celticunderground

This week St Anthony is joined by John Fallon and his guest doesn't miss and hit the wall when discussing all things Celtic! This is a must listen - and apologies, we ran out of bleeps!

Fallon signed for Celtic from junior football team Fauldhouse United in 1959 to understudy for Frank Haffey and made his debut that same year against Clyde. He replaced Haffey as first choice goalkeeper in 1963 and played his part in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup run of 1964, where they lost out to the Hungarian team MTK Budapest 4–3 in the semi-finals, after holding a 3–0 lead from the first leg at Celtic Park. He remained first choice goalkeeper until the signing of veteran keeper Ronnie Simpson from Hibernian in 1965.

John was the unused sub in Lisbon, played in the Wrold Club Championship when Simpson was hit by a bribk (or iron bar) before the game in South America and would have played in the 1970 European Cup Final were it not for illness.

His views on Stein's "dreadful" man-management skills are not to be missed...

Enjoy

This week St Anthony and Harry have a bit of a ding dong following the Hampden defeat at the hands of Ross County. The boys discuss numbers and positions and all that rubbish to debate the rights, wrongs and whatevers. I'm not sure a any agreement is reached.

Following a discussion of the past the bhoys discuss the present of the last day of the January transfer window.

Finally the bhoys move on to the future of the Aberdeen game. Saint thinks a 2-0 Celtic victory is on the cards. Here's hoping.

Enjoy.

This week Harry catches up with St Anthony to discuss the events of the past few weeks.  There has been little football since the pre-Christmas podcast but the guys manage to stretch out the discussion on the Stranraer and Partick Thistle games to such an extent that you'd think they were exciting matches.  

The chat about Stranraer however leads to a discussion on flares (pyro not trousers). Finally the bhoys discuss Anthony Stokes and the club's inability to sign a decent striker...enjoy the ramble.

This week Harry and St Anthony join up on a podcast to discuss the burning question - Ronnie Deila: Stick or Twist.

Harry starts by comparing the league position with this time last year. Celtic are 3 points and 11 goals scored better off than after 18 points last year - surely sign of progress, but the bhoys go on and outline their concerns. After a few heated debating points along the way the agreed position is stick...for now. We shall see if this was the right thing to do.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Enjoy

This week St Anthony is joined by Pat McGinlay. Pat grew up in Partick, Glasgow and was an outstanding schoolboy player captaining St Peter's Boys School in Partick and playing for St Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Jordanhill and Bearsden Boys Club. Though many Scottish clubs were watching his star performances as a schoolboy centre forward, he began his career as an apprentice with English club Blackpool but returned to Scotland to join Hibernian in 1987. He soon became an important part of Alex Miller's side who played Pat as a midfielder instead of forward/winger and he was part of the winning Scottish League Cup in 1991 Hibs side and went on to make over 150 appearances for the club in his first stint at Easter Road.

In 1993 he was signed by Celtic for a fee of £525,000 after he impressed then boss Liam Brady. He made his debut on 7 August 1993 as a substitute in a 2–2 draw away to Motherwell. However, after just over fifteen months at Celtic Park, he was on the move again as he was not part of Tommy Burns' plans. It was a strange move as McGinlay had been Celtic's top goalscorer in the previous season. At the time, Celtic were in the rebuilding process under Fergus McCann; McGinlay was part of the Celtic side that played at Hampden Park whilst Celtic Park was being rebuilt. With the cash raised from selling McGinlay, Tommy Burns bought Tosh McKinlay from Hearts. Ironically, Tosh was one of Pat's old St Peters Boys School teammates.

McGinlay rejoined Hibs for a fee of £420,000 on 1 November 1994. He remained at Easter Road for six seasons before moving to Ayr United. Whilst at Ayr, McGinlay enjoyed a cup run which ended with him being on the losing side in the 2002 Scottish League Cup Final. He made 74 appearances for the 'Honest Men' and scored 23 goals before retiring in 2005.

This week we have the second part of the aduio from the Celtic History night which took place in the Admiral Bar on Thursday 19th November. Hosted by Paul Cuddihy the evening was a chance for Celtic chat with authors who have all apeared on this podcast;
Paul Dykes - The Quality Street Gang
Stephen Sullivan - Celtic's Iron Man
Stephen Murray - Ten Men Won The League

This is thesecond part of audio from the evening. If you've not caught the first go to www.celticunderground.net to pick it up from the usual places.

