WAS ANY right-thinking person at all surprised at the week-end bother around Ibrox and in George Square. Having observed Rangers' fans close-up since the 1950s, I was not at all surprised when “Ra Peepul” demonstrated their long-held belief that normal standards of behaviour do not apply to them, in the wake of their League win.
I accept, these are not normal times, but, it would maybe have better served the Scottish Government and the rulers of Glasgow District Council to have said: “We are lifting the current restrictions for one day,” allowed a 50,000 full house at Ibrox for the game against Aberdeen, and kept all the potential trouble-makers in one easily-policed area.
That would have been better than the alternatives – blocking-off Ibrox and its surroundings and George Square and its environs – then trying to control a crowd, a significant minority of whom seemed hell-bent on causing trouble.
Rangers fans' crime sheet is lengthy, off the top of my head I can remember major disturbances in:
Wolverhampton – 1961
London – games v Arsenal and Queen's Park Rangers
Birmingham – game v Aston Villa
Newcastle – v Newcastle United in the Fairs Cup semi-final, 1969
Barcelona – European Cup-Winners' Cup Final
Manchester – UEFA Cup Final
There have also been minor skirmishes, such as the incident which saw the club's then manager in a hedge after defeat to the minnows of Progres, in Luxembourg. I am honestly surprised that some of the Rangers' supporters clubs do not have such “battle honours” woven into the Union Flags they so love to fly.
It is now almost 50 years since the late, great, Ian Archer wrote: "This has to be said about Rangers, as a Scottish Football club they are a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace. This country would be a better place if Rangers did not exist".
“Dan” as those of us privileged to know him as a friend called him, was a brilliant football writer – he was a public-school educated Partick Thistle supporter, but, otherwise was not anti-Rangers. He wrote it as he saw it. Fifty years on, the club remains a permanent embarrassment and an occasional disgrace.
The fact we are still dragging-up Dan's quote, all these years on, helps demonstrate how stupid those quotes from the club's high heid yins on Monday are – the club hasn't had a good name for at least that long.
But, it could all be different; there are measures in place to control the excesses of the club, however, there is a marked reluctance on the part of the Rangers' management, the SFA and, to a degree civic Scotland, to act.
The club claims over 40,000 season ticket holders, in a stadium which holds 50,000 – therefore, they know who 80% of a full-house at Ibrox are, and could easily put measures in place to force them to behave better.
They have a nation-wide network of official supporters clubs; here again, they should know who these supporters club members are, and should be able to have some control on their behaviour.
These supporters clubs generally travel to games via private hire coaches, the police and the Scottish Traffic Commissioners should have a measure of control over the coach operators.
Some fans travel to games by public transport, Police Scotland and the British Transport Police should therefore, be capable of keeping their behaviour on public transport acceptable.
All it needs is the will to be there. And that will to be exercised.
And, just in case, some of the well-behaved Rangers' fans – the majority, feel I am being unnecessarily hard on them, can I say, every other club in Scotland has its share of badly-behaved nutters in their following – just not as many, or as aggressive in their contempt of public decency as the Rangers' lunatic fringe is.
Fans of Scotland's “diddy teams,” the other 40 senior clubs, sometimes wish the football authorities would grant Rangers (and Celtic) their wish, and allow them to depart for the mega-bucks world of the English Premiership. It isn't going to happen, event hough some of the bigger English clubs fancy access to the riches they think lie with the Glasgow giants.
I don't think the English authorities would take too-kindly to marauding gangs of Old Firm fans loose in England each weekend. Imagine too, the potential for carnage if fleets of Old Firm supporters' coaches, from both sides of the divide, came together at some M6 service area such as Southwaite or Charnock Richard, or further south, encountered West Ham, or Millwall or Liverpool fans – total carnage would ensue, I fear.
No, they are our problem and we are stuck with them. So, maybe time to finally lance the boil and adopt heavy-handed means of controlling them.
ON AN associated subject, I see that hardy annual about the Rangers and Celtic second teams playing in the lower leagues in Scotland is back on the agenda. I have long felt this would be a good way of spreading the money around. If either of the Old Firm sides were up at Aberdeen say, on league business, some of those fans who couldn't travel, or had missed out on the ballot for tickets, would surely be willing to go and watch the club's second team playing locally in a lower league game.
Mind you, I still reckon we should be going for our ain wee, Caledonian version of North American sport – with a limited number of full-time teams playing in a Major League, and, as in baseball and ice hockey, associate teams to these clubs playing in Minor Leagues.
Making this happen would mean a few changes to how the leagues are administered, how many players each club could have and, perhaps a salary cap. I would certainly, at the same time, re-introduce what Chick Young dubbed: “The eight diddies rule,” meaning only three non-Scots could be on the park, for each time, at any time. Let's go with Scottish players, rather than cheap, no-better non-Scots.
