calscot

I'm not saying it's deliberate but it becomes de facto. It's why a lot of Scots didn't like the union jack as England fans flew it - it's less so now as they fly the St Georges cross, although maybe more for some who are a bit extreme in their independence politics. When you see a UJ at a game do you see a Rangers flag, if so, it's unfair for you to not expect fans of other teams to see the same and avoid it. Rangers fans are definitely not waving it for all British teams. I would say the same with Scottish flags, it doesn't really work at a game with two Scottish teams. Even without the politics and Rangers use of it, I wouldn't expect Celtic to be even slightly interested in flying a flag which has the colours of their great rivals. I think the same about their Irish flag, although it's a bit weird as they aren't Irish.

I'm open to all and believe in true equality (which I believe is NOT the same as what most people campaign for). However, I think people overlook some of the reasons that there is, or was discrimination, and we should take steps to ameliorate some of those before pushing things down people's throats. I think the best example is shared changing, toilets, showers and those large baths they used to have. It is not unreasonable that a heterosexual male could object to sharing any of that with a gay man, when it is considered more than reasonable that a woman would not want to share any of them with a heterosexual male. That's actually discrimination against heterosexual males. My solution is to have private cubicles for all. These days it wouldn't take much more room and slight increase in the costs are affordable - and to me in the same bracket as accessibility as to its necessity for said cost. Some progressive places like Starbucks already do this for toilets and it is a complete solution to the recent issue in the US about transgender and toilets. We have some gender neutral toilets at work but very few. There will be situations like at football grounds where people will call it impractical - but then how can then you expect people to accept gay men when they can watch them pee? Women don't have quite the same problem with gay women as they don't have to pee on full view as they have stalls. I'm not personally making a big deal of this, but you can't just openly discriminate against one part of society in order to embrace another and expect everyone to be fine about it. If you are going to tackle this, you need to do it in a very egalitarian way or what is it about? With multiple genders, I also think we should disband all single-gender and clubs competitions for the same reasons, and make them all open for the whole spectrum - like Wimbledon for instance. (Or should we start a intersex and two transgender only competitions that attract the same prize money?) We should just one non-discriminatory competition, as well as golf where there was a lot of controversy about a transgender women. However, today's society in general is not open and fair minded enough to allow it. For me you can only embrace diversity, if you treat everyone as a person, rather than a gender (except in circumstances were it would be counterproductive).

I didn't use it negatively in the post above yours, purely descriptive.

Wouldn't that be Ibrox Stadium rather than Ibrox? You must get really pedantic when people use the terms, "Gers", "Teddy Bears", "Light Blues", "Glasgow Rangers", "Queens eleven" etc, instead of "Rangers Football Club". Amazing that someone would argue against the most common term used by British people for their national flag. It would be very British to call it that even if it wasn't official, which it is. Have a look here: https://www.flaginstitute.org/wp/british-flags/the-union-jack-or-the-union-flag/ Or how about here: http://www.know-britain.com/general/union_jack.html Thing is, I knew someone would bring this up.

I did say many and I know it's not all. It's not really a bad thing per se for me, but I'm trying to be consistent. For me, what is really bad how offended the Tims are by the flag. I think a lot of so called Rangers history is, unfortunately, purely a reaction to the plastic paddy, Irish republican, IRA supporting, Catholic, anti-British, anti monarchy of the other side of Glasgow. A lot of Rangers fans seem to define themselves by being as opposite as they can: staunch British, royalist, supporter of the Orange Order and maybe the UDA, proddy, pope hater, and unionist. But in the end you are hijacking a flag as yours and only yours, and therefore alienating supporters of other clubs to it (whichever flag you use). And that's just not very unifying for a unionist.

If many Rangers fans tie in unionism with their support and bring a Union Jack to wind up the Tims and others, then I can't see what the difference with a Scottish yes flag is. For me, we should keep all politics out of football, and especially on or around armistice day - which I would hope is non-political. Clubs should design their own flags and fans fly them instead. I also can't see the point in a national flag when you're playing a team from the same country. English fans used to do that with the union jack and it put a lot of people from the rest of the UK off that flag. Now that they have switched to St George, I think many Scots in particular, are more comfortable with the union flag than they used to be.

