Tag: Matt Corr

Takeaways from the weekend

Forgive me for going off-script and weighing in on Celtic while we’re still outside the parameters of the regular SPFL season — a self-imposed rule I have set on myself and this blog. However, this weekend warrants a few comments and points which could be marginalized, or even forgotten, by the time we pick up the regular season again on Sunday.

Like . . .

The pregame tifo to honor Bertie Auld was fantastic, but it still paled in comparison to the display at the 67th minute of the match. The Green Brigade pulled out all the stops on this one.

Damn, can we tifo!

Recently I was explaining tifo to a friend who follows sports marginally, and if anything only sports in the U.S. He couldn’t understand why fans would make so much of an effort, and I just threw up my hands and changed the subject.

Anyway, despite the fact I am not a big fan of pyro, the pregame and 67th minute tributes to Bertie Auld on Saturday were both phenomenal. The Green Brigade gets high marks for bringing high quality to the stands, each and every time, regardless of whether it gets the club in trouble or not. It was phenomenal, and regretfully I could not find a still from the 2nd half demonstration by the Green Brigade.

You’ll have to settle for videos gleaned from social media, like this one here.

Of course, Sunday’s Wile E. Coyote tifo — whatever the Ibrox crew was doing on at Hampden the day after, which seemed to be purchased at ACME– paled in comparison. As it always does, and as they always do.

A yellow for Furuhashi

An incident in the St. Johnston game which caused some ripples was when that paragon of class officiating Nick Walsh — yeah, that’s the epitome of sarcasm right there, as Walsh should be nowhere near a grade-school match, let alone a Cup semifinal — gave Kyogo Furuhashi a yellow card. But the fact of the matters is that it was completely warranted.

Kyogo Furuhashi against the backdrop of the Green Brigade’s demonstration at the 67th minute of Saturday’s game.

Furuhashi was floored by some mouthbreathing, hammerthrowing nobody on St. Johnstone — playing their Livingstonian 10-0-0 formation all game — and Kyogo got up and was clearly justified in pushing him. A small tete-a-tete which amounted to nothing, except to Walsh, who made it a serious offense thanks to the fact that it was a Celt involved.

Daijobu desu, Furuhashi-san — That’s OK, Kyogo. It’s good to see that Kyogo has probably had his fill of the rogue’s gallery of talentless thugs that populate the SPFL and is now standing up for himself.

Welcome back, Jamesy

Oh, man. Have I been waiting for this, and it’s a plot line straight out of Hollywood. Who better to honor a legend like Bertie Auld than a potential legend-in-waiting like James Forrest?

James Forrest gets chased by Celtic captain Callum McGregor after Forrest scored on Saturday against St. Johnstone.

Forrest scored in the 74th minute from a cross that pinballed off St. Johnstone goalkeeper Zander Clark and others, and slotted home the 1-0 winner on Saturday. If there was ever a fitting “welcome back” after recovery from a long injury, it was this for Jamesy.

Love seeing that kind of play from a homegrown hero like Forrest.

One more thing

My friend Matt Corr’s latest book — “Harry Hood: Twice as Good” — has officially been released into the wild, and it’s an ideal holiday gift for that Celtic fan on your list. You can pick up the book at the Celtic Star Bookstore, and you can marvel at how great Harry looked in the San Antonio Thunder jersey late in his career . . . not to mention all the tales of glory from his Celtic days as well.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is that. We travel to Bayer Lederhosen — sorry, Leverkusen — this week before taking up the regular season tasks against Aberdeen on Sunday. Mon the Hoops!

Putting Harry Hood on the shelf

Those who know me, to any degree, know that I hate to repeat myself. Let me emphasize this loudly for those in the back who may have missed it: I hate to be redundant.

So there.

In bookstores soon, but don’t let that stop you from pre-ordering an autographed copy here. . .

But even after writing about Harry Hood’s American tour of duty with the San Antonio Thunder in an earlier blog post, this post bears repeating because Matt Corr — Celtic historian and author, master of Celtic European travelogues, and Celtic Star colleague extraordinaire, among other accomplishments — has written a definitive and official biography of the man they said was “twice as good,” and hence part of the title.

Corr’s previous efforts with Celtic Star Books have been outstanding. “Invincible” outlines in great detail the first of the Quadruple Treble seasons where Celtic went unbeaten (and, in a truth-in-advertising moment, I’ve also written about it here). And I have to admit to being remiss in not mentioning earlier how great his other book with Celtic Star Books is — that being “Walfrid and the Bould Boys” that he wrote with David Potter and Liam Kelly — in which the trio plumbs the depths of Celtic’s infancy to outline the foundation of the club we support today.

With the holidays right around the corner, I have to confess that getting an Ange Postecoglou black sweater/jumper is on the top of my list for Santa, but second definitely would be Corr’s book.

But for those of you who may want to forego the Ange sweater/jumper — because, unlike me, you may not share the Aussie gaffer’s physique — you can pre-order the book from The Celtic Star Bookstore already at this link. Bear in mind that pre-orders come with an autographed copy of the book once it’s delivered to you.

As an aside, in this upcoming holiday season, what could possibly be better than Elf on a Shelf?

Wait for it . . . Hood on the Wood.

Ba-da-bum.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen! I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress . . .

Mon the Hoops!

