and played against celtic the other night was asked by celtic not to play school football ( he went to my school) big cream puff and eventually Ireland got him playing.

Really the SFA dont have a feckin clue and I dont think I have seen a kid play football round my area for years.

Thank god that Samaras wants to play for us, he refused to be sold, 9 games this year in europe, 5 goals and 5 assists, I love that jesus looking sexy love man. Man love, rampant man love I have for him.

[Doggy Styles]

We were quite a good team back in the old days...

67 winners
69 quarter finals
70 runners up
71 quarter finals
72 semi finals
74 semi finals

Then it all went a bit wrong, but hey, we were decent for a spell.

I know. Scotland were pretty decent too.

I don't know who to blame, especially as the rot set in before Maggie came to power, so I'll have to have a think.

Any ideas?

[minestrone]

Yes, well done Celtic! 46 years of hurt etc etc

We were quite a good team back in the old days...

67 winners
69 quarter finals
70 runners up
71 quarter finals
72 semi finals
74 semi finals


Then it all went a bit wrong, but hey, we were decent for a spell.

[Doggy Styles]

Yes, well done Celtic! 46 years of hurt etc etc

Even Messi wanted them to go through. He said they play sh1t football but they make the most noise.

[d000hg]

The silver lining is of course that the Chelsea have failed to go through

Indeed. It's a tragedy/travesty that a 2nd-tier EPL team didn't make it through this year, Celtic are celebrating like loons for achieving what English teams take for granted


(is it too easy to make Scots grumpy?)

[DodgyAgent]

The silver lining is of course that the Chelsea have failed to go through

[minestrone]

I have rampant Greek man love for Samaras today.

The Scottish metro has "it's a knockout" as the back page headline, cheeky feckers.

[darmstadt]

For once I agree with DA, well done hoops...

[DodgyAgent]

Credit it where it is due

well done