But, it could give you ammunition to kick him up the backside with... Although you might be wondering if it's broken.

I agree that for building a team it far less useful as each player's attributes are more dependent on the rest of the team. Things like baseball can be taken a bit more in isolation. However, I still think it can be useful to keep your views on players more objective and informed - especially in the less showy aspects of their game. Some metrics are better than others as a lot of the time is all about quantity and not quality, and you have to take that into account - a shot on target could be a trundler from 30 yards, or a close in reaction, wonder save from a well executed, bullet shot.

Sorry, I wasn't there but that was the impression I got from listening to the Heart and Hand podcast which used that to justify them being thrown out. To be honest I don't know what the fuss is about them then, and why it would be amusing to think about the Spanish beating them up, unless of course they did something else that I don't know about.

They were flying the flags during the minute silence which was why it was considered inappropriate and they were thus thrown out. How has that got nothing to do with the minutes silence? Without the minute silence, what was the problem with the flags except that they were obviously politically motivated at a football match? Judging by the tone of your post, I don't think I'm the over-sensitive one here...

Seems very clear and logical reasoning to me; is there a specific part I need to explain for you?

Yes, it's the modern way to judge yourself by much more lenient standards than you do for others. In the context of a minutes silence for the fallen who died to try to prevent us from have that kind of police, it was incredibly distasteful in my eyes. As I said, I might be more sensitive to it due to a Catalan girlfriend who didn't just see the police brutality as just being on the telly in some insignificant, far away place. I'm surprised you just don't get it. Seems to me you're getting a bit precious about some justified criticism. This thread is all about daft comments on another forum, as are other threads where we point out the crap from Celtic fans and others. And you're telling those of us who aren't impressed by it, we can't be football fans? Like you have in the first paragraph of your own post? I remember when a having a brass neck was considered a bad thing.

Are you saying Rangers fans can't take a joke about former players? If you're at a Frankie Boyle gig then you've pretty much signed up to that style of humour for the night, among friends and families it's all private, a football forum is a different medium - and this is a thread about when they go too far.

I didn't say it was exactly the same but I said we aren't always whiter than white, so you seem to be arguing that it was completely fine. In the binary question of was in very bad taste and unfunny, then both are exactly the same. I can't see how you think one is fine and the other isn't - or is it just about your opinion of who the joke is against? BTW the Spanish police "joke" was in the context of trouble in the minute silence for the fallen, and you still think it's fine? I think it was distasteful on one level and disrespectful on another.

Pretty disgusting and vile - but if it's illegal then Frankie Boyle should be worried. And we're not whiter than white: I have a Catalan girlfriend and wasn't impressed with someone on here using how voters in Catalonia were treated by the Spanish police to make an very unfunny "joke".

He only had 5 games at Palace but had 262 at Ajax winning 4 titles in a row. As I said I agree his stock has dropped but I'm not going to fully judge him on 5 games... (or 19 if you count Inter) It kind of reminds me of the joke about the guy who for decades did wonderful stuff for his village - but if you shag one sheep... Anyway, in our position, to get a manager who has won a lot for a top club, then we need him to have had a bit of a nightmare afterwards. The nearest McInnes has been to win a lot, is feeding his dog. (Couldn't resist). Nothing really against McInnes but he does seem like a dull choice with not much hope for winning much more than a bunch of runners up medals, which I do realise would be a step up at the moment.

