Retiring a shirt/number

[Maesknoll Red]

So there has been a call to retire the No5 shirt at Celtic.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/celtic-should-retire-no-5-shirt-to-honour-billy-mcneill-neil-lennon-1-4915247

Am I a bit insensitive? As I think it’s a bit of a bonkers idea, he has died after living a long life and many have worn the shirt since, if he had died in his prime whilst still playing, I could understand it, but more than 40 years on..... 

[TBW]

Retiring numbers doesn't really work in football because everyone uses low numbers and turnover of players is high, as are squad sizes.

It's really an Americanised thing, in basketball it's fine because they only have 15 players on a roster at any one time and a player usually has to do something special to get a number retired. In American Football you don't often see retired numbers outside of quarterbacks and positions in the sport are given particular numbers to pick from usually too so they know that again, they can't just hand out retired numbers openly.

I get the gesture but it's unnecessary. It'd just open up the issue of people feeling other players are just as worthy and start an argument.

In Spain, I think it was Sevilla, tried to retire a number but the league wouldn't actually allow them as rules state that all numbers 1 through to whatever (can't remember) have to be filled. Hence why in Spain every team has a #13 which in England most teams skip.

[Chairman Mao]

Never retire shirts imo, maybe the Maldini decision was legit, but otherwise we will be out of numbers in the next thousand years or so.

[Bar BS3]

9 minutes ago, Chairman Mao said:

Never retire shirts imo, maybe the Maldini decision was legit, but otherwise we will be out of numbers in the next thousand years or so.

I’m not sure what school you went too, but....!?!

[JamesBCFC]

1 hour ago, Bar BS3 said:

I’m not sure what school you went too, but....!?!

In fairness it would be hard to distinguish numbers from the stands when the starting XI in the line up is 3646469-3646480.

So numbers won't run out, but some could be called unfeasible

[REDOXO]

4 hours ago, Maesknoll Red said:

So there has been a call to retire the No5 shirt at Celtic.

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/celtic-should-retire-no-5-shirt-to-honour-billy-mcneill-neil-lennon-1-4915247

Am I a bit insensitive? As I think it’s a bit of a bonkers idea, he has died after living a long life and many have worn the shirt since, if he had died in his prime whilst still playing, I could understand it, but more than 40 years on..... 

I am completely insensitive to anything to do with this dreadful club and their disgraceful support! 

Can we have a Celtic/Rangers sub forum where the horrible sectarian nastiness can be discussed with all other topics involving either of them? Please

 

 

 

[Meh]

I think retiring of shirt numbers permanently for ex players who have lived their life out is taking it too far.

If a current players dies or a true legend of the game/club then I think the club saying nobody will wear that shirt number for the next season EXCEPT it will be made available for fans for replica shirts at no extra cost so any fans that want to can show their respect, would be right and proper.

[CyderInACan]

Aren’t numbers pretty much pointless now anyway? Maybe we should retire all numbers and just have emojis. 

[Bar BS3]

6 hours ago, JamesBCFC said:

In fairness it would be hard to distinguish numbers from the stands when the starting XI in the line up is 3646469-3646480.

So numbers won't run out, but some could be called unfeasible

I wasn’t being entirely serious..! 

Although the numbers would never get that complicated..! 

[TBW]

8 hours ago, Bar BS3 said:

I’m not sure what school you went too, but....!?!

What one did you go TOO?

[JamesBCFC]

10 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

I wasn’t being entirely serious..! 

Although the numbers would never get that complicated..! 

Just wait until my debut.

My number will be Pi.

[42nite]

 

They'll all soon have barcodes on their backs anyway.

 

#whoneedsnumbers

 

[Bar BS3]

17 minutes ago, TBW said:

What one did you go TOO?

Ha ha! A more numerically focused one..!

[Miah Dennehy]

There is a morbid trend in modern life that every death has to be marked somehow, then the PR people get involved and a lot of people want to be seen to be doing something, it gets right on my tits!

The guy already has a statue outside Celtic Park and will always be remembered as a legend there and that should be enough.

[Bristol Rob]

Didn't West Ham retire Bobby Moores shirt number?

[Bristol Oil Services]

13 minutes ago, Bristol Rob said:

Didn't West Ham retire Bobby Moores shirt number?

Yes. Probably because someone, somewhere else had done this. The whole thing escalates, becoming an arms-race of paying tribute ("our great player must be remembered at least as heroically as their great player") and keeping-up-with-(and where possible, just a bit ahead of)the-Joneses/rivals.

A player has a stand named after them, then every other club does the same; then the first statue, and inevitably, every Tom, Dick and Harry Kane has a statue (grounds will be a nightmare to get in and out of in future, what with the dozens of bloody statues of former players erected about the place); a shirt number is "retired" and so others must follow. 

The result being that the first to honour their great player with a stand/statue/retired shirt must now think up how to go one further than all the imitators and followers next time - the mind boggles at the absurd overblown grandiosity that this will push us toward. 

What will they do to honour Messi and Ronaldo when they one day jog on to that changing room in the sky?

