Raptor

On Thursday morning, Mark Frost and Stevie O'Mao had an unlikely run-in at baggage reclaim Belfast International Airport...

SO'M Frost, you here?

MF Oh hi Stevie. Yeah, looks like it doesn't it? Celtic rich enough to fly to and from domestic games nowadays then?

Stevie, while glaring at the monitor above Frost's band and noticing he flew in from Schiphol...

SO'M We're doing alright. You went to see your family in Dutchland then?

MF Something like that yeah.

SO'M Thought they did direct flights to Groningen Airport these days. Didn't think you'd go anywhere near "Sin City" out of free will.

Frost has his reasons not to want to talk to O'Mao right now. While grabbing his suitcase, he smiles and rounds off the conversation...

MF You know me too well Stevie. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go home and see Katie and the weans.

SO'M Sure Mark. Guess I'll be seeing you around.

MF I'm sure you will Stevie.

Raptor

What Frost didn't tell O'Mao, Stevie feared now anyway. And by the end of the afternoon, he knew for sure. Frost had visited the Raptor Group HQ in Amsterdam, and the company called O'Mao to summon him to the Dutch capital, to discuss "urgent and distrubing matters"...

Stevie knew what this was going to be about, and needed time to arrange a few things. Using the excuse of his attendance being required in Belfast until after the next home game against Galway, that meeting was postponed till Monday, but there was no escaping it much longer.

Raptor

Saturday 22 December 2012, Premier Division, Belfast Celtic v Galway United, Casement Park

Both Celtic and their nearest title rivals Linfield registered comfortable 4-1 home wins in the final full round of League games in 2012, the champions disposing themselves of Galway in the first of two meetings between the two in a matter of days.

Neal Keane managed to cancel out Andrew Rees' opening goal midway through the first half, but after that it was all Celtic. Gary Malone, on at half time at the expense of David Healy, wasted little time in staking his claim for a starting XI slot again. His two goals put daylight between the home side and the visitors, before Glen Keddy rounded off the scoring five minutes from time.

As for putting daylight between them and their rivals: a repeat performance on Wednesday would see Celtic end the year five points clear of Linfield. It would be a Boxing Day game, however, and Celtic's post-holiday fixtures had historically been a bit of a let-down. There could be no mistakes this time...

Celtic 4 (Rees 18, Malone 47, 70, Keddy 85)
Galway 1 (N.Keane 22)
Attendance: 17,361

Raptor

For Stevie O'Mao, Monday would be far more important in the overall scheme of things though. When he arrived at Raptor Group HQ, the Sports Commissioner knew his future was clouded. Stevie had talked to his puppet Marcus Johnson, and he told him about the missing documents. The pair had money leaks to defend, and O'Mao realised things didn't look good. Perhaps it was time to sacrifice his pawn then...

As it happened, the Raptor Group's board of directors too had things to hide. With Stevie being the grandmaster at digging up dirt he was, it only took him the few days the company foolishly gave him to update records he long since had on them.

Behind those closed Amsterdam doors, a "mutually beneficiary agreement" was struck, whereby the Raptor Group would back whatever "TBA" explaination Stevie would give to the press if and when Frost decided to involve the media.

The scheming Jambo went home happy, in the safe knowledge he'd pulled it off yet again, reputation intact. At least, as long as he could persuade Keith Stuart to write something nice about Belfast Celtic's current executive powers. Dictating it by his loyal press officer Anna Kournikova would do the trick. Of that, Stevie had no doubt...

Raptor

Wednesday 26 December 2012, Premier Division, Belfast Celtic v Galway United, Casement Park

Unaware of the deal struck by O'Mao, Frost was pretty pleased that Wednesday night. He had enjoyed Christmas with his family and planned a short trip to the Netherlands with them, had prepared the publication of the fraud Patrick and he had discovered, and saw his beloved Celtic win 3-0 to indeed go five points clear at the turn of the year.

That win was made possible by an early Glen Keddy goal, though it took another 70+ minutes to get the second and put the game beyond Galway. Michael Keane curled in a free kick late on to have the last word on 2012. In 2013, Frost expected to be celebrating 5-in-a-row from the directors' box...

Celtic 3 (Keddy 8, 80, M.Keane 85)
Galway 0
Attendance: 17,396

Raptor

Belfast Telegraph, Thursday 27 December 2012

Celtic five points clear but in turmoil!

