More than 90 Minutes Match Day Ezine

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At half time last Sunday it was all doom and gloom. Celtic fans around me were shaking their heads and some had booed the Celtic fans off the pitch.  Other fans and credit to both our Ultra groups The Bhoys & the Green Brigade gave un wavered support to the team from the first half till the final whistle.

I even heard one Celtic fan who had a few early pre-match drinks say “Could you imagine watching this sober” which made me smile. Celtic were poor and Motherwell took a 1-0 lead into the dressing rooms. Thankfully the second half was much better and the subs stole the headlines with Adam Idah the hero of the day.

A game of two halves indeed and it was the second half we were celebrating when we got off the supporters bus and headed for a wee session around Glasgow’s finest Celtic pubs.

Wednesday we were back on the road to Paradise and making another journey across the Irish sea. None of us saw the performance or result coming. It was an icy cold wet miserable night as I approached Celtic Park which lit up the night sky.

Street sellers, Charity collectors, Programmes and Paradise Windfall ticket sellers all getting a soaking.

From the first whistle Celtic were excellent attack after attack, goal after goal and working their balls off to get the ball back when Dundee had possession. What a night under the lights and 6 goals to celebrate and it was only halftime.

The score line gave Brendan the comfort to change things in the second half and introduce young Daniel Kelly a player who has been at Celtic since he was 10. It was fantastic for him to get his first senior goal for Celtic and must have been a special moment for his family and friends in the stands.

I met Celtic underage coach John McStay and his dad Willie after the game and they were bursting with pride for Daniel. I also bumped into big JVH at halftime and had a brief chat with him about some of the goals he knocked in for us under the lights at Celtic Park including a late winner against Rangers.

Two great trips across the sea to support the bhoys and now we must travel to Hearts and bring back 3 points to Glasgow.

Andrew Milne is Editor of More than 90 Minutes & Host of the Celtic Soul Podcast 

I always try to write with my Celtic glass half full but after Saturday’s flat performance against Kilmarnock it is a hard task as I sit down early on Tuesday morning to pen this piece. The dust has now settled but the anger from fans within the stadium and those watching around the World has not.

This season fans have booed the team after poor performances and results. Calls to back the team and sack the board in stadiums have been backed by some supporters on social media. The reason is simple from a power of strength we have now fallen behind our biggest rivals the rangers.

Many fans see this as a betrayal of those in charge of the club by penny pinching in the transfer market. Some comments suggest this season could be as bad as the Covid season which saw club legend, Neil Lennon lose his job.

The board will point to the massive success they have overseen at the club over the decades and when this season’s European campaign question comes up it could be described as unlucky. Fans might agree with them on Europe but they will also look to the success of teams like Copenhagen who like us play in a league outside the likes of the EPL and La Liga but managed to get to the last 16 of the Champions League.

Beating the rangers twice has been the highlight this season so far when they were favourites to win both games but these results may have only papered over the cracks. The early exit from the league cup was put down to the plastic pitch and Brendan Rodgers needing time to get the best from a team weakened by the players who left in the summer.

A disappointing January transfer window has come and gone and now the frustration of some fans after Saturday has changed from the board to the manager with calls online for his sacking in the heat of the late equaliser from Kilmarnock who have now knocked us out of the league cup and took 4 points off us in the league.

It has been said that one of the reasons Brendan left Celtic was lack of backing to strengthen the team from the board so surly he must have had a reassurance from Dermot Desmond that he would be backed to build a stronger team? This is a question many fans would like to get an answer for but as usual we are kept in the dark as to how our recruitment team operate and how much input the manager has.

After watching the game on Saturday I have seen nothing that would suggest that Celtic will lift any silverware this season. Brendan just can’t get a tune out of these players since they returned after the winter break.

I hope I am wrong but we seem to be stumbling from game to game while Brendan mumbles from interview to interview. We have 3 first team players still to return and we can only hope that they can bring some spark to the team and to support Callum McGregor to get a tune out if this team on the pitch.

