Print The Legend

I CANNOT remember the line word-for-word, but it comes from the John Wayne/James Stewart Western: 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'. It is delivered towards the end, when Jimmy Stewart reveals that it was Wayne and not he who had actually shot Lee Marvin's hoodlum who was terrorising the frontier town - an act which had made Stewart's reputation.

The line if uttered by a newspaper man and goes something like: "When the truth undoes the legend - print the legend."

Some of today's real-life newspaper men appear to be taking that advice to extremes. This morning, we again read about how poor Rangers, with their "threadbare" squad will struggle in the new season.

FFS guys, start telling it like it is.

Rangers' first team squad for season 2010-2011 contains 16 full internationalists: McGregor, Alexander, Whittaker, Webster, Weir, Broadfoot, McCulloch, Naismith and Miller (Scotland); Bougherra (Algeria), Papac (Croatia), Davis, Lafferty and Little (Northern Ireland), Edu (USA) and Velicka (Lithuania).

Celtic's squad also has 16 internationalists: Zaluska (Poland), Hinkel (Germany), Du-Ri and Ki (South Korea), O'Dea, McGeady and Murphy (Republic of Ireland), Brown and Maloney (Scotland), Juarez (Mexico), McGinn and McCourt (Northern Ireland), Ledley (Wales), Kayal (Israel), Samaras (Greece) and Rasmussen (Denmark).

You might argue about the relative quality of the two squads, but I reckon Rangers have perhaps a touch more; certainly they have more players who might be considered first picks for their international sides.

So, if Rangers' squad is considered threadbare, why isn't Celtic's? It's not as if you have to field all 16 at the same time. In fact, Rangers would have to be in the grip of an injury crisis of unprecedented proportions before they would need to rely on their youngsters in any match.

But still Scottish football's tame journalists - the Lap Top Loyal of newspaper website fame, parrot the Rangers' football management's cry of poor, under-funded us. It's pathetic.

For all their self-inflicted financial problems - and never forget, Rangers' money-worries were self-inflicted: nobody ordered various Rangers' managers to over-pay in transfer fees and wages for under-talented players, some of whom any long-time Ibrox-visiting supporter could have told them: "wisnae Rangers' class). Nobody told them to make talented Rangers-to-the-core Scottish youngsters so unappreciated that they were desperate to leave.

Nobody told them to meekly surrender to outrageous wage demands from players whose conceit of their talent didn't match reality - but they did, and now, when the money has run out and times are perceived as being hard - the Rangers management bleat to a compliant press, who, unquestioningly, out of fear they will be frozen out of the information loop, print the legend.

And don't think I'm just having a go at Rangers; that I'm a bitter, twisted Celtic supporter turning the knife or kicking them when they're down.

Celtic are just as bad - they've also bought a lot of dog mince in recent years, as have the rest of our so-called big clubs.

There's an old story about Manchester United in the dark days post-Munich and pre-Best, Charlton and Law. Matt Busby had been forced to promote a lot of young players before they were ready for the challenge of being Manchester United players and they were denegrated as: "A bunch of Teddy Boys in football boots".

One afternoon, after a particularly embarrassing defeat, Sir Matt was laying into his players in the dressing room, a rare sight in itself, when, out of the corner of his eyes he detected a smirk on the face of "Pancho" Pearson, one of the travelling reserves who had watched from the stand.

Pearson was clearly enjoying his mates' discomfort, when Busby turned on him: "I don't know what you're smirking for", said the boss.

"You're not even good enough to get into this team".

Well, I don't know why the rest of Scottish football is revelling in Rangers' self-inflicted wounds, since they're not good enough to stop them winning the SPL in the last two years.

Threadbare, skint, unable to buy a player Rangers may be - but they will still be the team to beat this season, so don't believe the prophets of doom.