Ibrox: Jurassic Park?

[D'Artagnan 173]

yes, the floor is indeed mine, having wiped it with your baseless argument. And, indeed, let's leave others to read your claims without foundation, your continued refusal to provide evidence in support of those claims, your decent into name calling and your refusal to admit defeat when evidence was provided to discredit your claims.

Let's leave others to read your breathtaking hypocrisy when comparing the SNP to nazis and screaming in the next breath that a journalist who compared Rangers fans in the same way was as good as guilty of genocide.

 

I'm sure that conclusions have been drawn.

 

Its probably not the time nor the place to re-commence this - but your continuous unpleasant tone has drawn me back - I tend not to make a habit of falling out with fellow Bears, no matter how much we disagree, however you seem to be doing your utmost to break that habit. One could be forgiven given the anger you have expressed in that last response for thinking their is something "personal" about all of this.

 

Furthermore I presume it was a typo regarding "decent into name calling" - or was the decent a Freudian slip. ? Perhaps you would be good enough to illustrate this "name calling" you are referring to.

 

However getting back to the debate - perhaps what is most interesting about this doctoral thesis is not the part you chose to highlight in bold, but the part you chose not to highlight.

 

For Murray, the arrival of Harland and Wolff and their predominantly Orange workforce did not necessarily introduce a new sectarian element at Rangers, but probably reinforced a trend that was already well underway.3

 

Im struggling to understand why Unionism would be referred to as "a new sectarian element at Rangers"

 

Furthermore I think you will find this part in fact is from - Bill Murray's, "The Old Firm: Sectarianism Sport and Society in Scotland" and not by Prof Graham Walker.

Edited August 5, 2013 by D'Artagnan
F

[D'Artagnan 173]

From the same doctoral thesis....

 

 

After beating Celtic four times and drawing with them once out of six matches during the 1893 -94 season Rangers erased any doubt as to who would be the Protestant team of choice inGlasgow.

 

By the 1890s support for both Rangers and Celtic was heavily based on dogmatic tribal interpretations of British and Irish history and ethnoreligious antagonism.

The first match between Rangers and Celtic in 1888 attracted a mere two thousand spectators. Ten years later over fifty thousand supporters attended the Ne’er Day match between the two clubs.

 

 

Long before H & W came to Govan.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

Its probably not the time nor the place to re-commence this - but your continuous unpleasant tone has drawn me back - I tend not to make a habit of falling out with fellow Bears' date=' no matter how much we disagree, however you seem to be doing your utmost to break that habit. One could be forgiven given the anger you have expressed in that last response for thinking their is something "personal" about all of this.

 

Furthermore I presume it was a typo regarding "decent into name calling" - or was the decent a Freudian slip. ? Perhaps you would be good enough to illustrate this "name calling" you are referring to.

 

However getting back to the debate - perhaps what is most interesting about this doctoral thesis is not the part you chose to highlight in bold, but the part you chose not to highlight.

 

 

 

Im struggling to understand why Unionism would be referred to as "a new sectarian element at Rangers"

 

Furthermore I think you will find this part in fact is from - Bill Murray's, "The Old Firm: Sectarianism Sport and Society in Scotland" and not by Prof Graham Walker.[/quote']

 

 

 

First of all, the 'unpleasantness started in this thread when you started it in posts 123 and again in 126 and frequently thereafter. I allowed you three pieces of rudeness before responding in kind.

 

By the way, I retract the accusation of name calling. I was incorrect to describe your language in this way; it was just simple rudeness, not name calling.

 

Second, why are you suddenly talking about Murray? The fact that Murray disagrees with me is not the issue.

 

The issue, that you're trying bury in irrelevancies, is that you claimed that Murray and Walker both disagreed with me and that I was making comments with no supporting evidence.

I proved this to be wrong and instead of addressing the fact that Walker agrees with me and that your claim to the contrary was proved to be false, you ignore this and instead shift your focus to start talking about Murray.

