Open Letter to Celtic fans from Tony Mowbray
Published: June 22, 2009
Celtic and Tony Mowbray have launched a PR campaign or should I say propaganda campaign to entice the fans back to Celtic Park. Anyone who had or has a reason ticket recently has been sent out a letter from Tony Mowbray, in it, he states his ‘delight’ to be back at Celtic and says all the right things that Celtic fans want to hear from there manager.
Words like ‘honour, celtic supporter, special, success, famous, faithful’ have been used in the letter. It does reek of the club trying to worm their way back into the affections of the fans, after the Strachan tenureship where the fans were treated with contempt not only by the manager at times, but also by the club and the board specifically. The letter does go a small way in trying to bridge the gulf between the club and the supporters after four years of watching a Celtic team playing football, but not the ‘Celtic Way.’
Since he was officially paraded as the new Celtic manager, Tony Mowbray has said and done everything perfectly. He is a breath of fresh air compared to the childish, if not spoiled antics of Gordon Strachan at times who was certainly no media darling nor a fan favourite. With one press conference, Mowbray light up the fire within Celtic fans once again, after it had been extinguished under Strachan and its now just a matter of waiting for that first game of the season to get underway for all the talking to stop and the action to begin.
The PR campaign is in full swing – Players linked with the club, approaches made, a former Cult figure in the guise of Peter Grant returning to the club, Neil Lennon staying at the club despite rumours he was to be booted out to make way for Grant and of course the text/phone and letters sent to all supporters on their ‘books’ to entice them back to Celtic Park or to thank them for their continued support.
Although one negative issue is being woken up at 9am to hear a Yorkshire accent on the other end of the phone, only to figure out that its Tony Mowbray talking to you and then realising it was a bloody recording!! Everything that was said in the letter was said in the phone message also – so why are the club flooding supporters with the same message? A Desperate act of a club finally realising that the past four years killed off a lot of Celtic fans passions for the game under the previous management? No PR campaign has matched this when Strachan was in charge – maybe it was Mowbray’s decision to set the Propaganda wheels in motion after talking with Chief Executive Peter Lawwell.
Either way the club and the board have a lot to make up for, and Mowbray has a lot to prove despite being a former fan favourite. The Celtic fans were lambasted by hacks and pundits not linked with the club, who said we hated Strachan for not being ‘Celtic Minded.’ While I agree a small minority of fans hated Strachan from the first day – and who blames them after watching Celtic getting beat 5-0 by Artmedia Bratislava – but it was mainly down to his inept tactical knowledge, failure to man manage, idiotic team selections and his attitude towards the fans in general that caused the damage – and not the way he was talking to the reporters – who claim to be the voice of the fan.
Tony Mowbray is certainly no Jock Stein, but he will hopefully bring the attacking style of football that all Celtic fans know and love back to Celtic Park, and bring the sort of players we want to watch to the club and not average SPL players or cheap foreign imports who are there to make up the numbers, players that Strachan seemed to bring in just for the hell of it.
Mowbray Letter to the Fans:
Tagged with: Celtic, letter, manager, tony mowbray
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