MORE
THAN 40 years have passed since
my sports-writing mentor, the late, great Ian Archer penned the
definite description of the Rangers support: “A
permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace.”
Over-excited Bears
Sadly,
regardless of whether you believe the current entity is the
continuation of the club born in 1872, or a new club, born in 2012,
one thing has not changed, that ability of its following to embarrass
and occasionally disgrace the club they follow.
There
a section of them were at Rugby Park on Sunday afternoon,
“celebrating” their late winner against Kilmarnock, by wrecking
the roof of the disabled fans' section – in the process endangering
the lives of their less-fortunate fellow fans. And what will happen?
Well the way Scottish football works, it will probably all be
Kilmarnock's fault – it is never Rangers' fault.
The damage at Rugby Park
That
disgraceful episode was not the only part of their behaviour at Rugby
Park yesterday which was unacceptable. The Kilmarnock fans' chat
rooms are awash with tales of Rangers fans, inside the ground,
pushing stewards out of the way to open closed gates from the inside,
to allow fellow fans entry – some apparently without tickets.
And,
naturally, the sound track to the game was the time-honoured one:
they still would prefer to be: “Up to our knees in Fenian
blood...etc.”
Now,
in this respect, this again is nothing new. I left the small Ayrshire
village where I grew up back in 1962, to go to college in Glasgow. I
lodged with an uncle and aunt in Springburn, and Uncle Bobby, on my
first weekend in the city, decided to take my elder brother – a
student at Glasgow University - and I to see Third Lanark v Rangers,
at Cathkin Park.
Prior
to the game, there was a delay in getting in. Fortunately we had
arrived early enough to get in, but, it transpired that, still
outside when the roar of the crowd told them the teams had run out,
the Rangers support broke down the gates and stampeded in.
All
the young boys down were taken down the front and seated on the
track, then, when Rangers scored, they stampeded onto the park and
police horses had to be deployed to clear the park.
That
was August 1962, 57 years ago. Since then, off the top of my head, I
can think of:
- A riot at a pre-season friendly with Queen's Park Rangers.
- A riot at the European Cup Winners Cup semi-final “Battle of Britain” with Wolverhampton Wanderers. (Although, on reflection that was actually in 1961)
- A riot at the Fairs Cities Cup semi-final with Newcastle United at St James's Park in 1969
- Barcelona
- A riot at a Texaco Cup tie in Cheltenham
- The Scottish Cup final riot of 1980
- Manchester
These
were just the major rammies in which the Rangerrs' support has been
involved over the last seven decades; there have been many other
“minor incidents”, plus one or two fines for bad behaviour in
Europe.
And,
let us not forget, uniquely, Rangers were prevented from defending
the Cup Winners Cup, because of their fans' bad behaviour in
Barcelona – albeit that riot was not helped by the heavy-handed
policing of Franco's foot soldiers.
During
this time, “Rangers” has been owned by: the Lawrence
family, David Murray, Craig Whyte, Charles Green, and now, Dave
King.
Over
the same period, Willie Allen, Ernie Walker, Jim Farry, David
Taylor, Gordon Smith, Stewart Regan, and now Ian Maxwell have
been Secretary or chief Executive of the Scottish
Football Association, the SFA.
All
these people, plus the many SFA council members and high heid yins
have shown a remarkable ability to shrug their shoulders at these
serial offenders, wring their hands and ask: “But, whit can ye
dae?”
And,
by the way, before the usual suspects accuse me of being a: “bitter
wee Fenian bastard wi' an agenda;” I am not. Celtic too have a
large – to use the time-honoured newspaper phrase - “lunatic
fringe,” who seem to think they can misbehave at will. They too
have had their issues, particularly in Europe, but, for all the best
efforts of the risible “Green Brigade” etc., when it comes
to which club has the bigger and more-putrid plook on the countenance
of its support – Rangers have it.
And
let us not forget, OBFA, The Offensive Behaviour at Football Act,
a flawed but worthy attempt to lance the boil was largely brought
down by the efforts of Scottish politicians whose allegiance is
towards the club in the East End of Glasgow. To them OBFA was
acceptable, for as long as it only captured the other side's
misdemeanours, once it became clear some of the time-honoured
match-day rituals of the guys in green were unacceptable, it was bad
law, and had to be got rid of.
I
have been saying since OBFA was first opposed, the answer is obvious,
“Strict liability,” make the clubs responsible for the
behaviour of their fans, but, for some reason, football in general,
and the two clubs in particular, oppose this vigorously.
They
will quite happily sell their fans replica strips, they will brand
anything and everything with club logos and take the money, but, they
absolutely refuse to be responsible for the behaviour of the fans
they need to keep the clubs alive. This is a classic demonstration of
power without responsibility.
There
are benefits for the clubs from having a registration of their fan
base, but, perhaps this would require them to allow a degree of fans'
involvement in the management of the club, and that would never do
for the high heid yins, I suppose.
But,
look at the situation on occasions such as Rugby Park on Sunday.
Rangers have some 40,000 season ticket holders, and their ticket
allocation at Rugby Park adds up to about one-tenth of this. So, it
is reasonable to expect, the fans who did get tickets for the away
end at Rugby Park were pulled from the ranks of the season ticket
holders, or at least the official supporters clubs.
Sdo,
Rangers had a good idea who was there yesterday, supporting them. It
doesn't take a degree in nuclear physics to work out:
- What section of the ground the bother took place in
- Which season ticket holders or supporters clubs had seats there.
From
that information, you can work-out where the loonies came from. If
any individuals were arrested, they could and should be immediately
banned, otherwise, letters to the various supporters clubs telling
them something like: “there is clear evidence the guys
misbehaving came from the section where your members were sitting,
please make your members aware of this. They are now on-probation,
and any further bad behaviour in the sections where your members are
sitting and your club will not receive tickets for away games.”
Make
the clubs self-police, get rid of the bad apples and everything will
be fine. However, I accept, it will take time to root out the bad
guys.”
Also,
as I have said before, with modern technology, it is possible to
pin-point where the unacceptable singing is coming from. Same thing,
warning letters, followed by suspension of season tickets and
supporters club allocations and even Ibrox and Celtic Park on match
days would quickly become sectarian-free.
However,
it also needs the high heid yins along the sixth-floor corridor at
Hampden to grow a pair and to start bringing the big two to heel.
- Give them a “clean up your fans' act warning.”
- If they (the two clubs) don't act – start deducting points
- And increase the deduction every time it happens
I
am sure, within a season, bad behaviour would be a thing of the past.
And, by the way, while they may have more loonies than all the rest
put together, the big two are not the only clubs with fans who
misbehave – the smaller clubs need to get their acts together too.
OK,
I have had my rant, however, sadly, I am not holding my breath for
anything worthwhile happening in the short term. After all, when they
have been getting away with murder for over a century, the fans of
the big two are not going to mend their ways any time soon.
And,
the permanent indolence of the “blazers” in dealing with this, is
also unlikely to change in the short term.
And,
lest we forget, there is the duty of a free press to hold
organisations which are not right to account> Aye Right! Apart
from my old mucker, that fine Paisley Buddie Bill Leckie, the
stenographers and cheer-leaders of the main stream media prefer to
turn a blind eye to what goes on around the club, lest the be set
upon by the evil emperor Big James T, and have their
privileges withdrawn for wrongful hermeneutics.
Enjoy
the new season.
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