Enjoy

This week we have some audio from the Celtic History night which took place in the Admiral Bar on Thursday 19th November. Hosted by Paul Cuddihy the evening was a chance for Celtic chat with authors who have all apeared on this podcast;
Paul Dykes - The Quality Street Gang
Stephen Sullivan - Celtic's Iron Man
Stephen Murray - Ten Men Won The League

This is the first part of audio from the evening with part two up over the weekend.

Enjoy

This week the Celtic Underground team discuss cheating - wholescale, industrial cheating with the clear intent to defraud Scottish football, masterminded by a man hailed as business hero, but who was nothing of the sort. Knighted for services to business David Murray stacked up debts of £1bn with a £20m shortfall in his group's pension fund. And when this guy could no longer use his friends and contacts at HBoS to paper over the cracks of his business failures he then used the money of you and I to fund his ego.

Yes this podcast is about the illegal actions of David Murray and Rangers Football Club (In Liquidation). The podcast is long...but then again so was the period of time over which Rangers cheated. They died, but we now need to decide what we do with the legacy of that corpse.

Enjoy

This week St Anthony is joined by a man who does not look to court the limelight yet has been an essential part of the Celtic fan story for over 20 years - Mr Brendan Sweeney. Many will have known of Brendan since his time at Celts For Change when he was a key member of the group which helped galvanise the fans into a movement which led to the transformation of our club. More recently Brendan has been part of The Celtic Graves Society and has just written a book entitled Celtic THE EARLY YEARS 1887-1892.

If you are interested in Celtic books, the Admiral Bar will be hosting a book evening on Thursday 19th November. More details can be found here - http://celticunderground.net/celtic-history-discussion-and-book-night-admiral-bar-19th-november/

Enjoy

This week Harry meets up with Tony Hamilton (CEO) to discuss the fantastic work of the Celtic FC Foundation.

Tony and Harry firt spoke about the work of the Foundation 2 years ago on the podcast and so Harry thought it was about time to catch up and get insight into the work being done by the foundation and specifically the forthcoming Christmas appeal.

To learn more about the work of the Foundation log on to http://charity.celticfc.net/

The bhoys can be found on Twitter;
@polishtunstile
@Harrybradycu

This week St Anthony brings us another guest from the world of the Scottish Mainstream Media - Mr Gerry McCulloch.

Viewers of STV and listeners to Clyde will be familiar with young Gerry as the the fresh voiced host of the long running radio football phone-in and occassional face of football on STV.

Before Saint discusses all things football and media with Gerry we get a chance to wish Willie Keane all the best for his wedding on Saturday 24th October and also at the end is a wee clip celebrating the time when a host like Gerry would have quality journalists as pundits and also celebrating a time when Only an Excuse was on the radio...AND FUNNY.

Enjoy!

This week Harry is joined by Celtic Legend Packie Bonner.

Packie has a book coming out called The Last Line and Harry discusses is "lucky" career and the influences on him which led to making nearly 500 appearnaces for Celtic in 20 years.

He was Jock Stein's last signing for the club when he left his native Donegal for the city of Glasgow in 1978, where Packie evolved from being a shy, homesick teenager into a confident, world-class talent and first-choice goalkeeper. Billy McNeill handed him a debut on St Patrick's Day in 1979, and Packie went on to provide the last line of defence a record 641 times for the club. A seasoned Irish internationalist, Packie was a vital component in the most-celebrated Irish national squad ever, playing in a golden era under the tutelage of the inimitable Jack Charlton.

The podcast could have covered so much more but as you will hear, from a quiet start the noise from the kids playing nearby meant we eventually had to bring the interview to a close.

To get to know more you can;

Buy the book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Last-Line-My-Autobiography/dp/1785031848

Attend An Evening with Packie and Friends - http://tickets-scotland.com/ane22

Or win a book by answering the question and emailing Harrybradycu@gmail.com

After the loss to Malmo in midweek, everything online with Celtic got a bit hectic and frenzied with lots of gnashing of teeth and searching for a villain to pin the blame onto.

With such a critical online atmosphere Harry decided that a more calming and measured perspective was required and therefore asked Hullbhoy, with his calming Hull tones to provide his overview.  The bhoys started by discussing the Europa League draw and then moved on to review Tuesday.  Harry asked who was to blame and what could be done.  Hullbhoys responses were interesting...

Enjoy

@Hullbhoy

@Harrybradycu

This week Harry is joined by leading sports commentator Mr Derek Rae.  This was recorded the morning after the night before and the first topic of conversation is the Malmo game, but the chat soon moves on to wider topics covering Derek's varied (by location) broadcast career.