Next up we travel to Motherwell away on Sunday, I’ll be there to support the bhoys so lets hope we witness a positive response from the players and we can be enjoy a more positive conversation when we sit down in a Glasgow pub for the post match pints.

Three points is a must with the rangers hosting their Edinburgh cousins, Hearts on Saturday.

Andrew Milne is based in Drogheda, Ireland. He is Editor of More than 90 Minutes Celtic Fanzine, host of the Celtic Soul Podcast and travels over land and sea to follow Celtic home and away. 

We left Edinburgh last week after the Hibs game on high after Irish international, Adam Idah smashed a late penalty home in the dying minutes. His celebrations in front of us  in the stand behind the goals summed up all our relief at securing all 3 points.

Celtic were not at their best which has happened too many times this season and with the rangers winning their game in hand against Ross County we are now in dog fight to regain our title. We now sit on top only by having a better goal scoring record  

Once back on the supporters bus to Glasgow it was interesting to hear a completely different opinion from the Celtic fans on the bus from what I was reading on social media. 

When Celtic underperform you expect social media to go into meltdown and although we won there was a lot of negativity but also some comments which were hard to not agree with about how the club fell short in the transfer window.

On the bus we were still in the moment as cans could be heard cracking open for a well-earned drink and with those drinks came positive vibes. The talk was of CCV and Hatate who are out injured but are expected back before the business end of the season and the difference they could make. 

We will also have first choice full backs Johnstone (injured after 9 minutes at Easter Road and Taylor to come back into the team also. The transfer window is shut the Celtic board are going nowhere so maybe it’s time we circled the wagons until the end of the season. Once the season is done we can continue the conversation about the current board and the recruitment team at the club. 

I think everyone was in a more positive state of mind when we left Paisley on the train after Celtic knocked St. Mirren out of the cup. 

St. Mirren made a game of it and did not just sit in with 11 men to defend and try nick a goal. Ticketless Celtic fans were outside the stadium while inside was littered with empty seats. 

It’s St. Mirren’s stadium and they are entitled to do what they wish but the sums don’t add up when they could have moved the handful of fans from behind the goal to sell out the full stand to Celtic fans. 

In the quarter finals  of the Scottish cup we have Livingston at home so tickets won’t be a problem!

We are next the ring on Saturday at Celtic when Kilmarnock come to town. They have knocked us out of the league cup and beat us at their place in the league again. Now is the time for payback and 3 points to put pressure on the rangers who don’t play till Sunday.

Andrew Milne is based in Drogheda, Ireland. He is Editor of More than 90 Minutes Celtic Fanzine, host of the Celtic Soul Podcast and travels over land and sea to follow Celtic home and away. 

So Wednesday night was an anti climax for some after all. As we were stumbling along on a fairly underrated league run a very rare occasion was anticipated which has been unusual this past 24 years living next door to Rangers.

They could have been top of the league on goal difference, just the sixth time since the Millennium and only once in the past 12 years but they might have been looking down on Celtic. Alas for the tax dodgers it wasn’t to be as Ross County spoilt the party and we remained on top and probably will be until the clash at Ibrox in April which could decide the title.

When I consider all the verbal shite  directed at players, managers and directors since this season started I really wonder what is wrong with some Celtic people. 17 titles since the millennium, many Scottish and League cups, triple treble winners, UEFA finalists ’03, magical nights in the Champions League against Europe’s finest, Man U, Juve, Liverpool, Benfica, Bayern, Inter, AC, Man City, Ajax et al, they were magical nights.

For the past almost quarter of a century we have been the dominant team in this city, it’s been a roller coaster of success which hopefully will continue but we all know that’s not the way football works.

Scottish football has been dominated by Celtic and Rangers almost from its inception barring a few periods when the great Hibs and Hearts teams of the 1950’s or Aberdeen in the 1980’s broke the dominance of the big Glasgow clubs.

