Phil O'Donnell - Tommy Burns

[bmck 117]

They have no class, no dignity and no shame.

 

It was a tainted title.

it doesnt matter though - its theirs now. for me its a celtic-minded view to start moaning about injustice. dwelling on it, for me, is having no class. no matter what i feel about it, moaning about its just bitter. no matter what i think about it, its all irrelevant now nothing can be done to change it. those with class look to themselves if theres some injustice: i am hoping the rangers players are realising that they flung it away, when it could have been won, irrespective of anything to do with celtic.

[Laudbertz 0]

Of course they did it to benefit them.... most teams would do it that way. Its not a tainted title, it was there to be won and at the end of the season we didnt have enough points to win it.

Its the way football goes sometimes.

 

Onto next season... .

[Bluedell 5,623]

So why is my "possibility" so ludicrous? Especially as it seems to be one that fits your question...

 

But hey, you're implying you think 100% that Celtic went to the SPL and said, "Hi SPL, we've got some injuries that could affect our result against Rangers, and so want to use Phil's death as an excuse to postpone the game. Is that ok? ...Yes?...Excellent!"

 

Seems to me that when someone is 100% certain about something they have no evidence or real knowledge for; who dismisses all other possibilities; and not only that, expects everyone to bow to their "certain knowledge", then I can see that they could do with a few drugs or something...

 

BTW I was not even stating my opinion, I was only indexing a possibility... On reflection, I still don't see how it was such a stretch and I do think it merited more of a debate than just scoffing...

 

I think that's what Barry was getting at too.

"Celtic called for the match to be postponed because some of their players were close to the Motherwell captain, who collapsed during the Dundee United game on Saturday and died soon after."

 

No mention of overshadowing O'Donnell's death, and if they did feel like you suggested, why not come out and say it? It's as "valid" an argument as the one they ended up using.

 

I'm not suggesting that I expect everyone to "bow to my certain knowledge", but I still think your suggestion that Peter Lawwell et al sat down and genuinely decided that they would ask for the game to be called off because it would overshadow his death, but hide the real reason and instead use the excuse of their players being close to him as somewhat unbelievable.

[craig 5,199]

Regardless of whether the title is tainted or not the record books show that they won it. End of. The sorry fact is that we could not win our last two games to win the league - it was in our own hands and we blew it. Yes, the players were running on empty so there are excuses to be made but it was still in our own hands to win it and we failed to do so - I had a nagging in the 2nd half of the season that our lack of creativity would cause us problems down the stretch when the pressure was on - sadly that proved to be the case.

 

Calscot, your synopsis of the POD tragedy is obviously plausible (and I recognise that you are offering merely an alternative rather than your opinion) but I simply cannot agree that it is the most likely reason for the call-off. It was painfully obvious at the time that they were struggling with injuries and suspensions and, in fact, would have had reasonable knowledge that our best player (Hutton) was about to leave. Everything weighed in their favour to have the game cancelled. To my mind they saw it as a window of opportunity. But I am surmising.

 

What is NOT open to debate in my opinion is the appalling attitude of Lawell when steadfastly trying to railroad the SPL into not allowing Rangers to extend their SPL campaign - HE and his club REQUESTED that the New Year OF game be postponed due to POD's tragedy and the reason Rangers were suffering with so many games was, in part, due to that request - and he has the gall to thereafter state that the integrity of the game is at stake if they extend the season.

 

I have said it before and will again - I sincerely hope that Rangers from this point forth look after their own interests and their own interests alone. Neither the SPL nor its member clubs made any effort to assist Rangers with its scheduling. Lesson learnt I hope.

 

Tommy Burns was more of a legend to Celtic than POD could ever have hoped to have been, was involved with the club for nigh on 35 years and yet their was no request to have the game postponed for him a week later, and only a day or two after his death ???? Sorry, but given the necessity for the New Year OF game to be postponed for a talismanic player who hadnt played for them for 10 years it makes no sense they didnt feel the same need upon Tommy Burns' death. For me, I look to the history as a marker for events - these two events were similar with pros and cons for both games being cancelled (35 yrs servant, long illness, died on field of play, not with club for 10 yrs - plenty of pros and cons) - in my internal calculator I would have thought that Tommy Burns would have been more befitting (from a Celtic standpoint) of having a game cancelled. Interestingly enough, one of the foremost reasons Celtic gave for postponing that New Year game was that "there are people still at the club who worked with Phil" - 10 years prior ? Probably only Tommy Burns himself - yet Tommy passes and are they then implying that the feeling of grief is not as extreme for Tommy's passing ? Surely not !!

 

Maybe it is the sour grapes in me, but Celtic to me used POD's death to their advantage, plain and simple. They then used that same set of tragic circumstances to force Rangers players up against a wall in terms of games to be played.

 

The history books won't show that this title is tainted and the Celtic fans won't care either (in fact, they could very well be revelling in it) but there is a bitter taste in my mouth over the whole affair.

 

That said... back to my original comment - we had the league in our own hands and we KNEW that no-one wanted us to succeed. We just didn't have what it took to get over the finishing line. We were bereft of ideas for much of the campaign and that lack of creativity needs to be corrected.

