Messageboard last week, I thought the Gers were facing up to Barcelona
at the weekend, not the falling-apart-at-the-seams mess Gordon The
Garden Gnome has inherited, and a Rangers victory seemed to be as
likely as a snowstorm on the Twelfth of July. Oh ye of little faith.
Mind you, if you’ve been expecting Rangers to get credit for a
convincing victory, you’ll spend a long time looking through this
week’s papers. The Gers didn’t win the game, Stuart Dougal did, and
Lenny the Lurgan loony certainly put him in his place at the end,
didn’t he? If O’Kneel had been there, he would no doubt have put his
arms around his poor wee lamb and led him towards the Scum Of giving it
Chucky something or other.
From the moment Thompson was sent packing for his attempt at maiming
Nacho, you just knew Rangers were in a no-win situation. My biggest
fear was that one of our lot would pay for any over-enthusiasm by
giving the ref the chance to even things up. But despite Lennon going
out of his way to niggle everyone, especially Tam Buffel, our guys kept
their composure and once more showed that football will always triumph
over thuggery.
You just had to laugh when they backed off Big Hank – ‘ach, he’ll no
dae any damage’ – then he chips a peach of a pass into Dado’s path and
its 1-0 to the Teddy Bears. I’m told Joke Broon made an absolute arse
of himself (surely not!) by suggesting there was no danger as Marv
strode forward. Broon is quite good at that. Twelve years ago, when we
played Them in a League Cup semi at Ibrox, Sellick were piling on the
pressure against ten men (Huistra had been sent off) and he uttered the
immortal words ‘these Celtic fans sense victory now’. 23 seconds later
Durrant robbed Galloway, whipped the ball into the middle and Hateley
rattled it into the pokey. Feckin priceless!
After Buffy made it 2-0, it looked like the points were safe and Blue
Peter missed a barrowload of chances to kill the game. When Maloney ran
at Murray, nothing was more certain than the wee shite going down and,
for a few moments, the possibility of us throwing it all away crossed
my mind. But I needn’t have worried. When we got our pen (our first
since Tynecastle in March!!!), I was screaming ‘Don’t let Nacho near
it!’ Hey, what do I know? Nice one, wee man!
Then the bigot lost the plot. If the SFA are serious about clamping
down on indiscipline, he shouldn’t need to brush his boots again this
side of Hogmanay. Lennon doesn’t strike me as Strachan’s sort of player
so I really expected the manager to have a right go at him. I really
should have known better. By referring to the incident as a private
conversation between the player and the referee, Strachan let himself
down badly and his nonsensical line about the weather conspiring
against his team was typical Parkheid paranoia.
Out of the smokescreen of an early red card and Lennon’s after-match
explosion, a very significant point has been overlooked. One team
played football, one team didn’t, and it was the football team which
triumphed. Whatever Septic’s new Jap wonderbhoy has to offer, it was
lost in their efforts to hustle and bustle Rangers out of their stride.
Had they been more intent on playing the game the way it should be
played, they might have kept eleven players on the park and could even
have made us work a bit harder for our victory.
But They won’t see it that way and, aided and abetted by a sympathetic
press, they will focus their venom on the ref. Aye, it was all Stuart
Dougal’s fault although I didn’t see the ref making any silly lunges or
losing his cool. Yet he is the one who’ll get the treatment from them –
are his windows still intact? – when they really should take a long
hard look the players who let their team down. Having now been
red-carded three times at our place, Thompson clearly can’t hack it and
several of their so-called stars were posted missing on Saturday.
Rangers won comfortably enough, without ever doing anything special,
and we should be grateful we had players who could maintain their
discipline when others around them were losing the plot. But the
fall-out from the weekend is sure to carry over when we go to the Scum
Dome in November. The temperature is sure to be a bit cooler but no
doubt Strachan will have another excuse lined up by then.
And I'm hoping we can build on this weekend's win, maybe make a bit of
progress in Europe so that, when the Piggery game comes around, we can
be a bit more upbeat about our chances than many of us were last week.
LITTLE BOY BLUE