I don’t care what anyone says - that is a story. If it had been Michael Stone who painted a Rangers banner we all know - all sections of the Rangers Family, we know - it would have been on the front page of every newspaper in Scotland and leading every news bulletin for days.
Instead - not one mainstream news outlet in Scotland has printed or broadcast a single word about the Stein banner. It’s not paranoia, it’s not because it’s not a great story. It’s because they are terrified.
It tells you something about the Scottish journalistic environment where Pepperami sticks, Ibrox grass cuttings and Eggs Benedict regularly make the front page and inside page leads; but the fact that the Stein banner produced to mark the passing of the Celtic manager who felt the need to jump into the Parkhead crowd to berate their followers because their repertoire was so vile was painted by an IRA man doesn’t deserve a single sentence?!
FF became aware of the scandal when users of our web site got in touch to say they’d come across the story from Celtic websites and sent the details to newspaper but had no luck seeing it in print. Could we help? We decided to give it a bash. What we found surprised even paranoid old us.
THE BARE FACTS
The lads who gave us this info got it from open sources on the net - Celtic fans were talking about how the Stein banner was painted by a former IRA prisoner called Danny Devenny who was shot four times resisting arrest during a bungled bank robbery. There’s plenty of info about Danny Bhoy on the internet if you care to look. And the Scottish media all know it is there.
The banner was paid for - “we paid him enough he can retire on it” - by The Jungle Bhoys - a group recognised and approved by Celtic FC to organise fan displays at Parkhead.
The Jungle Bhoys feature in all organs of Celtic FC - CelticTV, Celtic View, celticfc.net.
Devenny openly admits to painting the banner. The Jungle Bhoys officials initially denied they knew who painted the banner they paid several grand for! Initially they claimed it was “an unknown Scottish artist who doesn’t want to be identified in case it harms his career.” Then they claimed they got “someone who knew an artist” to get it done. Oh well, I’m sure everyone getting a banner done just hands over the cash to someone they meet in the street and hopes for the best without asking for the name of the artist and seeing samples of his work.
No doubt they’d have been horrified to see the wall murals Devenny does glorifying the IRA death squads in Belfast?
OUR EXPERIENCES WITH THE MEDIA
After we got the material from the two lads who had been sending it to papers and checked it we decided to have a go ourselves as we thought that with their deep and genuine interest in combating bigotry, political extremism and football violence the Scottish media would be clamouring for such a story. Sadly we were to be disappointed.
DON’T BLAME THE LITTLE GUY
We can’t really give chapter and verse here on some incidents as that would be to expose some decent journalists who did their jobs properly and found the sick manoeuvring to suppress the story disgusting. The problem is not really with the journalists - it’s a sickness further up the ladder.
I tried a good few of the daily papers myself and with one exception all the front-line journalists said ‘That’s a cracking story.’ They wrote the story up, made the calls and put it into the system. Only then did a repeated scenario occur.
Normally the last call they made was to Celtic asking for a quote and asking if the club itself had handed over any money to the Jungle Bhoys for their activities. They never got the call back.
Celtic’s PR people would call the paper’s editor, the news editor or senior management. In each instance the journo would get the news that the story he/she thought was a cracker had been jumped on from on high. Every time. Every paper.
The journalist might think, it was a story, the news editor might think it was a story, the deputy editor might think it was a story, even a few editors thought it was a story. But always, always, there was someone further up the pecking order who told them to kill the story. It’s frightening the power they have.
EVERY PAPER KNOWS
Don’t delude yourself - every Scottish newspaper, radio station and TV outlet has had this story. They are all ignoring it. They know.
Some of them have chosen not to run it because they have been promised a little something or other - an interview with Nakamura or whatever - but most chose to ignore the scandal because they are afraid or because they are complicit.
HOW DO CELTIC HAVE THIS MAGICAL ABILITY TO KILL A STORY?
