andy steel

Ridiculous the way posters are making things up out of thin air. That's your job.

A very fair summary with which I can't argue. You have me there, I haven't been in contact with him. That's disappointing to hear, for if he refuses to engage with reasonable people when they have a grievance with his work it doesn't suggest any kind of open mindedness, which is what I would like to believe exists. I dunno what to say to that. I'd be very disappointed if that were true, but again I must say you've had more dealings with Graham than I have. That's very dispiriting to read.

So what do you think is more likely to see him stick to facts and create prose worth reading - ad hominen insults, or as neutrally as is possible in such a touchy subject pointing out how much he's allowed himself to be dragged down? The human reaction may be to charge into attack but it'll be about as successful in the long term as the charge of the light brigade. Like every Bluenose I have listened in bewildered disbelief to media caricatures of my club and fellow fans - thought not to the point, as some have reached, of blaming the media whenever we sing form the old songbook - but rather than take actions which will do nothing but encourage such caricature, I would rather find ways to stop it. We have absolutely nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. But a keystone of dealing constructively with the media will always be a degree of self-examination, and ironically enough that never seems to be on the table.

I can understand this point of view entirely. But... To be quite honest I'm struggling to believe Spiers just made his story up. Plainly I have to go with the statements we have been given and, from them, it seems like he did. But I'm finding it difficult to believe he just decided to invent a story about a director and publish it. I appreciate this isn't likely to be a widely shared view, and the reaction on social media from haters has been outrageous, but looked at objectively it makes no sense to simply invent a libel and run with it. To what possible end? Even allowing for the amorality of journalism (I don't share the view that it was once any better - it's always been about sales) this would be a mad route to go down for any writer. My fear is that his claim is somehow borne out to be true, which will be a PR catastrophe. Every day that goes by without further statement certainly suggests the opposite - a gross error of judgement on Graham's part and a collective loss of composure by the social & MS media commentariat. Even so, my political judgement, what TB calls my makes me very, very suspicious of this whole affair - while on the surface it looks like a minor victory for Rangers in the battle against media negativity, as usual the narrative has been instantly altered to focus not on the publishing of what we must, in the absence of other evidence, regard as a libel, but on how awful Rangers is. Politically, we not nimble footed enough, we are never nimble footed enough, and I'm always extremely wary of anything which looks like a win simply because I don't think we're savvy enough to achieve one. I sincerely hope I am 100% wrong. Well, to be fair, I can write what I like without worrying about length, tone, deadline or editorial interference, so it's far easier to post on Gersnet than it is to work for The Herald. I know Graham is religious but I don't think I'd call him bigoted, just mistaken and wasting his time. You're right of course about the stature of the world famous people listed and Graham's place in relation to them - I'm certain he would agree as well - but the point I was trying to make is that working in and focusing on the Glasgow fishbowl is only hindering his ability, and, the secret goal of anyone who writes, his posthumous reputation. When the BBC cut together chat show highlights from the 70's they haul out Orson Welles on the cinema 1935-1975, or Richard Harris on the poetry of Christy Brown, or Kenneth Williams and Jimmy Reid on the Union battles of the 70's. Any sighting of Rod Hull and his God-awful Emu are all the more crass in comparison. Who does Graham want to remembered like, Orson Welles or Rod Hull? Finally, all Bears should be able to think for themselves, I'm not a fan of talking about 'right-thinking'. It sounds too much like 'Celtic-minded' for my liking!

Wish I was as cheery as you. I get down in the dumps in a big way, and not even the football is allowed to be a way out of it anymore. It's just depressing.

