Let's get the predictable paranoia from the brain donors out of the way early on by emphasising the lack of logic in a referee desperate to give Rangers the winning penalty at the death making the Gers play most of prior 80 minutes a man down. It beggars belief that people on phone-ins and websites could be so stupid as to even hint at this but we're only too used to such vacant behaviour in Scotland. In fact, the likes of Radio Clyde and 'Your Call' on BBC Radio Scotland, when hosted by Jim Traynor, almost encourage this level of comment, possibly because it's on a par with the intellect of the hosts.
Rangers have started the last two games fielding a team made up mostly of Scottish players. From the outstanding captain and elder statesman of the squad, David Weir, to the young John Fleck, we have a team with a Scottish spine to it, certainly a Scottish spirit to it, mixed in with some talent from slightly further afield in Davis, Papac, Mendes and Bougherra. When you compare this to other sides, including some on the wrong end of European humiliation in recent weeks, it should be welcomed that Scotland's premier football club is placing a focus on talent from our own country. So why does this go almost unmentioned in the press?
When the national team is failing so badly under an incompetent manager and with the aforementioned humiliation for every Scottish side in Europe so far this season, you would think a team of Scots, (many of whom haven't even reached their peak yet) demonstrating this kind of team spirit would be welcomed and raved about. Moreover, if the national team manager hadn't done his best to alienate Rangers as a club and a support, maybe he wouldn't be racing toward unemployment just now after one of the world results in our country's history.
Rangers supporters have historically made up the overwhelming majority of the crowd at Scotland games, and although there has been somewhat of a takeover by the ginger-wig wearing idiots of the Tartan Army - who represent no part of Scotland that I am proud of or familiar with - Rangers and Scotland have a unique bond second only to that of Queen's Park in the very earliest days of association football. The club has provided more players and more captains than any other and it should be remembered by the manager, the SFA ,and the Tartan Army, that the Scottish national side is far poorer without the support of the Light Blues. We have and will continue to contribute more to football in this country than any other club.
An excellent article on FollowFollow has already highlighted the reaction of the Hearts game in Scotland compared to news websites and 'papers in other parts of the the world. This was a superb example of people in our own country desperate to play down the achievements of Rangers, putting a negative spin on the positive, always taking the cynical side and showing, again, a lack of any professional integrity; even an inability to impartially comment on the Light Blues. One may be forgiven for calling these people bigots - we know there is a deep-rooted, anti-Rangers agenda from many sides - but even those that we are told are of a Rangers persuasion seem incapable of highlighting the positives of Walter Smith's team. We are the biggest club in the country so where is our voice in the mainstream?
Glenn Gibbons, who embarrassed himself in print last week after the opening game of the season, further demonstrated his lack of football knowledge by claiming Rangers (lumped in with Celtic) were guilty of not making the most of Scottish talent. It is true that the pseudo-Scottish club in the East End are failing in this regard but Rangers are most certainly not. So we must ask: does Glenn not watch SPL football or can he not count to ten?
I don't want the laughable, embarrassing hyperbole that came alongside Aiden McGeady dribbling past Alan Maybury at Pittodrie, Nakamura's massively over-hyped debut against Dundee United or the SPL runners up beating Aberdeen 3-0. I just want praise where it's due but it seems even the simplest of task is beyond that of the majority of the Scottish football press. We most certainly deserve better.