 

 

[The Dolman Pragmatist]

This seems a particularly odd suggestion when you think that Billy McNeill lived to be 79.  They didn't even have squad numbers in his time.  Perhaps we should withdrawn numbers 1-11 once the team who got us to Division 1 in 1976 one by one curl up their tootsies and join the bl**ding choir invisibule?

[elhombrecito]

Baseball takes this to extremes. The Yankees alone have retired all these numbers:

[RedM]

5 minutes ago, JamesBCFC said:

Just wait until my debut.

My number will be Pi.

I once met Joel Dommett ( before he was famous for being on I’m a celeb). I heard he had Pi tattooed on his arm so I asked him to show me. Not my photo but here it is 

[Curr Avon]

It would have been a great mark of respect to have retired the number 8 shirt in February 1982, in order to recognise the Ashton Gate 8.

[Robbored]

Different sport but Chicago Bears retired the number 34 shirt after Walter Payton passed away. He was considered the greatest running back the Bears ever had.

[JamesBCFC]

2 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Different sport but Chicago Bears retired the number 34 shirt after Walter Payton passed away. He was considered the greatest running back the Bears ever had.

I can't see that on our OS anywhere, so that's just wild speculation.

[gordie]

2 hours ago, Neo said:

I think retiring of shirt numbers permanently for ex players who have lived their life out is taking it too far.

If a current players dies or a true legend of the game/club then I think the club saying nobody will wear that shirt number for the next season EXCEPT it will be made available for fans for replica shirts at no extra cost so any fans that want to can show their respect, would be right and proper.

Billy McNeil was a club legend wasn’t he?? I get your point and agree with it though

[Major Isewater]

1 hour ago, TBW said:

What one did you go TOO?

Witch one did you go to ? 

 

 

 

 

[Maesknoll Red]

6 hours ago, REDOXO said:

I am completely insensitive to anything to do with this dreadful club and their disgraceful support! 

Can we have a Celtic/Rangers sub forum where the horrible sectarian nastiness can be discussed with all other topics involving either of them? Please

 

 

 

The post wasn’t about Celtic per se, they were just the example of, IMO a ludicrous decision to retire a shirt because a player from a different generation, who has lived out his natural life has died.  I could understand the reasoning if it was a current club legend/long serving player who tragically died (maybe if Dean Horrix had been a player with us for years, rather than weeks, we may have done something similar), but if this becomes a trend, then where does it stop, should we have retired Atyeo’s shirt - no of course not, a club legend and rightly remembered with affection and pride, but the shirt has been worn by many, many since.

[Robbored]

20 minutes ago, JamesBCFC said:

I can't see that on our OS anywhere, so that's just wild speculation.

Judging from such an immature reply I guess you must be under 21................

[JamesBCFC]

1 minute ago, Robbored said:

Judging from such an immature reply I guess you must be under 21................

The irony

[Big C]

5 minutes ago, Robbored said:

Judging from such an immature reply I guess you must be under 21................

Isn't that just wild speculation??

[Robbored]

5 minutes ago, Big C said:

Isn't that just wild speculation??

Educated guess..........

[handsofclay]

10 hours ago, Chairman Mao said:

Never retire shirts imo, maybe the Maldini decision was legit, but otherwise we will be out of numbers in the next thousand years or so.

 

1 hour ago, Miah Dennehy said:

There is a morbid trend in modern life that every death has to be marked somehow, then the PR people get involved and a lot of people want to be seen to be doing something, it gets right on my tits!

The guy already has a statue outside Celtic Park and will always be remembered as a legend there and that should be enough.

Although Chairman Mao was being a tad facetious, logically it is a point I agree with. We will reach the point where all the numbers that can be properly viewed upon a shirt from a distance will be used up and future footballers would have to revert back to single and double digits again but have them appear with an asterix to denote that the number isn't quite the same as the original number. It's rather like the fairly modern trend for having double barrel names for children rather than opting for the mum or the dad's surname. It's all well and good in the early days, but when June Smith-Brown has a child with Sam Ford-White the child becomes Emily Smith-Brown-Ford-White then she meets Jimmy Taylor-Rogers-Partridge-Williams and gheir child gets 8 surnames. A few generations down the line and children miss out on an education because by the time the register is read each day it is time to go home!

Miah Dennehy I also agree wholeheartedly with. In recent times we have had national silences at 11am, or midday, for victims of terrorist attacks. There was even one victim of a racist who was killed who merited a national minute's silence. Of course these events are terrible, but there were no silences for the many more killed in the 1970s  and 80s through IRA activities. 

To top it all we had Cardiff recently playing the grieving victim of tragedy and willingly lapping up all the condolences as they provided a focal point for the grief expressed by the football world over the death of Sala. Then, a few weeks later they tell us that he wasn't their player and basically his only connection to Cardiff was that he visited the place a couple of times and was on his way there again when the tragedy occurred. Yet, they basked in all the sympathy and played up to it at the time of the tragedy as if they didn't want to miss out on the chance of being the focal point. Not one word was said to distance themselves from the situation. Then plenty of words spewed forth to this effect once the period of grief was at an end.