When it comes to FF though, it expands on that football discussion for many of us, to discussing the bigger picture. The "bigger picture" means different things to different people, but encompasses many varying views on subjects from politics, to press corruption and lies, to the way the club is run both on and off the park, to the current agenda against all things Rangers. It's a great place for that wider discussion, and when necessary, to mobilise the support in to action where it is required. Anyway, I digress.
Ironically, in the week where we were also beaten by Dundee Utd, all the words spoken by various commentators about Rangers current state do not match up to comments made by new United manager Craig Levein about United, prior to them beating us. He spoke of a malaise round the club, of attitudes being all wrong in every corner of the club, and that being his biggest obstacle to overcome, to make the club successful again. He could just as easily have been speaking about Rangers.
For all Rangers fans, it's a depressing time, for those who only care about how the team play on a Saturday, to those who care about every aspect of the club.
If we look at the important aspects that interest both sets of supporters, there is little cause for optimism anywhere.
Starting with the team and the management of the team; it seems that the vast majority of the team have now given up the ghost, and accept that we will not win the championship, and that acceptance is showing every week. As well as it being evident from the way the team are playing, the body language, and comments from players and management are the most naive and negative I have ever seen come from Ibrox. From Papac's "It's not as easy as I thought" to Ferguson and Novo's "Maybe we're more suited to Europe" to PLGs weekly "I don't know why we are not winning but we're working on it", there is simply not the right attitude or mentality before they've even stepped on to the park.
More galling is the fact that, given our current predicament, the club have absolutely no idea how to placate the fans in any shape or form, both in how the team can recover, how the club will fight our enemies, and how the club will treat it's customers (that's how they see us).
As to how the club will fight it's enemies, the lack of action over the Papal Pitch Invader affair both in the event itself (How McIntyre can keep his job after this shambles I'll never know), and in the days after. It says much of the club, that an FF poster's mock statement from the club, knocked up in minutes, sticking the boot in to the Invader, and ridiculing him, as well as disassociating the club from him was far better than the one from the club which came hours later.
The shambles over the minute's applause for Bobby Shearer, and the lies surrounding the decision to do this is possibly the most distasteful piece of action ever taken within Ibrox, and made me embarrassed to be a Bear. It's clear that not only do the club not care about results, they also don't care about our enemies trying to get us punished by UEFA (again), and do not care one iota about our traditions and values that legends such as Struth and Shearer worked towards over many years, by likening us to the serial minutes silence disrupters across the city in deciding that we should have a minutes applause.
GS posted a thread the other day asking if the club we supported existed outwith our heads. I'm afraid it doesn't.