Sorry to revive a dead thread but the sad news of Terry Wogan's passing throws what we do in our lives into sharp relief. Life is very short, right enough. How many people working in the media think they'll be remembered with affection or love the way a David Bowie or a Terry Wogan will be? I'm not claiming they need to reinvent the wheel or aim for sainthood but surely anyone with an ounce of self respect would prefer not to be thought of as a dullard, oaf or bien pensant lackey. No doubt people who are exceptionally well regarded by millions only become so because they have that extra spark which most of us are missing, but that's no excuse for us mere mortals not to try. I gained very little from school, but the one thing I did get was the understanding that when I was wearing the school tie, I was representing the school. It was what employers, never ones to care about the beautiful English language, call a 'transferable skill', I've tried to use the idea all through my life to not behave in such a way as to embarrass whatever employer I work for, or my family, or most importantly for a comment on Gersnet the team I love to bits. Such a view means I've never been in any doubt about certain aspects of our support - they're kind of hard to miss from time to time - but that self-awareness has never meant an unqualified support for anyone who wanders along, yelling the latest fashionable catch-phrase about Rangers (take your pick - 'vile' has been the adjective of the last few years, but it's always strongly challenged by knuckle-dragger, Neanderthal, and a new entry at No.6, das Herrenvolk) and somehow thinking that hurling abuse at people screaming abuse at you is somehow a solution worthy of adults. It's not a question of there being no problem, but a question of how you solve the problem. And achieving that outcome takes ability. Celebrity has never been more transient, not more meaningless, but there still remains a 'Premier League' of celebrity which is gained by real achievement. Bowie, Wogan, Gore Vidal, Patrick Moore, Dickie Attenborough: no doubt in the near future my life will be dimmed a little by the loss of Clive James, David Attenborough, and the other faces which shaped my cultural experience. UNPOPULAR SENTENCE INCOMING Of all the people I've read, listened to or seen following Scottish football, only two stand out as worthy of joining this company, Archie MacPherson and Graham Spiers. Archie, not because of his commentating, which was in all honesty a bit hit and miss. His writing is excellent though, and is all the better because it was informed by his travels around the world working for the BBC. He covered Olympics in the USA and South Korea, fascist military dictatorship in Argentina, communist totalitarianism in the USSR and the Czech Republic; his borader world view allowed him to treat Scotland's problems, real as they are, with a degree of perspective. Graham is - and I refuse to change this opinion despite all he's written about people like me - the single best writer Scottish football has produced. I never really cared for McIlvaney, perhaps an age thing as he was a little before my time, but he seemed slightly contrived, the professional Scotsman from the coalfields. Very likely an unfair assessment but that's mine. Graham, like every name I've listed so far, refused to talk down to his audience. He didn't confine himself to the boring goldfish bowl of Old Firm immaturity. He treated players, managers and fans as people who might enjoy more than a twenty word paragraph. I admit things have changed over the years and that the relentless focus on Glasgow's dimwits has dragged Graham down to their level. But the point I'm groping for, I think, is that it isn't too late, and that if anyone is to achieve anything from a lifetime spent covering two big football teams, they're going to have to raise their game beyond the point where they're publishing (going by the confusion of statement and counter-statement we have been given) unsupportable accusations, or trying to make a point amid the howling maelstrom of social media. But he needs to get above the herd and get some fresh air, because as it stands his memorial will be some funny diaries in the 1990's and some shit on his shoes from splashing about in the squalid, dirty gutters of Old Firm obsessives. Freedom of speech, as is often said, doesn't extend to the right to shout 'fire!' in a crowded theatre. Life is very short, but it isn't too late yet. Come on, Graham.

Well that seems conclusive. Graham has dropped a clanger if he or the paper can't legally defend a piece he's written and they've published, while Angela, in repeating the piece (or parts thereof) left herself open to disciplinary action too. I think sacking is a bit extreme but I'll cry few tears. So long as editorial decisions are not being influenced by finance I can't see a major issue. See the real problem? Right now, Man U are playing Derby on the TV, a full house, great atmosphere. If you have Alba, turn over to see the morgue that is lovely old East End Park. All that's missing is Dick van Dyke and Jack Klugman running the lines - the place is dead. The game has more pressing concerns than iffy reporting or clubs taking the huff. Who on earth thought going head to head with a glamour FA Cup tie was a good idea? I can't believe Alba send vans round the country laden with gold to compensate clubs handsomely for their loss of income. Honestly, it's hard to keep up enthusiasm for the game up here when it spends so much time wallowing in its' own excretia.

Fair point. I'm kind of working on the assumption that Graham Spiers will publish on this in the next few days, pointing the finger at individuals. I'm not sure he can do anything else if he values his reputation. But if he doesn't, then the complaint from the club would stand, and you'd be absolutely right. PS: Edit - I know this relies on assuming GS is not just making his story up, and while I've read his output with disbelief many, many times I would be stunned if he was just inventing #Rangersbad stuff. Surely no-one could be that daft?

