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ScottieBigDog
Talks too much |
     
Below taken from the 'Ill Informer' on http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/offtheball
GROUNDS FOR COMPLAINT
As the contest to host Euro 2008 hots up, it still appears that the Scottish-Irish bid remains as joint-favourite for the honour, along with the Austro-Swiss bid.
Here in Scotland, rumours have arisen to the effect that in the event of the success of the Celtic bid that Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium would be the favoured choice as the venue for the final.
So much then for the millions invested in the National Stadium at Hampden and its successful hosting of the Champions League Final in May this year. Hampden is being dumped in favour of the Scottish headquarters of a game played by guys with oval balls. Rugby is a game played by men with strange sounding names, such as Nigel, Gavin, Doddie, Fraser and Dean, where weird occurrences which we soccer-types would never understand take place, things such as second-phase possession, rucks and mauls and it seems that nobody turns a hair. Rugby is a game where worryingly, if you merely try, you apparently succeed in scoring, not just one, but five whole points. I'm also told that conversions take place too, which involve neither St.Paul, nor the road to Damascus and indeed are incredibly not at all linked to religion.
Murrayfield is the stadium which apparently most impressed the UEFA inspectors, who toured four Scottish stadia last week, the other three being Hampden, Celtic Park and Ibrox. There is however much work to be carried out in order to prepare the Edinburgh ground for a major football match, most notably in the way of preparing segregated areas, both within the ground and on approach routes to the stadium. Segregation, my rugby-playing mates tell me, is not a major issue in the fifteen-a-side game. Safe to assume then that we'll not be seeing an Old Firm cup final played at the famous old rugby stadiium in the capital in the near future.
Still, at least the UEFA inspectors had four grounds to actually inspect in Scotland, which must have compared favourably to the Irish leg of their tour, when they saw only Croke Park, a ground owned by the Gaelic Athletic Association, where only Gaelic games have been held to date and where the owners are determined not to allow soccer to be played.
The UEFA inspectors also had to endure a two-hour presentation on the plans for the so-called Bertie's Bowl, wherein Prime Minister Bertie Ahern must have had his ability to use the blarney tested to the full. Imagine Bertie in all his glory, waxing lyrical about a stadium wherein the location, design, capacity, access and funding are still all up in the air.
Still, it has to be said that if Bertie managed to pull that one off to the UEFA inspectors then maybe he could sell sand to the Arabs. If such is the case then maybe this bid isn't all pie in the sky, as some suggest. However some of the Euro-sceptics here at the Ill Informer still have a gut feeling that the joint Celtic bid for Euro 2008 is about as likely to be successful as the first solar landing.
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In goweny glens thy burnie strays, Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes; Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, Wi' hawthorns grey, Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays, At close o' day.
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Total Posts: 117 | Joined Sep. 2002 | Posted on: 7:27 pm on Sep. 23, 2002 | IP
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tommyt
Something to say |
Its no gonnae happen.
If you read the bid document its quite clear that Hampden gets the opening game a semit and the final (though not a quarter). Thats the bid as presented to UEFA and the one which they will judge us on.
I guess if they came back and said, "you can have it if you use Murrayfield rather than the oldest international football venue in the world whcih has just hosted the most sucessful champions league final ever" then we'd poabbaly do it but for all sorts of reason that is very unrealistic.
Tommy
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Total Posts: 77 | Joined Oct. 2001 | Posted on: 4:42 pm on Sep. 25, 2002 | IP
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TartanTeddy
Opinionated Wind Bag |
Thought the oldest internatinal football venue was in Partick???
Bring em on!
TT
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Smarter than your average bear!
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Total Posts: 196 | Joined Mar. 2002 | Posted on: 1:18 pm on Oct. 2, 2002 | IP
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Stadium for Final
