For football fans, particularly in a nation as obsessed with the game as Scotland, this is a crying shame and is emphasised when you look south of the border and see Marcotti, Hansen, Richardson, Gray, Souness and Wilkins, amongst others, as regular pundits and writers. But what has become apparent in recent years is that this lack of football knowledge has been disguised under something else and these kiddy-on sports journalists in Scotland have turned social commentators to hide their ignorance of the game.
The sectarianism debate (yes, I see the irony in using 'debate' but we'll get to that later) has peaked; we wake up every day wondering how Rangers will next be kicked in the gut through via the various mediums. This simply cannot continue without a major backlash and the frustration has been growing for a long, long time.
The issue has been fuelled by Scotland's First Minister and Celtic season ticket holder Jack McConnell. The man who, when asked live on radio if he found The Sash and Derry's Walls offensive, had the programme cut to a convenient ad break to avoid the question. McConnell is an intellectual pigmy; he has never opened up the debate to Rangers supporters because that would involve challenging not only the anti-British, pro-terrorist stance of his club and its supporters, but the issue of sectarianism outwith the veil of football.
All of this begs the question: are any of the anti-sectarian crusaders genuine about ridding Scotland of the country's real shame or are they using this as a platform from which to beat Rangers? I don't think we need to ask the audience with that one. Furthermore, opening up this debate would bypass the usual suspects, bringing in academics, politicians and supporters groups, thus rendering most of the journos irrelevant.
As if the wannabe football writers aren't bad enough, it appears everyone wants to have their say on sectarianism and we have to put up with more self-obsessed rants from people that know even less about the sport and its related issues.
Last weekend saw such an example with Anna Smith's column in the Scottish Sunday Mirror; a rag you wouldn't turn to in desperation if the Andrex ran out and you had recently finished one of those "Find-A-Loo" curries from ASDA.
"a club that was as driven by its anti-Catholic mentality as it was by its hunger for trophies."
"it is Rangers Football Club who have fostered this bigotry for generations."
"Rangers blatantly cultivated this sectarianism"
This is the literary equivalent of Anna Smith playing with her rampant rabbit in public; an ignorant, attention-seeking "LOOK AT ME" piece from someone clearly getting off on giving Rangers a public kick. Of course, aside from yet another tiresome effort to put "Rangers" and "bigotry" together in that ol' chip, chip, chip fashion, the most worrying part is that Smith's hate-filled rant passed editorial review, and that should tell you exactly what we're up against.
Let's cut to the chase: we don't need nobodies - either working in or out with football - who have no knowledge of the Rangers to tell us what we should be doing. The Rangers support is capable of becoming self policing given time, education (not condemnation) and leadership. The point of leadership is the most important here but, frustratingly, the one we lack. The Rangers Supporters Trust does phenomenal work in both educating and leading from the front but the only body that can have the entire support thinking along the same lines is Rangers. Unfortunately, that would require David Murray and Martin Bain to become vertebrates.
So not only do we have a chairman who lacks ambition - something historically alien to the Rangers - we have a man in charge who, along with his tanorexic puppet, are apathetic toward Rangers being slated, slandered and lied about on a daily basis. When you consider what has already been said about us as a support and about our club with no response from Murray, the only way the club will speak out is if someone who cares about the Gers and understands the importance of good PR takes over from Sir Dave.
Back to Anna Smith for a moment, we were also treated to:
"This is a club who, for as long as I can remember, would be reluctant to sign a Catholic until Mo Johnston in 1989."
When someone is so ignorant as to put a bare-faced lie into print, it's a sign that they should be dedicating their time to something else. Similar to Sanjeev Kohli's lies about Mark Walters' Rangers debut, when this kind of nonsense appears in print the myth grows and people believe it, repeat it and quote it as fact.
Part of the problem appears to be that a lot of Rangers fans either don't know or aren't comfortable with our own identity. A recent thread on the FF forums asked if Rangers were a Scottish or a British team. Something like this should be second nature to every bluenose, something we should be absolutely comfortable with and immensely proud of. When the question has to be asked it shows you how far we have to go collectively.
The recently announced RST Summer conference is a fantastic opportunity not only to address the point of the identity of our support but to bypass those who do not matter to discuss the accusations of sectarianism in an open and honest manner.
Until then, when faced with our current predicament it is up to all of us as a group to defend the good name of the Rangers. Our club needs help and no one else is in our corner.