calscot

I think it would be easier to spot the cheats if the defenders would themselves stop cheating and using their hands to tug on attacking players. That is clearly against the rules but seems to be condoned. Even our penalty last week was questioned when it was obvious our player was being hauled away from the ball. I also don't think referees are to blame - they call it as they see it. If we're going to use TV evidence, it should be during the game. There is no logic in using it retrospectively but not live. I thought the logic was supposed to be poorer nations couldn't afford the technology but then they can't afford it for retrospective justice either.

The old IRA, even if political, is politically inflammatory, and therefore against UEFA rules. The weird thing is that with a witch hunt in Scotland going on, this kind of stuff is getting the blind eye.

I can quote you the whole verse from memory if you like. It's the sixth verse of a lesser known version which was never officially adopted. There are two official verses with the second only sung rarely at state occasions and I can quote both of them if you like. I don't remember the other three verses. The only reason that sixth verse is widely known today, is due to Billy Connolly - and I use it to wind up the English. :devil: I agree, changing the words would be ok for me but UEFA have banned us as they reckon it's so ingrained and our attitude so poor that we'd probably be IMPLYING the original words, even if we just hum. That's also the case which could result in the original song being sung by everyone. Our fans are basically being punished for being immensely stupid - we had decades of warnings to change the lyrics. My personal answer is no, as that verse is not sung very often if at all and is not an official verse. The whole point is about intent to offend and incite and as yet there is no intent there. I see where you're coming from, but it's not a valid example in my eyes.

Should have snorted it... or do you mean you sneazed it?

Two things. Firstly - it's "Sent HIM homeward tae think again". This is about a tyrant who tried to invade a country using excessive violence and was defeated and so went home. If ANYONE finds this offensive in ANY way then there is something very wrong with them. In fact it's about the most POLITE way of putting it as you could think up. It doesn't ONCE disparage or even mention any race, religion, colour or social grouping apart from Scotland. ALL Scots should KNOW this. Secondly - I don't think I've ever heard of a case of England fans singing "Rebellious Scots to crush" but in the context of an Auld Enemy international, it would be fair enough to me.

They could probably spend more time on other non-strenuous activities, but you wouldn't want them to over-train... These guys are a lot fitter than you think and extra training could easily be counter productive and also cause injury. I think they could spend more time doing stuff like using video for being taught opposition tactics and how to counter them as well as exemplars of how to play football that is difficult to defend. They should know a lot about every SPL player before they meet them on the pitch. And loads of other stuff, like how to speak and comport themselves in public and also how to avoid unnecessary and negative attention. Some could also do with life lessons on things like how to travel with a valid passport and how to drive with a valid licence...

He could probably get a fan to do it for free...

No, already has a licenSe which is the problem - what he needs is a licenCe. :fish:

So some wanted Sands released from prison sentence for involvement in terrorism but also want people punished for saying "Fuck Bobby sands". Strange times indeed. I think there is a widespread cancer of mock, extreme offence at pretty innocuous stuff that is widespread in Scotland.

It all sounds so good - and I'd like some of what he's taking... :fish:

To me it's more like selling your house, clearing out your bank account, going on a massive bender and then, when you're completely skint with maxed out credit cards, and have debt collectors chasing you, complaining that you're not having as much fun as you did when you were spending all that money. It's just not a valid complaint. It's an even stranger complaint if the second half of the time you were spending the money, you were pretty miserable and angry. DA may have brought us some great players, but you can't his over-spending (no matter who's fault it was) also brought us the lesser players we've had since. He deserves no more credit than McCoist or Smith and I'd argue they are the ones who deserve a lot more praise. I didn't see DA win three in a row with his massive and financially damaging spending, or get to a European final. However, Walter did both with a fraction of the spending, a very small squad and players being sold from under him. I agree with GA, DA was fun at the start but in hindsight I really regret it now. It really just wasn't worth it.

Cheers for the nice feedback - but I think I'd have to make it a lot less disjointed before publishing...

