JohnMc

Do they Rab? I'm not sure that's true actually. Most nationalists I know are convinced Pacific Quay is filled with MI5 agents spreading interference. BBC Scotland have a number of issues but I'm not convinced they've got an imbalance along those lines. In my opinion they've issues around getting working class people into broadcasting and there's a disproportionate number of Gaelic speakers.

I hear you Rab, Hearachs need watching.

It means nothing to me.

I've a confession to make, I've met Donalda MacKinnon, and I quite liked her too. ? Never met Stuart Cosgrove though, so I'm not compelled to say anything nice about him! I caught the last half hour of our match on the tranny. Dodds and Thomson were pretty enthusiastic about us, even Rob McLean was complimentary. Surely the BBC can cover our away matches? Why didn't they have someone in Ufa commentating? I also turned on to hear the Celtic score, although the lack of pings on my phone had already told me they must have won. Pat Bonnar and Scott McDonald were the most rational and realistic of the people on the programme at that time, which tells you the level of cheerleading the others were engaging in. When Richard Gordon built up this Sunday's match as being fascinating "for neutrals" Bonnar's instant retort of "no one is really neutral" made me laugh. Big Pat clearly knows his BBC colleagues pretty well now.

You'd fancy us against Spartak at home, away might be different. Likewise Vienna I'd expect to be on a similar level to us. Villareal should horse us if they're taking the tournament in any way seriously though. I'm just delighted we're even in this draw, let's not lose sight of that.

Reporting Scotland late evening news bulletin had the 'EBT story' as their headline and number one story last night. Even ahead of the First Minister being evasive over the growing sex pest scandal engulfing Alex Salmond. I understand that stories that feature Rangers might get elevated beyond the sport department but did nothing else happen in Scotland yesterday? That some retired footballers might have to pay more tax is not headline news at anytime. Even the tabloids haven't ran with this non-story as a headline today. There's a genuine political story on the go, where the previous First Minister, ex-MP and arguably the most influential Scottish politician of the age, is suing the Government he used to lead, is accusing the senior civil servant of leaking damaging information and the current First Minister, and that his former colleague and protege knew about this for months. There have been rumours about Salmond being a bit too touchy-feely for years, so where's Mark Daly and why isn't he busy finding pissed-off former interns who were too scared to talk about Salmond patting their arse when they walked past or were advised not to find themselves alone in a room with him of an evening? I'm a defender of the BBC, but BBC Scotland have completely lost the way of themselves. This is simply another example of that.

Aside from any political persuasion I find it astonishing that someone can be a Glasgow councillor and profess an interest in football but not know the history of the Loving Cup ceremony or what it means today. This man is supposed to represent the people of Glasgow, all the people. How is it possible to be ignorant of this? As a club we need to be smarter politically. I wonder if we've ever invited Nicola Sturgeon to the Loving Cup ceremony? We should, aside from being First Minister she's an MSP for Glasgow South, and Humza Yousaf MSP for Glasgow Pollok. They might say no of course, but that's on them. I could see a number of the crowd less than happy, but that's on us. Any First Minister should attend important matches at Ibrox, particularly if it's in their constituency and The Loving Cup ceremony should transcend politics, religion or belief. Our history is as important as everyone else's we should evangelise more.

The most surprising thing about that story is that Frank McAveety is now seen as some who stands up for 'us'. Remarkable. How many of the posters on here are members of their local community council? Members of a political party? A Trade Union?

But it's not in the past though, is it? That's not how addiction works, it's not behind him, it's in front of him everyday. He literally needs to deal with it all the time. I mean he's only 'clean' less than 12 months, he could easily relapse if he's not on top of it. I didn't read the article as a piece on Rangers but as a piece on Lafferty. Read in conjunction with English's article on Lafferty's addiction issue last year I think English comes across as someone who is concerned for Lafferty's well being. My reading of the latest article is that English has concerns that a high profile, big money, high pressure move to a club like Rangers might not be in Lafferty's long term best interests. Now that might be because English doesn't like the idea of an inform player joining Rangers or it might be because he has genuine concerns around Lafferty's ability to deal with the added pressure. We can all speculate on that. Lafferty hasn't conquered his gambling addiction, he's dealing with it, those are two different things. Lafferty's career is littered with missed chances, metaphorical and literal, he's someone who has shown glimpses of his ability, then hidden it away again for long periods. I wan't Lafferty to succeed, he had a good season at Hearts and could be a very useful addition to our squad. But to pretend he doesn't have potential to self-destruct again, to attract the wrong kind of publicity and create issues around the club is naive. There's lots we can criticise BBC Scotland about, I'm not convinced this article is one of them.

