BY Martin Dunlop | April 25 | 
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Scotland welcomes the ‘Thai Tims’
Children from the Good Child Foundation in Thailand are raising funds for children with Down syndrome throughout an action-packed visit that includes a meeting with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, a trip to Celtic Park and a performance at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall
Cardinal Keith O’Brien is preparing to welcome children from the Good Child Foundation in Thailand to Scotland.
The group, known affectionately as the ‘Thai Tims,’ have been a big hit with Celtic FC supporters through videos of them posted on the internet singing some of the club’s songs. They arrived in Scotland today from the Chantaburi province. In addition to visiting and singing for Cardinal O’Brien tomorrow, they will visit a number of parishes and schools before performing at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on May 10. Throughout their visit they will be raising funds for children with Down syndrome in Scotland and Thailand
Celtic supporters groups are backing the visit of the 40-stong children’s group to Scotland, and on Sunday, during their match against Motherwell FC, the Celtic players wore their jerseys with their names in Thai, which will be auctioned for charity. The children will be guaranteed a warm welcome when they visit Celtic Park next Thursday for the club’s home match against St Johnstone FC.
The Thai children’s bond with Scotland, the Catholic community and Celtic was strengthen through adversity after 19-year-old Catholic student and Celtic supporter Reamonn Gormley was killed in a knife attack in Blantyre last year. Mr Gormley, a former pupil of John Ogilvie High School, Hamilton, had taught Thai children English, through the Good Child Foundation, during a gap year and a memorial to him has been erected in Thailand. In a video in his honour, the Thai Tims have paid their own tribute to Mr Gormley.
Celtic’s Joe Ledley, the Welsh midfielder, who the Thai children have performed a song about, is looking forward to their visit.
“It’s great that the kids are coming over to Scotland, and I know our fans will give them a great reception when they’re at Celtic Park,” he said. “And I’m sure everyone will enjoy the concert they’ll be performing at in Glasgow. I better make sure I know all the words to the Joe Ledley song before they get here!”
Ahead of the Thai Tims’ arrival in Scotland, Paul Lennon from the Good Child Foundation in Thailand explained that excitement was growing amongst the group of children.
“The fun-packed itinerary will see the children visit the zoo, a theme park and an adventure across the Irish sea to Belfast,” he said. “The Thai Tims have several school visits planned and this will be a wonderful cultural exchange for all the children.
“At the schools, we will tell the Scottish children all about the daily lives of the Thai Tims on the rubber plantations of Thailand. We will perform a Thai traditional dance at the schools and the children are looking forward to making lots of new friends and sampling school dinners in Scotland.”
Picture: The Thai Tims at a memorial to Reamonn Gormley in Thailand
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just wondering if the Thai tims will b singing in Belfast?
This is absolute child exploitation. This organisation is the Good Child Foundation and whoever renamed these poor innocents the “Thai Tims”, bedecked them in green and white, taught them Celtic songs and made them nothing more than mini mascots for Celtic Football Club to parade in this manner should be shot. That the Catholic Church, never shy in coming forward to complain about “sectarianism” is comfortable using the title “Thai Tims” proves that the church does sectarianism as well as anyone in Scotland.
I wonder what would have happened if this was Rangers going to somewhere with an equivalent “Good Child Foundation” and the same number of needy children. Let’s say its Borneo. I wonder what the Catholic reaction would be if Rangers brought them on tour in Scotland as the “Borneo Billy Boys”! For it would be no different to what Celtic have done to these children by labeling them in such a manner. The same Celtic Football Club which has insisted over the years that unlike its opposite number it didn’t do religion discrimination. “Thai Tims”?
Charity is a wonderful thing of course but when you take innocents and then do this to them it is not charity: nothing like it. It is vomit-inducing and Keith O’Brien should not be associating the church with it.
As for Reamonn Gormley, as a resident of Blantyre I find it disgusting that no recognition is given here to the fact that the community he was from mourned his awful death as a community, NOT as “Tims”. People here, whether “Tims” or not, mourned as a body, as good communities should, the death of a fine young man who died in such awful circumstances. Catholics and Protestants here were in shock following his death: they marched simply as members of a community afterwards calling for an end to mindless violence and those who took part didn’t need to wear badges declaring what “religion” they were. Reamonn’s death was a Scottish tragedy, not a Celtic or a Catholic one.
This whole circus involving these children is quite disgraceful. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Jo. What an idiotic post.Read the article. The visit raised raising funds for charity. Reamonn Gormley was a Celtic supporter and he taught most if not all of the Thai Tims the Celtic songs long before Celtic themselves got involved. To say it’s child exploitation was an absolute disgrace.
If i didn’t know any better i would say you are one of HMRC’s tax avoiders.
Celtic paid for them to come to Glasgow. They did NOT call them the Thai Tims, you clown. They were called that by themselves.
And your garbage about “I wonder what would have happened if this was Rangers going to somewhere with an equivalent “Good Child Foundation” and the same number of needy children. Let’s say its Borneo. I wonder what the Catholic reaction would be if Rangers brought them on tour in Scotland as the “Borneo Billy Boys”!
Oldco had a “charity” match but instead of the money going to the oldco charity it went straight into the oldco coffers to pay the clubs debt against all of the Scottish Regulator of Charities regulations. So in effect oldco broke the law. No change there then.