Yes, I've already pointed that out in my previous post. However, it doesn't change the fact that DA's team cost far more than we can afford. How is it fair to unfavourably compare any Rangers team in history to one that was totally unaffordable and almost bankrupted the club? Looking at it in that light, in my opinion, Advocaat's team was relatively the worst in Rangers history and comparisons against teams that have in reality SUFFERED due to the spending for that team is makes no sense to me at all. I agree that the type of football being played is subjective but you only have to compare the points difference of 15 and 18 points for Advocaat's last two seasons to remember his teams were not that great. I would be surprised if many Rangers fans wanted that again... (Before you bring up that Eck took over in his last season, the league was already well and truly lost before he took over.) So here we have complaints that our current team are not as good as one that cost something like £200M more in today's money, caused 10 years worth of money problems and almost bankrupted us twice - and ironically, they were incredibly poor in two out of four seasons... Just what is your REAL beef with Ally who in contrast is leading the title race by four points on a shoestring budget and one of the smallest squads in modern history? All I can say, with those very blinkered standards, you will probably never be happy watching Rangers again - unless something truly momentous happens. For me, I think our current players deserve a bit more respect than to be harried by the ghosts of an unaffordable era.

Just to add to my argument. I know a guy who can twist and turn really well but to do so he's always really off balance and it takes the merest touch to send him over. Most of the time I would say the bumps are completely legal either as a good challenge for the ball with the foot or a legitimate shoulder tackle and sometimes because he's the one that bumps into the defender. He claims a free kick every time he goes over - if the touches are legit, does that make him a cheat? Should be banned for two games every time?

After reading this I can't see what the offence was - Aluko didn't ask for the penalty but in HIS opinion it was one. If, as according to the author, it's just about opinions Aluko did absolutely NOTHING wrong. To PROVE Aluko was just acting would take a lot more evidence than there was and require NO contact. He has done less cheating than someone who claims for a decision but the referee decides against him. Shouldn't Lunny get a ban for getting the O'Connor decision "wrong"? By getting it wrong was he cheating? For me the Aluko cheating offence doesn't exist - and as I've said before if you want to punish someone you have to set the rules accordingly rather than making them up subjectively after the fact. All it would need is cement the rule is to have the referee to ask the player if he believed he was fouled and whether the evidence would pass muster. If he says he was but the evidence does not correlate then a punishment is due to prevent players from lying and cheating. Aluko didn't have that luxury. He thought he was felled, the referee agreed and so he accepted the ref's decision. It happens all the time in all areas of the pitch from throw-in to free kick. Keepers touch the ball round post and then accept the goal kicks etc. THAT is cheating but goes unpunished. We were once put out of the world cup when our player was fouled, yet Italy received the free kick and scored from it. What punishment does that player deserve? With Aluko he is being punished for two immensely subjective assessments - the first is that there was not enough contact to send him to the floor and the second huge leap of imagination - that his motives were to gain a penalty by cheating. That is an incredibly difficult conclusion to come to at the best of times, but almost impossible given the evidence. Where is the professional benefit of the doubt as it is nowhere near beyond reasonable doubt that Aluko was guilty? Having seen it, to me it is all inconclusive and the best decision at the time would be to wave play on. However, I think the problem they have here is that you can't go back and undo a penalty when it is scored. However, we told time and time again that that is football and these decisions even out, which is why they won't introduce tv evidence during a game. I don't get the argument that you can't use it in a game but can use it so cavalier-like afterwards. If TV cameras were used at the time, I think they would agree with my assessment of play on and at worst a yellow card. Yet in their wisdom to misuse technology, they instead give him the same punishment as he would receive for being caught diving in twelve games... All I can say is that, even if he did deliberately dive, he's been totally shafted.

Docking points is stupid: Imagine we're ahead by two points in the title run-in, what is to stop Celtic fans pretending to be Rangers fans, coming along and singing songs that mean we drop points (problem being that we have enough bears who won't be able to help themselves joining in and so it wouldn't take many of them)? And vice versa of course.

However, it looks like we're being offered Championship money for him...

I like him too - four or five times a season... If he consistently played near his best he'd be one of the most popular and valuable players. But he doesn't come close to doing that.

