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.
― onimo (nu_onimo), Thursday, 15 February 2007 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 15 February 2007 21:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Thursday, 15 February 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Thursday, 15 February 2007 22:05 (seventeen years ago) link
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
― onimo (nu_onimo), Friday, 16 February 2007 11:54 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― onimo (nu_onimo), Friday, 16 February 2007 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― JohnFoxxsJuno (JohnFoxxsJuno), Friday, 16 February 2007 12:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― onimo (nu_onimo), Friday, 16 February 2007 12:42 (seventeen years ago) link
Raith Rovers on That Was The Team That Was, tonight, folks!
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Friday, 16 February 2007 17:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― treefell (treefell), Friday, 16 February 2007 23:50 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Friday, 16 February 2007 23:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― treefell (treefell), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― onimo (nu_onimo), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:19 (seventeen years ago) link
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]
― onimo (nu_onimo), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― onimo (nu_onimo), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:23 (seventeen years ago) link
I can't wait for a couple of years hence when we get "Hearts: The year Vlad went Mad"
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:25 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 17 February 2007 00:31 (seventeen years ago) link
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
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 17 February 2007 20:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― I am not a crappy security guard on L O S T (much_aldo_about_nothing), Sunday, 18 February 2007 00:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Sunday, 18 February 2007 13:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Sunday, 18 February 2007 18:07 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― onimo (nu_onimo), Sunday, 18 February 2007 20:03 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Sunday, 18 February 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― I am not a crappy security guard on L O S T (much_aldo_about_nothing), Monday, 19 February 2007 09:23 (seventeen years ago) link
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!
― Captain Purple Items (nu_onimo), Tuesday, 20 February 2007 10:20 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― I am not a crappy security guard on L O S T (much_aldo_about_nothing), Tuesday, 20 February 2007 10:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Tuesday, 20 February 2007 17:05 (seventeen years ago) link
good times
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 00:58 (twelve years ago) link
Excellent, a place to put this:
Jelavic not winning the predictor any time soon
― ailsa, Thursday, 29 December 2011 10:57 (twelve years ago) link
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/
― ailsa, Thursday, 29 December 2011 10:59 (twelve years ago) link
http://sport.stv.tv/football/scottish-premier/rangers/278454-rangers-striker-jelavic-we-wont-be-caught-in-the-spl/
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 11:01 (twelve years ago) link
favourite soccerball jifs
http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg875/scaled.php?tn=0&server=875&filename=le4ud.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640
(does that display?)
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 11:13 (twelve years ago) link
Thank you, I am not good with internetz. Was going to tidy it up but forgot I wasn't a mod over here.
And lol.
― ailsa, Thursday, 29 December 2011 11:20 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018cg10/Your_Call_with_Jim_Traynor_28_12_2011/
45:00 to 46 and a bit - Gers fan breaks down in tears. I suppose talking to Chick Young does that to you.
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 11:25 (twelve years ago) link
Thomas Rogne's league stats for Celtic: Played 25, Won 19, Drawn 5, Lost 1Thomas Rogne's cup stats for Celtic: Played 6, Won 5, Lost 1
The only league game he lost was against Rangers when he was subbed off injured at 0-0 in the first half. The only cup game he lost was against Rangers when he was subbed off injured at 1-1 in the second half and Rangers won in extra time.
He has never been booked in 31 games, his only disciplinary blemish is a red card for a last man tackle in a 9-0 win over Aberdeen.
Thomas Rogne is 21 years old.
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 11:50 (twelve years ago) link
From twitter (I haven't checked for accuracy but it looks about right)
Paul Le Guen: P26 W15 D5 L6Ally McCoist: P26 W14 D6 L6
Le Guen was unbeaten in Europe but lost more domestic matches. Ally's been spreading his defeats across all competitions.
― mortified of ILX (onimo), Thursday, 29 December 2011 15:29 (twelve years ago) link
I was thinking of you lot yesterday but I didn't know about this thread. Congrats.
― M. White, Thursday, 29 December 2011 15:55 (twelve years ago) link
I like Rogne a lot. Watched the second half last night when I got in - he was tidy and efficient. average age of the Celtic team last night was just over 22 - Samaras and Brown at 26 pushing it up a bit.
Still have my reservations about Lennon - we should never have been so far behind such a poor Rangers team, and it'll take a lot to shift the memories of that pishy game against Hibs and that appalling first half against Kilmarnock, not to mention the European qualifying crap, but that won't take anything away from the last seven weeks or so. Still enjoying it.
― ailsa, Thursday, 29 December 2011 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
Decades of things balancing out over a season so dealwithit.gif suddenly forgotten as Rangers possibly maybe incorrectly have a goal not given - the SPL is now volunteering to FIFA to be guinea pigs for goal-line camera technology.
How about some fucking knee-high studs-up tackle spotting technology? Or some deliberate and repeated handball technology? Or maybe some flagging offside correctly technology?
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 11:54 (twelve years ago) link
Below from the minutes of a meeting between the Association of Celtic Supporters and Strathclyde Police.
o_O
On the subject of relations between large elements of Celtic support and the police CC accepted that there had been a breakdown in trust following a series of anti-Celtic briefings given by the Communications Officer at Strathclyde Police. It was pointed out and accepted that the journalist and the tabloid concerned were known to have an anti-Celtic agenda. CC confirmed that future briefings from police would need a different approach and that Communications Officer would no longer be doing that function and that Celtic PR Dept. would be involved. CC accepted that these events had been damaging to police.
(CC = Campbell Corrigan, Assistant Chief Constable, Strathclyde Police)
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 12:48 (twelve years ago) link
Communications Officer at Strathclyde Police
http://i39.tinypic.com/11ty0bc.jpg
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 13:00 (twelve years ago) link
Formerly head of communications at the SFA and previously a communications dude at the Scottish Government. Matey with Alex Salmond through working on the Commonwealth bid.
― ailsa, Friday, 30 December 2011 13:38 (twelve years ago) link
P.S. dudes who minuted the Association/Police meeting - the Celtic Symphony doesn't have add ons. So is singing the actual lyrics OK now then?
― ailsa, Friday, 30 December 2011 13:41 (twelve years ago) link
Celtic occasionally play a version with "up the Celts" - I assume "up the RA" is being counted as alternative/add-on lyrics. On Wednesday they sang neither - preferring to use Georgios Samaras as a handy rhyming substitute.
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
Is this image more or less clear cut than the goal line incident?
http://i.imgur.com/HTPxC.png
referee Collum clearly unsighted by looking the right way
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 20:07 (twelve years ago) link
Aye, I know that, but the actual original version (video recorded at Celtic Park btw) is Ooh Ah Up The Ra. Yer man from the polis said no add-ons, the minutes don't show anyone challenging, so let's see how that stands up next time Celtic fans get done for singing it.
― ailsa, Friday, 30 December 2011 20:33 (twelve years ago) link
Also, Collum's eyes are in the back of his head, so how can he be expected to see stuff in front of him?
― ailsa, Friday, 30 December 2011 20:36 (twelve years ago) link
that's what I was getting at
― misguided white guy on the sandbox (onimo), Friday, 30 December 2011 20:41 (twelve years ago) link
Clarifying in case anyone who isn't us passes by :-)
― ailsa, Friday, 30 December 2011 20:47 (twelve years ago) link