Admittedly true, but I'm not sure you could get bagged for it. Also, as we know, different rules apply in different industries - journos, like teachers, are notorious for closing ranks when taken to task. I'm not certain how far that applies in other walks of life. I view anyone who links football to the political future of my country with grave suspicion. The Wings guy and now, it seems, the Bella guy are overly keen to lurch online with, as you say, #Rangersbad. I just find it beyond credibility that anyone who has been active in the Nationalist movement over the last four years or so hasn't noticed that people who support all teams and none are represented. So why on earth would you wind up people who are on your side over something as ultimately meaningless as a game of football and some crappy journalists being hauled over the coals? Goebbels and the Reichsminister fur Propaganda it ain't, and suggesting it is just makes them look ridiculous. On the other hand, if writers, no matter of what standard, are being censored due to financial pressure that's not cool, whether it's the Barclay Brothers or Dave King.

As you know, that would require a huge change in media working practice, from owner through editor down to journalist. Ironically, the journalist is probably the one who would most like to see such a change - far more satisfying to work on a long, involved piece than grind out 500 words of attention grabbing cobblers - but since what they write won't see the light of day unless they package it in the way an employer wants, they do as they are bid. They all have mouths to feed, after all. With the current business model so heavily reliant on clicks, you can see why papers only want what we might call 'pish' to lure punters in. But it's unsustainable in the long run, because I believe the majority of customers don't want the Barnum & Bailey approach. Sensationalist claims of impending doom tend to lose their effectiveness at the eighth or ninth time around - Frankie's #Rangersbad, echoing the media desperation which has seen even merited criticism of the Scottish Government dismissed as part of an #SNPbad campaign of crying wolf, will drive football customers away just as politically minded customers have abandoned newspapers for their analyses. The appetite for pot-stirring rubbish grows ever smaller, outside the fantasist-obsessive world of bloggers or, on here, the Cult Of Rabness, gathered around the pyramid with the all seeing eye atop it, intoning arcane chants about how poor our signings are, asking where King's money is, ignoring the lessons of The Fall, etc. There's only a small window left for some outfit to reject the click bait route and focus on high quality, before traditional media is rejected completely and irrevocably. Interviewing widely, and recognising that the people spoken to are people, with all the foibles that come with humans, and not some de-personalised representative of a knuckle dragging monolith, could find an audience - but this is an exceptionally conservative country, where anyone with a radical business vision usually takes it elsewhere. Many years ago I thought Graham Spiers was the man to do this - he had wit, elegance of tone, an interest beyond Glasgow's boundaries. No doubt we all have our opinions on how that worked out. Again, there's an irony - serious, forensic, well written examination of just about every football club (and certainly Rangers - I doubt anyone takes a board member's 'word for it' anymore) could produce interesting and potentially sensational copy - the industry has been horribly mismanaged for decades if not longer. Instead of which we get acres of print about flares, songs and Kris Boyd's psychic insights. The meat is there, but is usually ignored in favour of a thin diet of gruel and bullshit. #Rangersbad can't be a media crutch for ever. The club has been for nearly half a decade the go-to guy for easy sensationalism. It's certainly worked for the industry to a point, but it can't be used forever - at some point we either croak completely or stabilise. I think most of us here feel we're stabilising. If that turns out to be true, the media will have to either catch up or be left behind.

Fair enjoying this RM tribute thread.

At a guess I'd imagine accompanying behaviour is likely to have been a factor but since I don't have the details to hand I really can't. But if you actually think you're living in a police state there's little point attempting debate.

I doubt anyone is thrilled at the thought of putting legal restrictions on the amount of abuse an individual can shout - and let's not pretend anyone is going to be lifted for reciting extracts from The Social Contract - as it seems over the top, but if that's what it takes then I'm for it, as there's not a lot of evidence to suggest the hard core are going to do it voluntarily. Get a grip. Are you allowed to organise marches, protests, events or in some other non-confrontational manner chastise the powers that be? Can you vote? Do people 'disappear' in our jails? Is torture commonplace? Do death squads roam the streets? Do we have functioning representative Parliaments? Are our elected officials accountable to the electorate? Are you and I allowed to post shite on message boards? Comparing the hauling up of people who had decades to stop shouting about the IRA or the Pope and couldn't do it to the hideous oppression that millions of people had and have to suffer under totalitarian police states is outrageous. I've been round this particular Mulberry bush way too many times already without ever achieving anything on the subject. What's the point?

