It's Terrible When You Get Proved Right.....
The banner unfurled (as above) at a recent Glesga derby has never been so apt this morning. I'm sure the people of Manchester will be looking at their raped, pillaged and violated city and thinking the exact same thing.
Our sympathies this morning to go the people of Manchester.
At least the axis of peace has returned to the world and the football gods proved that they still do exsist.
Fact Of The Day: R*ngers were the worst ever side (statistically) to qualify for the UEFA Cup final. They also willnae be getting a Fair Play Award in the post anytime soon..
Manchester, so much to answer for.....
Posts
12 comments:
Strangely enough, I was watching “Run Fatboy Run” while the game was on. I kept on thinking about the Eddie Murphy look a like they have up front when watching it.
Got a text when it was 1-0 (thanks Puyol) and the film finished just as Zenit scored the second goal.
Karma.
Already this morning Talksport are “reporting” it was a small minority and that 15 million of them where well behaved. Heavy handed polis being mentioned as well. Seems to be a common theme that with a common denominator…
The BBC and Sky pictures are different though.
David Moyes “Celtic” credentials left him years ago and Andy Walker is just another ex-celt pandering to the unwritten rule.
Happy to be going to work today…
From Mr Spiers yesterday in The Times
A club with a poison at its core;Football;Opinion
Utterly predictably, the fate of Rangers is once again to find excitement
on the field marred by loutishness and delinquency off it. Losing the Uefa
Cup final in Manchester on Wednesday night was no disgrace for Walter Smith
or his team, whose very presence at the game was a triumph in itself.
Beyond the stadium, however, before and after the match, events told their
own story of how accursed Rangers remain as a club.
Willie Waddell, a memorable Rangers manager of the early 1970s, whose team
brought the 1972 European Cup Winners' Cup back to Glasgow, once aimed the
following simmering words in the direction of his club's supporters: "It is
to these tikes, hooligans, louts and drunkards that I pinpoint my message.
It is because of your gutter-rat behaviour that we are being publicly
tarred and feathered like this."
After that European triumph of 36 years ago, Rangers were banned by Uefa
for the rioting of their fans, causing Waddell to implode with rage. The
blight of Rangers - defined by loutish behaviour and bigoted chanting among
groups of supporters - is proving a durable social poison. Here we are four
decades on, still lamenting the seemingly endemic way in which these
supporters behave like primitives.
The chaotic scenes in Manchester on Wednesday night - a Zenit fan stabbed,
rioting Rangers fans, and 15 policemen getting injured - were frightening
to behold. Moreover, the footage released yesterday and shown on Sky News,
of hundreds of Rangers fans charging at police and setting upon one who
stumbled to the ground, will make the already weary Ibrox hierarchy cringe.
Rangers have a repeated get-out for these episodes: the script always says
this is "just a small minority" of fans. Moreover, as incident upon
incident passes with the club's supporters - at Villarreal in 2006, in
Pamplona in 2007 and now in Manchester in 2008 - it is always "heavy-handed
policing" and not the Rangers fans themselves who are said to be the blame.
Well, this is no small minority of Rangers supporters, and nor are the
Greater Manchester Police renowned for their truncheon- wielding brutality.
Instead, this is a football club with a poison somewhere at its core.
Such scenes will enrage those legions of decent Rangers supporters who love
their club and follow it with impressive ardour. The post-match eruptions
were all the more depressing on Wednesday because the vast Rangers support
gathered inside the City of Manchester Stadium had created a brilliant
spectacle of colour and noise, including many who stayed on to applaud the
Zenit St Petersburg players on their 2-0 triumph.
Other aspects, however, were familiarly ugly. During the day before the
match, and certainly in the drunken aftermath, there was too much evidence
of the sort of primitivism that enraged Waddell 36 years ago. In
particular, bigoted or sectarian chanting remains an excruciating pastime
for too many Rangers supporters, despite repeated pleas by the club to give
these anthems a rest. For two days in Manchester, if you were based in the
city centre as I was, you woke up to these dirges in the morning and you
went to sleep to them at night.
Since being punished by Uefa two years ago for such antics by their
supporters, Rangers have hired PR people, as well as Kenny Scott, a
seasoned and former high-ranking Glasgow policeman, to try to gouge out the
social disease which has clamped itself to the club.
Scott, in particular, knew very well the inherent dangers of 100,000
Rangers fans descending upon Manchester for the Uefa Cup final. The
downside of Rangers reaching such a prestigious game in as close an area as
the north of England was that it was an open invitation for the club's less
impressive followers to display their capacity for drinking, aggression,
and sectarian abuse. I would go so far as to say that Scott, as head of
security at Rangers, will have been cringeing at the very prospect from the
moment the club qualified for the final.
Some spoke yesterday of another Uefa investigation of Rangers, but this
surely won't occur. It is almost impossible for Uefa, however much they
care about the image of football, to weigh in on such affairs as public
disorder in the city centres of Britain.
But who has the answer to this blight? Can anyone offer Rangers a cure for
this ugly delinquency which afflicts a sizeable group of their supporters?
Until that cure is found, the once-proud name of Rangers FC will always
trigger thoughts of yobbishness and bigotry. The club, to be blunt, is
paying a heavy price for its century-long antipathy towards signing
Catholic players, a policy which planted this bitter harvest.
Ian: I just came back in from watching them. It's not a given that they will win on Monday night.
If it wisnny for a bad goalkeeping error you would have struggled to find a decent chance in the shite that was trying to passed off as football.
We just need to win....
Hiya Kevin,
I was disorientated with the BBC site off, couldn`t get any details.
Nerves on alert!
It's a final day shoot out once again. Maybe....Can the Paisley Buddies do use another favour on Monday?
It's aboot time 2003 and 2005 were put to bed...
Keeping the score down would be a help and about all we can hope for, however......
I`m starting on the Camomile right away! :-)
We may be wasting our time guys! BFDJ has predicted that Rangers win the next two matches and Celtic only draw at Tannadice.
Whatever happens, WE can handle it! I almost hate knowing that from experience!
How much pressure is needed to ensure that Gus and Tango put out their strongest teams? :-)
That's good the BFDJ is hurting sooooooo much that he is making rash predictions.
It's as rash as a polis dug bitting a nice ex con for doing nuthin but ask what time it was....
So since I'm now bricking it I will make the rash prediction that the Huns willnae win another game in the league this season.
I'm off to CP.....It's something I have to do...
We are under pressure! Another Ex, Billy Dodds this time has another twist on the way on Thursday. I thought I was avoiding the grief by sticking to the BBC news. Wrong again. :-(
I`m not wishing defeat on anyone but I hope my team wins!
Forza
Feck me...I hope St Mirren even try to keep the score down....
2 gifted goals so far and a game fit for an end of season....
Well, second half was a bit better....they really are shite.
Onwards and upwards hopefully now.
It`s all about the Bhoys at Tannadice. We know that they will give everything and hopefully the chances will be taken.
We`ll see soon enough.
Post a Comment