 

The good thing is that THEY are, in my opinion, a worse team than we are. WS needs to decide though whether he is going to have a team or a squad - he used the nucleus of the same team all season even when players were not performing - guys like Charlie Adam played poorly for most of the season yet WS refused to bring others like Gow in. Now, I am not saying that Gow deserved to get a shot as we don't see what goes on behind closed doors - regardless of that though if a player isnt in form he needs to be dropped. That didn't happen - the only time WS dropped a player this season was injury, suspension or fatigue.

 

Onwards and upwards.

[bmck 117]

^ well written -not a word of it i would have changed. i really do wonder what happened with gow, though. he wasnt unproven - he had the highest assists in the league last year, no more unproven than any other player that got a game. the very thing we needed was assists.

[buba3d 0]

We lost the league with two games.

 

1-1 draw with motherwell and our 0-0 with hibs, those two games cost us big time.

[craig 5,199]

We lost the league with two games.

 

1-1 draw with motherwell and our 0-0 with hibs, those two games cost us big time.

 

We lost the league with 38 games - to go into one or two is semantics. We could also argue we lost the league due to poor officiating at the last OF game which gave Celtic 3 points they didn't deserve.

 

We could also argue we lost the league because Celtic got a LOT of dubious decisions in the last half dozen league games.

 

Fact is.... we lost the league because we didn't get more points than Celtic.

[pete 2,499]

Regardless of whether the title is tainted or not the record books show that they won it. End of. The sorry fact is that we could not win our last two games to win the league - it was in our own hands and we blew it. Yes, the players were running on empty so there are excuses to be made but it was still in our own hands to win it and we failed to do so - I had a nagging in the 2nd half of the season that our lack of creativity would cause us problems down the stretch when the pressure was on - sadly that proved to be the case.

 

Calscot, your synopsis of the POD tragedy is obviously plausible (and I recognise that you are offering merely an alternative rather than your opinion) but I simply cannot agree that it is the most likely reason for the call-off. It was painfully obvious at the time that they were struggling with injuries and suspensions and, in fact, would have had reasonable knowledge that our best player (Hutton) was about to leave. Everything weighed in their favour to have the game cancelled. To my mind they saw it as a window of opportunity. But I am surmising.

 

What is NOT open to debate in my opinion is the appalling attitude of Lawell when steadfastly trying to railroad the SPL into not allowing Rangers to extend their SPL campaign - HE and his club REQUESTED that the New Year OF game be postponed due to POD's tragedy and the reason Rangers were suffering with so many games was, in part, due to that request - and he has the gall to thereafter state that the integrity of the game is at stake if they extend the season.

 

I have said it before and will again - I sincerely hope that Rangers from this point forth look after their own interests and their own interests alone. Neither the SPL nor its member clubs made any effort to assist Rangers with its scheduling. Lesson learnt I hope.

 

Tommy Burns was more of a legend to Celtic than POD could ever have hoped to have been, was involved with the club for nigh on 35 years and yet their was no request to have the game postponed for him a week later, and only a day or two after his death ???? Sorry, but given the necessity for the New Year OF game to be postponed for a talismanic player who hadnt played for them for 10 years it makes no sense they didnt feel the same need upon Tommy Burns' death. For me, I look to the history as a marker for events - these two events were similar with pros and cons for both games being cancelled (35 yrs servant, long illness, died on field of play, not with club for 10 yrs - plenty of pros and cons) - in my internal calculator I would have thought that Tommy Burns would have been more befitting (from a Celtic standpoint) of having a game cancelled. Interestingly enough, one of the foremost reasons Celtic gave for postponing that New Year game was that "there are people still at the club who worked with Phil" - 10 years prior ? Probably only Tommy Burns himself - yet Tommy passes and are they then implying that the feeling of grief is not as extreme for Tommy's passing ? Surely not !!

 

Maybe it is the sour grapes in me, but Celtic to me used POD's death to their advantage, plain and simple. They then used that same set of tragic circumstances to force Rangers players up against a wall in terms of games to be played.

 

The history books won't show that this title is tainted and the Celtic fans won't care either (in fact, they could very well be revelling in it) but there is a bitter taste in my mouth over the whole affair.

 

That said... back to my original comment - we had the league in our own hands and we KNEW that no-one wanted us to succeed. We just didn't have what it took to get over the finishing line. We were bereft of ideas for much of the campaign and that lack of creativity needs to be corrected.

 

The good thing is that THEY are, in my opinion, a worse team than we are. WS needs to decide though whether he is going to have a team or a squad - he used the nucleus of the same team all season even when players were not performing - guys like Charlie Adam played poorly for most of the season yet WS refused to bring others like Gow in. Now, I am not saying that Gow deserved to get a shot as we don't see what goes on behind closed doors - regardless of that though if a player isnt in form he needs to be dropped. That didn't happen - the only time WS dropped a player this season was injury, suspension or fatigue.

 

Onwards and upwards.

 

Craig did you write this yourself.:devil:

 

Agree with every word as well. excellent post mate.

[craig 5,199]

Craig did you write this yourself.:devil:

 

Agree with every word as well. excellent post mate.

 

I used my ghostwriter Pete.....

 

I think that as I was in the US on holiday and not completely emrboiled in the last couple of games shenanigans that I had a bit more emotionally removed from things.

 

Didn't know the SC final score until Tuesday afternoon !

 

Thanks for the compliments guys, you will make me blush...