Keep The Faith CELTIC FANS PRESSURE ON THE PLC With the Celtic PLC Board having its regular monthly meeting at Celtic Park on Thursday, the Gentlemen Of The Board will be well aware of the pressure that is relentlessly building on them via Martin O'Neill, Celtic players, former Celtic players and Celtic fans to release funds for transfer activity. Keep The Faith correspondent, Mal Content, adds to that pressure, albeit ever so slightly, by analysing the performances of Celtic Boards past and present. Mal Content is released under supervision from the Secure Unit of the Carstairs Mental Health Hospital . THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A FOOTBALL CLUB By Mal Content With the evidence absolutely compelling that Celtic must strengthen and rebuild a squad that is ageing, injury-prone, less dominant domestically, losing European prestige, woefully short in resources and that has lost its aura of invincibility, it would seem that everyone in Timdom – Martin O'Neill, his players, former players including Lisbon Lions Billy McNeill and Tommy Gemmell and the vast majority of Celtic fans – is in agreement. BUILD! Not from a position of strength, however, as that ‘strength' has been lost, but from a position of necessity. Everyone agrees that Celtic's solvable problems need attention, except, sadly, those that are in power and whose approval and determination to take remedial action are required for the task to be successfully completed. For their, the PLC's, remedy appears to be to ignore the bloody obvious and hope to God that the manager, behind whom they have been hiding since May 2003, will pull yet another green and white rabbit out of the hat – domestic silverware, a Double perhaps, manifested out of thin air. This is no way to run a football club. Whilst the PLC's ongoing policy of prudence is to continue undaunted, as indicated by the latest gut-wrenching, soul-destroying comments from Brian Quinn, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that monies are urgently needed, Timdom is clamouring for action to be taken, the manager to be backed financially (but sensibly) and the Celtic team to receive sufficient investment, lest it all go horribly and unforgivably wrong. Yet, constructive change for Celtic's betterment seems to be unlikely. This is no way to run a football club. Worryingly, Martin O'Neill does not appear to know what if any funds will be available in January. Insanely, we have yet to secure the services of FOUR major players (John Hartson, Neil Lennon, Jackie McNamara and Bobo Balde) all of whom are free to talk to other clubs in a matter of weeks. And still we dither. This is no way to run a football club. Make no mistake, January's transfer activity could conceivably determine Celtic's season - Rangers have closed the gap – and what if any silverware or success comes to Paradise in May. A barren season, especially when contrasted with last season's wealth of riches, would be disastrous – unforgivably disastrous – and yet it is possible. This is no way to run a football club. If we are to enhance Celtic's chances of retaining our title of Champions and making it a Double with Scottish Cup capture – and we must now aim for both trophies – then January will be crucial. Yet adequate transfer activity might not happen. This is no way to run a football club. All the more galling is the irrefutable fact that Celtic, following the sensation of Seville, the European force that we had become and the absolute domestic dominance that we enjoyed, were tantalisingly close to developing into a team that would have created a dynasty. But, consequent to our failure to invest, that dynasty is now perilously close to being shattered. Should that happen, it would be heresy. This is no way to run a football club. There is also the small matter of having our archrivals, Rangers, on the ropes, beaten, bloodied and financially crippled. Yet, we backed off. We have given them respite and we have allowed them to regain consciousness, composure and confidence, when we should have kept the barrage of blows raining down on them, mercilessly, as they would have done and have done to us. This is no way to run a football club. Maybe, just maybe, the Celtic PLC will surprise us all and new players of quality and calibre will arrive in January and the rebuilding process that we all crave will begin, success will follow success and we'll look back at these moments of understandable angst and confess that, ‘We all lost it a bit back there. Hysterical overreaction!' Maybe, just maybe, the PLC have a devilishly cunning plan that will thrill us all. But why do I not believe this to be so? Could it be because there are few if any precedents of this PLC Board, or indeed any Celtic Boards in the last two decades, coming up with an ingeniously creative master plan? Why do I feel that Celtic are not so much at a crossroads but on the edge of a precipice, only those holding onto the guide ropes also have a pair of scissors to cut us loose? Maybe it's all down to past experiences. Will we repeat the sins of the past? CELTIC DÉJÀ VU – REPEATING THE SINS OF THE PAST By Mal Content In the above rant about what I perceive to be mismanagement of Celtic Football Club by the PLC Board, I stated that there are historical precedents for Celtic Boards making absolute howlers when it comes to decision-making, and that the sins of the past give me absolutely no confidence that this PLC Board will be any different to the Celtic Boards of the last two decades. Let's look back in anger, from the early 1980s to the present day. Billy McNeill's Celtic of the early 1980s were a formidable team that played wonderfully attractive football. League Championships and domestic cups were won and there was always the perception that the glory days of Jock Stein's era could be recaptured both domestically and in Europe. Bonner, Aitken, McGrain, MacLeod, Burns, McStay, Provan, Nicholas, McGarvey and McLuskey, but there was a missing and vital ingredient – a prodigious defender. It is no secret that