As Timmy's worst nightmare approaches let's not forget that a European final for Rangers in the UK is also Kenny Scott's worst nightmare. Who would want to be in charge of security for a final barely four miles down the road from Glasgow?!
No doubt Kenny will be in touch with fan organisations and websites asking that we assist in making sure Manchester is a success. I'll now pose the same question in public I've already asked him in private - "If the Dublin Loyal are not welcome at Ibrox what is the point in asking others to behave responsibly?"
The Dubs have 35 members - none of whom have ever caused any bother - you can bet you bottom dollar than if any of them had someone in the Rangers hierarchy would be now have leaked it to a snide in the media. An RSC which runs well-organised trips to Ibrox usually with a retinue of wives and kids - almost a caricature of a "Sunday School bus" type of club. And yet Rangers want to turn their backs on them? Unacceptable.
In fact, the way Dublin Loyal have been treated is so outrageous that it has galvinised many supporters and supporters groups and meetings and votes have been going on in the background to harness the groundswell of support to over-turn the ludicrous decision to ban the banner. Hell, we've even got people who remained silent throughout a two hour meeting in the Blue Room behind them now.
Of course, the case of the Dublin Loyal is not an isolated incident - it's the latest in a long line of infamous incidents where club employees have turned on fans and betrayed the offices they hold and turned their backs on our history and culture.
Of course, paying real attention to the fans has never been high on the Rangers Board's list of priorities. Readers may recall that a committee was formed to look at the long-term with regard to fan culture, heritage and history. Solve the problem long-term we argued by putting in large resources and promoting the club positively using our proud history - of club and country - as the driving force. That committee hasn't met since 11th September 2006. Instead the club have reverted to the old sand in the head approach. And look where it has got us...
Tagsbear made a very telling post on the messageboard yesterday:
" I'd love to get a tape of the Clyde phone in the night before Celtic played Boavista in the second leg in 2003 to compare with tonight's programme!
I was flicking back and forth on the way home tonight, as bears across the World anticipate our first Euro semi final in 36 years, Snyde decide to cater for us by putting on Andy Walker, Davie Provan and Hugh Keevins,
And they discussed when I was listening:
Artur Boruc
Sectarianism
Whether Smarmyarse is good enough for their team to buy
How good Gary Caldwell is now
Salivating over the chances of Rangers failing to win the league because of our fixture backlog.
Oh, and that's right they did mention the game tomorrow, just to tell us to turn down the telly and crank up Clyde."
That level of media bias doesn't happen by accident.
Talking to some of the lads who took part in the protests when Alex McLeish's reign was running out, as we stood outside Ibrox after others had departed, a theme started to emerge - slowly the half dozen or so of us started to get comfortable in one another's company as you do when you share a common bond but don't really 'know' one another. Most of us were there not just because we wanted Eck to go - we were there because we were motivated by a fear of what the future holds for Rangers in the long-run as around us the certainties we've lived our lives by are taken from us.
Rangers are different, Rangers are special. We know that the club represents the best in Scotland and the historic, cultural and religious forces which shaped both the Second City of the Empire and Scotland shaped Rangers and how fans see the club. Let's be frank - people around the world love us, people in Plymouth and a hundred other places travel past shrines of football like the Emirates, Anfield and Old Trafford to get to Ibrox because we're special. They don't do it because we happen to play in blue. We're not a big Scunthorpe.
Spiers is right in one instance. In one passage of his writing he says that there are those in Ibrox who do not see the club as a symbol of Scotland, or Protestantism, or Unionism. For them that has passed and now they just want to manage our decline into mediocrity and pocket a wedge. It's tough to admit that you know in your heart that most of the people in senior positions at your club don't care enough, don't support the club or are too afraid to put their heads above the parapet. It's stomach-turning to realise that our generation has allowed that to happen. But it's the truth.
The world around us is changing and the missing piece of the jigsaw is leadership for those who are culturally Protestant but not church-goers. The attacks on our heritage go unanswered - when a crackpot like James McMillan describes John Knox as Pol Pot and the Reformation as a cultural Year Zero and Kirk leaders do nowt but shuffle their feet you realise how far the rot has gone and how ingrained the Protestant Cringe factor has become.
The background music of society is of course changing. When I was a kid, for example, there were six BB companies up the road in Drumchapel. Now there are none. In the 60s and 70s the Glasgow Battalion had over 20,000 lads enrolled, now it's 2,000. The Troubles in Ulster provided for most of my upbringing a background which warned of the consequences of extremism - since the various ceasefires starting back in 1994 the mood music of the 'peace process' has made people comfortable with rewarding terror and extremism. The cultural foundations of the country, and the club, are eroding and no-one has appeared to champion them. That's a matter of sadness but it also leaves people frustrated and angry.
In some ways you can understand our directors lack of fight - why should they take up the cudgels for a cause whose traditional defenders have long abandoned it? Well, I'd say because it's the right thing to do.
Those lads outside Ibrox gave at first grudging and then open admiration for Celtic's in your face defence and promotion of their culture. Compare and contrast if you will the charity arms of both clubs. Rangers do good work with their three chosen groups each year - this season it's cystic fibrosis research, the British Red Cross, and the Beatson research centre for cancer at Glasgow University. But even in this area Celtic send out messages - whether it's a Northern Irish charity or working with a religious order of priests in Nigeria. We're simply not at the races.
And that, dear friends, has consequences. for us. Like it or not. I read on a messageboard thread this morning that an Open Top bus parade in the event of a win in Manchester is unlikely because of the influence of the sectarian cabal at Glasgow City Chambers. Yet I cast my mind back to the prospect of a Celtic win in Seville where objections to a similar proposal were dismissed out of hand as 'all of Glasgow would be invited to the party.' Anyone daring to object would be slandered with the B word.
The problem in all the above instances - and that includes the Dublin Loyal - is that the leadership of Rangers FC do not lead the charge - they are far more comfortable leading a retreat as that is the only direction in which they themselves will not suffer abuse on a personal level. It's as simple as that - it's about them and not about Rangers.
For the Dublin Loyal to have a laugh about being 'behind enemy lines' and to have their banner removed for it shows how craven the attitude inside Ibrox is. In discussions with various club employees the best answer you can get is that although no-one has objected 'someone might' and because of the Troubles the club 'don't want drawn into all that.' It's a load of tripe.
Is it not time the club started listening to what Rangers fans say and want rather than dancing to a tune called by those who hate us? - and worse, dancing even when the haters have not even presented their latest demands?
Get that banner back inside Ibrox.