Losing The Baggage

This term, penned by people who will never have Rangers` best interests at heart, is the buzzword for songs which don`t meet with the approval of Labour Party bigots, church leaders whose hypocritical posturing is enough to make a saint wretch, and most worryingly of all, unthinking Rangers supporters who naively believe that a deletion of The Sash will see a mad dash of benevolent billionaires to our door.

Rangers FC is a troubled club, but it is not a troubled club because of the Loyalist Songbook - it is troubled because it hasn`t got the guts to stand up to those who never tire of bullying it.

Ordinary Scots happily call Rangers supporters huns, a term coined by the Celtic support to link Rangers supporters with the twentieth century`s most despicable regime, and the only attempt to rectify this situation has been from the Rangers Supporters Trust. The club, as per usual, stands back from confrontation, covers its eyes and ears, and our reputation goes downhill from south.

Ten-cent hacks declare a distaste for certain lyrics in the club anthem, and the club bends over backwards to appease them. A banner with a title borrowed from the Irish press makes its way to Ibrox, and is immediately outlawed. The club`s image headlines any story about sectarianism, and the Rangers boardroom barely notices the dehumanising process aimed squarely in its direction.

While Rangers is governed by a regime too spineless to address the hypocritical and one-sided nature of the sectarianism debate in Scotland, we`ll forever be sticking plasters on gaping wounds and worrying about the injustice of it all.

Because we are Rangers, Scotland`s greatest club bar none, we will always attract criticism, but no club is robust enough not to erode if a constant flow of abuse is never repelled.

The baggage at Rangers is in the boardroom.

That`s the baggage we need to lose.

Number Eight