Leggat - Herald Stands Accused Of Censoring Rangers Fans

[ian1964 10,416]

ODIOUS CREEP remains clear and present danger to Rangers. That is a fact, despite what some people may think.

 

And the paper where he has found a safe harbour, the Herald, this morning stands accused of blocking reasonable comments questioning the lies Odious Creep is peddling about being attacked by Rangers supporters in Villarreal.

 

Yet, surprisingly, there are the Rangers supporters who, for whatever reason, seem to delight in attacking me whenever I attack Odious Creep.

 

Perhaps the huge overwhelming majority of Rangers supporters may like to examine what motivates this underwhelming minority of those who attach themselves to the Ibrox club and comment on their conclusion.

 

Iâ??ve been banging on about Odious Creep and how dangerous he is to Rangers for a long time and perhaps there are some who believe I should be singing a different song.

 

However, the warning signals have been obvious regarding the danger of Rangers supporters not attacking any newspaper which gives him and his bilious lies a safe haven

 

And the proof of how much of a clear and present danger Odious Creep remains to Rangers was there for all to see last week when he concocted a piece for the Heraldâ??s online edition which hurled out the wild and completely unsubstantiated allegation that he was attacked and spat upon by Rangers supporters as he walked the 200 yards through the crowd from the media bus to the stadium in Villarreal more than six years ago.

 

It was a blatant lie and one I took apart, piece by piece.

 

But it is what happened next which is interesting and calls into question the journalistic integrity of the Herald newspaper. It places a huge question mark over the integrity and ethos of this once mighty national newspaper, now reduced to the ranks of being no more than a wee local rag, thanks in some part to the presence in its ranks of Odious Creep and his supporters.

 

The Herald even went so far as to try to push the Creep fantasy about what he says happened in Spain as being the best read article in its category. Though the Herald failed to mention which category that was.

 

Fiction?

 

The Herald also encouraged comments on what Creep wrote and Odious Creep encouraged comments when he provided a link on his Twitter account. And guess what? Yes, thatâ??s right, the comments were all entirely in favour of what Odious Creep had concocted.

 

But that is not surprising. For the information I have been handed is that the Herald conducted a campaign to vet the comments and not allow any which challenged Odious Creepâ??s unsubstantiated account of what happened in Spain more than six years ago. I have been contacted by a well connected Rangers supporter who attempted to post a comment which questioned Odious Creepâ??s account of what happened that night in Spain.

 

And guess what?

 

This Rangers supporterâ??s entirely rational, literate and non-inflammatory comments were censored by the Herald site moderator. The comments which called Creepâ??s allegations into question were banned. The block went up and they were rejected. It is a horror story of censorship which the management at the Herald would do well to investigate.

 

But back to that early spring night in 2006 and Villarreal and my clear recollection of what happened, the true and accurate version of which appeared here a few days ago.

 

What I held back was the fact that I was not alone in walking the 200 yards from the media bus to the ground, never more than four yards behind Odious Creep, who was within touching distance and sight the whole way. For two other journalists were with me. There were three pairs of eyes on him and not one pair saw him being attacked or spat on.

 

Since my original dismantling of his claim I have also been contacted by another old press pal who recalled a conversation he had with Creep on the media gantry, minutes after the Scottish media arrived.

 

It took the form of Odious Creep saying he was surprised at the huge numbers of Rangers supporters who had made the trip. No mention was made by Odious Creep at that time of him being subjected to physical violence and spat upon.

 

This was a conversation which was overheard by a broadcaster.

 

Strange, that.

 

Certainly, had I been attacked outside of a ground and had I been spat upon by supporters, I would have mentioned it when speaking to a colleague and I would not have waited more than six years to write about it.

 

The evidence, which Odious Creepâ??s collaborators at the Herald chose to ignore, is mounting by the minute to discredit Creepâ??s wild and unsubstantiated allegations.

 

And I can and will produce more, when the time is right, to prove why those allegations Odious Creep made about being assaulted in Spain were not the first wild claims he has made about being assaulted and how he could not substantiate those other claims either.

 

So why has Odious Creep chosen now to make his wild and unsubstantiated claims about being attacked in Spain more than six years ago?

