In The Herald on 22 December, Spiers accuses the Trust of running a “campaign to have every newspaper office in the country torched”, being “refreshingly berserk”, of being “paranoid and permanently irate” and organising non-existent boycotts. Mr Spiers also speaks up for Gerry McNee, who shamefully compared the Rangers support with the Nazis at Nuremberg in the News Of The World on Sunday 18 December.
The Trust asserts that far from being either paranoid or berserk we are simply standing up for our members and the wider Rangers support. It is no coincidence that both Spiers and McNee have a long and tiresome record of anti-Rangers diatribes which wouldn’t look out of place in a Celtic fanzine. Frankly, we have had enough.
We are therefore calling on Trust members and the wider Rangers support to show what we think about Graham Spiers - and if anyone needs a reminder of the sort of articles Mr Spiers writes, here are only half a dozen examples:
· Describing the Rangers support at Old Trafford in November 2003: “putrid stench…savages...cavemen…vile troglodytes” (Herald, 6 Nov 2003)
· “at Rangers…the sectarianism is worse than it is at Celtic.” “Rangers, in particular have a major problem with bigots.” (Herald, 29 Nov 2004)
· “Like the Rangers orange strip, the song (‘Follow, Follow’) cannot be listed among the great criminal acts, it merely offends.” (Herald, 8 Oct 2002)
· “My sporting highlight of the week must be when I (broke) the news to Neil Lennon that James MacMillan had written a piece in his honour. It is always a minor joy catching up with Lennon.” (Herald, 20 May 2004)
· “If I ever fulfil my ambition of having a very splendid private dinner with (Martin) O’Neill….” (Herald, 22 Jan 2003)
· Rangers – the most paranoid club in Scottish football” (Herald, 12 Aug 2004)
The most effective way to halt this poisonous nonsense is to write directly to: Mr Tim Blott, Regional Managing Director, Newsquest Media Group Limited, 58 Church Street, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 8DP (fax 01932-836164) and we strongly urge you to do so.
Please keep your letters sensible, brief and polite but leave Mr Blott in no doubt that as long as Mr Spiers is employed by him you will not be buying The Herald, The Sunday Herald or sister publication, The Evening Times. Make it clear to him that you will not advertise with NewsQuest and will reconsider your relationship with companies who do.
The time for sitting idly by when lies and propaganda are aimed in our direction is over. It is you and I who Speirs is constantly bad-mouthing and he can only do this because he is given a public platform via a newspaper. Take this away and he is just another Celtic-minded bore with a chip on his shoulder.
We realise your time is valuable but hope that you will take the ten minutes or so necessary to write to Mr Blott. As Rangers fans we are asking for nothing more than fairness, objectivity and balanced coverage.
Stephen Smith
On behalf of the Board of the Rangers Supporters’ Trust