BC2

EDIT (by Frankie):

Your inane crap from years ago (which I certainly cannot remember) has nothing to do with the subject.

calscot ââ?¬â?? I certainly respect the quantity of what you write.

As an atheist I am one of the last people to defend any religion and agree that almost every single horrendous act against humanity throughout history has religion as its basis. I am concerned, however, that you seem to believe the Catholic Church is far more guilty in this respect than any other religion.

Comparisons between the Catholic Church and the Orange Order are made difficult by the fact that the Orangeism is not strictly a religion and also includes political aspirations, namely unionism, as a key part of its agenda. The acts of which you accuse the Catholic Church, however, are historical; the intolerant anti-catholicism of the Orange order continues. The Catholic Church is mainstream; the Orange Order is extreme. You then try and make a chicken and egg type argument. The Catholic Church was not founded with the hatred of the Orange Order as one of its corner stones. The Orange Order, however, would not exist without the Catholic Church. Which is the chicken and which is the egg seems clear enough to me.

Next you proceed to make some incredibly sweeping generalisations about catholics and protestants which even manages to offend an atheist with its arrogance, all of it seeming based on your opinion of a pal.

Your argument about the religious make up of the teams gets sillier and sillier. One thing Big Jock bloody well did know was that if had the choice of a catholic and protestant player of similar ability, he would sign the protestant as Rangers would never sign the catholic player. I am not damning the number 0; the number damns Rangers. You then seem to shoot yourselves in both feet and the genitals ââ?¬â?? why do you think Celtic, as you correctly claim, were able to choose the best of the 18%? Surely Rangers were trying to sign the best catholic players too? Werenââ?¬â?¢t they?

Without even trying, I can think of at least one Jewish Celtic player. He scored twice against you at Ibrox about 8 years ago if that helps you. What point are you trying to make anyway? It is a statistical inevitability that small groups will often be under or over represented. Think of your own club and former Austria Vienna players last season for an interesting example of the latter. 18% of a country with a population of 5 million people, however, is not a small number, and for Rangers to have gone decades without signing a single catholic is not some simple statistical anomaly.

If 30 (instead of 23) was a typo you must have a very unusual layout to your keyboard.

Maurice Johnstone may have been a hero to many Rangers fans, but you must recognise that a significant minority never accepted him. You must also recognise that the reaction of some Celtic fans was due to the fact he signed for Rangers after agreeing to resign for Celtic rather than simply the fact that he was a catholic playing for Rangers.

Even accepting that you genuinely define fen1an as you state, how many of your fellow fans do you think allude to this when they use the word?

Are you seriously suggesting that Rangers fans sing Billy Boys (being up to your knees in somebody�s blood usually means they�re dead) and FT P because catholics chose not to sign for Rangers?

Frankie butted in at this point and made the same mistake our impartial CEO of the SFA made. It is one thing to state that ââ?¬Ë?no-one can claim the moral high-groundââ?¬â?¢, but why is suggesting one is worse than the other false. Firstly (as Frankie has challenged me) where is the evidence? Why is the default position that both are equally bad? Secondly (and more importantly) surely statistically the chances of this in any case are absolutely miniscule. As I said earlier it is about as likely as your garden having exactly the same number of weeds as mine. Are Italian women exactly equally as beautiful or ugly as Belgian women? Itââ?¬â?¢s just nonsense.

You should choose or reject a team to support, but in Rangers� case they did actually reject catholic players and did effectively reject catholic supporters. Don�t you understand that?

Then we have more ridiculous generalisations. You pluck figures of 0% and 100% out of thin air. Rangersââ?¬â?¢ idea of acknowledging Billy Boys was to ask their fans to stop singing it in case the club was punished. I am still to hear ââ?¬Ë?Sirââ?¬â?¢ David, anyone else at Ibrox or even a single fan acknowledge it by asking their fans to stop singing it because it is plain wrong.

I accept most of your examples of false accusations of sectarianism. I could draw up a similar list for my club. You may not be aware that Celtic were very nearly thrown out of the league by the SFA for flying the Irish flag above their stadium in the 50s. I understand that Rangers, to their credit, supported Celtic. We are regularly criticised about republican songs. Gerry McNee, recently referred to ââ?¬Ë?Irish toshââ?¬â?¢ on Scotsport. Try substituting the word Pak1 in there and he would have been arrested. These examples, however, do not in the main form the basis of accusations of sectarianism made against your club. I am sure that there have been some Celtic fans with a low IQ and/or prejudice who hold these mistaken views and from time to time get their moment on some stupid phone in or in the letter section of their paper, but almost all of the constructive and informed criticism concerns FT P, Billy Boys and the like.

