Jimmy Calderwood has revealed that it was former Rangers owner David Murray that recruited him as Dunfermline manager.
Calderwood was a guest on Radio Scotland’s Off the Ball programme hosted by Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan when he explained the unusual circumstances that took him from Holland to East End Park in 1999.
Cowan immediately seized on the comment but so far no one at Radio Scotland has deemed the comments newsworthy.
Calderwood made the revelation when the programme was discussing the financial crisis at Dunfermline which sees the First Division club under threat of liquidation.
In 1999 Dick Advocaat was the manager of Rangers with some speculation that he’d bring in Calderwood to his backroom staff with both men having previously managed in Holland.
Recalling Murray’s phone call Calderwood said: “I’ve got a friend at Dunfermline we want you to go in there.”
Calderwood took Dunfermline to promotion to the SPL and stayed with the club until resigning in 2004 to take over as Aberdeen manager.
At the end of the 2002/03 season Celtic’s Chris Sutton was suspended for comments implying that Dunfermline hadn’t given their all in a 6-1 defeat to Rangers in the final game of the season.
“I think everybody could have virtually predicted the result at Ibrox before kick-off – well, many people did,” Sutton said. “We knew they’d lie down – and they have.”
Dunfermline reacted angrily to those comments and at one stage threatened Sutton with legal action
Pars chairman John Yorkson said: “Sutton has been given every opportunity to disassociate himself from the comments but he hasn’t. Does that mean he still believes it’s true?
“It appears there’s a culture at Celtic that if anything goes against them a conspiracy theory comes out. The best thing now would be a full retraction and that would kill it stone dead.
“Otherwise, there isn’t a lot we can do unless we go to the courts for defamation and that is something we would prefer not to do. We have referred the comment to the Scottish Football Association and any disciplinary action will be taken by them.”
Managerial appointments are often made on friendly recommendations with Alex Ferguson’s opinion sought by many clubs before they appoint new managers.
It probably isn’t much of a priority for Dunfermline at the moment but perhaps the club could explain why the chairman of another club was used to make the initial contact for the recruitment of their manager.
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Calderwood was a guest on Radio Scotland’s Off the Ball programme hosted by Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan when he explained the unusual circumstances that took him from Holland to East End Park in 1999.
nothing surprises me in scottish football anymore. I am actually ashamed to be associated with this league. the entire scottish football infrastructure sfl/sfa/spl is rotten to the core. i’m also on the line at the moment whether to just switch off entirely from it following the rangers dual contracts disgrace and the fact we have did absolutely nothing about it despite or so called ‘power’. i watched the first half of the match today and was so mad with wilson and stokes i switched it off just after half time when i saw no change 🙁 a first for me – while i was disappointed i did this when i saw the final score, the realization also struck me that the whole corruption thing and our acceptance of it has effected my love/excitement for celtic. also i will be watching the celtic response towards todays green brigade police treatment with great interest. i fear the worst though. while these past few seasons have been in many many ways among the best we have seen, somehow the sewage from ibrox has still managed to taint it. im very conflicted at the moment.
The truth always comes out in the end eh, problems with cheats and liars are they cant trust each other either so someone will always knife another, the whole system is corrupt from top to bottom, only in scotland eh
We’re just being paranoid lads…
There’s nothing sinister here….Aye right….
Only in Scotland…
lets all laugh at the rangers,lets all laugh at the rangers,na na na naaa,fat sally is the worst the rangers manager ever i mean EVER,i would love to see this young club DIE,DIE,DIE
FAT SALLY IS A GREAT MANAGER?WHAT A LAUGH. HE SHOULD BE THERE FOR 20YEARS MORE. HAHAHAHA.HAIL HAIL
We wonder why crowds are dwindling throughout the SPL as the level of corruption is exposed.
Yet the sycophantic media tell us we need newborn Sevco to save our game whilst Ogilvie still oversees our game.
Still Celtic fc say nothing.
There’s nothing surer when this new tribute act appears in the top league guaranteed the honest mistakes will return, FFS we’ve got the new generation of Dallas coming through.
Do we fight for our rights or do we go the way of Belfast Celtic.
Hunbelievable well maybe not,doesn’t seem to get mentioned much but what about Souness getting EBT payments from cheatco when he was manager of Blacburn during which time he spent Approx 18 million on 3 cheatco players who just happened to be heavily in debt at the time and needed funs QUICKLY to keep the bank at bay,or Hutton going to spurs for 10 million even though Spurs manager Ramos admitted soon after he didn’t know anytihng about Hutton as a player WTF,was it a case of Murray calling in a favour from Levy the spurs chairman? Again it just so happened to be a lucrative player sale just when they needed it how lucky eh?
Our board are complicit in all this cheating and bending of rules we’ve seen since cheatco have been found out through their continued silence and inaction,just leaves you wandering how much they actually care about 1: Celtic and 2:the game itself which is slowly starting to lose all meaning for me
Sorry for the depressing tone of this post but this shit bothers me, I will always call myself a Celtic fan i’m just not willing to keep sponsering the cheats by spending my cash on a FIXED game,untill we the fans withdraw our financial input the cheating will continue,a bit like soap operas the people will be different but the SCRIPT stays the same.
I hope the board will influence some change in our game on some level in the future ahead but i won’t hold my breath
Agree very much with Scott’s post. Nothing surprises any more and there is no appetite in the MSM to investigate even when this sort of stuff makes it into the public domain.
On the eve of Rangers (RIP) riot in Manchester Roddy Forsyth commented to Traynor on radio Scotland that when he was co-commenting with John Greig on a rangers game Greig told him that the ref was a Rangers fan and would at some point make a controversial decision in favour of his team.
With time running out at 0-0 the ref gave rangers a penalty for an incident that was so obscure that there was no hint of a claim from a rangers player.
Traynor couldn’t change the subject quickly enough and there was no follow up at all in the press or by the SFA.
Who cares. Seriously, get a grip.
Let’s enjoy the rangers paranoia just now.
Mon the hOOps!
Don’t EVER underestimate the power of Free Masonry…and the Establishment….
Things like this aren’t new to Scottish football…
for a Century the Govan Club has enjoyed the imbalanced benefits of the system…and still are.
Fionn says…”Who cares”..?…
Well we should and must care…
Every trick in the book is being tried to get the Govan Club back into the top-flight..asap .
Exposures like this will eat into their credibility just a little….
But every little helps.
And is further proof that we were NOT paranoid.
Chris Sutton for Lord Provost of Dunfermline.
Sorry, mate. This just reeks of paranoia. Rangers fans claiming Lawell is controlling the world via Opus Dei. Celtic fans claiming everything against them is a masonic conspiracy.
It’s embarrassing. Dan Brown should have a wee look at Old Firm forums and get some inspiration for his next book.
Well how about Gavin Masterton’s companies (Charlestown Holdings and East End Park Limited) being previously registered a few metres apart from his good buddy in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square?