Whatever else the reason, it's hardly to win votes - for every non-football fan who nods approvingly there's at least one supporter who fulminates against it. I don't think there's a big issue with bigotry or hooliganism either, so why do we, for example, repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot by belting out the favourites whenever we take a step forward? First game after admin, the coverage was unusually positive as the fans sold out the stadium. Papac sent off, chants, coverage negative. Against Hibs the other week, great performance, great bounce back from the 'blip', out comes the chants. It happens again and again and it is depriving our club of money - we should be sponsored by Toyota or Pepsi, not an online gambling site. However, the kind of mindset seen in post #4, and 5 is doing us no favours at all. Either we deal with it - effectively or permanently - others will deal with it for us. I've been whining about this for over a decade online so we can hardly claim we didn't see it coming.

Thought provoking read, enjoyed that. Clearly in an ideal world there would be no need for heavy handed legislation or the jailing of people for singing, something I find hard to justify no matter the content of the song. But it must be remembered - and I don't think it is, very often - that it is only following the introduction of legislation that the idea of people behaving properly is gaining any sort of traction. Fans were asked over and over again, for years and years, to get their houses in order and did not do so. It's s difficult issue, no question, but I'm not convinced we fans haven't to a large extent brought this upon ourselves - all fans, btw, not just us.

I bow to no man in my handwringing, and I'm well aware there are scumbag fans everywhere, including among us. But if there's a gate at Ibrox where you can saunter up with cans, bottles, and lighters - I'll give the author coins - I haven't seen it these past thirty years and more. My boy had to bin a half empty carton of Um Bongo when he was about 12, presumably on the grounds that if it was launched from the middle of the Broomoloan Rear, the wee straw could have taken someone's eye out. The chances of getting past the vigilant young coppers on gate duty with a slab of Tennents, a case of Becks and more lighters than the wee man with the board half way up Argyll Street has to be sheer fantasy. I'll stand corrected if shown evidence but that seems most unlikely.

<outraged> I'm not a journalist! Far too prolix, I can never shut up. Graphic equalizers, the definition of redundant. Completely useless dancing lights - now you too can be Giorgio Morodor in your back bedroom! I think you would be the Jimmy Sanderson of Gersnet Radio, BH. And given your eloquence, and your opinions, and if for no other reason than the traffic would go through the roof, you are definitely going to get a mic if this ever happens. John, I could post every day on here about being a Rangers fan - I wouldn't like to talk about other teams simply because I don't know much about them, and to be honest I don't care about them at all. But The Rangers is such a...thing, such a multiple faceted thing, which means so much to so many and which means so many different things to so many. It's a never emptying well of inspiration for the pompous pensman inclined to mulling the metaphysical aspects of life. It really is the agony and the ecstasy, being a Bluenose, and it takes an act of will power not to come on here daily and ponder. That's not a photo, that's a playable video off Youtube and everything so you can hear Roger Waters croaking about Billy and his Radio Waves!

Given your previous reply contained this: easily the most ignorant post I've seen on this board, the chances of me taking advice on what's stupid and what isn't from you are not next to zero, they are zero. You can waste your time replying to my posts but you won't get a response after this.

Well, maybe Rangers fans should do the same.

Sadly, you can drop the 'portly' and just use 'really, really fat' at the moment, Frankie. I can only dream of being portly. Roll on the spring.

This is the problem, agreed. But while we twist Rab's arm to let us go live, we could be uploading 30 second videos to youtube or the like; we could be providing, as you say, a twitter feed; even an enhanced version of the match day threads which I at least use as much to keep up with games as I do the radio. We can make a start and get the idea out there before having to get a license (by 'we' I mean Bears, not necessarily Gersnet).

I didn't realise the show was now political, I haven't really heard it properly for a long time. Although, Andy Cameron's story about the turnip making your eyes water was hilarious. Fwiw from a Nat pov linking football to politics drives me nuts, as its almost always people who assume being a Nat automatically equals not supporting Rangers, like Jim, Stuart and guys like that Wings twit. But there's only so much use in flogging a dead horse - the guy's gone, and he'll get on with the rest of his life without Bears having to listen. I only used Jim as an example that should we lose the attentions of the media, we're not losing much & anyway if we're that annoyed, we should do something about it ourselves.