 

Address the fact, that you've hitherto avoided addressing, that your claim about Walker was groundless.

 

Then you can perhaps address the following, when you claim about me; "you have made a comment without any substance of foundation and you can neither qualify it or provide any sort of historical source to substantiate it."

Now, that I have proved you wrong, care to admit your mistake?

 

Third, why are you continually holding up examples of Rangers unionist links prior to the arrival of H&W, as though this was some kind of revelation?

I refer you to my comments in post 145:

Quote: "At no point did I ever say that there was no protestant/unionist link with Rangers. I said that the arrival of the HW workers was the event that saw us inextricably bound, or as I phrased it "fundamentally associated " with that political/religious movement. The exact same thing Walker says."

 

Now, either you didn't read this, in which case I wonder how much else you have missed, or you read it and just decided to ignore it and continue as though this was something I was contesting. Which was it?

 

I would also be interested to read your comments on your two 'nazi' posts I referred to previously.

You know the ones where you compare the SNP to Nazis and then accuse Hugh Keevins of "a feat of such dehumanisation that it ranks right up there with genocide." for,... wait for it,... comparing Rangers fans to Nazis. I can't help noticing you avoided addressing that and would be keen to hear your rationale for what would seem, on the face of it, breathtaking hypocrisy.

[D'Artagnan 173]

Now we are being civil RPB - Im sure we can have an interesting debate. Furthermore I will attempt to answer the questions you have posed re the SNP and the Nazi comparison in due course.

 

Firstly the identity debate.

 

You wrote..

 

"It was the arrival of the Belfast shipbuilders in the early part of the century which saw the British/Protestant/Unionist ethos being fundamentally associated with the club."

 

I disagree with that - I believe it was already fundamentally associated with our club and the thesis you have referred to appears to argue that :-

 

(Page 115) :-

 

The location of Ibrox Park coupled with the demographic composition of many of its supporters during the last decades of the nineteenth century undoubtedly gave the club a decidedly Orange hue. However, it was not until the creation of Celtic Foot ball Club in 1888 and their almost instantaneous athletic success that Rangers began to emerge as the de facto sporting wing of Protestant loyalism

 

(Page 117) :-

 

By the 1890s support for both Rangers and Celtic was heavily based on dogmatic tribal interpretations of British and Irish history and ethnoreligious antagonism.

 

With regard to Walker and Murray - and the part you have quoted..

 

His fostering of Rangers’ ongoing connections with Govan’s Protestant-dominated

shipyards in Govan was reinforced in 1912 by the arrival of Belfast-based shipbuilding firm,

Harland and Wolff, which was notoriously Orange and sectarian. The opening of their shipyard

dramatically increased the flow of Protestant workers from Belfast to Govan. Thousands of

these Orange Irish workers settled in the Govan area permanently. For Protestant Irish shipyard

workers with an appetite for competitive football, Rangers was the obvious choice. Most

scholars agree that the arrival of Harland and Wolff shipbuilding works influenced both the

boardroom and terrace culture at Rangers, though they differ on its extent. For Murray, the

arrival of Harland and Wolff and their predominantly Orange workforce did not necessarily

introduce a new sectarian element at Rangers, but probably reinforced a trend that was already

well underway.37 Walker disagrees arguing, “The Harland and Wolff factor may well be seen as

decisive if considered in conjunction with the issue of Irish Home Rule.”

 

That appears to me to be talking about the sectarian issue as a consequence of H & W's arrival - not our British/Unionist/Protestant identity and would more readily support your second assertion viz.

 

Because this NI sub-culture, whilst akin, was not exactly the same as the dominant Scottish culture and so they probably felt the need to show themselves to be more British/Protestant/Unionist than we were. Add to that the conflict they had left behind and you get teh anti-Irish anti-Catholic thing which scarred our club for the best part of the century.

 

I would add a cautionary note as well - in referring to the thesis we are only working from a very small selection of both Murray and Walker's work.

 

.