Socrates MacSporran

Socrates MacSporran
No I am not Chick Young, but I can remember when Scottish football was good

Monday, 5 August 2019

A New Season, But, The Same Old Same Old

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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