The BBC is under concerted attack in the whole UK at present, both from groups who don't like it and especially from the UK government. They've lost about (from memory, could be wrong) 5,000 staff with lots more to go, are closing services hand over fist and are unlikely to see out the decade given the Conservative hegemony we're pretty much guaranteed thanks to Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leader's job. The amount they care about a spat in a regional sports department? Next to zero.

I have a radio, which sits on the kitchen window sill. I prefer to call it a wireless, purely because I prefer the sound of the word, but I think probably everybody under 70 call them radios. It usually get switched on when I'm making a cup of coffee or doing the dishes, a chore which has become less frequent after the purchase of a dishwasher a while back. Apparently dishwashers are actually more efficient and environmentally friendly than filling a sink, squeezing in a dollop of Fairy and leaving the bowls to drip on the draining board. Who knew? The draining board, like the term 'wireless', is probably on the way out. I'm all for technology, but it's a bit unsettling to see even the unremarkable kitchen ikons of childhood disappear one by one: the twin tub went years ago, and although my Granny had one well into the 80's, I feel I must resign myself to the fact that the 80's were, in fact, ages ago; the 'big jar' of salt is gone from most pantry shelves, as are the pantries themselves, crushed beneath the remorseless march of Swedish flatpack; and freezers have gone from the wee compartment at the top of the fridge - itself previously a modest, waist high machine - into great grey behemoths, propping up your now equally massive fridge. They loom above puny humans to such an extent that you can hardly reach up to that dusty bottle of toffee liqueur someone left on top of it at a New Year's party three years ago. It's like someone left the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey lying about the place, decided to fill it full of yoghurt, milk and beer and plug it in. Everything changes, and he who tries to resist the tide of change risks looking foolish indeed. Rowing against the current - and currents only become so when the bulk of the population provide their motive force - tends to rely on articles of faith which the individual is unwilling to abandon. As time goes by, the person who resists is left higher and higher up the beach as the tide washes away from him, whether he be a Dixie lovin' Confederate in America's deep south, a Voortrekking Boer in the high veldt, or a portly Scotsman clinging to the expression wireless when he means radio. Some things are worth lamenting when they pass. Others, less so. At any rate, this thought occurred as the unwelcome but still familiar tones of Jim Spence once more entered my kitchen on Off the Ball. Apparently laid off by BBC Scotland a while back, it would take a special kind of person, one who sneers at von Masoch as a diletantte lightweight, to take pleasure in another person's employment misfortune but I will admit to not being especially upset that Jim has moved on to pastures new. Seemingly he is carving a career as a freelance so I wish him good luck, something he was unable to offer my club when it was being butchered by all and sundry. I confess to only hearing the last 15 minutes or so of the show he was on, so he may have revealed some earth shattering news earlier on. But in the portion I heard, a sad voiced Jim lamented the change which has overtaken journalism of late, specifically the abilities of clubs to release news via social media and so cut out the media middleman, to wit, Jim. This is an interesting philosophical question, and comes in a week which sees Rangers play Sat-Mon, and so sees Rangers online types desperate for something to write about, so I seize upon it gratefully. First, is obtaining news tidbits from a club's media liaison wallah really journalism? Certainly Jim made a career out of it, and so did the likes of Chick Young in Glasgow, Frank Gilfeather in Aberdeen, and an older chap in Dundee back in the 80's, Dick Donald. It's a living, but journalism? Really? I was given David Walsh's book The Program at Christmas, the tale of how Walsh pursued Lance Armstrong down the years until finally he was vindicated and Armstrong exposed. He also relates how he went after Irish swimmer Michelle Smith, all the braver since (a) she was a national heroine and (b) Walsh, too, is Irish, and so was exposed to much vitriol. Proper journalism, an unshakable belief allied to a lovely touch with words. Can you imagine Chick or Jim hunting down a story like that over almost a decade, and presenting it to an astonished world? Me neither. Can you imagine them finding Ronny Delia or Steven Thomson to ask them powder puff questions? Me too. If there's any regret that Jim is off air it's that I would love to hear how he would have justified Thomson's one man wrecking ball of a chairmanship at Tannadice. Always one to jeer at succulent lamb journalism, Jim never seemed to notice that