Where 30,000 red cards go up inside Ibrox people notice. When they go up in the 18th and 72nd minutes as requested, people notice more. Unless, it seems, you are a Rangers director.
Shortly after the magnificent response to the Sons Of Struth mass leafleting campaign a curious story was spun - the 50 or so leafleters it was said had told people receiving them that the red cards were to he held up to show sympathy for Nelson Mandela.
Mr Mandela’s death was actually marked pre kick-off with a minutes applause. Why would a red card (a RED CARD!) be shown as a mark of respect on the 18th and 72nd minutes?
It was, of course, all tripe. Merely a whispering campaign starting point to try and undermine any visible opposition to the Board.
I don’t credit those currently on the Board at Ibrox with much credulity but three of them have now stated that the red card was a Mandela tribute to people I know personally and trust. I can only conclude they are either wilfully ignoring the groundswell of distrust which continues to be such a feature of the Rangers support or they are trying to deceive. Or they are gullible.
Or, like many of us, they simply don’t want to hear bad news and cling to any evidence which disproves the information their senses are providing.
I have scanned and printed both articles which appeared on one side of the red card posters. You will note the total absence of any mention of Mr Mandela.
Roughly half the crowd goes into Ibrox in the final 15 minutes before kick off. Can you imagine trying to give detailed instructions about holding up the cards for Mandela would have been? It’s farcical.
I’ve gone a long way round here to deal with a lie. And in doing so I have, despite my dissection of it, spread that lie a little. That’s how disinformation works.
The worrying thing is that some of our directors appear to genuinely believe this disinformation and have dismissed the evidence provided by their own senses.
A similar dismissal of inconvenient facts afflicted many of us, at times a substantial majority of us - look at how Whyte, Green, Duff & Phelps, etc - all manipulated various scenarios to throw us off the scent when evidence was piling up.
It is perfectly valid to hold a different view on a subject - and as such the directors are entitled to their view that they can steer the good ship Ibrox into calmer waters. But we as fans have vastly more experience of football than they do, we fund the whole thing! We are entitled to our views and not to have them misrepresented.
The fact that some in powerful positions wilfully wish to dismiss reality and substitute it a lie is very worrying on two fronts - gullibility and responsibility.
It’s time to wake up to the facts boys.
