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Anyone looking at me from a distance would be thinking that I'm crapping myself, that I really didn't want to be there. These people would also have been puzzled. Especially if they were the same ones who had been lucky enough to have witnessed me do a smashing wee two step cum Rumba cum Can-Can in the style of Meg Ryan, after we had been texted with the news that Arteta had opened the scoring half an hour earlier.
The fact is, those people who had the good fortune to see my schizophrenic behaviour only called it half right. I was crapping myself and I didn't want to be in that queue. But it had nothing to do with 'Oblivion' being my 'Nemesis' if you'll pardon the pun. It's just that I was dying to find out if the teddies were still a goal to the good at the Cesspit as we approached half time.
Folks, weekend breaks may be a good thing and an ideal time for some to recharge the batteries. They just don't do it for me, especially on OF weekend. I can safely say that is one wee treat I will not be repeating. The sense of helplessness, especially when you don't even have the saving grace of a TV to at least give you the opportunity of judging for yourself how the game is panning out, is all too evident. Whether you're out for a stroll or waiting in queues for rides at the 'carnival'.
So it was only in the hour or so after the game that I started picking up the story of how the game had went. Some of it is of course obligatory by now. Poor defending by bad defenders and consistently bad passing from people you expect better from.
Throw in Bobo getting away with his customary terrible 'first' tackle, (by all accounts he was getting away with the blooter right through de Boer until the Dutchman retaliated) and of course the hatchet job on Lovenkrands. Then sometimes you come away thinking you really don't need a TV to know how OF games are going to pan out now.
What will never change either is the hypocrisy of a/ The Scottish Press, and b/ The legislators of the Scottish game. For example, because I was down south, I purchased an English version of 'The Sun', and inside we had Bill Leckie (Supergoals page 19, under the heading 'Scotch Fist') telling us that Craig Moore had been on the receiving end of a wallop from a gloved hand. However in the Scottish edition of the same rag, he claimed that Moore was one of the guilty parties involved in an unseemly stramash. Why is it that the Scottish Press cannot condone bad behaviour (and this was an assault) in an OF game if it is the Celtic player on his own, who is the guilty party?
This applies across the board from the gutter press to the so-called quality broadsheets. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read Tom Lappin's account of the match in The Scotsman. In an article, which he based around the BBC's performance. He quite blatantly and deliberately avoided mentioning the game's most controversial moment, which in fact happened up the tunnel at half time. But did mention that the cameras caught Barry Ferguson calling Momo Sylla a bad name.
Meanwhile in the same paper, a hack who goes by the name of Angus Wright tried to pin the blame for this unseemly episode squarely on the shoulders of Fernando Ricksen. Now this guy has watched the same camera shots as the rest of us, yet quite incredibly fails to mention that a Rangers player has been banjoed by an opponent. This is what passes for objective reporting here in Scotland.
Which brings us on nicely to the cheats and anti-Rangers parasites that preside over the game in Scotland. In 1990 Souness was caught up the tunnel by STV's cameras. Despite the fact that this incident was not included in the referee's report of the game and despite the fact that the SFA's own house rules stated that TV evidence could not be used, The SFA DID use TV evidence and punished Souness.
Twelve and a half years down the line we live in a climate where TV evidence can now be used by the authorities. We know this because Rangers full back, Kevin Muscat, is set to appear before them because of an alleged elbowing incident on a Livingston player a month ago. Again despite this not being reported by the referee, according to The SFA, TV evidence is all that is needed. I can live with that.
What I cannot accept though, is the fact that last week, a Celtic player is caught clearly by the TV cameras live before the whole of the UK, yet the SFA will not take action because (and this is the killer) the referee didn't include it in his match report?
What we've got to remember here is that referee, Stuart Dougall, is a real stickler for the rules. This guy actually times how long it takes Rangers players to leave the park after he sends them off, (Reyna and Numan at Tynecastle in Dec 2000) yet he saw this particular incident but refused to take any action? To top it off, ex referee David Slyme - another coward in his day, tells us that Dougall is the new Hugh Dallas. That being the case, the Heaven help Rangers is all I can say.