We played well, didn't panic trying to get a second, kept it tight and go into the second leg with a lead and no away goals. That's pretty professional and mid-table Russian sides are no mugs either. Arfield caused them problems initially but they altered their shape to contain him and that worked. That gave Ejaria more space and I thought he had his best match for us. Our left hand side isn't working as well as it should. With both Flanagan and Kent being right footed we lose the ability to cross early and attack the by-line. Barasic obviously fixes that problem domestically. How big is Lafferty now? He was always tall but I don't remember him being so powerful looking! It's going to be hard over there but it's in our hands and we should create chances.

Is it this article that people are unhappy about? - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45276855 Got to be honest and say I'm struggling to see what's wrong with it? I know a few recovering addicts and speaking about their addiction seems to be something they all do as a matter of course. They don't keep it secret, they own the problem. The signing of Lafferty is a risk. His career has been blighted by inconsistency, he's undoubtedly 'high-maintenance' (I know of some fairly unimpressive stories of his professionalism when he was first with us) and when you consider that playing for Rangers brings a profile and scrutiny that playing for Hearts simply doesn't then there's going to be pressure on Lafferty that he didn't deal well with before. He's older now, and seemingly wiser, certainly his home life seems more stable now. I hope it works out for all concerned.

I'm not seeing victimhood, I simply think his nationality plays a big part in the type of coverage he gets. Morelos has had 2 yellow cards in his last 12 appearances plus the red at Aberdeen that was rescinded and shouldn't have been given. Scott Brown has had 2 yellows in the last 13 matches, a similar record to Morelos, yet he's held up as the ultimate Scottish professional. Leigh Griffiths has had 2 yellows in his last 6 matches, Lafferty 2 yellows in the last 5 games and Naismith 3 yellows in his last four appearances. Yet you don't hear Griffiths described as an Edinburgh hothead or Laff as an Ulster hothead or Naismith as the sociopath he clearly is. The fact that Morelos doesn't really look like 'us', comes from a country where they speak Spanish and is popularly portrayed as being lawless means he gets the reputation for being angry and petulant when he clearly is no worse than most.

You don't think his nationality and appearance have played a part in the lazy stereotyping? I lost count of the number of 'drug gang', 'cartel' and 'cocaine' references that peppered his early appearances from apparently serious professional journalists. If he'd been a young, white Irish player for example would they have made 'bombing', 'knee-capping' and 'alcohol-abuse' puns do you think? No chance. He's clearly no more 'hot-headed' or 'immature' than half the players in the league, yet he's the only one being regularly criticised for it. He got illegally barged three times by the great white hope that's McKenna at Aberdeen, how much criticism have you heard of him since then? I've no doubt the fact he's a Columbian gives rise to this bull-shit nonsense that he's hot headed and out of control. He's treated differently and I can only see one explanation for that.

That raises his profile and fuels their dislike, but his nationality and appearance fuel the lazy stereotypes.

There's an element of racism in the Morelos criticism. The dark skinned Latin must obviously have a hot temper because that's what all these Latin chaps have, isn't it? I mean players like Naismith, Lafferty, Griffiths and Brown, you know white, British sorts, they never get involved in goading the opposition, or react to persistent fouling or play the game right on the edge. No, it's just those dusky, foreign types that do that and need criticised for it. Morelos is judged to a different standard than other players.

I'm trying my best not to get carried away, but as weeks in football go this has been a very enjoyable one and I aim to make the most if it. The last couple of years have been so bloody awful that professional away performances against half decent European sides should be greeted like long lost friends. A word for Murphy who does a power of work without the ball, tracking runners, closing space, harrying defenders and midfielders, much of it unseen. His final ball could improve but his overall contribution is under appreciated. Walk about today with big smiles on your faces Bears, enjoy these moments, we've earned them.