Undefeated in the second round of the Champions' League, and five points clear at the top of the Irish Premier Division, all appears to be well at Belfast Celtic FC. Yet off the field, new allegations of financial mis-management, or indeed fraud, surfaced this week.

Former chairman Mark Frost is said to have confronted the Raptor Group, the company that owns the club, with conclusive evidence of Celtic's current chief executive Marcus Johnson using money earmarked for local charity to cover for personal expenses. The Raptor Group were unavailable for comment, as were Belfast Celtic at this time. Mr. Johnson said the club's press officer Miss Kournikova would give an "in depth analysis" of the situation to the Belfast Telegraph in the next few days.

Meanwhile, Glen Keddy's brace of goals showed Celtic the way as they defeated Galway United 3-0 to extend their lead at the top of the table.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">Irish Premier Division - End of 2012 1.Belfast Celtic 21 14 4 3 40 - 18 +22 46 2.Linfield 21 12 5 4 31 - 19 +12 41 3.Cork City 21 12 3 6 31 - 13 +18 39 4.St. Pat's Athletic 21 12 3 6 30 - 22 +8 39 5.Shelbourne 21 12 1 8 35 - 30 +5 37 6.Shamrock Rovers 21 10 5 6 22 - 17 +5 35 7.Galway Utd 21 3 7 11 27 - 40 -13 16 8.Athlone Town 21 3 6 12 22 - 40 -18 15 9.Kilkenny City 21 3 5 13 19 - 34 -15 1410.Glentoran 21 3 3 15 17 - 41 -24 12Irish First Division - End of 2012 1.Bray Wanderers 18 9 6 3 31 - 20 +11 33 2.Portadown 19 8 5 6 29 - 24 +5 29 3.Sligo Rovers 18 7 7 4 29 - 19 +10 28 4.Dundalk 18 7 7 4 20 - 17 +3 28 5.Bohemians 18 8 3 7 26 - 28 -2 27 6.Derry City 19 7 4 8 26 - 34 -8 25 7.Coleraine 18 7 3 8 26 - 28 -2 24 8.Cliftonville 18 5 7 6 21 - 26 -5 22 9.Limerick 18 6 3 9 30 - 26 +4 2110.Waterford Utd 18 3 11 4 21 - 20 +1 2011.Carrick Rangers 18 3 4 11 13 - 30 -17 13</pre>

&gt;&gt;&gt; Full match report, turn to back page

retired_mellnet

SO'M Anna? This is Stevie.

AK Hello, Stevie. Is there trouble?

SO'M Well you could say there is some.

AK Dealing with that moron MJ?

SO'M Yeah, he has really fvcked up this time. We will need to spin MJ's stealing if Frost takes it public, which I am sure he will do, since soon he will realize he has lost in Amsterdam.

AK Why don't we just say it was an accounting mistake?

SO'M I don't know if that will be good enough.

AK How about calling it a bonus? Just say the money was paid to Marcus as a bonus for how the club was doing.

SO'M That might work, but we also need some kind of smoke screen, to get the fans' minds of this incident.

AK The best way to do that would be to state that there is money to spend on players. Trump up a couple of rumors about player X or player Y coming to the club, and voila!

SO'M Great idea, but we will probably need to actually sign someone, plus that would kill to birds with one stone, strengthen the side and quell the hordes. Bruce will be happy. Do you think you could work some magic on the Reporter that likes you?

AK I will call him and invite him to dinner as soon as we hang up.

SO'M Good. We need to get to him first, and get our story out first. Remember, giving Arena money to spend, I'll fly out to Spain or Italy to give you something to spin and the money was a bonus payment to MJ. The more hype we get the better. Thanks Anna.

AK No problem Stevie, just doing my job.

Anna got off the phone and called Keith Stuart

AK Keith? ... Oh so nice to hear your voice. I just realized that I have nothing going on tonight and wondered if you would like to go somewhere for a nice quiet dinner? ... You would! Great...

retired_ajbrittney

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Raptor:
_Tiocfaidh Ar La, Issue 125, December 2012_

_Where are they now?_
.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah I remember asking about Darlington a while back, excellent.

retired_m1c18a5

Two weeks without an update, Rappy..

Sort it Out!!!

Raptor

I blame the awards

After Sunday night I'm forced off the net for up to 12 days though, think I'll just use that time to write some more. After all, we can't let the Character of the Year go quietly into the night can we?