CELTIC won our 50th title back in May but there was no rush from the support to demand that five fake stars are added to our shirts. The Celtic Star, sits above Celtic Park, gives this website its name and represents the club’s greatest triumph in Lisbon in May 1967.
Actually talking about Lisbon, tomorrow we’ll start a series of articles based on a new self published book by one of our readers, Jerry Woods. Jerry’s book is titled “To Lisbon and Back on a Fiver” and really does do a brilliant job of explaining what life was like in 1967 and how Celtic reaching the European Cup Final resulted in the adventure of lifetime for this Celtic supporter who made a remarkable effort to be there to see Cesar lift the European Cup and earn The Celtic Star.
Today Billy’s widow Liz and Sadie Chalmers, the widow of Stevie – the man who put the winner in the back of the Inter Milan net, will unfurl the 50th flag at Celtic Park before Neil Lennon’s exciting Celtic side sets about the task of going for the club’s Ninth successive title.
The media are fully focused on the 9IAR season. They reckon it will be great for their failing circulations and they will probably be right. What will give them an even bigger boost though is if Celtic FAIL to win 9IAR and let’s be clear here, everything will be done to prevent that happening as favouritism, bias and Honest Mistakes come back with a bang. There will be plenty of negative stories about Celtic, players will be linked with moves in the run up to big games, all the stuff we’ve seen before.
Over on Celtic Noise, there is a new thread that will remain as at the top of that excellent Celtic Fans forum (you really should check it out and sign up to join in the conversation) that will detail these incidents, could up the penalties, look at sending offs, or in their case the failure to send their players off and so on. The intention is to shine a light on this and keep a record of what is going to happen this season.
The starting point is Jozo Simunovic receiving a two match ban from The SFA after being sent off in a pre-season friendly in Switzerland.
The thread is titled Honest Mistakes, Controversial Decisions and the Penalty count for season 2019/20 and you can read it HERE.
Yesterday when speaking to the media Neil Lennon told them, in a beautifully calculated dig, that he’s not focused on 9 or 10 in a row, he’s actually dreaming about getting to 15 in a row and that means he’ll be going for 55 and more!
The Rangers in their first ever season in the Scottish Premiership kicked off by claiming to be ‘Going for 55’. Despite the liquidation (ie death) of their old club (Rangers FC 1872-2012), they seem to believe that they survived this. Words like liquidation are seldom if ever used, the media prefer the more soothing lie that they were demoted, even demoted unfairly.
Neil Doncaster one day strolled into Celtic Park to meet a group of hand picked Celtic Supporters – handed picked by Peter Lawwell. Doncaster told then that when Rangers after season 2011-12 were in the Third Division (the old Rangers had finished second in the SPL that season) the Scottish Football League chaps, two Rangers supporters as it happens, decided that the honours from the old club should be awarded to the new club but unfortunately the SFL is no more and they were very bad at keeping records.
And that’s why in their first ever season in the Scottish Premiership the Rangers were apparently ‘Going for 55″ despite having been founded by Charles Green in the summer of 2012.
They even filled the Sandy Jardine Stand with a huge Going for 55 banner at the start of that campaign which saw Celtic thrash them 5-1 home and away, win the treble and achieve an Invincible season.
Incidentally while Celtic PLC remained silent in all that a group of Celtic Supporters crowd funded an advertisement in a Sunday newspaper ahead of the first ever meeting between Celtic and the new club in the League Cup semi-final in February 2015.
Here’s a reminder of what it said. It is important that this is continually referred to by the Celtic support for years to come, because we’ll hear nothing from the PLC.
One other point to note, incidentally. They at least honoured Sandy Jardine with the remaining of the Govan Stand. Today, I’ll be in the North Stand alongside thousands of you guys, when it could easily have been re-named the Cesar Stand or the Billy McNeill Stand. Maybe that’s still to happen.
Anyway back to Lenny’s ‘Going for 55’ curveball. Lenny looked the media in the eyes and told them that Celtic had no intention of stopping at 9 or 10 in a row and reckoned he’d love to get to 15 or more. Why the hell not?
“Some people are negative and waiting for things to spiral but we are in control at the moment.
“Everyone is waiting for the run to end but we need to stay strong. It’s Groundhog Year. We are up to eight but I’d like to get to 12, 13, 14 – because I’m greedy. Let’s make it to 15. We’re half way there,” Lenny told them, as reported by Evening Times.
“The league is the priority. We’ve been decent in the Champions League and want to keep that going against St Johnstone and then in to Cluj. We’re fighting on to fronts,” the Celtic manager said.
But, but but surely (the) Rangers are stronger and will put up a bigger challenge this season, is a summary of the follow-ups for Lenny.
“I have no idea. I don’t like making predictions or looking too far ahead. I think we have strengthened in areas we needed to strengthen.
“We have the likes of Griffiths almost at full fitness, which we didn’t have the luxury of for a long time. Kieran is nearly fit, who we missed. Tom Rogic, all those have got to come into what we already have. And Mikey Johnston is making great progress.
“So in some aspects we could even be stronger than we were at the end of last season.”
Anyone thinking that the hunger has gone at Celtic is going to be proved wrong. “We have asked the players, whether it’s your first title, third title, seventh, ninth, do you have the hunger to go again?
“You can see it in their eyes that they are well set again. I always think when you are getting challenged you find a little bit more, and there is no question there are going to be challenges again as we go along.
“Each time people take points off us or beat us it’s little victories for them, and that’s something that we want to avoid.
“But I’m pleased with the balance of the squad and the individual and collective performances so far.
“You are not guaranteed to get everything your own way and winning games is hard. I have said that to the players, they have done it very well, and winning competitions. But that’s in the past now,” Lenny said.
“We go into a run of games that’s going to be very heavy and very competitive and I’m asking all the squad to be ready when called upon. Quiet and calm but the focus has been good.
“Hopefully you stay injury-free, you rotate the squad, dip one or two out and keep it fresh and hopefully have a seamless replacement. And try to find consistency early.
“I always felt when I played you didn’t really hit the straps until September, two or three games into the season. We have had four competitive games already and fitness-wise and the mentality of the team at the minute has been very good. They have given me everything I have asked of them so far.”
You can watch Neil Lennon’s Media Conference below…
