The sort-of-new Scottish Football thread pt 2 and a half

Also, I heart Lee Naylor. I want that on record here too.

http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/whistleblower.cfm?curpageid=791

Ach well, these things even themselves out over the season (c)Derek Johnstone.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/6364051.stm

Hearts majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov has accused the Old Firm of Rangers and Celtic of "buying off" referees and players in Scotland.

"They buy off players and referees," Romanov told Russian magazine Futbol.

(Haha I hope they come down a ton on mad vlad this time, I'm sure there might be a few legal actions being taken too)
To be honest I've been waiting for him to make this sort of comment.

Next he will be hiring private detectives to see if referees are in the Orange Lodge or Knights Of St Columba...

Whereas its obvious to everyone (including any lawyers watching, naturally) that everything to do with Hearts, Kaunas, and their respective dealings with Mr Romanov's bank are all entirely above board and not even remotely underhand.

I'm sure there might be a few legal actions being taken too

Given that both Martin Bain and Brian Quinn mention the possibility in that article Onimo linked to, I'd say there might be as well.

Did he say this before or after Rangers' marvellous and well-deserved victory against Kilmarnock at the weekend(it doesn't say in the article when he made the comments)?

So what's the chances of Hearts disappearing down the dumper in a year or two when Mad Vlad gets bored and turns Tynecastle into a supermarket?

Vlad is not only owner of Hearts but is also, with a different hat on, their banker. His bank gets the interest on Hearts' debt, basically, as I understand it. You can extrapolate from that as you will. No Hearts at all isn't going to do him any favours in any way, put it that way.

When and if Vlad leaves Hearts it will likely destroy them. When he took over they owed ~£19M to a Scottish bank. Now their wage bill has doubled (to 100% of turnover!) and they owe £28M to, um, Vlad. If the protests gather momentum he can decide to sell up because the fans forced him out - someone else will thn need to pay Vlad a mint plus take on a huge debt, to Vlad. If no-one buys them he can decide to sell the assets to pay his dbt to himself, or something. He can't really lose out of it unless his bank goes tits up.

Vladimir Romanov

Majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov tonight issued the following statement:

It's a pity that papers are not able to get an interview from me direct.

Thank God I haven't come across any corruption in Scotland.

I don't expect anything except lies and distortion of my quotes. I want to say that I'm surprised with many things, like, for example, the situation when betrayal is portrayed as an act of heroism.

To my mind, there are no values in this life that are worth betrayal, even if we're talking about hooped shirts. If kids are being pushed towards betrayal, I call it seduction - but seduction of their souls.

Let's see where it led in Webster's case: he hung around in different clubs and didn't play for the Scottish national team for a whole year.

Other players who fell under this pressure showed miserable results while playing for the national team despite all the chances it had to win.

Edinburgh is an amazing city. I'm so impressed with the genius of those who created it. It fascinates and captivates you immediately.

Its beauty was created during the times of the kings of old, and now I see how everything that people were gathering for centuries - a culture, all Walter Scott's heritage, is being ruled and destroyed by monkeys from the safari park.

http://i18.tinypic.com/436kepk.jpg

Q You've been in control at Hearts for two years now. What conclusions have you been able to draw during that time?

A That you can't trust anyone. You know, it's just like a scene out of an old movie: We're at war with the Germans. The unit is asleep. A soldier sees a white flag being waved in the distance but his commanding officer is sleeping. So he goes up to the priest and says, 'Father, there's a white flag over there'. The priest replies, 'The enemy is sly and cunning. Shoot them'. And that's how it is.

Raith Rovers on That Was The Team That Was, tonight, folks!

That is the first time I've ever really seen any of that cup final, btw. I was in England at the time and watched the score via the magic of Teletext. A world without interwebs and digital telly, huh?

I got the whole "OMG this is unbelievable" vibe from watching it as a non-Raith fan, FWIW. Perhaps also because I remember it from a neutral perspective (your cup final opposition notwithstanding) and it was kind of good in that it reminded me of stuff I already knew, and also to laugh at fat Gordon Dalziel and his weirdy blobby nose.

