The Real PapaBear

couldn't agree more, gs. I was talking to a friend of mine about Ness after his performance against celtic two years back - this friend goes back to the early 1960s - "know who this kid Ness reminds me of?" I asked rhetorically upon meeting him for the first time after the game; we both gave the answer at the same time: Baxter. Not saying he would be as good as Baxter, but there was *something* about the kid that made us both thing the same thing. I do agree, though, that Durrant would have been one of the best midfielders ever to come out of Scotland if he hadn't been crippled by that ssc. I've never seen such raw talent as he had.

Good for that guy. Respect. There should be something to mark the spot permanently.

i'm looking to buy a chair: can't decide between a Stressless or a la-Z-boy - and a footstool; of course, Oh, and some popcorn. I want to be sitting proper comfy when this shower of shits hits the fan; don't want to miss a minute of it.

Indeed the Billy Boys would have been a reprehensible bunch who slashed people and ruined lives. And if UEFA decide we're not allowed to sing about them I have no great problem with that (although the loss of the opening of the chant is something to be regretted as there is *nothing* else like it in world football to get an instant atmosphere going) - but it does show where we are light years behind that mhob; public relations, campaign pressure and organisation. How, otherwise can we explain the fact that Rangers have been threatened with stadium closure for singing about a street gang whereas our fhreinds from the East End can sing about terrorist organisations, - who don't s much slash people as, well, blow them to pieces - with nary a murmour from UEFA. P.R. Alliances. Friends in High Places. They have them; we don't. We really should put some thought into reclaiming the chant, though: How about: Hullo! Hullo! We are the Teddy Boys Hullo! Hullo! You'll know us by our noise They tried tae kill our fuckin' club But we refused tae die For we are the Govan Teddy Boys! Go on, admit it you'll be singing that all day now.

Ahhhh; shaaaamme. Oh, well. Hey-ho. Life goes on.

Even if they do "strip" us of the titles, our response should be simple: continue to list them and refer to them as ours in every official publication and utterance from the club. They can come up with whatever plots they like in dingy back rooms, but we know we won those titles and trophies fair and square - on the field.

When you think now what we took as being normal then, it beggars belief. It was, if you were a kid anyway, fairly normal procedure to feel your feet leave the ground when leaving games - that would cause a Public Enquiry these days (thankfully).

I was visiting my Gran's that day and my Uncle was at the game. The news started to come through and of course there was no way of contacting anyone in those days once they were on the bus. By the time he got home there must have been about 14 people in the house. He'd stopped of at the hotel at the top of the road as usual only to be told to get back home asap. He didn't know the full story until he got home and could follow it on radio and tv. I'll never forget his face, sitting on the couch watching the news - totally shell shocked and ashen faced - you could have jagged him with a needle and he wouldn't have noticed. For about a year or so afterwards, my dad took me to the Enclosure - which I hated because it was so flat you couldn't see well and you couldn't move around - and never up any of the Copland Road end stairways. Man, I'd forgotten all that stuff.

They *don't* have the power to ban anything, far less songs - and if they have such a big say in politics, how come Wee Eck tellt them to GTF on gay marriage? The Catholic church and their outdated, bigoted ideology, is a political and, pretty much, social irrelevance in Scotland.

This is the same BBC that continues to employ Cosgrove; a man who spent most of this year past indulging in the most virulent anti-Rangers propaganda. When the tribunal result found in our favour, his response was an embarrassed semi-apology, which he then de-facto retracted with his renewed verbal assassination of both club and supporters. This continued on saturday when he referred to Rangers as the "latest iteration of the club", i.e a different version to the old club. This nasty bigot continues to slander Rangers and Rangers fans on a weekly basis with complete disregard to the facts - and we are being forced to pay to be subjected to this from him. It's time for some organised reaction against him whenever he pushes his lies and promotes disinformation about us. Time to start earning your money JT.

The 'Rangers Family', insofar as it exists, consists of people who have a love for the club; that's something we all have in common and it's the reason we're all on this forum. Beyond football, I suspect we'd split into the same camps that fans of (almost) every other club would split into - and speaking personally, nothing p!sses me off as much as being told I'm "not a real Rangers man" because my politics don't happen to chime with the sort of reactionary, right-wing, jingoistic, sectarian throwback that gives all of us a bad name. Believe it or not, there was a time when the Red Flag and the Internationale was as popular among those who attended Ibrox as the Union flag and God save the Queen. I'm not thinking of you when say any of that, StB, or sain that you're guilty of any of it; I'm just making the point that we all have one requirement only to be a family member - and that's a love of the club.

