Rangers' image abroad is in tatters

[ian1964 10,409]

THESE Rangers thugs just don't get it, do they?

 

Knuckle-trailing morons who attach themselves like scum to decent footie fans are too thick to understand.

 

So I'll explain it simply, just in case any of them can read: If you are a thug and you follow Rangers for a European football clash, the cops are lying in wait.

 

Because your reputation goes before you, in a shameful catalogue of yobbery that few other football clubs have ever been able to surpass.

 

So, the baton-wielding cops are armed and ready with CS gas, and anything they need to beat the s**t out of you.

 

That's how it is. It's not up for debate. It's up to you to deal with it.

 

If you so much as step off the pavement, chances are you will be bludgeoned by some burly policeman who has already made up his mind that you're a waster.

 

What part of that little scenario is difficult to understand? Honest to God.

 

I watched these scenes unfold during the match in Bucharest and I could not believe what I was seeing. The neds who rampaged through Manchester in 2008, tearing up the city, haven't even been dealt with in court yet, and here we go again.

 

Could it be that the sectarian element fosters a mentality that will always be hell-bent on trouble?

 

And I'm sure all the true Rangers fans watching at home, and the decent supporters standing terrified in case they were drawn into a full- scale riot, must be wondering what the hell they can do to shake off these eejits.

 

Every proper Rangers fan I know, who wants to be able to go along to a match and support their team, must be pig sick of the mindless animals who are dragging them into the gutter.

 

Because make no mistake about it. The image of Rangers abroad is in tatters because of these cave dwellers.

 

Long before the Battle of Bucharest, true Rangers fans were treated like lepers when they travelled because of numbskulls latching onto them.

 

They are not fans. You and I know that.

 

Anyone who goes to a football match anywhere in the world looking for a fight is not a fan, he is a thug.

 

But maybe someone can tell me this: Why do there seem to be more thugs attached to Rangers than many other football clubs?

 

Every time I criticise Rangers I get hate mail. The truth is, I have plenty of Gers friends, and I was willing them on to win against Unirea.

 

But it's time Rangers looked inside themselves and asked just why trouble follows them everywhere they go. Because either Rangers are the most persecuted club in the world, or they just attract a bigger hooligan element than anyone else.

 

The sickening scenes we have witnessed in recent years from Spain to Manchester would suggest this is not about persecution. It is about sheer thuggery.

 

So instead of Rangers supremo Martin Bain prattling on about too few turnstiles being open, he should look at why his club is plagued by this despicable baggage.

 

Could it be that the sectarian element fosters a mentality that will always be hell-bent on trouble? We know that where you have sectarianism, you will find thuggery.

 

At Celtic you have morons who still insist on singing IRA songs, when the fact is you could probably write their knowledge of Irish history on the back of a fag packet.

 

They are thugs, not fans. And it's the same for the idiots singing No Surrender - as we could clearly hear during the match in Bucharest.

 

If Rangers are trying to find the yobs dragging them down, then they will find them among these rancid ranks. It's time everyone attached to Rangers stopped blaming everyone else and asked themselves if they are doing enough.

 

That includes supporters' clubs who run buses and deal with tickets, up to the bosses in the Rangers boardroom. Because this great club means a lot to many good people, and it is in a big enough mess without UEFA banning them from Euro tournaments.

 

Agree? Disagree? Scroll down to leave your comments

 

Sadly, for the club and genuine fans, if UEFA decided to do that tomorrow, Rangers wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

 

ANNA SMITH

 

http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/vb/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=3

[ian1964 10,409]

FOR MARTIN BAIN, the time has come to plea bargain. The Rangers chief executive will know that the violent scenes we saw in Bucharest on Wednesday night cannot go on much longer without the club getting hit with some kind of ban from European competition. Maybe the ban won't be handed down this time, maybe it won't happen next time either. But as sure as night follows day, Bain must be certain that the next incident involving the vermin rump that attaches itself to his club is just aroun

Judging from his reaction to the trouble in Bucharest, Bain clearly needs advice. In attempting to divvy up the blame, on a 50-50 basis, between the thugs who broke up seats and flung them at stewards and the stewards themselves, he came across as an

ADVERTISEMENT

apologist for the moronic tourists. And not for the first time either. It would have been nice to hear him say that the CCTV footage – of outstanding quality, it seems – would be studied and the trouble-makers identified and banned from Ibrox for life. But he chose not to. He was as cringe-makingly wrong in his judgment last week as he was in his assertion, post Manchester, that the riots after the UEFA Cup final of 2008 were spearheaded by English hooligans. So, here's what he should do next. He should discreetly ask UEFA to forget any thought they may have of swingeing fines or points deductions or behind-closed-doors games at Ibrox and suggest instead, off the record, that a one-year ban be placed on Rangers supporters travelling abroad to follow their team.

