Dear Walter Smith,
As a Rangers fan and a contributor to the FF fanzine for nigh on two decades, there is one thing will have been made abundantly clear to the poor sods who have actually read my stuff, and that is; I demand that our club defends itself at all times. It isn't actually rocket science and should not be too difficult a concept to grasp, especially in our club's circumstances. Or so you would think.
But seeing is believing and you can take it as read, that I am something of an atheist on this issue. For instance, your chum, the Chairman, told us three years ago that he didn't want to make martyrs of certain Scots journalists. Well, here we are thirty-six months and more down the line and a couple of UEFA fines, UEFA restrictions regards songs based on lies from here in Scotland, UEFA breaking their own house rules with regards to neutral observers at our European games tells its own story. These Rangers haters have made martyrs out of us.
Anyway I was cheered, heartily, when I read you getting your digs in at Peter Liewell and the yahoos' need to maintain the integrity of the SPL etc, etc in the run up to yahoo/cesspit/SPL carve up #2 in the last weekend in April. Did you know that the league season has been extended on no less than 24 occasions since WW2? No matter.
But, and there will always be a but where I'm concerned, although in agreement with your words, they still left me rather dismayed and offered up little other than some cold comfort. In other words, they were all too little and far, far too late.
You see in acknowledging the stitch up between the SPL and CFC even just this year, then the silence from Ibrox beforehand just goes to prove we have made a right pig's ear of things. And as the race for the title becomes tighter and more tense, all it sounds like is sour grapes. It has been sticking our collective heads in the sand at best and a stiff upper lipped acquiesce and tacit acceptance of the problem at worst.
As I see it, there have been two league games involving Celtic FC this calendar year of 2008, one postponed and one re-scheduled that should have had Rangers FC if not exactly shouting from the rooftops; then at least asking pointed and direct questions. And as a management team, all of you have all let the entire Rangers club and support down, once again.
Game 1 - Rangers v Celtic at the cesspit on Jan 2nd; postponed because of the tragic death of Phil O'Donnell!
Now, not for a minute do I think that the people running RFC would have been remotely prepared for this so called sporting organisation exploiting the tragic death of an average, ex player. How could we? Even I, as a cynical yahoo watcher could never have dreamt that they could pull such a stunt. But they did.
BUT as low as that shower undoubtedly are; Rangers had a duty to its support to ask a few pertinent questions during and after the Celtic/SPL stitch up.
Question 1 - Can someone at Celtic Park explain to Rangers FC, why the media were informed of Celtic's request to the SPL for a postponement and why it was deliberately leaked out before the request was made to the management of Rangers FC?
Question 2 - Can the SPL inform us what was the exact criteria that allowed them to postpone this particular match? Will this precedent and standards apply to all other clubs in Scotland across the board in the future? I.E if an ex player who has played for your club snuffs it, you get in on the mourning also?
The management of Rangers FC had a duty to ask these questions. And they should have led to a few other supplementary ones, too. Our management team failed us. It is as simple as that.
Question 3 - Why were the SPL happy to force Dundee Utd down to Celtic Park in the midweek leading up to the most important match of their season? After all, if the Scottish Cup final is the SFA's big annual party shindig then surely it must follow that The League Cup Final is the second biggest day in the SPL calendar.
Question 4 - Who, Other than Liewell and Celtic FC actually requested that particular midweek for that particular re-scheduled fixture?
We can call it mis-placed chauvinism, we can call it bullishness and/or straight Old Firm arrogance. But in nine times out of any ten seasons the last thing a provincial club striving for a major domestic trophy needs, is another trip down to play the other half of the OF just three days previously. In fairness to your former club Mr Smith, they refused to read Liewell's script and churned out a 0-0 draw.
Again Mr Smith, the management of our club, and not necessarily you, had a duty to ask these questions and point out the curious timing of this re-scheduled match.
Next up we had your number two assistant Kenny McDowall telling us on the Sunday prior to the first game at the piggery (16/4/08) that no matter what, after the game the backroom chaps from both clubs would all have a post match pint. What a jolly, spiffing wheeze, eh?
You'll have to help me out here Mr Smith. In mid April you allow your staff to go in and have a drink with the mhaggots who pulled the Jan 2nd postponement stunt? Nah, it is unacceptable in my book and in countless others.
Anyway, what would have been the topic of conversation? 'By Jove, that Robson of yours didn't half blooter into Christian Dailly in the first minute, did he no? Surely that had to be a straight red card?'
If Kenny McDowall wants to go for a swally to a previous haunt that is fine, but he can do it in his own time, not in ours. And certainly not immediately after he has watched his own players get booted up and down the park. Get it sorted, Mr Smith, get it sorted now! Forget diplomatic relations.
Next up we hurl along into carve up game #2 and there we find our captain and most influential player whacked by an opponent well after the ball had been played. What's wrong with this picture? Well, sickeningly enough, despite it all we all know that our captain would happily buy that same rhatbag a post match drink. Still what else should we expect from a so called leader of men who was happy last New Year to sidle up to Radio Snyde and dish the collective dirt?
In summing up Mr Smith, despite picking the club up by its coat tails last January, you still have a generation of disgruntled Rangers fans, who are sick to their collective back teeth of our club being constantly vilified and demonised without us ever fighting back to contend with. You have with your recent words offered us a wee ray of hope. But that is all it is; a 'wee' ray of hope and nothing more.
If truth be told, I don't even think it should be the manager who should be talking this fighting talk anyway in the run up to such important games. But such is the calibre of lackey your chum the chairman has surrounded himself with in the boardroom, and such is our negligence, which has pervaded all levels at the club, then you are Mr Smith, the only employee with the gravitas and authority to take that shower on.
But there are lessons to be learnt from history. A couple of decades ago a bemused Man Utd squad clocked in for their first day of pre season training and found the ground daubed all over with the slogan 'How much do you HATE Liverpool?'
With that in mind, Mr Smith if you do not engender that same passion into:-
A - All our dealings with that lot at ALL levels next season throughout the coaching and playing staff and beyond, and fight and hate them on the level they hate us. (It didn't take Robson too long to get into the swing of things for them did it?)
B - All our dealings with the yahoos' press apologists next season at EVERY level, be it Snyde, BBC Scotland The Rhebel, The Sun and even Chic Dung
C - All our dealings with the SPL, SFA and Sentanta next season and DEMAND an even and fair crack of the whip
D - All our dealings with the game's authorities (witness the reluctance of the referees involved to red card Robson and Hesselink for their assaults on our players in those two back to back OF matches and compare and contrast with the immediate justice meted out to Novo)
Then I tell you what, the fiery words spoken in the run up to carve up #2 on the last Sunday in April are not only worth less than a hill of beans, they have been a waste of all our time.
Yours in Rangers,
The Govanhill Gub.
PS, Liewell doesn't need to respond to your latest utterings. The ghastly defending by your players in carve-ups # 1 & 2 has seen to that, and then the reluctance to take him on with the big issues at the relevant time means; he is like a fox walking away from the chicken coup with feathers coming out of his mouth.
He is that Fox, and the cat that has got the cream all rolled into one because the management at Ibrox failed to do their job properly and at the appropriate time.
What I think I'm trying to say is this; we don't need or want words anymore. All we want is action. Is that too much to ask?