The first question you’re probably asking is: Does the world really need yet another Celtic fan site? Well truth be told maybe not. ETims, KTF, CQN, the Huddleboard, KDS and Celtic Minded cater for just about every flavour of tim out there in the Diaspora. And by and large they do what they do very well.

And maybe in some ways that’s what we here at Celticunderground see as the problem. Many of the Celtic fan sites nowadays are so polished and so professional that they could easily be mistaken for the official club site. In fact if rumours are to be believed some of them have a more than friendly relationship with the current board. And to our mind that’s not right.

Fan sites should be about fans saying what’s on their mind. The Huddleboard and KDS may not make for comfortable bedfellows but they have an honesty about them that can only come from the fans voicing what they truly believe. There is no hidden agenda to these two forums – rational and irrational discussion it may be but it’s what the fans genuinely think whether the board likes it or not. It might be a bit rough and ready but you know it’s the real McCoy. Nobody is using the façade of a Celtic fan site to present a CV to prospective employers or looking for ways to exploit fans for personal gain.

Sadly that’s something that can’t be said for many other Celtic fan sites these days. If they aren’t trotting out the board’s line on what songs to sing they are pushing gambling adverts at you. Newsnow is swamped with website after website telling you exactly the same piece of information over and over again. The desperate need for just one more hit forces what were once well respected sites to prostitute themselves with pathetic sensationalist headlines that wouldn’t look out of place in whatever paper is lower down the food chain than the Record. And for what? Is this what the Celtic fan scene should be about? Is this what Celtic fans want out of the internet? Constant regurgitation of that morning’s back pages? Maybe it is. However, it’s not the way we will be doing things.

Newsnow is a busted flush with websites more interested in being number one in that wee list on the right hand site than actually saying something that’s a) interesting or b) what they truly believe in. We’ve got a link on our site which is there if folk want it but so long as the current team are involved in Celtic Underground we won’t be putting articles up on Newsnow. If you wish to keep up to date with new content on this site and are using Firefox (and if you are not why not? Go get it ) simply click the wee orange button in the address bar and you’ll always be updated when there is something new being said.

Having said that don’t expect there to be something every day. Because as we all know sometimes nothing happens. Now we could give you 500 words on the fact that nothing is happening but what’s the point of that? It’s called filler and it’s more commonly known as rubbish. If we’ve got something to say we’ll say it. If we’ve got nothing to say you won’t hear a peep out of us.

Why are we doing this? A couple of reasons occur. As we said above, we’ve become disillusioned with the way the Celtic fan scene has moved closer to the official club and further away from the average punter in recent times and we’d like to see a site that is for fans by fans and has no other agenda. If it’s what we genuinely think then we’ll say it. If it’s not then we won’t. Self indulgent? Yeah probably but isn’t it self indulgent to take part in any website or forum or mailing lhist? Secondly we like writing for our own amusement. Some of us are much better at it than others but we like putting our thoughts down in print. And thirdly we like to hear what others think hence the comments section at the end of every article. Censorship will only kick in if we see the dreaded “podium” word.

What should you expect in future from Celtic underground? We don’t have a Scooby. It might die on its arse within a week. It might take on a life of its own. We’d like to think we could get a small core of regular readers and contributors who want to write more than a few sentences on a forum and discuss the club in a rational and hopefully entertaining manner. If you have something you want to say then contact us and let us know what’s on your mind. Lets get back to the early days of the Celtic internet fan scene when it was all about exchanging ideas and opinions about all sorts of things rather than hits, profits and keeping in with the powers that be.

Whatever happens the Celtic Underground won’t be accepting any invites to attend Celtic Park for tea and biscuits.

CU Podcast (link)

The Celtic Underground is also the home of the Celtic podcast (the first of its kind) where compere Eddie Pearson discusses and reviews the events of the past week or upcoming games. The show is also an escape from the simple forums and allows a more continuous discussion of issues covering Celtic and its supporters, especially on contentious issues.

In addition, the show gives a fan's reviews of any latest Celtic media merchandise (books, DVDs etc) and a heads-up on any rumours flying about the first team.

Eddie Pearson is a delight to listen to, and has a cracking sense of humour which keeps the good show going. There is usually a guest presenter with Eddie which has included admin from this wiki to discuss our site (Dianogah).

A notable edition which I'd highly recommend is the show after Tommy Burn's death (link), which was as great a tribute as you can ever give to such a good man.

The CU podcast is a fabulous addition to the Celtic FC web world, and genuinely much appreciated by its core base of listeners who really look forward to the next show.

If you have any questions to post to the podcast, you can post on the KStreet forum or the Celtic Underground site itself.

Links

• Celtic Underground homepage
  
• Celtic podcast homepage and archive
  
• Celtic podcast RSS
• KStreet discussion on Podcast