Jumping through Hoops - NUFC, Celtic, and the Champions League
As we prepare to take on Celtic, Scott argues that the Bhoys offer a blueprint (greenprint?) for United in the Champions League
I remember when I first started going to NUFC matches as a nine year old. The sights and sounds engrossed me.
The smell of hot dogs, piss and freshly cut grass teased the nasal passage, while my eyes could never unsee some things, including people from the North East wearing a sombrero (in tribute to a Brazilian not a Mexican, which wasn't what they taught me in Geography ) and people wearing half and half Newcastle and Celtic bobble hats. Which wasn't what they taught me in the playground.
Of course, half and half hat or scarfs’ reputation was to be ripped to shreds not long after, when they became the ‘must have’ for any day tripper or football ‘no one’ who ever got into Old Trafford or Anfield. However, it did briefly happen at St James’ and your other team were Glaswegian. And I'm not talking about Partick Thistle or Queens Park here.
As if our chaotic existence wasn't enough, let's co habit with two of the most tinderbox clubs on the planet to boot. Strange times. I blame the pits closing.
As we face each other in today’s friendly, two clubs in fantastic post industrial cities, whose histories are like chalk and cheese, might have more in common than you think.
Take the Champions League. Unlike most of the teams that qualified this year, Newcastle and Celtic are the blueprints to take advantage of Uefa getting that little bit more greedy. It's maybe a leap to say those ski hats might be returning, but we are suddenly both fighting the same fight.
We have played each other fifteen times in our history. In everywhere from Paris to Berwick upon Tweed. It's been a long time since the game has been touted as two trophy winners going at each other, but with Adidas doing both our kits and with us now a hot ticket again, here we go.
Glasgow Celtic remains a HUGE football club. One of the biggest in the world. Try telling anyone under the age of 20 in England this and the facial reaction is usually like when you say you prefer Dannii Minogue to Kylie. A mixture of bewilderment, sympathy, and downright pity.
Celtic are a winning machine with supporters clubs in Papua New Guinea, Peru and Portugal. How they were not at the World Club Championship is a huge business failure on FIFA’s part. Stick them in Boston and watch them go.
The answer to why they were not there is down to the fact Celtic are not ‘de rigueur’ in the eyes of the moneymakers and it's down to not how they play football, it's where they play football.
People scoff at Scottish football and don't learn about the game north of the border. Just because something is completely different, doesn't mean it's shite. If that was the case David Bowie would not have happened. A poor reference to how Falkirk will do this season but you get my thinking there?
Our supporters will dish it out on Saturday by the bucketloads. “It's like the Northern League up there” or excruciatingly it's a “Pub League”. No glitz or glamour but it's tough and for Celtic it's unrelenting. Not many football clubs in world football have to win EVERY single match. Celtic do.
This is no longer to stave off Rangers, it's just they have to win every one of their league fixtures. A draw is seen as a failure and a post mortem is needed. Newcastle is a high pressure environment, but we are not at that level yet. NUFC twitter would say we are, but we are not. Only a select group of clubs in the world are like this.
Say the Turkish giants? Boca Juniors or River Plate? Olympiakos? LIverpool? huge clubs from Brazil and North Africa? It's hard to comprehend how much pressure is on players and coaches to keep that up.
On the other hand, Celtic should win every game. According to one site who seems to know these things, Celtic have a budget of £20m per year which stands over Livingston’s £858,000 like the Shard. Also according to this site, Rangers apparently have a bigger budget. Either that's bullshit or someone is doing something seriously wrong across the City.
Celtic will also dwarf the fourth biggest team in their domestic league with six times the financial advantage. It's an elephant in the room. It doesn't guarantee success, but it helps. Other SPFL teams after a hounding by Celtic will say “How can we compete?”
To put it into perspective, though, in terms of how the Premier League is way out in front of the SPL: when Celtic won everything a few years ago, they earned less money than Luton did for getting relegated. Twice.
When Celtic play in the Champions league things flip. The whole mantra turns from behemoth to underdog. Narrative or not, it grinds the gears of those SPFL teams who quite rightly say “Have a bit of your own medicine”.
The players who are straightjacketed into that “must win” mentality domestically, suddenly have the psychological shackles removed by lining up against teams who financially outmuscle THEM.
The results were not great. In the old group stage system, away from Parkhead they had a record in the Champions league of just two wins from 44 games and a morale shattering 35 defeats.
Then last year came and it wasn't designed to be thus, but it's a salvation for clubs like Celtic and indeed, Newcastle. The old four team league system saw the two top seeds invariably go through. Think that handball in injury time against PSG and how they were always going through.
By hook or by crook.
Last season Celtic played ten matches. Four more than they previously did and reached the knock out stage. That's been unheard of for a good few years. It was no coincidence. They got the big games. They got the winnable ones.
Eight different teams and that meant that more shock results came and Celtic drawing away to Atalanta started the ball rolling to qualify with wins in winnable home games like Young Boys Berne. They were narrowly, agonisingly edged out by Bayern Munich in the knock out round but last season for them must be a template for us.
We all had fun when we were last in the competition, but it's no good getting knocked out at Christmas gallantly. This new format embraces the middle to lower teams if you pick your moments.
Celtic earned £46m from the UCL last season. They were guaranteed £38.5m, more than the total revenue of Hibernian, Kilmarnock, Motherwell and St Mirren put together.
What had actually started to become a trial every autumn for Celtic FC and fans has now reinvigorated them, and dipping into the well every year may even see them become more than a club who has bought to sell on for many years now. They were Ashley before he had sold his first pair of Dunlop green flash.
Newcastle, I learned off a True Faith reader this week, are the lowest ranked non qualifying team in the draw. It will be tough but we have a great chance if we use the method Celtic used last year. The only defeat in the group stage was the Dortmund humiliation. Brendan Rodgers saw early in the piece that wasn't going to define the campaign.
We need to be qualifying domestically for three years in a row and when we do get there, we need to at least get to the knock out stage to make it worth our while.
For Celtic, who have won fifty-five league titles and the European Cup, this new group stage has opened up new horizons and created an unlevel playing field at home. No fault of theirs by the way, the unlevel playing field of Europe is just less of an incline for teams like them and us than it used to be.
The funny thing is after all is said and done, both sides’ winnable game come September may actually be against each other. Bring it on.
Scott Robson
Image: Rorals via Flickr, CC-BY-2.0
Excellent piece, Scott. Celtic holds two outstanding memories for me. Firstly, listening to the radio when Celtic became the first British team to win the European Cup. That they did so with the magnificent Ronnie Simpson in goal, a guy we’d recently sold to Celtic because our idiot owners had thought was too old, was typical Newcastle. That they did the same thing with Frank Clark some years later only served to rub salt in the wound. And secondly, a tip of the hat to ex-Mirror journalist Brian McNally (the Beast) RIP, who told me on my very first day at Hillheads Secondary Modern (he was 4 years older than me) that Celtic was and always had been the best team in the world. Brian was a better journalist than a footballer. Even so, I was proud to play in the same school football team as the great man himself. Happy days!
Great read and understanding of Scottish football.