Decent PR Department helps. Hiring a decent firm of attack dogs to handle crisis PR is another help. But it’s rather more simple than that - they simple use their strength to let people know that if they are crossed then there is a price to be paid.
One journalist said to me (he’s a Bluenose himself) that the difference was fairly marked - Rangers aren’t interested in helping you with good stories so they are hardly likely to want to break sweat on a bad one. Celtic by contrast try to make the journalists job easier.
Then of course, there was the “Thugs And Thieves” story with the Daily Record.
A journo who works in the Mirror Group stable of papers said that had worked wonders for Parkhead. Because the headline said “Thugs And Thieves” - Celtic’s lawyers were able to argue that all the players in Buffalo Joe’s that night had been libelled not just those who had done the dirty deeds - assaulting the photographer and stealing his gear. So, that left room for them to manoeuvre legally - then they did several other things - they got their corporate people to remove advertising revenue and they also mobilised Timothy in the streets to boycott eh Record for a while.
If you were at the Old Firm game at Parkhead just after the “Thugs and Thieves” incident you may recall that at half-time the screens featured nothing but a picture of that Daily Record front page - it was a clear and simple message. And it has worked.
EVERY Celtic story gets subjected to special screening in the Mirror Group. They are terrified of them.
TRY NOT TO BE SICK
One of the middle management inside the Mirror Group gave me the line that they couldn’t run the story because of “the political changes in Ireland” which meant that “there are a lot of IRA men now running around Belfast in suits.” So what said I - “the Yorkshire Ripper used to wear suits to weddings.” I also pointed out that in various part of northern England representatives of a Nazi organisation hold umpteen council seats and they too wear suits. Are stories about their members also considered too delicate to bring to the public’s attention? Er, no.
Was the problem, I enquired somewhat tongue in cheek, that they hadn’t yet murdered enough people to be respectable in the eyes of the Mirror Group?
NIL BY MOUTH MAY BE ABLE TO HELP EXPOSE THIS STORY
I’m sure now that they are aware of it, and they are aware of it, they will use their good offices to expose this scandal. As their spokesman Peter McLean’s company handles the PR contract for News International in Scotland I’m sure Peter will make it his business to expose the details to public view as part of his long-standing anti-bigotry stance.
DON’T JUST BLAME THE DAFT FANS
Celtic themselves were intimately involved in this fiasco.
They encouraged the development of this “singing section,” gave it publicity in all their outlets, hey, they even appointed a member of staff to act as official liaison officer to keep CFC up to date with the Jungle Bhoys activity.
I’m sure that it was a series of mere oversights and nothing motivated by political degeneracy that meant readers of websites could discern certain central facts that the liaison officer appears to have missed.
Obviously the funds lavished on the purchase of the Provo Stein banner was an issue. But so too, you would think, is that fact that the Jungle Bhoys official logo features the Rising Phoenix which is associated in the public mind with the Provisional IRA arising from the ashes of the Old IRA. So too, perhaps not, the presence of an official representative from the IRA hatesite www.talfanzine.com on the committee of their singing section.
Perhaps an unfortunate series of oversights or just incompetence? Surely nothing more sinister.
ONCE IS UNFORTUNATE, TWICE IS CARELESS
In this little jaunt through the whacky world of Scottish journalism a couple of our website users couldn’t help but bring to our attention that the Stein banner carries a very marked resemblance to a Neil Lennon banner which is also fluttered at Parkhead. But perhaps that’s a story for another day.
THERE’S NO PARANOIA WITHOUT FIRE
There is no conspiracy of silence with regard to bigotry at Celtic Park. What is going on is there for all to see. The problem is that the Scottish media are frightened to say a word.
Next time they publish a story about Pepperami sticks, or Gazza imperilling the Peace Process by pretending to play a flute, or complaining how the Ibrox grass is cut to look like a sash you may care to ask them about Bannergate.
GRANDMASTER SUCK