Where are you seeing evidence that the "younger generation" aren't influenced by the BBC? Is that your observation or is there any empirical evidence for it? What do you class as younger? Under 30, under 25, under 16? Follow Follow is largely seen as the most influential 'website' in Scottish football. Alexa ranks them as number one, even above Rangers own website as well as all other club or fan based sites. Yet Follow Follow has around a very respectable 39,000 followers on Twitter, RangersMedia has around 33,000. Yet BBC Sportsound has over 80,000 and its Facebook page has over 286,000 followers. BBC Sportsound dwarfs the Daily Record Sport and Radio Clyde's Super Scoreboard, only STV Sport gets close. The only people with more 'influence' on social media in Scottish football are the clubs themselves. I've not seen stats for the BBC sport website Scotland pages, I'm not sure if they're published, but I'd be surprised if they aren't higher than any other Scottish football centric website. For what it's worth I work on the fringes of the media, I take an interest in what happens in the media and what might happen in the future. I'm not an expert, I don't have a crystal ball and I get stuff really wrong sometimes. So places like Gersnet, FF, Rangersmedia have been around for a while now, other clubs have their versions too. They have influence, ideas are shared, opinions informed, news and gossip exchanged. But because they have influence doesn't mean an established, traditional programme, like BBC Sportsound, doesn't. It's not either or, it's degrees of. Podcasts are growing in popularity, as are webcasts and vlogs, but they still make up a very small percentage of the overall media consumed in Scotland. There have been successes in sport Podcasts. Second Captains, out of Dublin, has done very well, with both the Irish Times and RTE (Ireland's BBC) investing and getting associated with them. Indeed their podcast was hosted on the Irish Times website for a while. I'm watching the Heart and Hand podcast, it'll be interesting to see what kind of revenue that could generate. For me, BBC Scotland and Sportsound in particular remains the most influential 'media' in Scottish football. Their technology, resources and platforms give them a huge advantage on most of the others and they've adapted to digital media pretty well. In my opinion, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the BBC is "irrelevant" clearly doesn't work in the media. The BBC is far from irrelevant, indeed I'd venture it has more influence and reach now than at anytime since the mid-1980s. I think much of this 'confusion' comes from falling ratings for BBC1 and indeed the main ITV channels and the changing way people view and interact with television in particular. There is no doubt that BBC television attracts fewer viewers than it did even 10 years ago, however that's far from the full story. Staying with television the BBC is still a formidable ratings puller. Programmes like Blue Planet and Strictly pulled in in excess of 13 million viewers last year. Nothing on Netflix, Amazon or You Tube comes close to that in the UK. The BBC news and sports programmes also rate highly with viewers. This year the highest rated TV programme in the UK was the England v Sweden match in Russia, an astonishing 20 million people watched it live. TV viewing is changing, however the BBC is far better prepared for this than some seem to think. The BBC iPlayer is an excellent 'on-demand' facility and is widely available and used. The BBC are also now releasing series on the iPlayer in one go, rather than one episode at a time. It's also worth pointing out that in Scotland we have only two stations catering for a specific local audience; BBC Scotland and STV (Border too although it is largely based in Carlisle and Cumbria). As such BBC Reporting Scotland out performs all other local and regional BBC TV news programmes, as does Scotland Today on STV. For 'local' news they are most certainly not 'irrelevant'. Viewing figures for the always dreadful 'Still Game' are staggering. The finale episode attracted 1.8 million viewers in Scotland, nearly 36% of the population. That's the kind of figures countries that only have one TV channel get! Looking at radio, an area the BBC still excels at, Scotland remains an outlier. 21% of the population of Scotland listen to Radio Scotland every week, on average listening to 6.9 hours a week. When you add in national BBC radio stations BBC radio has 45% of the market in Scotland. The other 55% is split between national commercial radio and local commercial radio stations. Radio Scot;and has the largest audience of any station broadcasting only in Scotland (so compared to Clyde, Westsound, Forth etc) and both BBC Radio 1 and 2 are the biggest in terms of overall listenership in Scotland. Radio has been largely unaffected by the internet. Most people still listen on an AM/FM device, with growing use of DAB sets as they become more common in cars. BBC radio in Scotland is very influential, to pretend otherwise is folly. The real reason dismissing the BBC as irrelevant or a dinosaur is a mistake though is their website. The BBC website is a monstrous success. As of last month it is the 5th most used site in the UK and the most used website actually based in the UK (Google, Amazon, Facebook and You Tube are more visited). It is the go-to website for news and sport in the UK. The BBC's ability to 'cross-platform' is largely unrivalled, the 'red-button', their phone apps, digital channels and their website are enormously valuable and influential. By October last year the BBC website was getting over 6 billion page views a month, up around 1 billion on 12 months before. The BBC has many, many faults, but understanding and adapting to the changes in media and media consumption isn't one of them. It is highly unlikely they will become 'irrelevant' in our lifetime. Their unique funding, market share and charter almost guarantees relevancy.