Can I ask if you REALLY have any affection for the DA era? My last direct impressions of DA were two seasons where we finished miles behind Celtic, playing poor football, and had an £80M debt to boot (not counting the possible tax bill). May last indirect impressions of DA are 10 years of money problems and the threat of a tax case which could put us in administration. Perhaps you want us to emulated that era by somehow borrowing say £200M (the modern equivalent) and creating a team in the same ball park as a top Premiership side. I'd bet we'd then play a better class of football. I think it's fair argument that the type of football we've played in the last 10 years has been directly impacted by the Little General - but despite that, it's been far more effective in the last five years than his 2 from 4 record. People have to realise we are where we are, and that the DA era was all things considered, most probably the most damaging in our history. Remember we are where we are with a huge part of the cause coming from that time. You could argue it wasn't his fault as he didn't authorise the spending, but you can't do that and then give him huge credit for how his team played due to spending that money. But in hindsight, I don't see where he deserves ANY credit when he couldn't hold the dressing room after the first two seasons and our football was immensely poor for two seasons considering the investment in the squad. I really can't imagine how anyone can negatively compare any era to one which was less successful and yet was basically stealing money from the budgets of the next 10 years and more. It's a bit like saying how much betting the food tasted when you were spending loads by re-mortgaging your house and maxing out your credit cards, and how crap it's been since you had to start paying it all back. Next we'll be hearing about how much better it all was under Labour - the Tories and Libs may be shit but you can hardly compare the the two eras...

I take it you haven't played both sports? Firstly, didn't Aluko pick himself up immediately? Secondly, Rugby players are not allowed to kick each other, they tackle each other with arms - a massive difference. Would you rather be tackled or kicked? I've also seen loads of rugby players receive extensive treatment and taken off the park. A player who rolls about with no pain is embarrassing but how often is that the case? Like I said, it doesn't take that much from a kick to cause two minutes of intense pain. Has that NEVER happened to you. Not only that, but as I said things can look much less from a distance or on a telephoto lens. I thought Broadfoot on Valencia was tame at first viewing, yet he had a nasty compound fracture... Do you think Niasmith is faking a season ending injury - after all, he received no contact at all... I don't disagree that some players make more of it than is necessary to either try and get a foul or some medical attention.

Do you really trust him - or someone with an axe to grind in the future?

Seems to me if they had jurisdiction and were FAIR, banning Rangers would also require banning all English teams. It was the English that started the whole thing. I'm also not convinced that all the rioters were Rangers fans. When you look at the huge crowds, it was so blue due to all the Rangers tops, then look at the rioters and there is only a minority of blue worn. How can you punish Rangers when there may have been fans of other teams among the few hundred rioters in a 200,000 strong crowd? You'd also have to look at every riot anywhere related to Euro match - a few hundred out of 200k riot after extreme provocation in Manchester - then compare a couple of hundred out of about 1000 riot in Fulham with no provocation after Chelsea lose a CL game... Nobody talks about that though...

I see players fall over all the time. Sometimes it's a foul, sometimes it's a dive and sometimes it's neither. And there are a lot of grey areas in between those three. When you're jinking around at speed, it doesn't take much to put you over. It always looks like less contact on telly and players are castigated for lying in agony at what looked like a mild contact - however I've seen loads of guys be injured for weeks at 5-a-side for something innocuous looking at close quarters and it's happened to me too. Contact doesn't automatically mean a foul, I agree, but it does cast some doubt on whether a fall is a dive. Falling and not getting a foul doesn't automatically mean a dive.

I think time has shown that if you are good enough in training you'll get a game and if you're good enough in a game, you'll get a run in the team. Basically Fleck has just not been good enough yet. There are plenty of 20 year olds who have gotten a foothold in the team in the last five years. Wylde, Ness and Wilson were all Fleck's peers.

A two game ban when there WAS contact is not the right outcome. I think if the ref had the benefit of magical, instant TV replays in his head, at the time the result should have, IMO, been play-on, not a sending off or even a booking. If we ended up drawing the game fair enough, but if the officiating had been 100% fair all season, we'd still be in a better position than now and Celtic would be in a worse one. In fact, if you could retrospectively deduct points for cheating in games for the last five years, we'd be odds on for five in a row. If we're using technology like this now, why can't we have instant replays at the match like Rugby? We could even make it three challenges like tennis to reduce the number of times it is used. I have no problem with increasing the fairness of officiating as long as it does so across the board. We may suffer from TV replays but on past history I think we'd massively benefit. Even if we didn't in future, I'm the kind of person who doesn't see the attraction of winning by cheating. There are very few of us who really think we had a proper shout for a penalty but what we're complaining about is not only a stupid system but what looks to be a corrupt one which only punishes Rangers for the same type of incidents.