And why exactly is it pointless and disingenuous to quantify who is worse than the other, unless you secretly know for sure it's you?

I think it's impossible to quantify who is worse than the other. Not to mention pointless and disingenuous.

 

Rangers have had a large problem with sectarianism over the years. As have Celtic.

 

To say one is worse than the other cannot be proved. Singing policies, disgraceful job offers to legendary managers, connections to sectarian terrorist groups, arrests this season, offensive websites, fen!an, hun, DOB, ***, FTQ, IRA etc etc. Anyone trying to sift through that baggage just to lay claim to being better than the other is wasting their time.

 

Oh and Graham Spiers is a liar, a charlatan and as balanced as Little and Large on a see-saw.

Frankie- perhaps very hard, by its very nature, to prove in a strictly legal sense, but I would equally struggle to prove that Maradona was a better player than Darren Jackson, but we both know the reality.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Graham Spiers. The standard of sports journalism in Scotland is so utterly execrable that he is, in my opinion, regardless of what you think about what he has said about Rangers, one of the best. That is not saying a lot.

I suspect that the problem most Rangers fans have is that you have enjoyed hugely favoutable coverage for so long. I therefore admire Spiers for having the balls to discuss things previously regarded as off limits.

I agree that he can be arrogant and pompous and rather enjoys winding you guys up, sometimes (but not always) slightly gratuitously.

The debate over who is worse is made very difficult by the fact that there are not equal amounts of Catholics and Protestants in Scotland. It skews all calculations and that is amusingly pointed out in the comments after the story.

 

Catholics always think they are better as they don't see anything they do as bigoted as they are the minority. It's like many people who don't believe that you can be racist towards a white majority; and even where there are equal numbers there can be discrepancies in interpretation and recognition - for example discrimination against men is rarely treated seriously.

 

However, due to this, I honestly think the Catholic Celtic side is far worse. Many Rangers fans will sing the songs etc but that's about it while most Celtic fans I've met or debated with on the net are at least rabidly sectarian against the Orange Order. However, the strange thing is they argue that "that's different".

 

The guy who is pretty much my best mate at the moment is a Catholic Aetheist [sic] Celtic fan.

 

He is an easy going an intelligent guy, until it comes to the religious divide, when he changes and spouts rhetoric without reasoned argument and refuses to listen to any counter arguments.

 

I watch Celtic with him in the European games and vice versa, and while I don't even listen to the songs, he complains about Rule Britannia, the Sash, Derry's walls and the flying of the Union Flag.

 

When challenged about this and suggested that they are not bigoted and that being against them can be construed as bigoted, he says that's rubbish and then, "doesn't want to talk about it."

 

He even told me that he would be offended if I brought a Union Flag to his house despite him being a Scotsman living in England. (Not that I would but it's a bit extreme, to say the least and offended my English girlfriend).

 

He, like many Celtic fans, compares the OO to the KKK, despite the Catholic church having the worst history by far of the three, by torturing and killing anyone that disagreed with them and being guilty of genocide. And when you mention any of the heinous crimes of the Catholic church as evidence you get called anti-Catholic! Or sometimes accused of, "revisionism."

 

Another thing my mate doesn't want to discuss is that their is obvious evidence that Celtic MUST have had a sectarian signing policy as they had about 80% Catholics from a population which contained about 18%. That's not equal opportunities in anyone's book. Rangers were short about 2 Catholics in their teams, Celtic were short about 6 Protestants.

 

Not many Catholics or Celtic fans will acknowledge that one, yet they bang on, inaccurately about alleged Rangers signing policies despite their being no evidence of it in the last 30 years. It's akin to lambasting the present SA government and people for apartheid. That behaviour is a type of bigotry in itself.

 

I argue with Rangers fans all the time against much of the singing and chants but what real sectarianism there is only boils down to a few things - F.T.P., No Pope of Rome and the more contentious use of the Fen1an word which is probably in effect more political.

 

Apart from that, the only real argument I have against the rest is that it is irrelevant to football and that with two sides doing it, it stirs up hatred.

 

However, the main reason that it seems to rumble on, in my mind is that Catholics choose their football team due to their religion which reseeds the whole circular problem. All other religions tend to have free choice of the 41 other teams.

 

If Rangers had nothing to do with Protestantism there would still be about 75% "Protestants" in the crowd. The fact that there is more is not because they reject Catholics (how could they?), it is the fact that there are very few non-Celtic supporting Catholics left; and most of them will refuse to support Rangers.