Derek started broadcasting for hospital radio at just 15 and as he goes onto explain, got a lucky break at 19 which resulted in becoming a lead commentator at Radio Scotland.

Since then Derek has established himself in Scotland, left, established himself in the United States and now, again, finds himself back in Scotland covering the game he clearly loves.

Enjoy

The boys can be found on twitter;

@RaeComm

@HarryBradyCu

Scott Allen - Welcome to Celtic!

Celtic have signed another Scottish talent and in the process managed to get three of their targets into one.

Scott started his career at Dundee Utd - Tick

Scott has been signed from Hibs - Tick

Rangers fans were singing his name as they thought THEY were signing him - Tick and Ha ha ha ha ha

With Celtic playing in Europe (West Asia Region) this past week Harry thought he should speak with some of the globe trotting Celts to get a feel for what is what like.  Paul The Tim was otherwise engaged hunting down Scott Allen for his selfie pic so that left only a handful of others and Mark Cameron (@leftybhoy) fitted the bill.

The bhoys chat about Qarabag, Killie and have a little chuckle at the expense of the fans formerly known as huns.  New club, same old fannies!

Anyway - it's late and we want Celtic chat when we make a new signing so here you go...

Enjoy.

This week, fresh from getting 1 step closer to the Champions League we have St Anthony in conversation with another former Celtic hero - Joe Craig.

Craig, a striker, joined Partick Thistle in 1972 from Sauchie Juniors. After an impressive start, scoring seven goals in his first twenty games, he helped the club to the First Division title in season 1975-76. Joe signed for Celtic in September 1976 for £60,000 where he won the Scottish Cup and League Championship in his first season. He moved to Blackburn Rovers in September 1978 where he remained until 1981 when he joined Hamilton Academical. He retired in 1983.

Whilst at Celtic, he earned his only international cap against Sweden in April 1977. He started the match as a substitute and came on after 75 minutes and famously scored before having even kicked the ball, scoring a header just two minutes after replacing Kenny Burns.

Enjoy

The domestic season starts on Saturday so there is one VERY important job to be undertaken before this begins and that is the unveiling of the Celtic Underground Committee's choice of top ten players for Celtic in Season 2014/15.

Starting with a new manager with new systems and new ideas on players it was a challenging time for our election committee with few players feature as first team stand outs all term.  A common point made by the voters was that the first 3 or 4 was easy, but after that everyone was much of a muchness.  So settle down and see if you agree with the voting panel which ended up with the following Top Ten;

1Johansen

2=Brown

2=Gordon

4Deneyar

5VVD

6Bitton

7Griffiths

8=Commons

8=Izaguirre

10GMS

Enjoy

As we approach the start of a new season, St Anthony has a guest who reminds us that sometimes just one or two signings can be the difference for a team - Mr Billy Stark.

Billy was your typical "good honest pro" in the Scottish game so hardly had the fans flocking to the front door when he signed for the hoops yet for many he became one of THE reasons Celtic won the double in our Centenary Season.

Player at St Mirren, Aberdeen and Celtic among others, he also was famously part of the Tommy Burns management team at Celtic.  Stark therefore has some interesting tales to tell about Tommy, Fergie...and Any Townsend.

Enjoy.

Just in time for the schools breaking up, the world's longest running football fans podcast brings you another feast of football chat to get you through the dearth of quality chat in a tournamentless summer (yes I know there's the women's thing but that doesn't count).

This week Harry is joined by Grant Russell of STV, known to those on twitter as @STV Grant.  The boys discuss Grant  credentials as a real fan of a lesser team before getting on to the meat of the discussion...how they'd cover the game if they ruled the world.

Enjoy

@STVGrant

@HarryBradyCU

It's milestone in more ways than one.  We have now reached the end of the first season of the Ronny Deila era and it's also the end of the first 250 podcasts from Celtic Underground.  Eddie may be still living in a cave but we still have enough regulars from the podcast to have a multi-cast review of Ronny's first term.

Hullbhoy & Lachie passed on their apologies but we Harry was still joined by St Anthony, Mak Cooper, Mark Cameron and Lawrence Donegan to doscuss season 2014-15.

The bhoys start with the departure of Lenny and the fact that they weren't really surprised (not that they didn't appreciate the work Lenny had done, just that there seemed to be a natural ending to his time).  The rambling chat rolls along from there through the preparation of the squad for Cahmpions league and then onto the "challenge" from the Dons, stopping off for a discussion on youth before a quick look over the fence at next term.

Enjoy

@Leftybhoy

@Lawrencedonegan

@Markocooper

@Stephen62572930

@HarryBradyCU