History and schadenfreude

For the benefit of those of you — and I’m guessing it’s a pretty high number — who are hung over right now after celebrating in the afterglow of Celtic’s Quadruple Treble victory at Hampden yesterday, I’m going to write very softly as not to disturb you. You’re welcome.

But as we head to Wednesday’s game, there are a few more observations that should be made regarding Sunday’s victory. Like . . .

How historic was it?

Matt Corr, my colleague at The Celtic Star and a Celtic historian without peer, outlined the gravity of yesterday’s accomplishment with a Twitter post (which I misread, and was quickly “corrected” — mea culpa!), stating that the last time a club had won three Scottish Cups in a row was . . . 1876, when Queens Park did it for the third time that year.

Celtic broke that record yesterday, nearly a century and a half later.

This, of course, adds to the gravity of the herculean accomplishment of four trebles in a row, and adds even more to the awe-inspiring feat that Celtic achieved yesterday.

Not only did Matt give it the notice it deserved, but you can bet that William Hill also got into the act on Twitter, posting a tweet that showed the domestic trophies won this century by clubs . . . and by Scott Brown at Celtic.

To be fair, Scott Brown is missing one from his time at Hibernian, but that’s a minor detail.

Gathering up the tears

Schadenfreude is probably not a good thing to have on an occasion like this, but when it comes to both Heart of Midlothian, as well as Glasgow’s other club, it’s hard — no, it’s impossible — to resist.

First, like Glasgow’s other club, Heart of Midlothian FC has always been a classless organization which deserves every tumble of its recent downfall. Its captain, Steven Naismith, is a hammerthrowing thug who will only be known within the confines of Scotland and will be forgotten once he retires, unless of course he end up on SkySports post-career as one of Martin O’Neill’s aptly described “basement dwellers.”

That said, it was nothing short of hilarious to see the greeting from both about what a meanie Scott Brown was during the game, ignoring the fact that Naismith stomped on him early in the match, or that Naismith was carded during a corner-kick tussle with Brown; both actions career hallmarks of that legend in his own mind.

Then there’s Neil McCann’s moaning about Odsonne Edouard’s penalty kick that he looped over a diving Craig Gordon being disrespectful. Seriously? If you want to talk about disrespect, Neil, how about starting with players — like, oh I don’t know, you? — taking EBT money at the expense of Scottish taxpayers. How’s that for disrespectful?

And for the love of God, can someone help this poor Rangers fan who seems to have lost the plot?

The stupid, it burns.

Onward and upward

Once the celebrating stops and the hangovers subside, Celtic are still faced with a phenomenal task of reeling in first place in the Premiership. Without the benefit of a winter break — which traditionally filled the tanks for the second half — it appears that the club will have to bear down and move forward without it. Naturally we are up to the task and, with the right mix of acquisitions in the transfer window and the calling up of qualified players from the reserves, we should be able to achieve this goal.

On to Wednesday’s match against Ross County. Mon the Hoops, and in case I forget, have a Merry Krismas and a Hoopy New Year!

We are all ‘Invincible’

Matt Corr’s ‘Invincible’ — outlining the first of the three ‘Treble Treble’ seasons — is out now.

Truth in advertising: What you’re about to read is not so much a review of Matt Corr’s book, “Invincible,” the first book in a trilogy on the history of each of the Treble Treble seasons, but rather an observation that provides a peek behind the curtain of this outstanding literary project.

The Celtic Star’s editor David Faulds hired me, a retired newspaper editor, to proofread Matt’s book. So in other words, I was one of the lucky few who had a head start in reading it.

A little perspective: Currently I occasionally do freelance work editing and proofreading technical documentation — both hardware and software manuals — and, as you might imagine, the prose in these manuals and documentation are not exactly page-turners, by anyone’s definition.

So, to work on a book on a topic close to my heart — namely, Celtic — was a godsend. But this project was more: To work on this book was an honour and a privilege unrivaled in an editing career that has spanned four decades, simply by virtue of the fact that the material I had to work with was so clear, so precise, and so outstanding.

I was not a Celtic FC fan during the 2016/17 season. I was not even a football fan then (the story about how I started following football in general, and Celtic in particular, has been told elsewhere). I mention this because in “Invincible,” Corr literally puts you in the seat next to him for each of the games he describes in that glorious season.

No small feat, and it’s a testament to Matt’s uniquely detailed writing style, which constantly keeps your interest and focus on the moment on every page and on every game leading to the ultimate victory of the first Treble Treble.

Matt is no stranger to the Celtic faithful. His dispatches from European venues on the road with the Hoops, as well as other historical articles in The Celtic Star and writing game programme articles for home-game matches, has entertained and educated Celtic fans over the years. A man of many hats, he is also a tourguide at Celtic Park.

Suffice to say that Celtic is in Matt’s DNA, and the material he presents in his first book is easily relatable to all Celtic fans worldwide. In these pages, you are there with him in that first historic season. To that end, all Celtic fans own a piece of the history that is outlined in this book, making us all “Invincible.”

Now to sharpen my No. 2 pencil and wait for the next two books . . .

To buy a copy of “Invincible,” visit The Celtic Star bookstore here. The book is £19.99 plus postage, and it makes the perfect Father’s Day gift, assuming your father is a Celtic fan (and even if he isn’t, this will probably make him one).