Pat Nevin was welcomed back onto BBC Scotland on Wednesday for coverage of Celtic’s Champions League Play Off against LASK.
The former Scotland international hasn’t been directly involved in Scottish football since leading Motherwell into administration in 2002.
A number of former Everton players were given lucrative long term contracts. Seventeen players lost their jobs.
James McFadden wasn’t one of the players sacked. On the Sportscene sofa on Wednesday he was reunited with his former CEO as they feigned enthusiasm for Celtic’s victory over the Austrians.
Nevin remains admired as a football intellectual inside the media bubble. All because he was a radical lefty in the eighties before realising that there was little profit in those views.
Celtic fans know all about Nevin.
During his playing days he couldn’t keep quiet about what a huge fan he was.
With retirement and the need for a fresh income streams he dropped his Celtic scarf with a variety of far fetched excuses given for that decision. He has always been happy to declare his support for Chelsea. Hibs and Everton.
For the final SPFL match of last season BBC 5 Live sent Nevin and Connor McNamara to cover the Celtic v Hearts showdown.
It is a game that will never be forgotten by anyone who witnessed it. A match with everything and more.
Nevin got so carried away by it all, he felt the need to describe an incident that never happened.
But it suited his mood at the time.
All around him Nevin could see Celtic fans celebrating, expressing their delight. Happiness.
WHY DOES THE BBC RATE PAT NEVINS VIEWS SO HIGHLY?
Such is his level of self loathing the BBC co-commentator told World Service listeners that Lawrence Shankland was punched by two or three Celtic fans.
Sky Sports and the BBC had no video evidence to back up the claims of Nevin.
TalkSPORT and Scottish media outlets were all over the claims about Shankland being attacked.
The story ran and ran. Four days after the match Tony Bloom told TalkSPORT that players had been assaulted. Jim White didn’t ask for any proof or evidence.
The claims from Nevin on BBC radio were allowed to linger. No one questioned his claims.
Wee Pat certainly didn’t want to issue a correction.
Well not until 10 weeks after the match when he appeared on another BBC show.
In a throw away reference about how even the greatest broadcasters can make mistakes. Apparently his Shankland claims are all just part of showbiz, they happen.
Ah sure, easy mistake to make, Pat! We’ve all mistakenly claimed assault live on air without any evidence.
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The half-hearted, aside of an apology from Nevin was:
We all make mistakes and I made a big one last year, at the end of the season. So it’s right at the end of that game I thought that one of the Celtic players, eh Celtic fans had punched a Hearts player.
It didn’t happen so my apologies for that, but, em, reality, the madness and excitement. It hit everybody, and it wasn’t just Scotland, it was outwith Scotland.
NEVIN IS VERY CONVINCED IN REPORTING SOMETHING THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
It was all just trendy Nevin getting carried away with the excitement of the occasion.
We’ve all been there haven’t we? When you watch some people run onto a football park and suddenly you are imagining two or three of them punching Shankland. Right?
It never happened, not remotely.
Nevin would have loved it to have happened. Another excuse to criticise Celtic fans, to justify his own decision to turn his back on supporting Celtic.
Everyone knows that hipster, socialist Nevin did it for economic reasons.
In England he will always be the arty Guardian reader that once attended college before going full-time in football.
Scottish media doesn’t welcome Celtic fans into its cosy circuit. A few make it on box-ticking grounds but they don’t get the easy gigs saved for Steven Thompson. Or the welcoming safety net that opens up for Neil McCann, Billy Dodds and Steven Naismith when they drop off the management circuit.
Nevin has gone out of his way to disassociate from Celtic.
He has even gone as far as claiming to support Hibs.
No-one believes him, he is an opportunist who’ll change opinion based on whoever is making his next payment.
Nevin was feigning interest in Celtic’s 3-0 win over LASK.
No mention was made to his claims about the Shankland assaults. He was happy to sit on them all through the summer. While enjoying a BBC jolly at the World Cup Finals.
NEVIN CAN’T STAND CELTIC SUCCESS BUT HE NEEDS HIS MEDIA PAYMENTS
Clearly the state broadcaster is happy to pay for the opinions of someone who will fabricate an incident to comfort themself. To detract from Celtic’s success in one of the most dramatic Scottish title races.
While most fans watch the action live on TNT the BBC has a highlights package for licence payers.
Rather than staff it with their own employees they brought in three outsiders. Pundits for hire.
Why not stick Tom English, Kenny Macintyre and big Thommo in front of the cameras to share their despair at the Celtic result?
For anyone in the dark about Nevin’s dislike for Celtic his full co-commentary from the Hearts match is on You Tube.
Back in May Nevin was telling lies live on radio, reporting things that didn’t happen. No check or correction was made at the time.
At 2 hours into the recording, just after Callum Osmand scored Celtic’s third goal Nevin decided to broadcast lies.
It’s a brilliant, brilliant moment but some Celtic fans are attacking Lawrence Shankland. Two or three have punched him. It’s a dreadful thing that has happened just now. These are absolutely unacceptable scenes.
What a brilliant, fabulous great moment for Celtic Football Club and this is awful, absolutely dreadful.
THE VALUES OF THE BBC
It wasn’t pleasant viewing, the pitch invasion was wrong but was quickly over.
What the former Chelsea winger did was very wrong. It wasn’t a minor mistake, getting something marginally wrong.
He didn’t say ‘I think Lawrence Shankland might have been punched’. He was very definite in what he saw.
Nobody punched the Hearts captain. Nevin claimed that two or three fans punched him. He was dreadful, absolutely dreadful.
The only thing dreadful was Nevin on co-commentary. There to give added insight, perhaps see things off the ball missed by the match commentator.
Instead he chose to invent things. He knows his motivation for doing that, others can guess that it is a result of self loathing the moment that he realised his future income lay in the media.
And now he is back discussing Celtic matches as if nothing had happened.
No wonder 10,000 people every week are cancelling their BBC TV licence payments.
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