I have no problem with a player being criticised for the number of times he's been sent off that hasn't been overturned and otherwise for his true discipline record, but Boyd is arguing it's laughable to pick him because he was sent off three times. I respect opinions that are based on the truth, not twisted bullshit. I'm surprised you feel differently. It's not even just having an opinion based misrepresentation it's putting it out in pubic for the hundreds? of DR readers. What makes it even worse is that this is a fellow professional that he is disparaging with alternative facts. Which bit do you think is ok? If we are professional footballers then we shouldn't do it either. As fans it's completely different as you are comparing from the outside. The arrogance comes from the lack of professional courtesy. The point you're missing is that Boyd has not just disparaged his fellow professionals picked for the squad, but by extension he his disparaging his own team mates and pretty much all players in the league outside of Celtic. If those players are a laughing stock, what does it say about his team-mates? A fellow professional slagging off currently more successful professionals as a laughing stock seems pretty arrogant to me. Feel free to disagree, but I hope you understand it now. I would never do that to my peers. Personally, I will never slag off a Scotland squad for a friendly as being a laughing stock for having the best eligible players from the top Scottish sides, unless better players in teams above them in the league, are not being picked. And I will especially not do that in a newspaper. BTW WRT Broadfoot: I don't see how being a complete arsehole who should be banned from the game is outsmarting someone. A decent referee and discipline panel would have sent him off and banned him for several matches. It's really something that should be treated with zero tolerance. He's so smart that he will never again be remembered fondly by Rangers fans - most of whom now think he's the lowest of the low - with a lot of worse terms used. I'm also wondering how many times he'll have his feet "accidentally" trod on for the rest of his career. Boyd can say what he's like to an extent, but we are free to form our own conclusions about him for what he says.

I think it's worth remembering that if you think the board want to change direction from the last two managers, then a very famous former player is a complete departure...

I think if it wasn't for the ten in a row thing (no matter how flawed that would be), then gambling would almost certainly be the way. Until we're on even financial terms, then safe is most likely going to get us a safe second place. You rarely punch above your weight with safe. If you gamble it can pay off and you get a bargain. It could be argued that both Laudrup and Gazza were gambles to an extent, rather than the safe choice; however, we've plenty of counter examples to rue over. For me, even if FdB (or equivalent) is not the success we'd like, I struggle to imagine even then, that he would be significantly less successful that McInnes's CV would suggest. Purely my speculative opinion: against Rogers, I think the latter at his best might get us a close second and the former at his worst might get us a distant second place. But it's still second... However, with the Dutchman, there is the excitement and anticipation of what he could be at his best - as well as stuff like the type of player he could entice and keep the respect of... Also, I'm pretty sure which of the two the Tims would prefer us employ...

Their stock has crashed but in a choice with McInnes, I would bite their arms off.

Yeah, looked up the table and I think he's done too well to be sacked for being 4 points behind 2nd place Ajax... He is 12 points behind PSV but in a three horse league where you're generally the third most successful club, it's hardly unforgivable the season after you won the championship, when the club haven't done it for 18 years. If they want to sack him so quickly for that, then they make Rangers fans seem really patient. However, maybe there's something we don't know - but even then you would expect him to be looking for a reasonably top job in a bigger league with much more funds and a higher standard of player.

Embarrassingly, not being a betting man, or following foreign football these days, I thought this Per Oddschecker was some Dutch coach I'd never heard of...

For me, Boyd is not just wrong, it has a, "I'm going to say stupid things to make my audience like me." feel about it. To criticise Jack for 3 red cards when 2 are rescinded is just being deliberately and nefariously obtuse. There is no excuse. Objectively Rangers are at least one of the top 3 or 4 clubs in Scotland, so if a new manager, in a meaningless friendly after crashing out of the WC, is trying some home based players, then surely an eligible guy who plays regularly for us, without being obviously crap, is worth a shout in the squad selection. At the moment the exact same goes for Aberdeen (who have three) - and seeing as that's where we got him from only a few months ago, and Hibs (who have two). But then, didn't he slag Aberdeen off too? Pretty arrogant for an over-age player playing in a team fighting relegation.

I was wondering how much that would be the case - especially when it comes to Bermuda...

Statistics are never the full story, each stat tells one part of it, but can remove a lot of subjectivity. For instance, you might think a guy looks slow, maybe because of his running style, but the sprinting stats might show him to be one of the fastest. I think at games there is no chance for watching and registering everything that all 11 of your team's players do. And I think a lot of assessments are a bit of a tally of good things and bad things a player subjectively is *seen* to do in a game. We miss a lot, we have a lot of confirmation bias and our memories are not perfect... Stats are a good way to reassess aspects of a players game and maybe you will see it tally up next time, when you will be more knowledgeable about what to look for.