 

Catholics and Celtic fans then perpetually attack Rangers and their fans and so it's no wonder that many of them adopt an opposite stance. The extreme ones then adopt all the opposite rubbish and hatred in return. You get the two tribes thing going and all that goes with it.

 

The question that comes back is that without a Catholic team, what would happen to the Rangers bigots? They would hate the fans of the biggest rival team and find a different excuse for it. If Rangers and an Edinburgh team were the biggest two then their would be trouble between people from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

 

However, it would probably have less hatred as the nearby sectarian killings in NI have really het up the whole situation for the OF into something far worse than it would have been.

 

The reason there is far more trouble with religion in Scottish football is that it is the one place where it seems almost all of a religious minority support the one team and there is a neighbouring, related country with a history of pretty much a sectarian civil war.

 

I really all boils down to "us" and "them" and it can happen anywhere, just look at Yugoslavia with its war which event went as far as ethnic cleansing.

 

You cannot change what you don't acknowledge and there is definitely one side that is far better at acknowledging than the other.

Calscot is one of the best posters on GersNet, but this is not one of his best posts and the congratulations from others leave me scratching my head.

I agree in the broadest sense that the problems in Scotland are an almost inevitable consequence of its particular demographics rather than one religious group being inherently more intolerant than the other. After that he completely loses me.

Comparisons between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church are valid; the Orange Order, however, are an extreme and anti-catholic organisation. It IS different, completely different.

If your friend is 'a catholic atheist' then I (through my upbringing) am a 'protestant atheist'. In reality both of us are simply atheists. I should know. More importantly, I have no idea what an anecdotal version of a single Celtic fan's views brings to the debate. It is rather like your fellow fans trying to damn my club for a single cretin running onto the pitch a couple of weeks ago while defending literally tens of thousands of your fans singing rampant and blatant bigotry for decades.

I am no lover of either the Catholic Church or the Church of Scotland. Force me to choose and I'd pick the latter. That does not mean I dislike anybody who follows either. I don't accept your comparison between the Catholic Church and the Orange Order or Klu Klux Klan, both of whom hold a fundamental dislike of other creeds as central to their beliefs. The Catholic Church does not.

Anyone with an IQ over about 70 can see the obvious statistical flaws in your arguement about signing policy. For starters, try turning numbers into percentages and you'll find 0% looks pretty poor compared to any other number. I could go on but I suspect even you recognise how feeble your case is here.

You rather spoil your only semi-valid point by ridiculous exagerration. Maurice Johnstone was signed (to the disgust of many Rangers supporters) in 1989 which is 18 years ago, barely more than half of your claim of 30 years. Rather damaging for your credibility and indeed that of your club.

What exactly is contetious about the word 'fen1an'?

What exactly is political about the word 'fen1an'?

We move on to catholics choosing their football team. Why would anybody in their right mind choose a football team whose fans sing about killing members of their religion and of wishing to have intercourse with their leader? Protestants have a valid choice when it comes to this, catholics do not. That is why many protestants support Celtic and almost no catholics support Rangers. Or do you believe that protestants are somehow more open minded and therefore better than catholics?

'How could they reject catholics' - you're having a laugh, surely?

In your final paragraph you totally miss the point. Perhaps (and only perhaps) Rangers fans do acknowledge their problems more, but like the entire Scottish establishment you incorrectly assume that one side has as much to acknowledge as the other.

Tell my BC, why havent the exmaples of Celtc fans singing sectarian, political and offensive songs not been investigated, reported and overcome by the fans? I'll tell you why, you, your club and media don't see them as 'sectarian'.

 

I'll bet any money the firsts sectarian song sung on Saturday will eminate from the Celtc end. Hell, I'll even go as far as to predict the song that you'll sing - during the pre-match melody, the theme from the great escape is played - as usual we'll hear the lovely ditty from the Celtc fans 'Henrick Larsson, Mark Viduka, Fuck The Queen and Davie Cooper (he's deid)'.

 

As for Catholic Rangers supporters - Your right, the don't exist, why would they, if they did, they would blow your theory out of the water. Surfice to say that Govan Parish Priest (I would assume that he is a Catholic) is a season ticket holder at Ibrox. I also assume that the local Dubs who are members of the Dublin RSC are catholics (along with their polish members). Ask the Dublin RSC about tollerance, respect and sectarianism. I sat beside 4 Catholic supporters when I had a season ticket in the Main Stand. All 4 from Manchester and United fans who could no longer afford Old Trafford. They decided to travel up to Scotland and actually went to Torbett Towers initally but didn't feel 'welcome' there. They decided to come to Ibrox instead and were there 4 years later.

 

But hey, you and Spiers are right, it ain't a 50-50 problem any more.