the Celtic manager, Billy McNeill, wanted his Board to sanction funds to buy Willie Miller from Aberdeen. It did not happen, the manager eventually left and the team broke up. The successes of the returned-to-Paradise Billy McNeill's Centenary Double Celtic encapsulate the romance of Celtic Football Club, but once again, the Board failed to adequately provide funds for their manager and the rest is the darkest of histories, as Celtic plunged into the abyss of the 1990s largely as a consequence of Boardroom buffoonery. From 1994 to 1997, Fergus McCann orchestrated all-things Celtic and when the Bunnet finally got it right with the Celtic manager, what did we do? We shot ourselves in the foot (and the goolies and everywhere else excruciatingly painful)! Wim Jansen had arrived as Celtic manager in the summer of 1997, charged with one sole objective: end ‘in-a-row'! The little Dutchman did just that, winning Celtic's first League Championship in a decade, and adding the League Cup for good measure. However, instead of building and strategising on that success, the Celtic Board, in its less then infinite wisdom, chose to undermine Wim The Tim with some quite preposterous tactics. Jansen was asked to provide a list of his transfer targets for the following season, whilst not being told his budget. Allegedly, there was interference from non-football management level with regards to player purchase, notably Paul Lambert. There was a behind-the-scenes character clash between Wim Jansen and Jock Brown, the so-called Celtic General Manager. Details of Wim Jansen's contract were leaked to the press, and it became common knowledge that not only did the Dutchman have a ‘Get Out' clause but that he intended to exercise his right to leave Celtic. Jansen finally pushed Celtic over the Championship finishing line, history was made and he duly resigned two days later. A shambles! Not content with that Boardroom howler, the Celtic PLC then appointed Dr Jo Venglos as Celtic manager in what can only be described as a panic, one-season not so wondrous measure. Dr Jo resigned after a failed season and the Board were on the prowl again for a manager. And remember, by this time, many of the current PLC Board were in power at Celtic. Against all advice to the contrary, the PLC Board appointed the ‘Dream Team' of John Barnes and Kenny Dalglish, backed the diabolical duo with the kind of funds that Martin O'Neill would never see and Celtic proceeded to suffer one of the most inglorious debacles in our history. Barnes was sacked, Dalglish moved on, but who on the PLC Board suffered the penalty for their incompetence? That's right, the man lowest in the chain of command, chief executive Allan MacDonald. Finally, this PLC Board made a tremendous decision and they appointed Martin O'Neill as Celtic manager in the summer of 2000. However, what they are less likely to boast about is the fact that they chased Guus Hiddink and Joe Kinnear before Martin came to Paradise. Funny that they have conveniently forgotten that, eh? While Martin O'Neill made his own history by creating a gloriously successful Celtic, the PLC needed only to back their manager. They did so, up to a point, though the Irishman was always a victim of the PLC's past gaffes. Martin paid the price of PLC incompetence. And now we become even more contemporary with the litany. May 2003, Seville, the UEFA Cup Final: Celtic fans made the pilgrimage from every corner of the planet in a celebration and reaffirmation of Celtic-mindedness. It was a Celtic Festival – an acknowledgement of what we all perceived to be a Celtic renaissance. The Hoops were back at the European summit and there we would stay. Even glorious failure did not impact on our Celtic consciousness, for we believed, because we were misled into believing, that Martin O'Neill's master class of 2003 would be built upon. That's why we – 53,000 of us – were paying earlier than ever before for our season tickets for the next season. It was to fund the manager's summer spending, or so the meticulously placed story went. The summer came and the summer went, before we were informed (not surprisingly by the Chairman Of Depression, Brian Quinn) that there was precious little money in the kitty. At that precise time, we were tangibly close to making monstrous strides in Europe – but we were beginning to be shackled. Then the next howler, which will live in infamy as far as I am concerned, was at the Celtic AGM in the autumn of 2003. Brian Quinn was asked what Celtic's plans were to replace Henrik Larsson, the world-class striker and Celtic talisman who had declared intent to leave Celtic in the summer of 2004. “We hope to persuade him to stay,” replied the Celtic Chairman. As we now all know, there was NO Plan B. Indeed, it might be argued that Henri Camara was, at best, Plan Z. To bring us up to present, we have had Brian Quinn making reassuring gestures towards his wallet and we have had Celtic's Executive Director, Peter Lawwell, pledging to “maintain the quality of the squad”. Yet, in reality, we have witnessed no evidence to date that this Celtic PLC have any intention of doing anything other than allowing Celtic to decline to a level of SPL mediocrity and European cannon fodder. How Celtic historians will record this current PLC Board is impossible at this moment to predict. It could be as men of vision, as ingenious men who backed their manager to the hilt and afforded him the opportunity to create a Celtic dynasty about which Celtic fans will sing for generations to come. The men who led Celtic to The Premiership's Promised Land, perhaps. Alternatively, this PLC Board could conceivably be bracketed alongside the many failures of the past, even taking their seats alongside the greatest Boardroom buffoons of them all - the hereditary peers of the family custodians. Perhaps however the most damning criticism I have heard so far came from my North Stand mate. “The best ally Rangers have right now is the PLC!” It's hard to argue otherwise.
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