"Has any supporters group in British football ever been as permanently aggrieved or brassed-off as this lot?" - Graham Spiers
"Forget all the ****ing detail, just prove Spiers lied" - Mark Dingwall
I guess my reputation on FF is that of a liberal fan, one less prone to the very popular opinion that Rangers are often the victim of media bias. Ironic then I should find myself as the Rangers Supporters Trust representative conducting a Press Complaints Commission complaint against Graham Spiers. The further irony was that was a fair degree of indifference towards Spiers articles in the first place. I detected a weary RST leadership when it came to our Graham, it seems rubbishing our support and the RST in particular is just what he does. Indeed their faces seemed to read "What's that Graham's gave us a negative slant in a story based on an inaccuracy? Zzzzzz" Still I picked up the gauntlet and found myself in the middle of a very interesting saga.
The problem was a Times article which referred to Walter Smith saying the RST were silly for asking if Walter was disappointed with the Kaunas defeat at a Rangers Supporters Assembly meeting in early August. Strange since the RST man at that meeting John Gilligan had asked a different question about transfer funds if Cuellar was sold. Stranger still that John had known Walter a long time and served on his testimonial committee.
Quite quickly it became clear that The Times and Spiers were going to hide behind journalistic integrity and act all wounded-"we wouldn't lie we just reported what we heard." But doing some research showed that the case did not look clear cut at all. Some key factors emerged. Only one other paper touched on the silly question, The Record and Hugh Keevins had a reference to "some Rangers fans" rather than RST. Spiers actually used the silly question angle twice, in his Friday and Monday columns but he clearly gave a different slant in each one. On the Friday he has Walter saying "We had the RST in last week" and yet on the Monday it is "a chap" from the Trust. However the Monday article went further gloating about the nervousness of ordinary punters knees knocking and trying to come up with hard questions when faced with the Rangers big wigs. It was typical sneering condescending type from Spiers.
As emails went backwards and forwards and the PCC tried to broker a compromise Spiers seemed overly confident and the Times backed his words as gospel. It had always been possible Walter had got mixed up and said Trust rather than Assembly and then the penny dropped. If Walter did say Trust everyone in the room would know he was wrong. The list of journalist present had all written on the original meeting and referred to as an Assembly meeting. Was it possible that Keevins spotted the error and corrected Smith's words? It seemed possible. I ran the notion by the PCC, they couldn't make that stick they said even it was true.
I fully expected in the next exchange for Spiers to wheel out a supportive colleague to refer to the fact Smith said Trust. It never happened though and he simply referred back to his transcript. I questioned him on the lack of collaborative evidence and referred to the fact it was inconceivable he hadn't spoken to his colleagues. How could multiple journalists, every single one of them, forget what they had written only a week before? He evaded the more pertinent questions in his replies however he knew that the PCC could not ask other journalists for evidence.
As the case went to the PCC for judgement after three months of debating it was clear a full apology wouldn't be achievable. Still the PCC's judgement when it arrived carried strong and wise statements - modifications and contradictions to the actual quote were noted and Spiers could not be exonerated from one of the charges. The Times data base had to corrected and have a reference noting the inaccuracy. This was done to ensure that the inaccuracy could not be repeated. There was no challenge over the truth of the matter, the RST were right and Graham was wrong - however he got there.
Where does all of this leave Graham? I rather think the pain of dealing with the PCC complaint got to him because he's still at it, trailblazing the cul de sac of his mind. He did it again recently referring to Walter and that same Assembly meeting and another non-RST question about club traditions being lost.
In the sleight of a hand (we saw what you did there Graham) he had the RST associated with the question and the conclusion that at heart we are bigots. In essence he repeated his August trick, used a quote we never made and used it as a stick to beat us with. Graham finds it safer to trade in perceptions, the RST as the hard core, the disguised bigots than find out who we really are. I've bad news for Graham the RST board are nothing like he describes which largely explains why he needs to write in the sneaky distorted fashion he does.
A couple of things became clear over the piece, Graham is a muddled thinker, and he easily gets confused. One very experienced journalistic contact I showed the details of the case to was gob smacked at his embarrassing journalistic practises and records. Also his inability to remember why things were important littered the case. Indeed close inspection of the change from his Friday column to his Monday column suggested contact from a colleague or two over the weekend to tidy up his distorted version of events.
Beyond that he recorded over his transcript tape in typically hapless fashion; how that must have impressed his editors. It seemed as well when the chips were down and the PCC wouldn't accept his version of events at face value there was no sign of support from his colleagues to verify what was said.
The second point is apart from his mistakes how can you not arrive at the conclusion he has an agenda? When he is the only journalist to mention the RST twice when a dozen or so colleagues ignore the quote then you know they've either spotted a mistake or think it is irrelevant anyway. It is a long road back for him to what a good journalist should do, look at matters objectively and deal in facts. It is a sad reflection of his writing when you need to go to the PCC to get his distortions corrected.
Graham always gives off a degree of buoyancy and confidence when he addresses matters of Rangers and their support. It appeared a facile front but once you've been inside his circle you can see it is wafer thin and eroding further; outside what friends he retains in his profession he commands little respect and now the PCC are very aware of his agenda driven distortions. Never once did Graham answer the question if he knew Walter made a mistake just the fact that Walter said what he said. Integrity doesn't really seem that important to him. However I can't see three months dealing with the PCC making him flavour of the month with his current employers.
As he heads downwards career wise to a lower circulation paper, lower wages and having to slum it on radio with the very people he thinks he is so above then it is difficult not to reflect that the only person he is deluding is himself.