 

 

Cammy F

My club see sectarian songs as sectarian. They see political and offensive songs as political and offensive respectively. Your definition of offensive and their definition may differ or may be the same.

I am even more certain than you about the first song on Saturday - not sectarian or political but offensive to anybody with an once of decency. I don't even have to name it, do I?

Your last but one paragraph is completely anecdotal, highly unlikely and proves nothing anyway.

What do you mean 'ain't a 50-50 problem any more' - when do you believe it ever was?

i may just be madwaeit, but this conversation seems surreal to me. do you honestly think that all rangers fans hate catholics, and all celtic fans are maganimous towards rangers fans? or at least more celtic supporters tolerate protestants than protestants tolerate catholics?

 

is that honestly what you're arguing? what planet are you on man. i'd venture that the people who actually hate each other know fuck all about their own supposed religion on either side.

 

you dont get rangers fans beating up celtic fans over the perpetual virginity and the implicit idolatary therein, do youu ffs? or celtic fans beating up rangers fans for forsakign apostle passed down tradition to elevate their own reason solely to the application of the bible?

 

the rangers and celtic fans that hate each other's 'religion' do so because they just hate people of a different sort. if there weren't a religious language to wrap it in, they'd still hate each other - hibs fans hate hearts fans and vice versa.

 

99% of people in ibrox or parkhead every other saturday are at best agnostic.

I believe that a great many Rangers fans are intolerant of catholics. The number of Celtic fans intolerant of protestants in my opinion is far smaller.

I agree with most of the rest of your post, and the use of religion as a wrapper in particular. Celtic and Rangers fans tend (more than other football rivals) to be different in ways other than religion. The biggest difference between a Hibs and a Hearts fan is likely to be the team they support. This is often not the case with Celtic and Rangers fans.

OK, well to take your example....

 

I have a couple of friends who are Catholic brothers - one supports Celtic and one supports Rangers - so there is an example of Rangers fans loving catholics, and worse.... Celtic supporting Catholics.

 

Generalisations are there to be shot at....

No, there is the very rare example of a catholic supporting Rangers, but there is no example of Rangers fans loving catholics.

As there is no evidence to suggest that the problem is equal there likewise isn't enough evidence to suggest it is not.

 

I think you are reading too much into it.

 

I say that they are no better than Rangers because I know, and acknowledge, that Rangers have a problem (which is trying to be dealt with) hence I would not say that either party is any better than the other - I like to call it equitable treatment, but you see it as some form of acceptance that Celtic are no worse than an equal partner in the problem, not so.

Don't quite follow you at the end craig. These things by their nature are very subjective.

Rangers deserve some credit for the improvements that have happened in the last year or so.

I have two main issues however, one with Rangers and one with Scottish society.

I am still to hear anybody from Rangers criticise Billy Boys because it is offensive and plain wrong - the fans have been asked not to sing it only because the club may be penalised by the authorities.

My other issue is that the authorities, media and Scottish establishment scandalously ignored your club's bigotry until UEFA highlighted it.

BC2, go have a read in the huddleboard. Rangers fans are called every insulting name going.

And your point is...................?

Or like the journo you just linked to and completely bereft of evidence yet it still, in your eyes, "destroys a fallacy"

 

You seriously think that Spiers is unbiased ? I think not.

I don't think the sun shines out of his arse if that is what you are asking - he is no Hugh McIllvaney - but I greatly admire him for having the balls to go into areas conveniently ignored by the Scottish establishment for decades.

'Questions the fallacy' would have been a better choice of words. The fallacy had been destroyed in my eyes a very long time ago.

Pretty sure something in similar vein could be levelled at Celtic. It isn't a one way street no matter how hard you try to make it one.

You may be 'pretty sure' but I'm sure as hell not.

Not saying it's a one way street, just that it's not 50-50.

Did you honestly believe this when you typed it ?

 

Maybe I have simply lost the art of deciphering a newspaper article (online or othersie) but can you please point out where the journalist "destroys the fallacy" ?

 

Seriously BC2, I have always thought you a reasonable poster on here but there is NOT ONE piece of evidence that Spiers offers to support his claim that Rangers are worse offenders than Celtic - yet you blindly support him for destroying a fallacy - he destroys nothing but merely pushes his own opinion with, as per usual, evidence lacking in entirety.

craig - fair point.

In a court of law requiring guilt to be proven beyond reasonable doubt, I accept that proving a case against Rangers is difficult. While you are not required to do this, however, may I suggest to you that proving their innocence beyond reasonable doubt would be nigh on impossible. There is equally absolutely no evidence that the scale of the problem is equal at the two clubs. There are few facts in this debate, but one that stands out to me is that nobody seriously suggests Celtic are the worse offenders here. The worst accusation seems to be that they are no better than Rangers. Am I reading too much into this?

