I HAVE to admit, I don't get this tribalism in Scottish sport, and in particular football. Maybe it's got something to do with my youthful exploits on the rugby pitch - where you kick, punch and generally knock lumps off your opponent, then you shower, change and become best mates in the bar. This doesn't happen in football - which is more the pity for that game.
So I've always thought all the aggro which surrounds Scottish football was very silly, but, apart from the quasi-religious/political undertones which wurround the Old Firm, not too-serious.
I had cause to pause and reflect earlier this week, when I met one of my mates for our regular weekly bowling matches. This mate is an ex-polis, who reached the upper echelons of Strathclyde's finest, and one of his jobs whilst in navy blue was to act as Match Day Commander at Ibrox. So, he would, you think, know his way around the game. But, he surprised me this week when, as we spoke, he confessed - he had never been aware of the loathing and hatred for Rangers from elsewhere in Scotland - until Rangersgate broke.
As he said: "Nothing has yet been proved against Rangers during the Murray years; yes, there is strong evidence of probable wrong-doing, but no proof, as yet. So I have been surprised at how many people are keen to believe rumours and to strike out at Rangers - even when, by so doing, they hurt their own club".
But hey, that's Scotland for you.
WELL done to Celtic in Europe this week. They rode their luck a wee bit, but, they got the two away goals and will see the job through at Celtic Park, but, in truth I don't see them doing too-much in the Champions League this season, or even the Europa League when/if they drop into this.
Celtic under the Lawwell/Lennon axis are still, to me, totally unprepared to revert to the management model which worked - that of the Stein Years, when young Scots were moulded into one of the finest teams in football history. I for one do not believe that talented young Scottish footballers are no longer being produced. A percentage of the best will always move to England's greater riches, but, if the club's system is right, enough will stay to give Scottish teams a chance in Europe.
Rangers do not currently have to worry about Europe, but I am disappointed in the club's response to the loss of Goian - by bringing-in a veteran Brazilian and a young Frenchman. I have never seen the young French boy, but, if he's better than Ross Perry or Darren Cole, then he'd have been going to a bigger club than one currently doing time in the Scottish senior football basement.
Their exile from the SPL, I felt, gave Rangers a once in a generation chance to nurture a squad of gifted Rangers men from the start of their football careers. But no, the failed Murray model of buying-in second and third-rate non-Scots seems to now be implanted in the Ibrox DNA, and that is sad.
We need a lead from our two biggest clubs, again, we are not getting it.
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