Phil O'Donnell

[celtic]

The Old Firm game has now been postponed.

Right decision, eventually

The best way to pay respect to Phil O'Donnell would have been for the game to go ahead as planned with a minutes silence before the game imo.  I'll leave it at that.

I agree with Bazzaboy, the game was the perfect opportunity for the fans to show respect to Phil, but i understand that it was the players that knew him that wanted it cancelled and i think the O;Donnell family were in agreement that the game should be cancelled so thats fair enough.

[fergus8]

this is a joke imo, either cancel motherwell games or cancel the entire card, or cancel nothing.
 
picking and choosing which games are cancelled is a total joke. why pick out the old firm game?

also why is it a staggered decision, should have cancelled the entire scottish card for one round of games on the saturday night

[fergus8]

ive heard some rumours it was a celtic request in which rangers were forced to accept due to rangers pre lyon request, any confirmation?

on a good note we may get a night time old firm game yee haw, just not the same having a breakfast time kick off.

still dont understand these cancellations

[GlasgowBandit]

ive heard some rumours it was a celtic request in which rangers were forced to accept due to rangers pre lyon request, any confirmation?

on a good note we may get a night time old firm game yee haw, just not the same having a breakfast time kick off.

still dont understand these cancellations

Celtic requested on Monday morning that the game be cancelled after consultation with Rangers agreement was reached for the game to be cancelled.

All wrong IMO. 

I am working on Wednesday so  was going to miss the game, so for my own selfish reasons I am glad.  However, I feel for the people who have made arrangements to travel from Ireland, England and Wales to watch the game.  They will have spent a fortune on booking travel and accommodation.  If this decision was ever a possibility then it should have been made on Saturday night.

[Bazzaboy]

ive heard some rumours it was a celtic request in which rangers were forced to accept due to rangers pre lyon request, any confirmation?

on a good note we may get a night time old firm game yee haw, just not the same having a breakfast time kick off.

still dont understand these cancellations

Celtic requested on Monday morning that the game be cancelled after consultation with Rangers agreement was reached for the game to be cancelled.

All wrong IMO. 

I am working on Wednesday so  was going to miss the game, so for my own selfish reasons I am glad.  However, I feel for the people who have made arrangements to travel from Ireland, England and Wales to watch the game.  They will have spent a fortune on booking travel and accommodation.  If this decision was ever a possibility then it should have been made on Saturday night.

Not often I agree with you but you are spot on with this.  The SPL should probably have gone for the safe option and cancelled all fixtures on the Saturday/Sunday.  No one could really have had issue with that.  Now we have the absurd scenario whereby 3 matches are still going ahead including Dundee Utd whose players were on the pitch when the tragedy happened so I'd suggest they would be a damn sight more affected than any of the Old Firm players.  The timing and method of the postponement is all wrong.

[GlasgowBandit]

From today's Herald...

‘A gem of a man and footballer’

By TOMMY BURNS

PHIL O'DONNELL was a great football player but his outstanding qualities were as a human being. I've been privileged to meet a few really special people during my time in football and Phil was one of them. In this business you come across really good players who are not nice people and not so good players who are nice people. Phil had that rare combination of being a really good footballer and a really good person.

The first time I sat down and spoke to him I got a sense that I was talking to a really good person. He was also a fiercely determined character who really wanted to make a success of himself in the game. Despite the fact that he had a lot of long-term injuries over the last 10 to 12 years, he was the type of guy you always found the same way. He was always an easy-going, placid and very humble man who had a great smile and a bit of sparkle about him.

Sometimes players who pick up a lot of injuries can become bitter and think, If only that hadn't happened then I might be here or there', but Phil was never anything other than grateful for what he got out of football. He realised that there was more to life and always enjoyed going home to spend time with his family. Family was always the most important thing in his life.

Some people are just injury-prone and, unfortunately, that was the case with him. Maybe he was putting those lost years on at the end of his career with Motherwell. You might have found that he could have played on until he was 37 or 38.

I took him from Motherwell in 1994-95 and we paid a lot of money, £1.75m all up front, for him, which is still a record fee for Motherwell to receive for a player. He was the best young player in the country at the time and myself and my then assistant Billy Stark thought it was money well spent. The fee reflected our determination to sign him. I was of the mind that we would pay whatever it took to get him.

