In normal circumstances I would support any initiative to crack down on the culture of hatred that blights so many lives in this wee country of ours, but unfortunately the circumstances we Bears find ourselves in are anything but normal. I have watched with increasing incredulity as a seeming endless procession of characters from the First Minister of Scotland to Paddy McGinty's Goat have lined up to take pot shots at Rangers Football Club and its supporters. Apparently we are the root cause of the evil that besets Scottish society. Just us.
Some small, irrelevant it seems, factors have been missed or basically just ignored in the headlong rush to join in the feeding frenzy on the carcass that was once the reputation of Rangers Football Club. Small factors such as 500 years of antagonism between the faiths, Catholic bigotry (shock horror yes it does exist) and of course our wonderful apartheid education system to name but a few of the contributing factors, seem to have been airbrushed out of the equation completely when the debate turns to matters bigotry.
Every sports “journalist” (hah) bar one, Mr Leggat, has taken his turn to stick the boot in. Even non-sporting journalists in so-called quality (hah) publications like The Herald have been pitching in with their twa-pennyworth. We have even been blasted by the Boys Brigade for bringing them into disrepute, Andy Cameron's toe curlingly embarrassing “I am a Bluenose” (to the tune of Will Your Anchor Hold) the reason. Any link, however tenuous with Rangers FC or its supporters is now seen to be totally unacceptable and shameful. Our enemies have achieved spectacular success in demonising Rangers to such an extent that we are basically becoming a social pariah in our own country.
To add insult to injury however, has been the reaction of our friendly neighbourhood rivals to all of this, especially in the wake of UEFA's announcement that they are investigating Rangers supporters “discriminatory chanting”. The Jolly Craicsters are overjoyed and have gleefully joined in the crusade, providing “evidence” to UEFA of our obnoxious disgusting behaviour over the years, especially, and get this, the racial abuse we have dished out to black players over the years.
Well feck me square ways!
Sorry for the profanity but it really is the only reaction you can have when confronted with hypocrisy on the scale being demonstrated by the professional victims from the East End.
The Mhanks are reporting US to UEFA for racist behaviour???
I'd laugh if it things were not so bloody serious. This in the wake of the biggest organised display of racial hatred ever seen in British, never mind Scottish football, I refer of course to Mark Walters debut at the Piggery, the details of which we are all too familiar with for me to have to go into the grisly detail. There are a few other choice morsels we can throw into the mix here. The Anderlecht Provofest, Vigo riots, the Amsterdam shooting and fighting at the ground, Blackburn and the banning orders (Sellik have the proud record of being the only club north of the border, I refuse to grace them with the description Scottish, of having supporters with banning orders), the mile high fight club and the emergency landing at Cardiff, the stabbings in Suville and other general disorder that led to numerous arrests (another spot of Timothy revisionism is the claim that there were NO arrests at Suville). All in all we have a horrific catalogue of unsavoury incidents that would normally encourage the guilty parties into keeping a tight reign on their opinions of others.
Unfortunately however we are dealing with Timothy here and there is nothing normal about these people at all. This has been clearly shown by the outbreak of mass sanctimoniusness amongst them. Our nation's newspapers and message boards have being polluted by these cretins demanding action against the Gers, we have the likes of the Jungle Bhoys mob sending supposed evidence to UEFA in the hope of getting the Gers banned completely from European competitions. Apart from displaying another glaring example of their pathetic hate the Gers more than they love ra Sellik mentality, as stated earlier the hypocrisy, the sheer brass neck of this mob beggars belief.
The usual GFITW, UEFA award, no arrests in Savulle, everybody loves us, welcomed all over the world hogeash is being trotted out to justify their sanctimonious preaching at us on how to behave on European journeys. Well sorry Bhoys, like your good selves, your argument just does not wash. If, and it is a very big if, we were ever to look towards another group of supporters for inspiration I would suggest that we look at the original and genuine winners of the Fair Play award, the Dundee Utd fans who despite losing to Gothenburg, stayed behind to cheer and applaud the opposition players at the presentation ceremony of the UEFA Cup. Of course the Utd fans also do the rest of the footballing world a major favour by refusing to go on and on and on about a game of football they actually lost. Perhaps the Mhanks are the ones who should be taking lessons on how to behave in Europe.
Sorry I digress. The point I would really like to make is that the continuing assault on Rangers and the supporters is only going to increase the siege mentality already prevalent amongst us. A real danger is that the some amongst the vast majority of the Rangers support, who are basically decent, normal, hard working law abiding citizens, will become that fed up being constantly labelled and attacked as knuckle dragging bigots that, the exact opposite of what our critics are crying out for will occur.
I can see some of the moderates amongst the Gers support saying GIRUY to them all and letting rip with everything in the old songbook, especially the naughty stuff that we are currently working so hard to eradicate from the stands. The attitude may well be adopted that we are dammed if we do, dammed if we don't. This must not be allowed to happen, we must fight back against all of these slurs and accusations in defence of our club. This no one likes us we don't care attitude sounds nice when you bellow it out at the game, but in the real world it is an exceptionally dangerous path to follow, as it will allow our enemies to tarnish the reputation of the Club beyond repair. Some Bears might not care that our club becomes so identified - but I do hope, no, I know that there are many thousands out there who share my feelings.
In recent years our Chairman David Murray has been coming under pressure from members of the support, he has rightly criticised for his handling of the clubs affairs that led us to the brink of bankruptcy. This criticism reached unprecedented levels this season with the very public demonstrations outside the stadium, and at games calling for his removal. Mr Murray has managed to diffuse the situation somewhat with the new finance deal and more spectacularly with the quite simply fabulous capture of PLG as new manager.
May I humbly suggest to Mr Murray that he grasps the opportunity here to re-establish his reputation amongst the rank and file Bears, and to unite the support in a manner previously unseen before. Under attack from all sides he must come out and wage a ferocious defence of the Club and supporters. He should work in conjunction with the supporters groups, the Alliance & Trust to coordinate this defence; he should take meaningful action against the perpetrators of the more scurrilous attacks against us.
If he were to do this I am sure you would see the supporters rallying to the flag in similar fashion to the Motherwell, Dundee Hibs and Hearts when their own clubs were in peril. Some may think this a bit melodramatic in the respect that we are not in immediate danger of losing the club. However, if we stand idly by and allow our enemies to constantly chip away at us then eventually our club could die. How many potential supporters have we already lost due to the lies that have been spread about us over the years?
To use a footballing cliché, at the end of the day we are only a football club. All we want to do is go out and support our team and enjoy the game. And yet it seems that we are public enemy number one in Scottish society. How the hell have we managed to find ourselves in this situation?
Apathy dear friends, apathy. The most pernicious enemy of all. Time to wake up Bears.
So far but no further, draw the line in the sand here Mr Murray.
I'm all clichéd out now.
Rochdaler