maineflyer

Martin Bain says "supporters groups" have "flagged up worries over the conduct of some fans". This appears to refer to certain songs being sung but our Chief Exec doesn't seem able to add facts to vague accusations. Which songs and .... more importantly, which supporters groups. Take your pick, is the Assembly admonishing it's own members or is the team that brought you Andrew Messiah Ellis now exacting revenge by grassing up the hard core fan? Or does "supporters group" now include any sanctimonious twat with a pen and a stamp? Why on earth did Martin ?Bain feel compelled to raise this particular issue at this time? Every cheap tabloid arse wipe is focussing on this today and deflecting from everything the team is achieving. Thanks Bain, you muppet.

Well we knew the situation anyway. Rangers FC is still run by disappointing men with limited ambition ... and what ambition they have is reserved entirely for personal consumption.

If that's the sum total of questions and answers about media bias then it's a disgrace.

Ditto. This latest lifeform to evolve from the parkhead pond will find out soon enough what other mouths learned, that you play first and boast later.

Is it just me or might they also be wondering what they'll be up against this week?

Doesn't matter if he's European player of the century; he doesn't play for Rangers and won't affect us or our team in any way. He did have some talent at Rangers, he just wasn't able to show it very often. Other than providing some folks crowing space, Charlie Adam is now utterly irrelevant.

Water under the bridge. Good luck to him but more often than not he was rank rotten when he did play for us and very few challenged his leaving at the time.

In the same way it's always been, we'll see what kind of team we've got next weekend. Good Rangers teams win at the piggery. Valencia is a welcome distraction but only a distraction.

If I was looking to an OF game without Jelavic I reckon I'd be tempted to give Mr Beattie a wee airing. Just a thought.

Hope you don't mind me asking but where did you hear that?

Because our club is run and owned by arseholes and shallow men.

Damn right he is .... and he'll be a welcome addition to the team when he's turned in half a dozen good performances.

To put it in fairly restrained terms, thank fuck the RST has finally been goaded out of the shadows to do something worthwhile ... and this is indeed a good effort at doing something worthwhile. Please ... do not allow this to get caught up in the usual RST disease of political posturing .... make sure this is pursued through to a result .... something that has us all expressing gratitude for an achievement at long last. This is better but try to get beyond the words to the stage where a difference has actually been made.

Murray always struck me as a coward, a blowhard without the underlying substance some people describe as class. He's one of the very few people in thos world I genuinely despise.

Absolutely right. Leggat is right though, you have to also lay a great deal of the blame for this at Murray's door. If he'd been less infatuated with is own public image, and done more for that of the club, we'd never have seen things slip so badly. With Murray in charge, the absurdity of the ego's at the RST, the smug complacency of the average supporter, the almost universal abandonment of the traditions that used to bind us, and society's growing obsession with socialist republicanism .... we couldn't have been afflicted with worse circumstances.

Again, the worth of this is that it is written independently and is now on the record. The pity is it isn't published in a daily newspaper.

We'll never get a boycott by saying we'll never get a boycott.

That will never happen ... Ordinary fans are the only hope out there. The Assembly will do as the club dictates, the RST will maintain it's form by doing nothing at all.

It's a disappointing outcome but it's certainly not a disaster and there's a great deal that's positive to take out of this. Most important of all is that for once a group of Rangers fans stood together and WERE counted ... personally I would be shouting this from the rooftops as an encouragement to the next group who don't feel like taking it up the sphincter. Really well done Nithsdale RSC. You put a marker down and showed every other Rangers supporter what can be done if people act together. You didn't win the case but you probably won more than Dundee Utd, who you forced to stand and defend the most ridiculous position. If this could be turned into a boycott for even one future game then you would have won everything. If we had an RST worth the name, they would already be organising it .. as it is, with your example as a foundation stone, we can probably do it anyway.

Best just to read the words and worry less about the spaces between them.

I think you're right to say it the way you see it. I'm not into the religious stuff myself, never have been, but I do feel quite strongly about the Union and I detest the insidious attacks on it. Mostly, like you, I'm a football man. However, while you and I have our own personal points of interest, it's undeniable that those other identifiers do have relevance to the general support and are part of the Rangers heritage. I can fully appreciate that not everyone will have a personal interest or commitment to every aspect of that heritage but I think we all have to admit that these things are part of who we are and what has brought us here. I definitely didn't mean any sniff sniff at all but I am kinda suspect if anyone denies these wider issues are part of what defines our community, when they clearly are.

Is he comparing the fate of these two groups??? Or is he comparing the manipulation of the media and the effect of gross propaganda??? The latter I think ... Which seems to me to be where you missed the point.

Regarding the highlighted part of your post, this seems to be utterly unnecessary since no one has ever questioned either your commitment to the club or the nature of your interest. You clearly infer that you are being victimized as some kind of "lesser" supporter, when absolutely no such assertion was made ... Why?

OK, I eventually went back and read Number Eight's post and tbh, I haven't a clue what point it is he's making and figure I got it right first time around. What I will say is that the issue is mainly one of language. If everyone understood the same thing from the words used, or if everyone used the same words to describe the same thing, we would have a lot less misunderstanding. We willingly use the term religion to describe something that is inherently nothing to do with religion. Rangers is essentially 'Us' while sellick is just 'Them'. We surround 'Them' and 'Us' with sets of assumed values and identifiers ... religion is one of these labels but it's got little enough to do with religion on either side. Those identifiers eventually become reflected in the values adopted and shared by the members of Us and Them, and quite distinct differences and tangible emerge. Surely no one is daft enough to think there is no difference in reality between Us and Them, a difference expressed in a broad spectrum of attitudes and values ... political, social, perhaps even involving true religion. Number Eight says the Rangers community is no more unionist that Them ... clearly not true ... but that's the result of trying to see the differences in terms of narrow and specific definitions. Why support Rangers? Because it's Us. Is it because We are protestant - not a chance but We might well identify Ourselves as protestant because of our adopted identifiers This doesn't make us less genuine in our values, it just means the horse comes befor ethe cart. I'm a member or Us, therefore I'm prepared wholeheartedly to adopt the values of Us. Others on this website prefer to deny at least some of those identifiers and find themselves at odds with the likes of me ... not because I'm personally religious or a protestant activist but because I'm prepared to accept that part of our identity, a real identity despite all denials. The Union and our Union Flag, Ulster, protestantism, the Orange Order, the Billy Boys, the Sash and Derry's Walls, the Queen, etc, etc..... that's as much part of Us as the ball hitting the net. Deal with it but do it honestly.

Looks like the Nithsdale RSC boys lost their court case against Dundee Hibs. It will be interesting to hear the details in due course.