DougieJ

Fair point. He's always struck me as a pretty likeable guy to be honest, and is looking to be a promising manager, although it's early days.

I agree. An outstanding manager at all levels. Would love to see him in the Rangers or the Scotland job. Can't really see either happening though, due to finance restraints in both cases.

I doubt the SFA could afford him, or that he would leave Fulham at the moment, but I would love to see Roy Hodgson get it. An outstanding manager who has consistently got results at club and international level. The fact he's English wouldn't bother me at all - it worked for the RoI after all, for a while at least. As far as Scottish options go, Levein would be a good choice, although it's not necessarily a job for a young, ambitious type like him (hence the Hodgson suggestion). John Collins could be a decent outside bet. Souness would be great but the only way I can see him changing his stance on taking the job is if the SFA basically told him he was the outstanding candidate and made a serious play for him. I can't see him going in for a general job interview process like he did before. As someone mentioned before - Stuart Baxter's name comes up a lot. A definite outsider, but we need some fresh ideas so who knows?

Can anyone remind me where the 'discredited journalist' term for Spiers originated?

Finally managed to get a comment posted under Speirs's article, in response to some bitter, sanctimonious clown 'Frank': http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/200...brance-day.html

Hooray! This is the first article I've seen on this issue that doesn't mention Rangers: http://sport.scotsman.com/football/Tom-Eng...oney.5812348.jp

Good on wee Chick for mentioning it in his column on the Beeb site today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/s...rem/8353673.stm

Bit of a leap from 'Graham Speirs has written a very one-sided, factually incorrect article' to 'the UK is fucked...'

I also posted a reply to his article, but the comments take forever to appear - I presume to filter out all the 'YOU FAIL!' type replies that will have landed on him! The gist of what I was saying is very similar to yourself. As a 'resident handwringer' he must have crossed a line if even the likes of me feel the need to (try to) post comments to his blog ;-) I also made the point that his article is only going to give further fuel to the 'no-one likes us, we don't care' element in our support.

I wouldn't go as far as that, personally, but I have to agree that having Rod Liddle as a friend (fair weather or not) in the media is not necessarily going to do us much good... I have been encouraged, though, to read various opinions from fans of many clubs in the UK over the last couple of days who are not impressed at all with Celtic's antics. A few years back I lived in Manchester and I found that the idea that there is some kind of love-in between them and Man U is very wide of the mark. I think the tide is turning and people's eyes are opening to the fact that they are far from the angels they like to present themselves as.

Have to agree. I don't go in for as much Speirs-bashing as many on here, but even I have to admit that article is quite stunning. It has been reported in several places that there was a clearly audible protest and that several hundred fans stayed outside until the silence was over. To make out that that didn’t happen is astonishing. You would honestly think that just this once he could put the Celtic minority (and it was a minority, just as our troublemakers have been) in the spotlight. It would have been bad enough to have had a picture of both sets of fans at the top of the article, but to just have ours is really incredible, considering the point at issue is something a section of the Celtic support are (or should be) under scrutiny for.

Can you confirm this? Is the discredited journalist usually out on a Tuesday, or does it alternate with other weekdays? This could prove significant. On this page http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/ you will notice it says:

I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories but I can't help noticing that Graham Speirs, whose The Game column is normally published in The Times on Tuesdays, seems not to be available this week. That has spared him a big decision on whether to make a comment about a topic of much current interest, namely the non-silence at Falkirk. Shame, as I'm sure it's a subject he would have loved to have tackled ;-)

I agree there is a notable lack of mentions of this in the majority of the press that I've seen (most disappointingly - The Herald). But let's be fair, the following is in Scotland's most popular tabloid: Fair play to Gary Ralston.

Just wanted to let people know that if you google 'Celtic fans minutes silence', two of the links on the first page are from Red Cafe (Man U) and LFC Online. The overwhelming number of posts that I've seen are completely disgusted with the Celtic disruption. The usual suspects with user names like 'McGeady10' are the only ones trying to justify it. I think at least this shows that football fans across the UK are far from automatically pro-Celtic, even those with historically strong links, like Man U. Paul Forsyth in The Times today at least mentions it obliquely: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle6908913.ece Nothing, as yet, from Speirs. Nothing in The Herald, which is very disappointing.