Guardian's anonymous attack on rangers

[ian1964 10,416]

ANONYMOUS is here there and everywhere. And now it would appear He She or It, has joined that old red rag, the Guardian.

 

It isn't long since I highlighted some chancer on the paper by the name of Glendenning, who had branded Rangers - the club that is, not the supporters - as Huns.

 

Now the latest attack has by the paper, which the great Richard Littlejohn so accurately branded, one of the "unpopulars," has been directed at the Ibrox club's fans, and features the biggest managerial failure in Rangers long history, Paul Le Guen.

 

Now - to quote Private Eye - as any fule know, Rangers got rid of the French flop almost four years ago after a short period because he showed, beyond debate, that he was ill equipped to handle the task handed to him by Sir David Murray.

 

It was something I had predicted four years past in February when it was first announced Le Guen was to succeed the successful Alex McLeish.

 

My view was based on research of his record, the resources he had needed for his undoubted success in France, and the circumstances in which he had managed.

 

My conclusion was that he would not have similar resources at Ibrox nor would the circumstances there be anything like what he had experienced in France, and that he was, therefore, the wrong man for the job.

 

It was a view which flew in the face of popular opinion and united most Rangers supporters against me when I expressed it at the time when LeggoLand was published in the old fashioned print form.

 

Press pack pals thought I had gone bonkers, despite me explaining my reasoning, while Ibrox season ticket holders among my Partick pals just did not want to listen.

 

In common with Rangers supporters everywhere, they bought into Murray's poetic prediction of riding a Le Guen moonbeam to glory.

 

Their almost fanatical belief in him was there for all to see when Le Guen took a bow in front of the Ibrox crowd for the first time.

 

The splendid red, white and blue Tricolour of France flew in all corners of Ibrox and the crowd loudly and lustily belted out the tune of that most magnificent of anthems, La Marseillaise. Stirring stuff!

 

I do not think I can recall a new Rangers manager getting a more vigorous reception. Not Jock Wallace when he returned, or the legend that is John Greig when he stepped up from the captaincy, not Graeme Souness, or even the second coming of Walter Smith, when he replaced Le Guen.

 

Rangers supporters believed Le Guen was the man to make them a force and any thought of the Frenchman not being what the Guardian's Mister or Ms Anonymous called, "Rangers-minded" never entered the head of anyone I met.

 

It did not seem to be present among the crowd whose welcome for Le Guen was loud, long and genuine.

 

Yet, with a fine and blatant disregard for these facts, the Guardian has chosen to use a fairytale in the London Times, linking Le Guen with the vacant manager's job at Hibernian, as a sorry and sordid excuse to try and blacken the name of Rangers again.

 

What appeared in an Anonymous article in a Guardian supplement gave a perfect example of why so many folk do not trust this ailing and failing newspaper to tell the truth.

 

This is the libel - for that is what it is - which appeared in the Guardian supplement....

 

"Paul le Guen, formerly of Rangers, but not considered 'Rangers-minded' by the more confused denizens of Ibrox, could take over at the significantly greener, Hibernian."

 

Just pause for a moment, go back and read that again. Rangers supporters reading this may care to take a deep breath, pause for another moment and then go back and read that outrageous lie again.

 

They may then feel like going to Google and researching the Press Complaints' Commission.

 

Perhaps the Guardian's Anonymous is getting confused with his clubs. Perhaps he is thinking of the view expressed by the veteran journalist and long time acute Parkhead watcher, Hugh Keevins - who makes a welcome return to Sunday column duty with the Sunday Mail this weekend - and his view that there may have been many Parkhead fans who did not take to Gordon Strachan due to a lack of what was described as his Celtic DNA.

 

This opinion was given at a time when, under Strachan, Celtic had won one title, were on their way to a second successive championship, and before he managed them to a third, the first man to do so since Jock Stein.

 

Or - and maybe you believe this is the more likely scenario - Mister or Ms Anonymous in the Guardian, was just venting their spleen against Rangers and their supporters, because that is the sort of stance which is expected of such a newspaper.

 

It has certainly never been kind to the Ibrox club, dating back to the time when current Celtic director, Brian Wilson, was its Scottish football correspondent for a decade from the mid 1970s to the 80s.

 

But - and this includes Glendenning's Huns slur - this latest ,absolutely without any basis of foundation libel, should be the last straw.

 

The very least that should happen is that the Guardian should be put under pressure to unmask the He, She or It who is to good reporting what Subo is to singing.

 

And the first step in that direction is reporting the Guardian to the Press Complains Commission.

 

http://davidleggat-leggoland.blogspot.com/