Agreed. It's bombastic and stupid - particularly now where we have scores to settle. "If an enemy has alliances, the problem is grave and the enemy's position strong; if he has no alliances, the problem is minor and the enemy's position weak." - Sun Tzu

not sure if you're kidding, bud - but I really would. Ugly fhukker, but a cracking player.

is it just me? or is there a 'coincidence' that this throwback to bigotry story about Sandaza is put out on the same day as TGFITW run riot in Dundee? If reports from the Dundee staff and police are accurate, this was the worst piece of behaviour seen at a Scottish ground since, well, the 3-0 game where they ran on to the pitch, coined the referee, jumped from the stands and then threw every missile thye could find at Rangers players leaving the field

Merry Christmas guys - and what better time to remember that although we may have different viewpoints, we all share the same passion: Glasgow Rangers

I like Strachan - always have and I reckon he'll make not a blind bit of difference to Scotland. Great entertainment though.

No I wouldn't; nor am I suggesting that GOS should have refused anything. My point is that far from being congratulated on the gesture Celtic should be disdained for it since their reasons for making it were entirely self serving. As the man whose birthday we're celebrating next week says: â??Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.â?

What? You're not going to allow me a wee bit of hyperbole? Not even at Christmas?

Really, Anchorman? You wouldn't care? All that matters is the shiny toy that makes you kid smile? Doesn't matter where it came from or who provided it? Take the most toxic brand you can think of today; Starbucks, Amazon, Israel, Al Quaeda - if the toy was supplied by any of those, wouldn't you 'give a feck'?

There's a huge difference. Our decision to give that money to a charity was a tactical move to cut the legs from under Dutd and/or the SFA. The charity was a political device. We were not giving this money to charity in order to prostitute ourselves before the court of public opinion. We were not, unlike celtic, running round the country looking for the cheapest way of getting the most fawning attention for the least actual involvement. The charity we gave money to was the innocent benefactor of political machinations. In fact, so detached are we from the charity, I doubt whether 50% of Bears had a) heard about the charity or b) could name it. I think it was Erskine, bur i wouldn't bet the house on it. Celtics 'gift' to the GOS hospital was the result of a premeditated intervention, the sole and entire purpose of which was to promote Celtic football club. that sick kids benefited from this was an added bonus for CFC - not a motivating factor.

If Celtic are so concerned about the goings on in a hospital they have no links with in a city they have no connection to in a country they pretty much despise, you have to ask yourself; why? Their motivation is not the welfare of the children, but rather their own self-promotion and using an occasion like this to do it is pretty low. 20 stolen presents; what's that? £2k tops. As I said, cheap advertising. Cheap in all senses of the word.

"Celtic offer to replace Christmas gifts for sick kids stolen from Great Ormond Street hospital " Sure, it was a nasty thing to do, stealing 20 x-mas presents destined for sick kids - but to use this event (a crime committed , not in their own city or even in their own country) to try to get some (extremely!) cheap publicity for themselves, Celtic have sunk to an all time low of slimy bandwagon-jumping.. If they were that concerned about kids christmases, there are a thousand more deserving but lower profile things they could have done closer to home. Why would a Scottish team with Irish roots suddenly jump in (with a blaze of PR) to help England's more famous children's hospital? Oh, wait...I think I've answered that myself. Utterly, utterly boak inducing!

If that could have been better, i don't know how

absolutely. And Why not? They are buying the prestige and status that will go with being the owner of the club. This isn't Brechin we're talking about. The owner of a well run Rangers can enjoy quite a bit of access to some top European tables and the company of some extremely powerful people; good for the ego and potentially good for other business.

Eehhhmm...slow down there, Bald Eagle..."more representative of the 'average' Scot than any other club"? Really? Are we more representative than Motherwell fans? Or Montrose? or Dunfermline or Kilmarnock? I think the Rangers support is a fairly accurate microcosm of Scotland, - much as the mhedia would like to portray us as unionist, protestant anti-everything reactionary bigots -, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that we are more representative than others. Of the 7 Rangers fans closest to me, there are 3 SNP voters (one committed, 2 floating), 2 Labour, 1 Lib Dem and one Tory. We have different views on employment laws and the re-nationalisation of the railways, Trident and gay marriage, Palestine and NHS reform. 3 are left wing, one is right wing and three are in the middle, somewhere over the fuel tank. One is an anti- catholic bigot (guess which one) one is married to a catholic, two are married to non scots, two are divorced, one is separated, two have remarried and one is single. 6 are heterosexual, one may be gay. One is a commercial go-getter, one is a bit of a misfit; we're all workers. Every one of the 7 is worth having a drink with although one can get a bit repetitive after his third pint. And I'll bet just about everybody on this forum could have said the same thing, more or less - but more to the point, so could a fan of every other club. Except one. I do agree, however, that we need to start making the case that we *are* Scotland in microcosm - we're not a freak show of frothy mouthed, union jack waving bigots and we need to start meeting mhedia character assassination head-on. And I'd suggest starting with the BhBC and motor-mouth Cosgrove, whose anti-Rangers obsession has long since metamorphosed from normal small team jealousy into a much more sinister bigotry. Now his party piece is that Rangers may be innocent of wrong doing but their fans blame everyone but the club for its own demise - despite the fact that nobody has done any such thing. In short, he's spreading just more and more falsehoods and slander about the club and its fans - and we're paying for him to slander us.