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Celtic fan John Higgins: I'll retain snooker world title before Hoops win back SPL
Feb 11 2010 Hugh Keevins

WORLD champion John Higgins wouldn't even give Celtic a chance of the SPL championship with snookers.

The Celtic supporter from Wishaw sent his boyhood favourites to Kilmarnock when he helped make the Scottish Cup quarter-final draw yesterday at Hampden.

But Higgins had a stinging assessment of the remainder of this season's Premier League title race.

Without a trace of satisfaction over his prediction he said: "I'll retain my world title before Celtic will win back the league title. I think it's gone now for Celtic."

Дай Рекунс, шоб Селтик этого не сделал!

But it could have been even worse for Higgins because he feared he'd set Celtic up for another visit to Ibrox in the cup two weeks after the next Old Firm derby takes place there.

Higgins was asked to pick out thehome teams at yesterday's draw in front of live television cameras inside the Hampden museum.

His first selection was the tie between Rangers and St Mirren to be replayed at Ibrox next Wednesday. His first thought was that Celtic's name would follow as the visitors.

"I was glad to see Dundee United coming out next instead of Celtic," Higgins said, having already declared himself of being in favour of anything that prevents Rangers putting together the building blocks for a treble.

The pain of watching Celtic trail Rangers is one Higgins felt from a distance because he's admitted to not having attended a match in person for a couple of years.

He said: "As a husband and father I felt it wasn't fair to come back off a trip from somewhere around the world and immediately announce that I was going off to watch Celtic.

"I've got three young children and I might get back to watching Celtic in person again when they show some interest in going with me but that hasn't happened yet.

"There was a time when my world revolved around what Celtic did, and who they were playing, It was an automatic end to the week to board my local Celtic supporters bus and go to the game. But times change."

Time might move on but nothing happens to erase Higgins' memories, and one Scottish Cup recollection summed up the way he was in his teens.

He said: "The first Scottish Cup final I remember going to was Celtic's defeat to Aberdeen after a penalty shoot-out in 1990.

"Charlie Nicholas was playing for Aberdeen and I genuinely thought he'd miss his penalty because he was due to go back to Celtic at the end of that season. I was 14 years old at the time and it was a crushing disappointment."

Now that he's attained maturity, and risen to the top in his sport, Higgins has one observation to make that casts a less than favourable light on footballers compared with snooker players.

He said: "I've been to watch football teams train and been amazed that they only put in a couple of hours work per day. I'm always told the explanation is the need to keep players fresh for their next game.

"But if I was training for a major tournament I'd be at the practice table from 10am until 4pm every day for a month."
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The Hampden draw, which was made by world snooker champion John Higgins and Active Nation Scottish Cup benefactor Willie Haughey, produced three other intriguing ties

Он что, сетку составлял?

http://www.talkceltic.net/forum/scottish-football/77849-scottish-cup-draw.html Делать, видно нефиг...