 

Did the Heraldâ??s editor make any attempt to stand up the story, or did he just take Odious Creepâ??s word that it was all true?

 

And why did the Herald, a newspaper which Rangers fans view as being fiercely anti-Rangers, chose to allow Odious Creep the platform of their paper's title to spew his bile?

 

Could it have anything to do with the fact that Charles Green and Imran Ahmad are on the brink of launching a share issue, one which if successful would provide the foundations for Rangers to be rebuilt and for the comeback of the club to begin in earnest?

 

That is certainly what many Rangers supporters I have spoken to believe.

 

It was also surely more than coincidental that Odious Creepâ??s unsubstantiated and totally false accusations appeared within a couple of days of that other arch Rangers hater, Brian Patrick McNally, taking to his official Mirror Twitter account to lie about Rangers supporters singing the so called Famine Song during the game against Clyde at Broadwood?

 

And both Odious Creep and Brian McNallyâ??s attacks on Rangers supporters came hard on the heels of Channel Fourâ??s fantasist Alex Thomson's dangerously wild report about alleged threats made to unnamed journalists.

 

Which is turn followed and was actually based on a rant on those lines by Philmacgiollabhain to the last Annual Delegates Conference of the Irish Republican leaning National Union of Journalists.

 

The thread, beginning with Philmacgiollabhain, continues to Channel Fourâ??s Alex Thomson, entangles Mirror Group Newspaper sports writer Brian Patrick McNally and stitches in Odious Creep.

 

Who the Herald is only too keen to encourage in his fiction about what he says happened in Villarreal.

 

However, as I have said, this is not the first time that Odious Creep has invented so called attacks on his person. Attacks he failed to provide any evidence to substantiate and which he quickly backed down from after mâ??learned friends became involved.

 

Which is why Charles Green and Imran Ahmad should ignore those Rangers supporters â?? granted an underwhelming fringe minority â?? who attack me for attacking Odious Creep and why they should cry havoc and let slip the legal dogs of war with instructions to savage Odious Creep and the Herald.

 

For until Odious Creep is savaged and his reputation dismantled, he will remain a clear and present danger to the plans Charles Green and Imran Ahmad have for rebuilding Rangers.

 

.......

 

AND.....

 

I spent the most enjoyable Sunday afternoon I can recall, as the guest of Kirkintilloch Rangers Supporters Club who held a lunch in their magnificent premises to raise money for the Rangers Supporters Erskine Appeal.

 

The company was great. There was the magnificent Harold Davis, whose book, Tougher Than Bullets, was being sold to raise money for Erskine, along with his lovely and charming wife. There was also Johnny Hubbard, as impish and delightful as ever, Davie Wilson, who gave me some wonderful â??stickâ? when thanking me for the short talk I gave, Billy Ritchie, still the quiet man, Ralph Brand, who looks as though he could still pull on the boots, Alex McDonald, who continues to fire gags like machine gun bullets and Ian McMillan, who looks a lot younger than his 82 years and who was charm itself.

 

Plus John Greig, who got the biggest cheer of all when I mentioned that as far as Rangers supporters are concerned, he will always be a loyal true and much admired Ranger.

 

There were residents from Erskine too, one of whom spoke with a passion and eloquence I had no hope of matching.

 

It was nice to see the oldest regular at Ibrox, Andy Bain, who you always find with a smile on his face

 

It was also pleasing that so many Rangers fans approached me to say how much they enjoy reading Leggoland.

 

Thanks to everyone for a memorable afternoon and a special thanks to the men who organised it, Murray Roxburgh and Tom Clark.

[biggordy 0]

OC's presence at the Herald is an indication as to how far the paper's standing has plummeted.

[calscot 0]

Trouble is that bears keep reading it.

[frost 0]

James Morgan deputy sports editor has some very strange views on The Rangers creep will be right at home.

[RANGERRAB 3,258]

This where our new regime(CG) needs to bans these articles from Ibrox stadium. The editors of these so-called newspapers will soon get the message when their circulation plummetS

[54andcounting 0]

It doesn't say much for a newspaper that writes a story that happened six years ago especially when it comes from someone with an agenda against all things Rangers, the fact that they give that man employment just about sums up the newspaper itself.