 

He should do it because Rangers are heading for a significant sanction if some of their supporters keep up their current levels of hooliganism: Pamplona, Villarreal, Manchester and now Bucharest. He should do it because you get a sense around Ibrox that the club is at the end of its tether with these abusive half-wit fans and their refusal to take responsibility for their own actions. If you're Walter Smith, there is no downside to having the fans banned on the road. The constant threat of trouble is just not worth it. Having them banned at home, however, would be a nightmare, in terms of revenue and image and other things. Rangers are moving towards that point, though. Bain needs to pre-empt the doomsday scenario and he needs to do it quickly.

 

We could sit here all day going on about some of the Rangers support and their feeble attempts to deflect the blame for their own behaviour. Not only are these people violent, they are also thunderously stupid if they think that civilised Scotland is buying the excuses they've been trotting out since Wednesday night.

 

We've heard that old one about English accents infiltrating the ranks, the same pitiful argument they put up in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester riots, a bogus defence that came tumbling down around their ears just as soon as all that YouTube footage started to emerge and all those distinctly Scottish accents were heard from people in their unmistakably blue shirts seen rampaging around Manchester, smashing cars and windows, chucking bottles and attacking policemen. And each other.

 

UEFA washed its hands of the Manchester business. Shame on it for that. A city centre under siege and Michel Platini and chums turned and looked the other way. By rights, Rangers should have been banned from Europe for what happened down there.

 

It's always somebody else's fault as far as some Rangers fans are concerned. In Manchester, it was the fault of the local council for not anticipating the size of the visiting support, the fault of Tesco for selling them beer so early in the morning, the fault of the sunshine for frying the brains of the fans, the fault of the big screen for breaking down. In Bucharest, it was the fascist stewards and police to blame and the ***** stadium and the poxy, rundown city and the closed turnstiles and, of course, the guys with the English accents stirring things up.

 

It has to be said that many Rangers fans have grown as weary of this kind of buck-passing as the rest of us, large elements of them condemning outright what went on in Bucharest. Many of them must be fearing a hefty punishment from UEFA on Thursday. Sure, the Unirea officials made a hash of things. Yes, those turnstiles should have been opened and, unquestionably, the behaviour of the Romanian stewards and police deserves investigation.

 

But Rangers shouldn't even be allowed to look at the moral high ground, never mind occupy it. Some of their fans dynamited their own credibility when they ran amok in Manchester and disgraced themselves in European games with Osasuna and Villarreal, not to mention the 17 arrests at the infamous Ibrox beam-back at the UEFA Cup final. At the club's own event there were Rangers fans led away with blood-stained jerseys, Rangers fans handcuffed on the ground, Rangers fans roaming about steaming drunk and looking to cause hassle. And even they could not find anybody to blame that night. There's just a hardcore of hopeless drunken neds that cling to Rangers and won't let go.

 

When they complain about over-zealous stewards and indiscriminate use of CS gas, they forget that the reason security personnel are jumpy is because of the foul reputation Rangers fans now have abroad. They can view YouTube in Bucharest as well, you know. They've seen the videos from Manchester. No Rangers fans should have been surprised to find an aggressive force in Romania. The reputation of the fans precedes them everywhere they go these days.

 

Bain would be doing the club, and their legions of proper supporters, a service if he made representations to UEFA and brought a halt to the trips. For without drastic action, Rangers are on a self-destructive road and are heading for the kind of punishment that will hurt the club to its core.

 

--

 

Scotsman

[chilledbear 16]

If you have a reputation [deserved or not], this is what happens, it's life. No matter what the provocation, we were caught on camera throwing chairs at stewards. For the good of Rangers, it's time to take serious measures to make sure something like this never happens again.