The fact is though, the SFA have acted in the manner they have against Rangers, can quite blatantly break and flaunt their own rules, because they know they will get away with it.
A penny now for manager Alex McLeish's thoughts? Because after Muscat was indicted for the incident at Livingston, he said that he felt that the dice was loaded against the OF. Oh really Alex? The fact that Douglas is getting away SFA free after last Sunday does tend to blow a huge big, bloody crater in that particular argument.
Mind you, how any Rangers fan thinks we can stand our ground and fight our corner when we have a lily livered nowhere man like John McClelland in charge of the club is beyond me. I'm actually embarrassed as I type this. Embarrassed for me, blushing for him and weeping for the club after the Chairman's about face with the tangerine top.
Lest we forget, a month ago he was defending the concept and the colour of the new top to the world. Now after criticism from scum who along with Celtic have conspired to sweep the sporting scandal of all time under the carpet, he has caved in. What a joke John the Jellyfish is. Although it is only people who hate the club who are laughing.
While we are on the subject of the sporting scandal of all time. Does it not tell you everything you need to know about this dreadful, wee country that on the day the BBC refused to replay an incident, which would have put a Celtic player in the dock they chose to screen a programme that delved into a scandal which has rocked horse racing. There's nothing like good old fashioned investigative journalism and in Scotland we actually do not have anything like investigative journalism! Certainly not, if it means putting the yahoos under the spotlight!
I really don't think the old board at the Stydome has got anything to worry about. There's as much chance of reporters here in Scotland delving in to the sporting scandal of all time that was Celtic Boy's Club as there is of me being made the next administrator of the huddle board.
While we're on the subject, there's just no escaping the moral highground the yahoo likes to think he's aspiring to. There was a letter in Wednesday¹s Herald from a deranged wee wifey who made reference to Rangers apparently condoning wife beating. Only in Scotland, could a newspaper print a letter implying that a football club dismissed domestic violence out of hand, yet totally ignored the fact that the other club involved in the debate have actively covered up a generation of child abuse.
Now, you would think that people who supported a club who ignored what Jim Torbett was up to for nigh on thirty years would shut the hell up when it comes to morality. Think again. They are so warped and their hatred of Rangers is so all pervading they just can't help themselves.
Not that this hatred is the sole preserve of the male yahoo. Yahooesses can get worked up by nothing also. And this was point was rammed home rather forcibly by the quaint wee story about the lady who phoned up Celtic and made an official complaint that Barry Ferguson had racially abused Momo Sylla (whose specific job on Sunday was to physically abuse Peter Lovenkrands) during the game. Ferguson of course did no such thing. He's clearly seen on the video calling Momo "ya prick." But when have facts ever stopped yahoos and yahooesses being offended by us big, bad ole Prods?
This week's Pots and feckin Kettles award is one hands down and by the length of Springfield Rd by yahoo politician and Scotland's First Minister, Jack McConnell. I'll say no more than this. Mr McConnell, who pals about with an IRA sympathiser and collaborator. Whose parliamentary playmate is a piece of republican trash who claimed Rangers fans would wreck the RC Shrine at Carfin. Who supports discrimination in the apartheid education system. Has declared that he wants to outlaw sectarianism. It would be laughable if it wasn't so serious.
It reminds me of the hilarious Denis Leary sketch when he muses over the fact that Keith Richards of all people said that you shouldn't do drugs, because they are bad for you. Leary then said, we can't do anymore drugs because there's none left. Richards has done them all himself!
Well, it's a break from football this weekend what with Scotland being in action and all that. It's really quite simple. If Barry Ferguson injures himself playing through the pain barrier for this lot, then he should be stripped of the captaincy of the club. Rangers can ill afford such unprofessionalism at this or any other stage of the season.
Enjoy the break folks,
The Govanhill Gub.
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