 

What a poor publication that rhag is.

[calscot 0]

The trouble is that people keep clicking on the links making them the highest read. That justifies Spiers' employment as he looks really popular/controversial and looks good to the advertisers.

 

We need an online campaign to stop Rangers fans clicking on his articles. He'll obviously still be popular with that other lot as they can't get enough of Rangers bashing no matter how pathetic and unsubstantiated it is and they embrace all lies as gospel if it suits their thinking.

 

We need people to black list the Herald on their NewsNow page so that they never even see the headlines and stop all subscriptions to the pay wall. The Herald is just becoming another Celtic View and why would a bear read that?

[The Real PapaBear 0]

...let's not be unkind to Mr Spiers. I'm sure it must have been just awful to be subjected to threats and intimidation whenever he wrote about Rangers.

 

Well, when I say 'subjected to' I mean 'hear about'. Second hand. From other people telling him about the threats.

 

These threats must have been so serious that they couldn't be made to Mr Spiers directly and had to be relayed via colleagues.

 

These are the worst kind of threats, the ones that you don't receive yourself and hear about from your editor. You lie awake worrying about why nobody is phoning you up in the middle of the night. You toss and turn, fretting that they aren't vandalising your house or car. You pace up and down endlessly trying to work out why they aren't throwing rocks through your child's bedroom window.

 

Albertz and Novo had it easy, compared to Mr Spiers if you ask me. They didn't have to suffer the sinister silent threat; the unspoken threat; the unwritten threat; the invisible kind of threat that Mr Spiers did.

 

That's the worst kind; you never know exactly when nothing's going to happen. It might be today; it might be tomorrow; it might be two weeks from now - but one thing is sure; at some point nothing is going to happen and it's gonna be bad.

 

During all the years when he was in and out of Ibrox every second week without anybody saying 'boo' to him, the tension must have been unbearable. After all, he knew they were there, these threats (people had told him they were) so they must have been all the more sinister to be completely dismissed.

 

To people who don't know about these things, it may have looked like he was just being ignored for being a twat every time he set foot in Ibrox - but actually, it turns out he was being threatened silently, invisibly, inaudibly.

 

So, let's show Mr Spiers the respect his threat warnings deserve, shall we?

[pete 2,499]

...let's not be unkind to Mr Spiers. I'm sure it must have been just awful to be subjected to threats and intimidation whenever he wrote about Rangers.

 

Well, when I say 'subjected to' I mean 'hear about'. Second hand. From other people telling him about the threats.

 

These threats must have been so serious that they couldn't be made to Mr Spiers directly and had to be relayed via colleagues.

 

These are the worst kind of threats, the ones that you don't receive yourself and hear about from your editor. You lie awake worrying about why nobody is phoning you up in the middle of the night. You toss and turn, fretting that they aren't vandalising your house or car. You pace up and down endlessly trying to work out why they aren't throwing rocks through your child's bedroom window.

 

Albertz and Novo had it easy, compared to Mr Spiers if you ask me. They didn't have to suffer the sinister silent threat; the unspoken threat; the unwritten threat; the invisible kind of threat that Mr Spiers did.

 

That's the worst kind; you never know exactly when nothing's going to happen. It might be today; it might be tomorrow; it might be two weeks from now - but one thing is sure; at some point nothing is going to happen and it's gonna be bad.

 

During all the years when he was in and out of Ibrox every second week without anybody saying 'boo' to him, the tension must have been unbearable. After all, he knew they were there, these threats (people had told him they were) so they must have been all the more sinister to be completely dismissed.

 

To people who don't know about these things, it may have looked like he was just being ignored for being a twat every time he set foot in Ibrox - but actually, it turns out he was being threatened silently, invisibly, inaudibly.

 

So, let's show Mr Spiers the respect his threat warnings deserve, shall we?

 

 

This should be listened to at the same time as reading your post. I think it was written for the part.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

LOL! Very good, indeed.

 

Of course if you were putting together a playlist of Songs for Spiers, you could have chose this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkyebo2gAw0