[maineflyer 0]

Before anyone gets carried away here, let's all remember who Anna Smith is and what her agenda has been for the last twenty years. Sure we have fans who need to learn to control themselves but the Romanian episode wasn't as straightforward as the sainted Anna would love to believe.

 

I read an article yesterday in the Herrald Tribune of all places. It simply said that Unirea faced UEFA disciplinary action for their poor organisation at last week's game. No mention at all of Rangers or its fans. Funny how you get such a pre-fabricated message in Scotland.

 

We have a problem, it's obvious. But we all need to avoid buying into the Scottish media's "destroy Rangers and what it stands for" agenda. In fact, we need to fight back against it.

 

I drove back from Manchester stone cold sober and feeling acutely let down by the knuckle draggers. Then I became aware of why some people were rightly pissed off at the GMP thugs. Too many on the night were pished and looking for trouble but it's amazing how often there really are two sides to these things and only one ever gets reported. Following Rangers is a complicated business.

[Wija 0]

Anna Smith's agenda is well known, but she is getting more and more column inches and more and more people buying into it.

The food for this is being handed on a plate by the small band of idiots who shame the club.

[alexscottislegend 2,054]

We can ignore cretins like Anna Smith and Spiers with their agenda-driven tirades, but we have to be pro-active in ensuring that we do not get a lengthy European ban. After Barcelona 1972, we were given 2 years reduced to one on appeal; a 2 year ban this time round could kill us financially. Why not suggest to Eufa that we will go one year without taking any away tickets? That way we will be seen to be doing something and getting our retaliation in first. Because Eufa might well decide - solely on the basis of our previous - to force us to play closed doors games at Ibrox and that would be far worse, and not simply because of the revenue aspect. There is nothing more Rangers FC can do to stop undesirables attaching themselves to our club. Under the rules clubs are responsible for the home support; I could understand it if a missile was thrown at Ibrox but at an away ground we are powerless. I know this will seem a craven attitude to some, but it is simply self-preservation which makes me say this, damage limitation if you like.

[bmck 117]

everything she writes is undermined because you know when she saw the trouble her little heart swelled at the thought of getting to put on her denouncing-evil hat. she works for the mirror; if she wants to fight the great evil of the age....

[Zappa 0]

It's interesting to see well paid journos using words like 'rancid' when referring to human beings. They talk about sectarianism in Scotland as if it were a problem that only blossoms in Govan while they constantly & apparently unknowingly do their best to make it worse.

[bmck 117]

someone should probably also tell her that trailing and dragging arent the same thing. just to keep her from looking stupid.

[biggordy 0]

At the moment, if you read the Scottish press, you would think that only our Club is a magnet for people hell bent on violence. Such individuals attend gatherings like football matches, G8 Conferences or anywhere there could be the chance of a ruck.

We have the biggest support in Scotland therefore pretty much reflect a cross section of society. Suffice to say , this includes our fair share of nutters who don't care of any consequences to our Club.

All Clubs also have their nutters whose numbers will also be in proportion to their entire support. Many are probably the same ones who go to Rangers away matches and other such events for the sole adrenaline rush achieved in challenging the authority who happens to be in opposition.

After all, what do these people do when there's no G8 to disrupt ?

 

I've read many eye witness statements from the Romania experience and there appears to be no doubt that the authorities played a big part in the so-called "riot" Now, anyone with similar experiences would tell you that it's very difficult just to walk away and turn the other cheek when you are being so badly treated.

The last thing going through anyone's mind is that they shouldn't do anything to embarrass the Club, I can assure you. It's a "fight or flight" situation. If you're alone and the odds are against you, easy, fly like the wind. When you're part of a large group however, you've had a drink, you've been treated badly, you've seen a fellow supporter attacked, the professional troublemakers hardly need to act and before you know it, you'are right behind the nutters.

 

Would any rational supporter follow abroad not expecting trouble of some kind, I don't think so.

The best way out for us this time is a ban on away tickets for a time, we need to break this cycle of "rioting" and rebuild our reputation of being one of the biggest and best Clubs in Europe.

 

Anyway, look at the cash the Romanians must have made off us. When we play away, the home team must be rubbing their hands at the cash they'll make. We, as a club will not suffer.