Rangers won 26 titles from the end of WW1 until Jock Stein arrived at Paradise in 1965, nearly 50 years. Celtic might have had great success earlier with 10 titles in the first years of the 20^th century but from the end of WW1 they only lifted 6 titles in almost 50 years.

Again after the great years under Stein we went another 20 years from ’82 till the Martin O’Neill years with only 3 titles. We have unfurled 17 championship flags at Paradise in a period of unbridled success and yet some people are still complaining.

It’s nearly impossible to comprehend, titles and cups galore, amazing European nights, 53,000 Season Tickets and 61,000 at every game yet back in the 1970’s and 1980’s attendances could be as low as 20,000.

We’ve had 7 managers in the last 24 years, O’Neill, Strachan, Mowbray, Lennon (twice), Delia, Rodgers (twice) and Ange, every time we’ve been told that ‘the Rangers are coming’, well except for a short spell around 2009-11 I’m still waiting!

What do our supporters want? Imagine any young person born since the millennium and witnessing 17 titles procured in style in 23 years, they must feel it’s their birthday and New Years Eve every May.

I’m not doubting the genuineness and passion of any supporter, we have a support unequalled in football, but why don’t they wait until May and see if the title ends up in the East End again or moves to Govan.

The modern world has made demands for instant gratification a salutary tale. Celtic are top of the league and have won 18 and lost 2 this season, hardly a dramatic  loss of form. Man U won 13 Premier titles under Fergie but now their fans can’t understand why they are not winning anymore.

Liverpool won 12 titles under Shankly/Paisley and 4 European Cups yet won nothing for 20 years after. Real Madrid won 6 European Cups in the first decade of the tournament yet never won it again for 30 years. Ajax won 4 European Cups yet could be relegated this season.

They are the storied clubs, what about being a Partick Thistle fan; known in England as ‘Partick Thistle Nil’ as Billy Connolly would say, would they be complaining if they ‘only’ won 17 titles since the millennium.

FFS if they had won one in their almost 150 year history they would be delirious, but they haven’t, although at least they have one Scottish Cup to show for their contribution to football, are they complainers, naysayers, social media nerds, moaning minnies?

The cliché, you can get too much of a good thing’ might be overused, as there really is nothing like too much of a good thing. When Ireland became an economic powerhouse in Europe during the Celtic Tiger we became the poster boys of the world, as Tommy Tiernan said, ‘the economists said we spent all the money and went skiing in the alps in the good times’. Sure what else were we supposed to do that’s why they were called the ‘good times’!

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And it’s the same in football, the last 23 years have been the ‘good times’ and they are not over yet. Enjoy the party while it lasts, let Clemente and the ‘bears’ enjoy their moment in the sun at the moment but when we are looking down at them when we play at Paradise in May it’ll be;

‘come on over to my place,

hey Bhoys we’re having a party,

we’ll be swinging, dancing and singing,

come on over tonight’¬

Paddy McMenamin was born in Belfast with Donegal and Tyrone parents. He spent the 70’s in Long Kesh. He has been going to Paradise since the Benfica game in Nov. 1969. He lived in Donegal for 30 years but now lives in Galway. He returned to University at 50 and became a secondary school teacher of history and English.

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Celtic are back and we kicked off with a win in Scottish Cup v Buckie Thistle. Brendan Rodgers is still looking to strengthen the squad and off load some of the players on the fringes of the squad. We have a League to win and Brendan’s comments on Matt O’Riley were welcome at today’s press conference.

When Brendan arrived at the club for his second spell in the close season, one of his main objectives was to have us playing European football after Christmas. Having failed in this objective, I don’t think too many fingers can be pointed at the manager for this failure. Apart from the Atletico Madrid 6-0 away defeat, I think that the team on the whole performed not too badly in the other games.

