In the days when England visited Glasgow every two years, Bobby Charlton, a hugely respected figure across the football world, would be interviewed by a Scottish media pundit, and Bobby could be relied on to make one particular observation: the Scots fans were knowledgeable; they understood the game, they were passionate about their team and fair with it, and how we lapped up his sincere flattery.
Scottish media pundits would frequently reiterate Charlton's views about how our football public was wise and appreciative, and amongst the best football watchers to be found anywhere in the world.
In those days, of course, the individual fan didn't really have a voice. His opinion was a fractional contribution to whatever chant or song filled the air. Publicly-aired individual opinion was the privilege of the few, and it has to be admitted, there were a number of scribes worthy of their position, but the sad reality was that public discussion of football was the preserve of a mere handful of men.
The fans of this era were a monosyllabic collective; a beast that could growl and roar and moan, but like a dumb animal, it had no means to articulate what it really felt. The scribes of the day were the voice of football: the supporters were just a convenient soundtrack to add colour and atmosphere.
Fast forward to the Internet age, and those fans who used to be praised to the hilt are now denigrated and maligned. Media pontificators, whose command of the language is often shamefully poor, can be challenged on the Internet by ordinary supporters, and Scottish football's professional chattering class is now frequently exposed as an Ill-educated, uninformed, biased, unprofessional and sub-standard rabble.
The democratisation of football chat has upset and troubled those who make a living from the game, and instead of accepting the new reality with grace and understanding, the sporting wing of the fourth estate eagerly portrays the Internet football public, typically, as 'extremist'.
Of course there's a degree of plain-speaking on football forums which can sometimes be distasteful and crass, but one of the most hateful pieces of bile I ever came across didn't come from the Internet at all - it came from a journalist; the late Ian Archer, and it was a rabid anti-English tirade. It was so poisonous and malicious that I suspected that the author must have been inebriated when he penned it, and yet it still made its way into print.
It's a source of great fascination to me that there are political animals out there who would happily close football forums down. People crow about wanting free speech but they struggle to deal with it when it is critical and forthright, and football forums tend not to call a spade a gardening implement. Football fan websites can be harsh, over the top and full on, but they can also be articulate, informative and helpful, and football clubs, if they are smart, can use them to promote games, events, dinners and charity fundraisers.
The fact that FollowFollow.com has played a key role in tens of thousands of pounds being raised for charity tends to be glossed over by critics who like the sound of their own voice on the airwaves, but dislike the masses having the same privilege.
The football public has taken two steps forward, thanks to embracing new technology, but the professional Scottish sporting media is stagnant and increasingly worthless.
It's not Internet football forums which should be closed down, it's our newspapers and broadcasters which are under threat because they want the playing field to themselves, exclusively, and that's simply not going to happen.
Our feeble Scottish sporting press is drowning, not waving, and the football public is not going to throw it a lifeline. We really don't need it any more, and we don't need lectures either from political leaders who laud sectarianism in our schools while condemning it on the terraces.
The political class is knee-jerk and hopelessly simplistic and it continually fails to understand the lunacy of its hypocritical stance. It bleats about sectarianism being a problem, and yet directly funds a sectarian education system.
This kind of two-faced morality is a major factor in why our politicians have reputations lower than a snake's belly. If sectarianism in society is undesirable, let the state stop funding it. The people, after all, don't want separate schools any more - or shared campuses either.
While there's always room for improvement in the way we express ourselves on public forums, let's not forget that our politicians and journalists are hardly an example to follow or a beacon to look up to.
As long as they prop up unwanted sectarianism in our schools and attempt to justify it with weasel words, those of us who populate football forums have little to be ashamed of. We may have our flaws and failings but we speak as we find, and perhaps our politicians and journalists should be following our example.
Let's square up to the hypocrites. Let's think carefully about how we articulate our opinions, but let's not lower our standards to the level that our national press and small-minded parliament have lived at for far too long.
