Post by Fish SupperPost by liam*Post by Fish SupperPost by liam*Post by liam*C'mon FS, there must be a wee bit about you that takes pride when a
Scottish team does well in Europe...
***
I want every Scottish team to do well in Europe - the difference is
that
I
enjoy it when Hearts or Aberdeen or Motherwell get a result. When it's
Celtic - hmmm, not so much with the enjoyment.
Well there you go then....if you want Scottish teams to do well you'll
be chuffed by Scottish success....or have I missed something...
Look, it's like going to the dentist with a rotten tooth. You *want* the
dentist to pull it out, but you don't *enjoy* it. It's a necessary evil -
like Celtic winning in Europe. Fortunately for one's dental hygene it also
occurs as often as Celtic winning in Europe.
And you still call yourself a real Scot???....with such an excellent
set of nashers, you must be English or Amercian...
English? They've all got teeth like a burglar's toolbag!
Post by liam*Post by Fish SupperWell, I'd add Boyd and Brown to that team, but I'd keep the kitty money well
away from Boruc - he'd just drop it.
Maybe Hoopy the Huddle Hound could look afetr it for...oh, wait...
Are you saying Hoopy is a tea leaf??? You are your anti-Celtic stories
FS... ;)
I think it was more a case of Strthclyde Police saying he was at it.
Post by liam*PS there was a nice wee article in the Herald yesterday about John
Kennedy
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/celtic/john-kennedy-a-triumph...
tbh I don't think we've got anything to worry about over Kennedy...he
seems to have a better frame of mind than many of those still involved
in the game...
link doesn't work
Apologies, link broke
Richard Wilson
Published on 26 Nov 2009
Of all that might be said of John Kennedy’s body, the seven operations
to rebuild his knee, the days, weeks, months of rehabilitation, the
squinting pain of arthritis that is already beginning to bite, it is
the contents of his mind that seem most remarkable.
Now, after the moment when so much of the trauma of the last five
years narrowed to a point of crisis and he found that what came over
him with most certainty was a sense of relief, he treats dark thoughts
as though they are imposters.
Kennedy is 26, a time when his playing career should be about that
spread of possibilities, of the shine of all that might yet be
achieved. But, instead, he sits before us in a room inside Celtic
Park, where visitors are being taken on a guided tour and the air
fills with the flutter of excited voices, and reveals the great depths
of his generosity of spirit. He says, with a practised, soulful
patience, that no, he bears no grudges, he seeks no redress, he has no
intention of living again, and again, in the past.
In all that has slipped away since Ionel Ganea so viciously, so
abruptly, reduced Kennedy’s promise to a matter of regret with an
alarmingly savage tackle at Hampden that wrecked the ligaments of the
defender’s left knee, he has retained something precious. It is the
realisation that sadness is one thing, but angst and fury are the kind
of sentiments that will only corrode the last of his hope.
So, two weeks ago, in the office of Dr Richard Steadman, the renowned
Colorado surgeon who repaired his knee and those of so many other high-
level sports performers, Kennedy said: “I want you to make the
decision for me”, and knew what the outcome would be. His career,
which had begun so brightly that when he made his debut aged 16 years
and 231 days he was
the youngest player to appear in the Celtic first
team, was over.
“He came to the decision that for the sake of my quality of life, and
things like playing with my kid, I had to retire,” Kennedy says. “I’d
spent a couple of days with him and I was preparing myself for it. I
went there open-minded, hoping that I’d be able to play again, but I
left the decision to him because the way I am, I’d have kept pushing
and pushing and would have done myself more damage.”
Kennedy spent last season on loan at Norwich, but aggravated his knee
in a game against Reading in December and returned to America for
surgery during the summer. These, it turned out, were to be the final
details of a career that found its peak in a memorably accomplished
performance for Celtic in Barcelona only weeks before Kennedy suffered
his injury.
Further rehabilitation might have allowed another return
to the game, but there is little cartilage left in his knee, and fewer
guarantees.
Since that night at Hampden in March 2004, when Kennedy was making his
Scotland debut against Romania, his progress became a gathering of
setback. Another cycle seemed like just another scourge of his
resolve, so he allowed his future to be shaped by Steadman’s advice
and two weeks ago announced his retirement. Yesterday at Celtic Park,
which for so long has been a place of such faith, he told us, for the
first time, of what it was to come to the end of something.
“Because I’ve had it in the back of my head that it may be an option
that I had to give up, that I’ve been able to cope with it a bit
better,” he says. “It’s a relief that I don’t have to keep going
through it all, because there’s no worse feeling than getting back fit
and then all of a sudden lying on the surgery table again.”
Kennedy first saw footage of the tackle only days after it happened,
when he watched a slow motion replay with Steadman so that the surgeon
could understand the extent of the injury. Steadman later admitted the
damage was as serious as he had seen. The player’s father, and so many
football figures whose careers have brushed alongside the defender’s,
expressed his anger at the Romanian’s recklessness. Yet Kennedy
refuses to brood.
“I have to get over it,” he says. “I’ve not got any anger towards him.
Look at John Hartson, there’s no point in me dwelling on the past.
I’ve not had any contact [with Ganea], but that’s not a problem, I’ve
no reason to get in touch with him. I’ve not considered [legal
action], I’ve not looked into that. It happened that long ago now that
I’d just to like to put it behind me.”
With a 19 month-old son, Josh, and ambitions to remain in the game in
some capacity, Kennedy is surrounded by a different set of
priorities.
Physically, he still seems such a resounding figure, broad and
muscular, but with a look in his eyes that tells of a great search, of
looking to make sense of so much that has happened. As a coach, or a
scout, or in some other role, it seems likely he will remain at
Celtic, the club of his childhood and, perhaps, the source of some of
his optimism.
“It’s a consolation,” Kennedy says of the highs of his career. “Some
of my mates would give their left arm to play just one game for
Celtic. I grew up like that and I played for the club I supported, now
I can move on to something else.”
That is perhaps Kennedy’s greatest triumph, his ability to see only
what should be cherished.