I think we are a bit unlucky to have only gotten four point in the section. On another night we could have taken all three points at home against Madrid and we were a bit unlucky and naive to get suckered in the last minute at home to Lazio. But ‘what if’s’ does not change the fact that we are out of Europe.

The final game against Feyenoord, it was important that we finished the campaign on a high and the victory gives the players a boost and a belief that they can compete and win at Champions League level which will stand to them in the future. Let’s not kid ourselves. The way the Champions League is set up is for the elite clubs to progress from the groups to the last sixteen of the competition.

There are a couple of teams each year who buck the trend, but on the whole the majority of the big teams are there. Which means the rich clubs get richer and in turn leave the smaller nations like us further and further behind. After the defeat to Lazio the key-board warrior’s were out in force slating the board for not spending some of the millions in profits to improve the team. I think we have to get real.

How many millions would we have to invest to compete at this level? Fifty million? A hundred million? Wipe the club’s profits out with four ten million pound signings. It’s not going to happen. What we need to do in the short term is give a chance to the new Champions League set-up for next season. As we have seen for a long time now, the current set up does not seem to suit us for progression to the last sixteen of the competition. So we have to embrace the new set-up. But to get there we have to make sure we win the league this season and for me that means  strengthening the squad now.

Not only strengthening the squad but also trimming the squad. The squad at the moment is too big with players that have no chance of getting near a first team start. To challenge at European level we need better players while still balancing the books and keeping the club in profit. This is the challenge facing the board and Brendan Rodgers.

Brendan, I would like to think will have a major input about who comes into the club as this is his first transfer window with influence. If we have any ambitions in the new European set-up then we need new players to have time to bed in during the second half of the season. This is the balancing act that has to be done while still winning the title which is the main objective.

If we want to put a positive on going out of Europe early it should mean going into league games fresh and better prepared. We are now only competing in the league and Scottish Cup and all efforts and focus will now go into winning the double.

Looking at the home games this season it’s becoming like ground-hog day. Trying to break down eleven men defences. Goalkeepers wasting time at every opportunity, opposition players wasting time at throw ins and at every other opportunity. The man in the middle could nip this time wasting in the bud early on but we know this won’t happen with the SFA’s finest in black in charge.

On a personal note during the trip to Rome it was one of the highlights of my life and career to meet and shake hands with his holiness Pope Francis as a member of the Celtic party during our audience with him.

John Fallon has been writing for this Celtic fanzine since 2002. The original Holy Goalie has won every honour with Celtic and played his part in the greatest ever era in the history of the famous Glasgow Celtic. John is ever present at Celtic games home and away and at Celtic supporters functions.

Brendan Rodgers is back on the cover after seeing off the rangers again in the Glasgow derby. Former manager, Martin O’ Neill joins us to Talk Celtic and we are also in conversation with Singer/ Songwriter, Paul Sheridan of the Glasgow Irish Folk rockers, The Wakes.

Paddy McMenamin has the rangers trip covered from the West of Ireland to a snowy Paradise. Paddy also takes a trip down memory lane and writes about his first trip to Glasgow to see Celtic. Martin Donaldson picks three stand up moments from 2023. While we also look back at the season so far after Brendan’s return.

We continue to publish the late, great Celtic author David Potters articles in Potters Archives to keep his writings and memories alive. In this issue we publish 2 articles one on Charlie Shaw and one on Jock Stein and the Ibrox Floodlights.

Fergal O’Hanlon from St. Margaret’s CSC features in First, Worst & Leave the Best till Last and Robert McWilliams (Thornliebank Emerald CSC) is our Fan in Focus.

All the regulars are inside another packed issue of More than 90 Minutes, Editors Desk, Eoin Coyne, Tim Molloy, Lisbon Lion John Fallon, Rachel Lynch, If you know your history and more.

We also review the recent Tribute to Shane MacGowan gig in Drogheda and there is even a bit of Poetry in issue 131 .