Phil had something different about him. He had the ability to get up and down the park and get beyond the strikers. I remember when he broke through at the start of the 90s and scored for Motherwell in the famous Scottish Cup final of 1991, when Motherwell beat Dundee United. It became clear that he had qualities very few other midfielders had at that time and we were absolutely delighted when he chose to sign for Celtic. We felt that was what our team needed at the time.

Phil came from a really nice family. We spoke to his dad a few times when he signed for Celtic and he was a season-ticket holder at Parkhead. He was proud of Phil anyway because of the type of person he was, but especially so when he signed for Celtic. He had achieved a dream.

When Phil moved to Sheffield Wednesday from Celtic I was at Newcastle United by that time and then moved on to take the manager's job at Reading. Our wives would keep in touch fairly regularly, maybe two or three times a year.

I phoned my wife from Celtic Park on Saturday night to tell her of the news and she was absolutely devastated.

Phil would really have enjoyed his resurgence at Motherwell over the past few years. He would have loved being the father of the dressing room and having all the young lads buzzing around him, plus he was playing alongside his nephew, David Clarkson.

In the dressing room he was always a quiet guy who liked a good laugh, but would never have been the instigator. During his time at Celtic all the high jinks were started by the likes of Derek Whyte, Peter Grant or Anton Rogan, but Phil would always join in and have a laugh.

He was just a quiet, reliable guy. He was really good friends with Simon Donnelly and Jackie McNamara and the three of them used to holiday together. He spent four years with Simon down at Sheffield Wednesday and I think their families became even closer during that period.

He will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him.

[Bazzaboy]

Dundee Utd have now also requested their game be postponed.  This request was refused.  Words fail me.

[boldie]

The way the SFA have handled this thing is a joke..as usual. How they can not agree to postpone Dundee Utd's game but can postpone the Old Firm game is beyond me. And "The O'Donnel family agreed to the Old Firm game being postponed"?..baffling that they asked them to be involved in that decision. (if indeed they were)

[GlasgowBandit]

The way the SFA have handled this thing is a joke..as usual. How they can not agree to postpone Dundee Utd's game but can postpone the Old Firm game is beyond me. And "The O'Donnel family agreed to the Old Firm game being postponed"?..baffling that they asked them to be involved in that decision. (if indeed they were)

Its not the SFA to blame here Boldie its the SPL.  The way they have handled this whole situation is a farce.

Its not often I agree with Jim Traynor but he hit the nail on the head with his article today someone e-mailed me it if I still have it I will post it.

[boldie]

The way the SFA have handled this thing is a joke..as usual. How they can not agree to postpone Dundee Utd's game but can postpone the Old Firm game is beyond me. And "The O'Donnel family agreed to the Old Firm game being postponed"?..baffling that they asked them to be involved in that decision. (if indeed they were)

Its not the SFA to blame here Boldie its the SPL.  The way they have handled this whole situation is a farce.

Its not often I agree with Jim Traynor but he hit the nail on the head with his article today someone e-mailed me it if I still have it I will post it.

I apologise to the SFA..should  have said SPL

[GlasgowBandit]

Right Decision But Too Little Too Late
Jan 1 2008 James Traynor

IT took much longer than it should have but yesterday Scottish football finally made the correct and decent decision.

But as usual the people who run the SPL had to be backed into a corner before postponing tomorrow's Old Firm match. Still, they got there in the end.

Actually, that isn't entirely correct because they didn't go all the way. In fact, they went only halfway towards doing what the majority of football fans expected.

By postponing three of tomorrow's scheduled matches they got themselves stuck in the middle between cold-hearted indifference and genuine respect for a thoroughly good human being.

The morally-correct call was almost made but by allowing three other SPL matches to kick off regardless the authorities have clouded an extremely sensitive issue.

Actually they have made a backside of what should have been a decent and respectful act. Instead the SPL have succeeded in tarnishing the memory of the young man whose death stunned the entire football community.

Yes they eventually got around to postponing the Old Firm game but please,do not let them tell you they did so because of Phil O'Donnell, who collapsed during the second half of Motherwell's match against Dundee United on Saturday and later died in a Lanarkshire hospital.