I have stated my opinion, one supported by a former supporter of your club.

You honestly believe that Celtc don't have the same problem that Rangers do ? You need to release yourself from your high horse my friend, the problem is as bad at CP as it is at Ibrox.

No it is not. Even if you choose not to look at the facts, your statement is about as likely as your garden having the same number of weeds as mine. Why should this be the case? It may suit the agenda of journalists who are at best lazy and more likely biased, but has no basis in reality.

bryce reading somehwat critically, man, you've not really answered any of his questions. it seems like prosey handwaving.

bmck - Rangers' alleged anti-catholic agenda is not really a topic that should be raised as a mere subplot, hence my reason for only a brief reference.

Try and read the following statement with a straight face:

Rangers Football Club and their fans love catholics.

No, I didn't think you could manage either.

Cammy - I'm rather proud of the fact that I avoid the Radio Clyde phone in like the plague - it's utterly execrable. If Keevins did say that then he was wrong, but he does not represent any of the Celtic supporters I know. Never has and never will, about this or anything else. He's just another appalling sports 'journalist'.

For what it's worth, as an atheist I don't agree with catholic schools either. It has to be said, however, that catholic schools exist in numerous other countries and do not cause division anywhere other than in Scotland. My conclusion, therefore, is that while they me be part of a solution, they are not the cause of the problem. I would not have objected to Smith's comments about catholic schools if it had been part of an evenhanded discussion he claims he is looking for.

I'm not going to bother responding to your single arrest arguement - even with your blinkers on you must realise you're pissing in the wind.

When did Brian Quinn claim there was no bigotry or offensive songs at Celtic Park? All that has been claimed is that we are not equal partners in this problem, and are totally sick of most of the media and the CEO of the SFA pretending that we are.

What anti-catholic agenda at Ibrox? To borrow one of your favourite lines, you couldn't make it up....

I disagree. This is another predictably poor article.

The charge against Smith is not one of bigotry; it is one of a lack of impartiality. He is therefore (like you and I) unfit to hold the position of CEO of the SFA.

Putting that to ths side, his arguement is also fundamentally wrong. Very few, if anyone, is questioning Rangers' right to celebrate their Irish protestant traditions. It is Rangers' anti-catholic traditions that have been questioned.

For a better article try this from your nemesis:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/article2648729.ece

I don't agree with everything in the first half, but at long last a Scottish sports journalist has had the balls to destroy the fallacy of 'one side is as bad as the other'.

Gazza 8 - I came on here and made a post because I've been welcomed every time I've done so previously.

According to Dutch television the Italians are going to try and get Celtic thrown out for an assault on their keeper.

pete - very different noises in the UK. Ancelotti and Seedorf both playing it down. It is a worry, but surely not. A large fine for security failings is inevitable however.

PS Nice reply re Jim Clark.

Now I won't pretend I wanted you to win last night, but I will recognise an outstanding result and performance when I see it. I'll even concede it probably shaded Celtic's tonight, but a win over the defending European champions is also a great result for Scottish football. Lots of Scottish players in both sides. Add in the national team's win in Paris and their whole campaign and we have seen nothing like this from Scottish football in many years.

I suppose we had Aberdeen and Dundee Utd's european ventures in the early 80s and two Glasgow teams playing a European semi final in 1972. Maybe have to go back to 1967 to beat the current efforts - Scotland the first side to beat the World champions, Rangers only losing ECWC final to Bayern Munich in Germany after extra time and Kilmarnock reaching the semi final of the Fairs Cup (old UEFA cup). I've not missed anything from that year have I?

Does he run up to the away support to bless himself at every gund? I think not.

Yes he does, and therefore you are wrong.

Thanks Craig, but I don't see the big deal. Any Rangers fan who believes Larsson wasn't world class equally needs their head examined. I used to have issues with Ferguson off the pitch, but he was very young when he was getting himself into trouble. He'll never receive an invitation from Mensa (no different from most footballers), but I was genuinely impressed a couple of years ago when I learned he pays for his father-in-law's season ticket at Parkhead.

Darcheville sounding less likely to play tonight, and Lyon running into some form. A draw would be a great result, a win close to historic. Sorry to say I can't see it.

Ally - I partly agree with the point that you're making. Remember I'm an atheist, and therefore don't distinguish between fen1an / proddy / unionist / republican bastard. But I don't make the rules.

From a Celtic fan's point of view, Barry Ferguson is a tremendous player. I would sign him tomorrow if I thought he was remotely interested.