Anyone who was there will tell you that it was a wonderful and emotional evening. The meal, the spectacular solid silver commemorative bowl in Sam's honour that will now adorn the Ibrox Trophy room, the wonderful portrait of Sam in his playing days, the speakers at the top table; they all conspired together to give us a tremendous night of which the organisers should be proud of.
The Yanks call it closure but for me what mattered most was the fact that for some of Sam's remaining family there was the knowledge that there we were almost on the exact centenary of his birth paying homage to the memory of one Rangers player who most certainly deserved this honour. The fact that RTV worked hand in hand with the SE Committee both in Sam's native Ulster and here in Scotland to produce a smashing tribute programme was the icing on the cake.
I sometimes sit and wonder what the outcome might have been regards Sam English's Ibrox career. However it is not my intention to go over old ground as Sam's scoring records are there for all to see. Rather, the purpose of this wee scribble is to make the people who frequent this website aware of the chilling hatred towards Sam English's memory that still exists to this day among the mentally diseased morons we have to share a city with.
Oh, and before I start, do not think this bile oozes out from only the margins of the yahoo support, the hatred bubbles over from every section, even from established historians of their club.
Most website bears will probably be unaware of the works of a yahoo historian who goes by the name David Potter. Well, it was Potter in a book about the life of the 'despicable' Wullie Maley (thanks David Mason) who made the outrageous claim, with no shred of evidence to back it up, that the Rangers support back then did not take to Sam English BEFORE that fateful Old Firm game at Ibrox in September 1931. The implications of Potter's words are clear for all to see.
It is lies pure and simple. The fact is Sam English was a goal scoring sensation for Rangers right from the very beginning. A brace against Dundee on his league debut was followed by him missing the next two games due to injury. He then went into overdrive on day 4 of the league race with five goals against Morton. All told in his first six league games for Rangers, he had scored twelve goals.
Now in my lifetime there have been two explosive starts by Rangers centre forwards that had us in raptures at the time. Those two players being Colin Stein back in 1968 and Marco Negri in 1997. They were instant successes at Ibrox and the Rangers support took to them unconditionally. Well, that's the impact Sam English had on the Rangers support all those years ago. He was a hero right from the off. Yet David Potter for his own reasons would have us believe differently. And remember, Potters' works are endorsed by CFC.
Anyway, enough of the more educated moron in green and white, lets get down to the grass roots cretins who inhabit their websites. Be assured of one thing, this lot are spewing at our toasting Sam English's memory. And where there is Timbo there will invariably be the poison that festers behind the monobrow.
Just what are we to make of these recent efforts from sellik minded.com; and I quote the following from yahoo #1;
"came across this program on rankers tv there and have to say what a scoring record english had and later on his life he coached duntocher hibs......not bad for an ulsterman
BUT........the comment by so called ranker historian should be challenged and did rankers sanction his comments..........when he recalls willie maley's comment "i like to think that it was an accident" as despicable.
1 - well mr david mason, rangers historian, my grandad and dad who were at the game like to think it was an accident........so did all the celtic players and every celtic fan since the incident" likes to think it was an accident".
it was also strange to see a certain mark dungbaw being interveiwed and i have to admit that jabba the hut looks quite cool in a suit.
2 - so mr david mason, if you are looking for despicable comments about sam english how about mr struths comment to his new signing billy simpson........"if you give as good as service as your countryman did..........then youll do for us"!
im sure mr struth meant what he said..............broughly speaking"
3 - and as for your statement that the ranker captain motioned for the ranker end to stop jeering............which is quite true but you fail to mention what else they were shouting which caused my grandad & dad to never set foot in ibrox again and severly castigated me when i attended a game at ibrox.
As I say, so little words but so much paranoia, hate, lies and a downright set of mangled morals.
1 - I'll try and keep it straight and to the point. This is what the Evening Times in its late edition on the day of the game had to say on page six regards the actual incident; 'it is satisfactory that the serious injury to poor Thomson was entirely accidental.'