I disagree. Alan Green, one of the BBC's senior football commentators and interviewers was banned by both Alex Ferguson and Sam Allerdyce whilst they were managers. The BBC didn't stop covering Man Utd and Bolton though, they simply sent someone else. Indeed Ferguson and Harry Redknapp banned the BBC completely, but they still covered matches on radio and TV involving Man Utd and whatever sides Redknapp was managing at the time. People in BBC Scotland Sport take themselves very seriously. They forget that they're not covering world affairs, holding national leaders to account or uncovering great injustices in society. They're trying to find out who'll be playing left back this weekend and did the referee make a mistake for their second goal. I get freedom of the press and all that but let's not pretend we're dealing with Woodward and Bernstein here. I think Rangers are being intransigent too, but there's an arrogance at Pacific Quay over this that needs addressing.

I don't disagree with you, however I don't have much clout. The SLO might have a bit more, and of course the club have considerable clout, so for me they should be driving this. We suffer whilst others posture.

Any argument about not needing BBC Scotland misses the rather large point that almost everyone resident in the UK has already paid for it. I, personally, am very annoyed I can’t get coverage of my side. Radio Scotland on Sunday for example seemed to be relying on the Rangers Twitter feed for updates, Rob McLean reading them out verbatim in the 1st half. That’s not acceptable, they should have someone at the match providing regular updates if not live commentary on one of their many frequencies. The club should be making representations about this. That every other top flight club in Scotland has someone attending their matches should be raised regularly by the club. Over 85% of all radio is listened too either through a DAB radio, a smartphone or AM/FM. Radio is listened too by people doing something else. They are driving, working, walking the dog etc and radio accompanies them. Of the total ‘audio’ market ‘live radio’ has 74%. There is still a large public demand for ‘live’ radio broadcasts, whether that's music, news, weather or sport. Radio Scotland has a public remit to provide this. Following live football by any means other than radio involves the individual doing nothing else but that. That clearly won’t suit a large number of people. As such live sport on the radio is important. What I’m not entirely sure about is do the BBC have exclusive rights to radio commentary in Scotland? If they do then we as supporters as well as the club should be making much more noise about this. We’ve a right to expect equal coverage of our club. There are clearly a number of obstacles to this currently. As this excellent thread demonstrates there is a clear antipathy towards Rangers and their supporters from Pacific Quay. The origins of this go back a couple of decades. Back then radio coverage was split between between commercial stations like Radio Clyde, Forth, Northsound and BBC Radio Scotland. The unwritten rule and belief was commercial broadcasters focussed on the ‘big clubs’ in their area. Economics being the driver for this, the bigger clubs had more supporters and generated more interest, more listeners and so more revenue through advertising. In actual fact this was a bit unfair on Radio Clyde who covered all the Greater Glasgow sides as well as Junior football too. With the commercial stations focussing on the ‘big’ clubs BBC Radio Scotland gained the reputation for giving smaller, provincial clubs as much focus as the big city clubs. Again, I’m not convinced this was accurate, but that was the belief. The introduction of ‘Off The Ball’, the Cosgrove/Cowan programme helped cement this belief. They very publicly ridiculed Rangers and Celtic in particular, something that didn’t happen on the commercial stations, much to the delight of supporters of other sides. Fair enough. That was 20 years ago, things have changed now. For a start most commercial radio stations in Scotland are no longer locally owned or managed. Programming is done centrally from an air-conditioned penthouse office in central London, playlists are compiled with more than a nod and a wink to certain record companies and local presenters are replaced by ‘networked’ shows from out of town business parks in the English Midlands. In short Radio Clyde is now about as local to Glasgow as Netflix. The same thing has happened to almost all local radio stations in Scotland. Covering local sport is not a priority anymore as it takes resources they’d rather not invest in. Which leaves BBC Radio Scotland in an almost monopoly situation when it comes to local sport. That becomes an issue when the overall culture of the sport’s department is ‘Rangers and Celtic are evil’. To their credit Celtic have managed to address this with BBC Scotland whilst we’ve just exacerbated it. Whatever anyone thinks of Jim Traynor he knows the Scottish sport’s media. He worked for Radio Scotland for years. He appeared alongside Chris Mcloughlin, Richard Gordon and co, he knows them well. On top of that he’s a former broadsheet and tabloid journalist who was himself on the receiving end of a ban. He was once kicked out of a Rangers press conference and banned from Ibrox by Souness who described him as a “little socialist”, in what I think was meant as an insult. Did that change Traynor’s writing? Did Traynor’s career suffer because of this? No, of course it didn’t, he went on to be the Sport’s Editor of the best selling paper in the country and regular on the radio show with the largest audience; Radio Scotland. So why does he think imposing any kind of restrictions on McLoughlin now helps things? The other thing you see from this thread is of course the antipathy many Rangers supporters now have towards the BBC. Many think the station is biased against Rangers and its supporters and want nothing to do with it. Being apparently hard on the BBC isn’t unpopular with many supporters. That’s why I’ve always felt this is simply a PR stunt to get an active, vocal body of supporters ‘onside’. Fine, the support are onside. Any questioning of King and the board over the summer has been put to one side as the Gerrard juggernaut gains momentum and golden, sunlit valleys of the future appear on the horizon. Removing Graham Speirs press credentials doesn’t impede any Rangers supporter’s ability to enjoy Rangers. However, the spat with the BBC does. BBC Radio Scotland massively over-reacted to McLoughlin’s credentials being revoked. It’s no hardship to send another reporter but they’ve chosen to ban Rangers instead. It’s all petty dick-waving between the BBC Scotland team and Traynor. The only losers, as ever, are supporters. It’s fairly clear Rangers aren’t too bothered about this and clearly the BBC aren’t either. Getting no access to Gerrard isn’t ideal for them but it’s not hurt them yet. In the meantime I, and many tens of thousands of supporters, endure sub-standard radio coverage of my side. I don’t know if the Rangers SLO should be taking this up with the club and the BBC or not. Someone should be though. The BBC aren’t a commercial body so there is no financial incentive for them to sort this, Rangers don’t suffer financially either, their remuneration from the coverage is pre-agreed. I’d estimate that about 10% of the population in Scotland are Rangers supporters, as only 50,000 can attend a match that’s 450,000 people who want to follow what’s happening in the match as well as the supporters of whoever Rangers are playing that day. That’s a lot of people being denied coverage currently being afforded to supporters of every other topflight side. That’s surely against the spirit of the BBC’s charter. The argument over whether we’d get fair and even treatment from BBC journalists can’t be had whilst we’re denied the same coverage as everyone else. Whatever your views on the BBC we are entitled to that. The club and the BBC should be doing what they can to achieve this.