Leeds United 1973/74

Gordon McQueen was only half joking when he said that there were so many Scots at Leeds United in 1974 that even the English players spoke with Scottish accents. With captain Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, David Harvey, Joe Jordan and Frank Gray in Don Revie's team, it felt like a piece of Scotland in Yorkshire.

The 1973/74 season was to be the last hurrah for Revie's team and he demanded not just the Championship but that it be won without losing a game. Revie's players recall that extraordinary season and reveal some fascinating insights into the manager who brought such success to Elland Road. [S]

I can't wait for a couple of years hence when we get "Hearts: The year Vlad went Mad"

Future series will definitely have Hearts, Gretna's Scottish Cup Year, and Celtic's UEFA Cup adventures.

I'm kind of struggling to think of a good one from more than a couple of years ago they haven't done yet.

Lolz at Kenny v linesman and Hartley v polis. Also:

Daerest ref

you are crap ref. That was totally a penalty and would also have made the score end up 3-1 so I'd have got maximum predictor points. you are rubbish and i will drown you in the jacuzzi next time I see you in teh gym

luv

a Celtic fan

P.S. only joking, legality-obeying fanz

Arabs vs Hibs = best argument ever against this "too many games involve the Old Firm" crap - fucking awful from start to finish. I think it took over an hour before there was a shot on target.

I am very glad indeed I went out this afternoon instead of going to the pub. I did think, for a while, that it might be nice to watch a game that wasn't Celtic or Rangers (I think Hibs v Hearts may be it thus far). I'm glad I didn't bother.

Having branded our media as 'monkeys' before the game against St Mirren, Romanov then instructed the PA at Tynecastle to play music by The Monkees in accompaniment to a supply of bananas and nuts being sent to the Press box!

Football 365 had the highlights of his time at the Bus Station yesterday, and YOU COULDN'T HAVE MADE IT UP.

* Having been rejected by Dundee United, Dundee and Dunfermline Athletic, the Lithuanian-based Romanov finally arrives in Scottish football by buying a 29.9% stake in Hearts in February 2005. He is welcomed with open arms by a club struggling in the Scottish Premier and suffering crippling debts. Nobody seems too bothered by reports in Lithuania that Romanov holds an influence over more than half of the clubs in the country's first division.

* Despite being 'instrumental' in the appointment of John Robertson as manager, the Hearts record goalscorer is sacked on Romanov's orders in May. A month later, George Burley is unveiled as his successor.

* A summer spending spree generates a club record run of 11 matches unbeaten at the start of the 2005/06 season. However, on October 22, just one day after Romanov increases his stake to 55.5% to become the club's majority shareholder, Burley leaves the club citing "irreconcilable differences". It subsequently emerges that those differences centred on the club owner buying players with consulting his manager. "If we are building a ship, I need to know if it will be seaworthy," the Lithuanian explains.

* Ten days after Burley's departure, chief executive Phil Anderton is sacked. Chairman George Foulkes promptly resigns in protest. An unmoved Romanov appoints his son in their place.

* As part of a charm offensive to quell growing dissent, Romanov appears on television and recites one of his self-penned poems as a further explanation for Burley's departure, announcing to a bemused audience of millions:

'Don't believe what you see today
For the portrait of the day is viewed through slumbering nights.
It is only through the cobwebs of time
And through the prism of the past that the moments of today will be understood.'

* Incidentally, although Romanov writes poetry for 'relaxation purposes', he lives by the personal motto of 'Die, but do it'.

* Having promised fans to replace Burley with a "high-profile coach", Romanov appoints registered sex offender Graham Rix instead. Fans are further disenchanted upon learning that Rix had been interviewed a week previously by Nationwide Conference side Crawley, while the candidature of Claudio Ranieri was dismissed because, in the words of one club insider, "Vladimir thought he was a pillock".

