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To be honest it doesn't surprise me that this is happening and it doesn't surprise me that it's Lennon that it is happening too. I'm not saying it's right or acceptable, not in the slightest, but life teaches us that certain personalities are more likely to attract this kind of attention. It's no coincidence that in towns and cities throughout the world you can narrow trouble and problems down to certain groups and individuals. It's no coincidence that when it comes to trouble at football matches that it's generally the same names that come up time and again. Many of these people will claim to be innocent victims and say they were only reacting to how they were treated in the first place....but the truth is, for the most part, if you go looking for trouble then you are sure to find it. Lennon is someone who spent his entire playing career looking for and causing trouble both on and off the park and that's something that has continued into his managerial career. He's been playing the "victim of sectarianism" card for so long he's actually started to believe it himself and unfortunately he has a network of people around him who do little to help the situation, and if anything make matters worse by defending his actions or finding loopholes so he doesn't have to serve punishment for them. That doesn't excuse the actions of those sending him bullets and bombs or threatening his life, but I have to say that I have little sympathy for him. His recent claims of "This job makes me a target" are, quite frankly, a load of tosh. If that was the case then everyone who has managed Celtic in the past would have been subjected to the same and they haven't. The rights and wrongs of it don't really matter in the grand scheme of things, the kinds of people predisposed to doing things like posting bullets, bombs and making other similar threats will always exist despite the best efforts of the authorities and Lennon needs to realise that it's his own actions over the years that have made him a target for the attention of these kinds of people. The problem here is not sectarianism, that's just a convenient wall to hide behind so the finger of blame can be pointed at everyone else. The problem is Lennon, an odious wee man with a superiority complex and ego that is constantly stroked, massaged and given justification by the powers who be at Celtic Park.

It is curious that these problems only arose when he came to play in Scotland. He had 14 seasons or so in the English Leagues and playing international football without anything remotely approaching the abuse he has experienced in this country. There have been many other players who played in a combatative style and who wound opposition fans up. Your own manager was no angel and Paul Hartley was one who wound up Celtic fans for years before donning the Hoops and doing the same to other sides. None of them have been subjected to the off the field nonsense that Neil Lennon has experienced. You are entitled not to like him, but that does not make him the person you describe, unless it suits your own agenda to believe that.

Sad , just sad . Sectarianism is alive and well at caleythistleonline.com .

They'll be dancing in the streets of Dunfermline tonight!!! And C*unty losing as well....not a bad day all in all

Rankin was great at ICT and like many who come up here will be in need of a new lease of life. We also miss a midfielder of his qualities. He was great at getting forward and was a dangerous set piece taker. I'd have him back in a flash. Nish for me could be someone worth looking at too. As mentioned he was always a handful against us and is in need of a fresh start too.

McCann is hopeless and injury prone. No thanks. I bet we sign him though Last I heard Rankin was heading to Dundee Utd

Well you sure showed them.

Think it'll be all local games next pre-season for two reasons: 1. Very short break for players 2. Lack of funds

I wasn't that aware England had a heart. :biggrin:

Operational Charity Challenge please support this worthy cause and not too easy challenge. friends of mine are trying to cover while deployed to afghanistan

What worries me is that while all the talk with contracts has been about Rooney, where's the talk about Russell Duncan? IMO he's an extremely important player to this club and I'm sure many others will agree that the team are better on the pitch when he's there. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be someone that Butcher has taken to at all and I fear that he will be gone in the not too distant future.

There you go, because I dislike him then I must have an "agenda"....get over yourself, I dislike him because he was a thug on the park and he's continued to act like a thug from the sidelines. Having a clever lawyer in his corner and the support of the club when it comes to getting him off on technicalities despite him being guilty as sin does not change that fact. Yours is precisely the kind of thinking I am talking about when I say those around the guy are happy to play the "sectarian" card instead of facing up to the fact that the guy actively courts trouble in just about everything he says or does. It really doesn't matter a jot if he's the nicest bloke in the world behind closed doors, it's his public persona that gets him in to trouble and attracts the kind of nutter that might want to send him bullets and bombs. Whilst I think you would be hard pressed to paint him as an angel prior to his time at Celtic Park, you also have to bare in mind that he didn't have what I talk about above in terms of being surrounded by people willing to justify his actions or blame the trouble/controversy on "sectarianism"....it's the perfect smokescreen. I also don't think that it's a total coincidence that sectarian related issues with Rangers and Celtic, despite it looking like it was easing off for a couple of years, have flared up again whilst Lennon has been Manager. If he's going to go around blaming it for everything then it only serves to add fuel to the fire. One side thinks, because he tells them it is so, that the bile they spout has some kind of effect on him and his own side ramp up their part in it to counteract it or through some perverted line of thinking "even things up" because that is seen as being ok so long as you can point the fingers at the others and say they are worse. FWIW I think Rangers are just as guilty of using the sectarian excuse for things where it's not the real issue. Both clubs may do it slightly differently, but they are as bad as each other.

It is too simplistic a response to lay the blame at segregated schools. I had lifetime in education and worked in both Catholic and denominational schools. I never experienced any anti-protestant attitudes in the Catholic sector and perhaps I was fortunate in the schools I worked in, but the same applied in the non-denominational schools as well. The attitudes you see demonstrated in these incidents are a product of poor parenting and a general disease in Scottish Society by which certain communties adopt extreme positions towards others. We see this in racist behaviour as much as in sectarian behaviour. It does however make one wonder at the paucity of thought going into this debate when Magnus Linklater, an esteemed Scottish journalist can equate the Famine Song, The Billy Boys and the revised version of Simply the Best, with the Fields of Athenry as he does in todays Times! I can appreciate how people in the North might see this as two equal forces at war, butit is a far more complex issue than that.

Too much violence all over the T.V. and the cinema these days--The film people always seem to have their mind focussed solely on the box office takings and can hardly produce a film without it. This does nothing to counter latent insanity. Period.

I've read some garbage on this site in my time but this post has topped the lot , what a nugget .