How the mighty have fallen

Scroll crest worn from 1990–1994 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Scottish football has been  caught between a rock and a hard place right this summer. The league football started this weekend and who could have guessed that one half of the Old Firm would be playing their League football this weekend, instead of a next Saturday when the rest of the Scottish Premier League starts.

Glasgow Rangers went into administration last season and were bought by Charles  Green’s Sevco consortium which then created a new company after failing to prevent the old one being liquidated. Scottish Premier League clubs voted against accepting the new club into the top flight and the Scottish Football League clubs voted them into Division Three instead of the First Division. Charles Green has accused some of the SPL clubs of jealousy, pettiness and bigotry after they denied the new Rangers into the SPL. He may be right. Or could also be wrong. We are not here to judge.  The Scottish FA  having taken cognisance of the massive impact the implosion (caused by the Rangers meltdown) would have preferred Rangers to play in the First Division. They attempted to restructure Scottish football and offer incentives to the lower division teams. This alternative was however, unsuccessful as the other teams saw this as a chance to punish the League giants for their misdemeanors. Rangers played Brechin in the League Challenge Cup this weekend and came out winners after extra time by 2-1! A fixture the Rangers of  the past would not even have contemplated during the off-season (unless it was a pre-season friendly or testimonial match).
This refrain shall be heard down in the lower echelons of Scottish League football next few seasons:

Hullo, Hullo
We are the Rangers Boys
Hullo, Hullo
You’ll know us by our noise
We’re down to our knees to see our team
At Ibrox or away
For we are
The Glasgow Rangers Boys

Rangers FC  is definitely down to its knees. Scottish Football too may also be down to its knees as result. As a result of the meltdown at Rangers, the majority of their first teamers have left. The Manager Ally McCoist reckons over 20 players have left. A few have crossed the border to join the likes of Everton FC, Norwich and other Premier League and Championship teams. Rangers deserved to be penalised for the misdeeds of the previous owners/executives. Moreover, tax avoidance is abhorrent. However, penalizing the ‘newco’ so excessively will be to the detriment of Scottish football. How many people outside Scotland will be looking forward to the SPL games on television? Many of the SPL teams are going to suffer financially as a result of the chasm created by the absence of Rangers football club. Clubs like Inverness Caley Thistle and St Mirren (just to mention two) have all ready voiced their concerns. The financial plight that faces Scottish football, in the backdrop of revenues that have not significantly increased for years may take some clubs to the wall. It will be a sad day indeed if any one of the SPL clubs faces bankruptcy or liquidation. Moreover, the absence of the ‘Old Firm’ games will remove the only ‘glamour’ Scottish league game from our screens. Many people from across the globe have always followed the ‘Old Firm’ matches – frenetic, sectarian, absorbing, tribal rivalry very exciting all the time. There will be no one standing in the way of Celtic for the next few years, and if that does not make a League boring! Celtic are a great club, and the rest of the SPL are not anywhere near Celtic in terms of quality or financial power so it is going to be quite interesting to see how things pan out.

Rangers like the phoenix will rise again. They are wounded, and certainly hurt. However, the club with the backing of the thousands of its supporters will get back to the top of league football again. In the meantime the team’s presence in the lower reaches will be good for the 3rd Division teams financially. Juventus suffered the ignominy of relegation to the Serie C in 2006 following one of the worst scandals in Italian football. The Old Lady of Turin only won the Italian Serie A again  last season. We wait to see how Rangers will fight back. We are certain they will come back stronger. Scottish football though may yet suffer more heartache in the meantime.

Just some facts

 

 

Love

The internet can be an effective place to find love. According to a recent Pew Research study, about 37% of single people have used some form of internet dating site, and about 17% of online daters have found long-term love online. With well over a million paying members and 20,000 new members joining each day, Match.com is the leading online dating site. And, overall, online dating sites are expected to earn 1.9 billion in revenue this year alone.

When looking for love online, women seek men with high-paying jobs. In turn, men are more likely than women to reveal financial information about  than women are.

However, the most common answer that you will hear if you ask  women about what they want in a man; it would be either good looks or good sense of humor.

Grammar matters! Studies have shown that when it comes to online dating profiles and messages, grammar matters just as much as the content itself. Poor punctuation is a turn-off to both sexes.

In Qatar there are 307 men for every 100 women.

Olympics

The Olympic Torch relay was started by the Germans for the 1936 Olympics, as part of their propaganda onslaught

200 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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London is the first city to host the Olympics three times – 1908, 1948 and 2012.

London 2012 Olympics will run for 17 days.

Over 11000 athletes are competing at London 2012

The Olympic motto is citius, altius, fortius – Latin for faster, higher, stronger.

The five interlocking rings represent the five continents.

Greece’s athletes enter the stadium first at the opening ceremony.

541 athletes are representing Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics.

Track and field athletics dominates with 2,242 athletes, but after that (and excluding team games), there’s swimming (948), then shooting with 391 and Judo with 390.

As recently as 1984, women were barred from running marathons, and in 1996, 26 countries had no female athletes in the Games.

First Olympics ever where every country will be represented by at least one female.

The United States has more female athletes competing than male athletes, with 269 women competing, and 261 men.

Middle Eastern countries Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei are sending women for the very first time.

Female participation in sport is banned in Saudi Arabia. Their female representative was born, raised, and trains in the USA.

Some 44% of all athletes are women (highest numbers from the UK). In terms of percentage of the major teams are: Japan (53%), Russia (52%), the US (51%), the UK is further down the list with 48%, behind Ethiopia.

Over 11000 athletes are competing at London 2012

150 000 condoms have been provided to the athletes at London 2012. 130 000 were supplied at the last Olympics in Athens.

4 billion viewers worldwide are expected to watch the Olympics

For the first time ever, 3D Live television will be screened at the Olympics.

The world’s biggest McDonald’s with seating for 1500 was constructed for the Olympics.

1948 Olympics-Athletes had to bring their own food.

Baked Bean is cockney rhyming slang for the Queen.

The Cook Islands’ eight athletes represent a rate of 40 per 100,000 inhabitants – the highest rate in the world.

Other

Though toilet paper is often thought of as a cornerstone of modern Western civilization, it was invented in China in the 6th century.

Toilet paper comes in two varieties: virgin, which is freshly made from chipped wood and non-virgin, which is recycled paper.

India’s population is set to grow by over 295 million, or 26% by 2025.

Italy has the highest rate of mobile phone subscribers in Europe.

In Japan nearly 30% of the population is aged 60 or over.

More than 30% of women and men in America are obese.