* 2006 kicks off in controversial fashion with Romanov announcing that his side was "mutilated" during a defeat at Rangers. The SFA immediately reacts by changing the rules that prevented them bringing a charge of disrepute against a club owner. Romanov's son responds to suggestions that the language barrier is proving an insurmountable obstacle for his father by telling reporters: "He knows all the words he needs - 'Yes', 'No' and 'You're fired'."

* Rix's stint in charge is predictably shortlived. He is dismissed in March after disclosing that he neither held any influence over team selection nor had a say in Heart's 11 January transfer window signings. Romanov allegedly sanctions Rix's sacking from the deck of a nuclear submarine.

* With Valdas Ivanauskas now at the helm, Hearts end the season by qualifying for the Champions League and reaching the Scottish Cup final. But victory over Gretna is subsequently overshadowed by the news that Romanov has bought the Soviet nuclear submarine K19, the centrepiece of the 2002 movie 'K-19: The Widowmaker' starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. An emotional Romanov declares: "I will get it restored by September and then it will be moved to near Moscow and put back in the water. Around it we will build a club for submarine veterans with a little hotel for them to stay in."

* After a few relatively low-key months in Edinburgh, Romanov makes his mark by announcing in late October that he will sell the entire first-team squad if they fail to beat Dunfermline. Despite the ensuing 1-1 draw, Romanov is placated, but skipper Steven Pressley reports "significant unrest" in the dressing room. A month later, Pressley is stripped of the captaincy. And a month after that, Elvis leaves the builiding for Cetic.

* Amid claims that Hearts' Scottish players are being ostracised, the club's sporting director Alex Koslovski accuses supporters of "racial discrimination" following booing of Lithuanian duo Saulius Mikoliunas and Nerijus Barasa.

* In December, Romanov reappoints Valdas Ivanauskas as the club's manager. It is the seventh managerial reshuffle since Burley's demise in October 2005. The month also sees an open letter published on The Hearts Supporters' Trust website which accuses Romanov of "turning us into a circus freak show. The truth is that we have gone from being the best thing in Scottish football for decades to being a laughing stock. What we see now is constant interference, the public humiliation of some of our greatest players and a businessman who seems to see our club as a vanity project."

* 2007 kicks off in style with the front pages of the Scottish tabloids dominated by reports that Romanov hired a 'dancing bear' to entertain guests at 'a wild New Year's party in Lithuania'. The reports are further embellished by claims that Romanov 'joined the entertainers on stage to read out love poems he wrote.'

* The month of February begins with Romanov dedicating Hearts' victories "to those journalists who remind me of those Bolsheviks in Soviet times who wanted to shoot a peasant only because he planted the seeds following his own way, and not their instructions. Once they were ready to shoot a peasant but a clever one stopped them and said: 'Let's shoot him in the autumn after he has gathered his harvest'. I guess that if you could, I would have already been shot by now, but whilst you can't, full of hate and anger, you are spreading manure on my crops."

* On February 15, the Russian magazine Futbol carries an interview with Romanov in which he alleges that the Old Firm of Celtic and Rangers "have turned football into a type of showbusiness with their underhand games" and claims, "They buy off players and referees." Rangers and Celtic duly call in the lawyers.

* On February 16, the Hearts website publishes a clarifying statement from their majority shareholder in which Romanov claims, "I don't expect anything except lies and distortion of my quotes", before moving on to address such subjects as the "seduction of souls" and the "genius of those who created Edinburgh".

"It fascinates and captivates you immediately," he says. "Its beauty was created during the times of the kings of old, and now I see how everything that people were gathering for centuries - a culture, all Walter Scott's heritage, is being ruled and destroyed by monkeys from the safari park."

At which point the statement ended with a picture of a monkey tagged as 'an enemy of talent' and 'a teacher of mediocrity'.

GODLIKE.

good times

Excellent, a place to put this:

Jelavic not winning the predictor any time soon

Stupid phone as stupid as Jelavic. Try again.

m.stv.tv/sport/football/scottish-premier/rangers/278454-rangers-striker-jelavic-we-wont-be-caught-in-the-spl/

http://sport.stv.tv/football/scottish-premier/rangers/278454-rangers-striker-jelavic-we-wont-be-caught-in-the-spl/