he was being fed succulent bridie by Thomson. Fair enough if that's how you roll, but don't dignify it by calling it journalism. What we have in Scotland is people who leech off football clubs and fans and make a very comfortable living doing so. A minor point of interest was that, while Jim felt his career downshift was more to do with this change in journalism, it might also have been connected to 'a coterie of Rangers fans on Twitter' who, as we'll recall, felt Jim was slightly less than objective in his reporting. Whether this be so or no, I was intrigued at Jim's claim that whenever he met Rangers fans in person, they were unfailing pleasant toward him. This is a line regularly used by media types, which relegates the abusive tweeter to a gutless coward, unable to back up their online anger in person when confronted with the corporeal presence of the writer. It may well be true. But in this case, it's odd. My rapidly failing memory seems to recall Jim, at the height of his role as Persecuted Speaker of Truth, claiming he was accosted by an uncouth Rangers fan while out walking with his family. If that happened, it was yet another episode in the 'Things fellow Bears have done which really embarrass me and geez, I wish they wouldn't' file. But if Rangers fans were always fine with him in person, it seems strange. I could handle people being mean to me - it happens often enough. I'd find it a lot harder to forget someone being so to my family, though. That's not the sort of thing I'd brush off, no matter how magnanimous a chap I am. It was a curious, minor aside at the end of a radio show but one which sticks in the mind as atypical of Jim - just unreliable. Our very own Clive James, always unreliable. Which brings us to the rather more important question of Rangers and journalists. Since we've apparently banned the awful Chris McLaughlin, again, and since the BBC have responded by flouncing off to The Ubiquitous Chip en masse, declaring they're never going to darken the door at Ibrox, again, we can consider what it is we gain or lose by this. Certainly, we gain by not having to accommodate people who plainly don't like Rangers, and don't feel any need to pretend otherwise. If you can't stand your neighbours, you don't usually ask them in for dinner. We gain by not having to listen to BBC Scotland types talking about our club, something (with a few exceptions) they've been unable to do in any rational manner for some time now. But what do we lose? Actually, nothing. Long ago, younger reader, when there was no mobile phones or internets your only way of knowing the score, other than to go to the game, was to listen in to whichever station had the rights to the game. That simply isn't the case any more. Various TV stations run a rolling scorecard. multiple websites do the same, even the SPFL website will keep you up to date with the action. All you're missing is filtering the game via the imagination of whoever is reporting on it for the BBC or whoever; call me jaundiced, but I can't think that's a great loss. Football has never attracted the Neville Cardus or the John Arlott standard of reporter-writer which cricket produces in abundance, and if now is no great shakes overall my lifetime has been no golden age - I grew up listening to Richard Park, for Heaven's Sake, a man whose late night music show was called Dr Dicks's Midnight Surgery. It's taken many years to come to terms with that. Thank you, Radio Clyde 261. But there's an opportunity here, I think. Although you can and probably do get your match updates from sources other than the wireless, the lack of match coverage right now must surely inspire someone amongst the Rangers family to provide that service themselves. And not the club, the fans - if the team are playing like 11 Ian Blacks, it needs to be called out for it. Imagine an online feed with someone who can summarise, with a bit of panache, what's happened before throwing to, say, Brahim Hemdani to tell us why Zelalem is a passenger, Clark will never make it and Zinedine Zidane secretly wishes he could play like Nicky Law. Perhaps Rousseau could appear for tactical analysis, or Compo to tell us why it was better in the 60's. Even one of the alarmingly high proportion of posters here who hail from the east might have a go. This last might require voice recognition software for those of us who only speak English, though. There's a chance here for someone to step forward and provide the service fans want without bias and baggage. It might need some fancy footwork regarding licences and equipment, but it's do-able. No-one wants coverage which bangs on about how brilliant we are - it would need to be able to kick hard if needed. But it's not beyond the wit of man to do. I'd love to wander into my kitchen one afternoon when I can't get to the game and tune in to Gersnet Radio. We could be more like the guy in the paper - less moaning, more doing. Let's not leave it to the likes of BBC Scotland to decide when they can and can't be bothered covering our games. Let's not bleat and moan about others. Let's get off our backsides and do it ourselves.