Really Pete? To compare him to Kluivert is the ultimate strawman, why not compare him to the thousands of other footballers who didn't get drunk and beat up a woman instead? Everyone may well do things they later regret but there are consequences and just because the guy might be a decent player his actions shouldn't be overlooked. He shouldn't be anywhere near Rangers, we should have standards of decency that exclude wife-beaters from wearing our jersey. We should absolutely look at everyone's history and if it turns out they're dangerous fuckwits we shouldn't sign them. To suggest everyone has a history that's anywhere close to this low-lifes is total bollocks Pete.

I love 'The Old Lady of Edmiston Drive' as a title. It's a tradition that grand, extraordinary buildings, ships and so forth have female gender. Archibald Leach (slightly different spelling) was also the movie star Cary Grant's real name.

The club deserve criticism for the handling of this though. Whatever happened over the course of the season or in the dressing room that day, whatever supposedly bad influences Miller and Wallace have been, fining them was a mistake. Miller had literally weeks left on his contract, if the club wanted him out then send him home, tell him to train on his own and that's it dealt with. Likewise with Wallace, if his time at the club has come to an end then tell him that, tell him he's being put on the transfer list and stripped of the captaincy. That's what happens in football, it's a brutal business at times but the players know that and get on with it. By fining them all we've done is save some money, that we might end up having to pay them back anyway, created two embittered players who, whether we like it or not, do have influence and friends in the dressing room and the media, and created the circumstances where this will now drag on for weeks if not months. Fining players makes sense if you're keeping them. It's a punishment they have to take on the chin to get back into the fold but fining them and then releasing them is a poor strategy. The players have nothing to lose by appealing. For those who say the players didn't show Murty respect and undermined him and that can't be tolerated they should remember that our club's Chairman threw Murty under a bus just days before that game, undermining his authority and position far more seriously than any player could have.

I wasn't being entirely serious, I mean who wants rattles back? I think complaining about the type of music or the volume of music being played just about anywhere is simply a sign of getting old. As I'm now reaching the age of average life expectancy for large parts of of Glasgow I'm reluctant to publicly admit to my doddering state by complaining about music. I mean it would be great if we didn't need signing sections and ultras and choreographed displays and everyone stayed until the end and the East Enclosure spontaneously burst into song 20 minutes into the first half and kept it up all game, but that's not how it works these days, it seems. So I'm a bit meh about the music, shrugging my shoulders and accepting that shit changes whether I want it too or not. But let's be clear one one thing Gonzo, you're fuckin way out of line on Madness, all sorts of wrong on that one sir.