2 - The next part takes us off the map. Now look at the words attributed to Bill Struth when Billy Simpson signed for us in October 1950. Now you and I and any other rational person would automatically think that in signing a centre forward from Ulster, Bill Struth would naturally mention a previous Rangers centre from the same country who just happened to hold the club's league goal scoring record and official goals scored in a season.
It's a bit like the fact that any Dane we sign post Laudrup will forever have the Guvnor's glorious reputation to live up to.
But that is not what Timbo is implying is it? If paw n granpaw 'liked to think it was an accident' that's obviously not what they brainwashed junior into thinking.
3 - Here we have the hoary old chestnut that the Rangers support jeered, when Thomson lay injured in his penalty area. The fact is a section of the support did jeer the stricken Celt and I'm not going to deny it. Here is what The Herald had to say on Monday 7th September 1931 regarding that incident. ' Behind the goal were massed the followers of Rangers and a section of them commenced to cheer. Davie Meiklejohn left the group round the stricken player, and, with arms outspread made a mute appeal. It was effective and amid tense silence Thomson was carried off the playing pitch on a stretcher.'
It would be churlish to deny what happened, but whether Timbo likes to accept it or not, this sort of behaviour happens the world over. It's not nice, it's not big and it's not clever but it happens. And I'm going to cite the biggest irony of all.
On the evening of Thursday March 6th, 1997 Rangers travelled to Celtic Park for a Scottish Cup tie. During the first half, the Rangers centre Erik Bo Anderson was stretchered off and was roundly booed and jeered by those Celtic corinthians in the stands. And what was Anderson's injury? It was a depressed fracture of the skull. That's right the EXACT same injury that befell John Thomson sixty five years and six months earlier.
A few years earlier there was also the abuse meted out to Trevor Steven in a Scottish Cup tie at the Cesspit in the early nineties when he ran a gauntlet of gleeful yahoos from the Sellik end right round to the pavilion. This is one Bear who will not be taking lessons in, off-the-field etiquette from that shower.
Next up we are treated to the following insight into what happened that far off tragic day and again I'll quote from yahoo #2;
"I still think Maley's comment was because it was a dirty game that day and tackles were flying all over the pitch. On that basis, with a split second view and given the outcome, it may not have been unreasonable to think it was another rough challenge."
So according to this 'historian' it was a dirty game and once again the implication is that English went in heavily on Thomson (more than was necessary) as it was the norm in that particular game.
Well again, let me quote the late edition of the Evening Times front page report on the day of the game. One of the headlines read; 'Too Many Childish Fouls' and the journalist went onto say "Nerves so far were dominant and this was apparent when McPhail clean missed a dead ball as he attempted to shoot."
Later on he wrote; 'Two "frees" against Celtic indicated the keenness of the tackling rather than anything deliberately done, but so far the marking was so careful that big things were not occurring.'
The Evening Citizen had this to say on the Monday; 'Cook and McGonagle were a sturdy and resolute pair of full backs. The latter was occasionally however, a little too robust in his methods of dispossessing an opponent.'
The Herald weighed in with the following on the Monday; 'In the early stages of the game complaint was made that the referee stopped the game too much by awarding fouls for too many petty infringements. But it was well that he did so as his actions then showed the players that he intended to keep full control of the game.'
So there you go, three different newspapers and their view was that there were some childish fouls, some petty infringements and one yahoo full back was a little too robust. I didn't even see any mention made of any bookings in a game the referee 'had full control of.'
However which way you look at it, this game was hardly the donnybrook with 'tackles flying all over the place' as Timbo #2 stated. So bang goes any justification for Maley's 'despicable' outburst.
For the record, I wanted to have a look at what the Daily Record and Mail had to say that Monday, but it is a most curious thing, the sports pages from that day are missing from the microfiche. You get the front page and a tribute to John Thomson in the editorial inside, but the sports pages are not there.
In summing up the John Thomson tragedy and the hatred towards Sam English from Timbo even in the present day, I think George Orwell summed it up best in his book '1984' and the concept of doublethink
"the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."
Sound familiar?
Last but not least and getting back to Ibrox on the 16th night of August 2008. A wrong that was to haunt Sam English for the rest of his life was in a small way put right, we owe it to his memory that it stays that way.
Yours in Rangers,
The Govanhill Gub.