The Story So Far... |
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Jock Ratties first saw the light of day on Setanta Sports' website at the beginning of the 2007-08 football season. The original brief was to produce topical weekly cartoon strips for use on Setanta's relaunched web presence as they set about significantly raising their profile following their acquisition of the rights to broadcast a tranche of live English Premiership matches on their subscription TV channels.
Jock Ratties cartoon strips are available on a non-exclusive licenced basis to any and all publications, whether online or traditional printed media, for only £100.00 plus VAT per three-frame episode and can be sized and configured to fit the available media space.
If you are interested in running Jock Ratties within your publication please do not hesitate to contact us using the feedback form on our 'Contact' page. Alternatively, read on below for the story so far... |
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| Episode 1 - Introducing Jock | | |  This episode, and indeed the beginning of the Jock Ratties era, commenced with its inaugural publication on the Setanta Sports website at the beginning of the 2007-08 football season.
It introduces Jock to the World and contains his first philosophical uttering - a more meaningful rewriting of Eric Cantona's infamous seabird-related outburst.
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| | Episode 2 - Jock meets his new squad | | |  "First impressions count", as they say, and it was only natural that Jock would want to make a strong impression on his new squad upon taking up the managerial reigns of newly-promoted Premiership side, Northern Albion FC.
Being, in his own humble opinion, a man of culture he decided that paraphrasing Rudyard Kipling would have the desired effect...
(Click on the thumbnail to see the full strip) | | | |
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| | Episode 3 - The first big signing | | |  It's fair to say that Sven Goran Eriksson's excellent start to his managerial career at Manchester City at the beginning of the 2007-08 football season surprised a great many people, not least Man City's long-suffering fans.
Given his less-than-inspiring tenure as manager of England it led many to wonder how the Swedish lothario was suddenly able to conjure success so swiftly. Jock knew the real reason and moved just as quickly to commandeer the secret winning formula for his own ends...
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| | Episode 4 - Introducing Jock's eager young assistant | | |  The Universe is full of opposites. For every yin there is a yang and in Jock's case his inherited young assistant manager Julian Wright-Jess is a pole apart from Jock in just about every department. It didn't take Julian very long to grasp this fact...
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| | Episode 5 - Julian's managerial education begins | | |  Undaunted by his first encounter with his new boss, Julian continues his quest to improve his knowledge of football by picking the brains of his more experienced elder at every available opportunity. Unfortunately, Jock's understanding of modern footballing parlance is not the best and this leads to the first of many misunderstandings between master and apprentice...
(Click on the thumbnail to see the full strip) | | | |
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| | Episode 6 - On the eve of the transfer deadline | | |  With the transfer deadline about to close on the final day of August 2007, there was considerable speculation in the media that former World Player Of The Year and Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho was growing tired of life at Barcelona and hankered after a move to the English Premiership...
(Click on the thumbnail to see the full strip) | | | |
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| | Episode 7 - If Arsene knows then Jock knows better | | |  First published in the week when Arsenal fans breathed a collective sigh of relief upon learning that their manager Arsene Wenger had put pen to paper to further extend his already lengthy stay at the North London giants.
When he had first arrived in the English game in 1996 he was greeted by headlines of "Arsene who?" but after his quiet revolution of improved nutrition and scientific training had completely transformed the Gunners into a major European force the banners started to proclaim "Arsene Knows".
Of course, Jock knows a few things himself...
(Click on the thumbnail to see the full strip) | | | |
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| | Episode 8 - One night in Paris | | |  Wednesday 12th September 2007 will famously go down in the annals of Scottish football history as the night when their team of footballing journeymen carved out an astonishing 1-0 victory over World Cup finalists France in Paris in a competitive European Championship qualifier.
As one of the World's most prominent Scotsmen it goes without saying that you would expect Jock Ratties to be there in the very heart of the post-match celebrations. After all, we sent him the ticket ourselves...
(Click on the thumbnail to see the full strip) | | | |
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| | Episode 9 - The 'Extra Special One' | | |  The world of football was shocked to see the departure of the so-called "Special One", Jose Mourinho, from Chelsea so early into the 2007-08 campaign.
With Avram Grant taking up the reigns there was inevitable media speculation as to whether a more illustrious name would be in place before too long.
"Cometh the hour, cometh the man", as they say, but for Jock it was more a case of "If the price is right I'll cometh on down the M1..." | | | |
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| | Episode 10 - Jock's Academy Plans | | |  This episode was set against a backdrop of gushing tabloid praise for Arsene Wenger's dynamic young Arsenal side who made light of the loss of the talismanic Thierry Henry and elevated their play to another level at the start of the 2007-08 campaign.
Jock, on the other hand, has never been one to be swayed by footballing fads or the whim of a Chairman and held firm to his (rather basic) principles... | | | |
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