Had they called all their matches off yesterday at the latest they would have been doing it for him. But the truth is they almost acted correctly yesterday because they were forced.

As soon as Celtic formally requested that the game be postponed the SPL had no choice.

The league could not dispute that some Celtic players, who were especially close to Phil O'Donnell, were still too distraught to play on so quickly after Saturday, but even when cornered into making the right decision they still managed to muck it up.

All they had to do was declare there would be no SPL matches played and that would have been a good and proper mark of respect for Phil O'Donnell. Now, and because of their cack-handed behaviour and twisted thinking, they have cast a cloud over a day which should have been left empty in respect of a fallen professional.

So, let no one at the top of the SPL try to make it appear as though compassion for Phil O'Donnell made them call the Old Firm game off.

If they had been concerned about the loss of a genuine, decent professional and proud father and husband this game, and all the other SPL fixtures would have been postponed immediately after Phil O'Donnell's death. That would have been a true mark of respect.

So feel free to shout them down if they attempt to insist the game is off as a mark of respect for the player.

In reality they have postponed to accommodate the feelings of players like Stephen McManus, Scott McDonald and Paul Hartley in particular.

They do not have the heart for the game right now and that's understandable. But why did the SPL have to wait until Celtic informed them of the fragile state of some minds within their club?

The answer is simple. The game in this country lacks proper leadership and is awash with people in influential posts who are in touch with nothing other than their own sense of importance.

They are certainly not in touch with players or fans but had they been more aware they wouldn't have waited so long to make a decision.

We can argue about the rights and wrongs of setting a precedent which takes into account the emotions of grief-stricken footballers - and that is precisely what the SPL have just done -but there is no debating the fact that all top-flight matches should have been put off.

And that decision should have been taken on Saturday evening as soon as the hospital confirmed Phil O'Donnell's death or, at the very latest, the following morning.

But when there is no real leader, when there is no one bold enough to stand up and make the call you get botched decisions, muddled thinking and answers which raise even more questions.

There should have been no dithering, no wringing of hands, no ducking phone calls, no concern for finances or television contracts and no fear of the game's big two. All matches should have been postponed as a mark of respect for a well-liked and loved pro who died with his boots on.

You can be sure every Old Firm player, both managers and probably the vast majority of the fans expected to hear by Sunday latest that the game had been called off and there should have been no need for a request from anyone.

Celtic, who I'm certain expected the SPL to call all their games off when they had talks on Monday, were correct to make the request, but the SPL have made themselves look extremely crass and foolish.

They have also given some fans reason to question the motives behind the postponement.

Within an hour of the decision Rangers fans were calling to ask why the game had been called off so late.

They wanted to know why Celtic had waited until yesterday before making their formal request and it was difficult to convince these fans the Parkhead club were thinking of nothing other than Phil O'Donnell, his family and those players who have been deeply upset by his death.

I refuse to believe Celtic acted through any reason other than grief, but the point is no one, perhaps not even the most cynical among the Rangers support would have questioned the decision had it been made by the SPL at the right time.

By delaying until they were forced into doing what was right they've diluted and undermined the sentiment.

The emotions of other players - and let me make it clear again I do not doubt for a second Celtic have some who couldn't face a game right now - would not have come into play at all and fans wouldn't be asking questions if only the SPL had taken the lead.

Even if they had said every game, apart of course from Motherwell's match at Easter Road, would be played as scheduled and stuck to it that would have been some kind of leadership. It would have been flawed, but it would have been a positive response.

But it was all very simple. It was all so damned obvious.

Phil O'Donnell became the first player to die in a top-flight Scottish match since John Thomson in 1931 and the entire game should have been standing still tomorrow as a mark of respect.

That would have been fitting and that's what we would have had if there were any real leaders capable of making any kind of decision let alone the correct one.

[boldie]

good article

[crussty]

They've always been a joke. It's rare for them to get a decision correct.

I'm heading through to Motherwell tomorrow to pay my respects and lay down one of my old Motherwell strips, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't.

[fergus8]

Dundee Utd have now also requested their game be postponed.  This request was refused.  Words fail me.

that is beyond belief

[Boba Fett]

I guess that means McGeady will be free from suspension for the game too?