Our Nuclear Winter Continues

[andy steel 0]

Back in the Cold War, namby pamby lefty liberal types used to put on dramas every so often, depicting the aftermath of nuclear conflict. The production teams involved found it easier (cheaper) to take the deaths of millions as read and focus on small survivor units, depicted against a horribly convincing nuclear landscape. That the Britain of this period accurately stood in for an atomically ravaged landscape ought to tell us something about Britain in general (vote yes!) but the thing I recall best as a small child was the concept of the nuclear winter, a perma-sunless period of years in which nothing could grow or prosper.

 

Grim stuff. Even then, though, the bleeding heart type couldn't resist closing with some hackneyed image of a small plant growing, as life started again without the fell hand of right wing government bringing about the apocalypse this time. There was always hope!

 

No such luck for us, though. We seem to be struggling to take even a single step forward from the dark days of administration and liquidaton.

 

The UK economy is tottering on Bambi legs toward recovery; Libya and Tunisia had their 'Arab Springs', and while Egypt and Syria are hardly the best of adverts for this particular crap analogy, it beggars belief that entire countries and fiscal systems can absorb shocks and recover faster than a well supported football club based in a settled, safe society.

 

I've bored you before with my patented theory about the dark forces who are slowly killing us, but added to that sheer fatigue is doing people in. Many have stopped going due to the abysmal standard of play, others are deflated by online abuse, while some have just run out of steam. We saw over the weekend D'Artagnan packing it in and no wonder: years of firefighting the attacks of other fans and clubs, with no weapons except to point out their own stinking hypocrisy, while the weight of the media is borne down on our club would knacker anyone.

 

But when the feeling grows that the thing you're spending a stupid amount of time defending isn't worth defending you're in big trouble. Not only is the football rubbish but the officials who run our club have been and remain rubbish since Craig Whyte walked down Edmiston Drive, to the cheers of about 40 people who recognised him. He stared killing us slowly from within, Charles continued (continues?) it, while the present incumbents don't bear speaking about, such is my contempt for them.

 

I suppose the fans of other clubs are loving it, but our slow decline is mirrored in theirs. It's not just us going down, it's football as a whole. No amount of Politburo releases from Pacific Quay about the terrific standard and full stands around the country will fool anyone with a grain of sense: as late as the 70's, when I was watching nuclear dramas, clubs had attendances in the tens of thousands. Certainly the decline had set in and to some extent football has been staving off illness for decades, only ocassionally recouperating before falling ill again.

 

I find myself wondering whether Rangers reflects this: since the heyday of European runs and titles in the 60's, it's been a story of boom and bust, staving off decline with some periods of success. That would be normal for a club in a normal country but it isn't normal in Scotland, because firstly about 90% of fans support two teams and secondly without some success for each of them the financial wellspring of the game runs perilously dry. This comes close to the old 'football needs the OF to thrive' argument, and while I think their dominance has hardly helped the game their withering will scarcely revive it, unless we're aiming for a top league with attendances roughly akin to those of Pollok juniors.

 

Many threads on here are becoming increasingly nostalgic, and no wonder. If there's nothing to look forward to, what else can you do? Maybe the bluebells will be out on that grubby bit of wasteground across from Edmiston Drive by the time I fetch up for the next home game, offering the prospect of a new spring ahead. I have my doubts, though: it's more likely a passing fan of another club will have kicked its head off.

 

edit - while a bunch of bluenoses fight amongst themselves and take no action!

Edited April 7, 2014 by andy steel

[Frankie 8,114]

Aye, things are very bleak and it's increasingly difficult to find solace in much to do with the club nowadays. Is this where I write things are always darkest before dawn?

 

PS: Threads is one of my favourite movies! Scary stuff!

Edited April 7, 2014 by Frankie

[Zappa 0]

Quite an appropriate piece in some ways for what seems like a generally grim and depressing mood today Andy.

 

The stun and disappointment of yesterday's football, the defeat and it's immediate aftermath last night has left an unsettling calm today that's probably just pure numbness.

 

The leaking of an Ibrox party photo of Ally up singing a Karaoke number last night is a bit of a nuke in it's own right.

 

The Club's silence today is deafening. Did someone set off an EMP device at Ibrox?

[compo 6,065]

we have to pick ourselves up and get on with the job in hand that is restoring rangers back into shape and one way it can be done is to get in good coaches to help the raw talent to improve their footballing skills you cant make a footballer but a good coach can improve them .

[Tom Davison 0]

Andy Steel is so right. We look back because we all have good memories to cling to. In contrast, we are fearful of looking forward.

[andy steel 0]

Aye, things are very bleak and it's increasingly difficult to find solace in much to do with the club nowadays. Is this where I write things are always darkest before dawn?

 

PS: Threads is one of my favourite movies! Scary stuff!

 

Christ, if the 'business' being liquidated wasn't as dark as it gets, what is? A gentle decline into Third Lanark status, over a few decades until eventual expiration? The worry is - and here I shall resort to non-academic upper case shouting - that there is NO-ONE INSIDE IBROX WHO CAN ADDRESS THE ISSUES FACING US!!! And since that's the case, and it definitely is, we're fucked for the foreseeable.

 

Now I think about it, Fucked for the Foreseeable would have been a decent title to the OP, even at the risk of upsetting the Venerable Brahim. I dare you to put that on the main site, I bet you Newsnow would have no issues publishing that one.

 

Did someone set off an EMP device at Ibrox?

 

Spyhunter! Da na na na na na na na, da na na na na na na na....

 

[video=youtube;X-0Yf9ODsg4]

 

Cheered me up with that 90's reference, Zap.

 

we have to pick ourselves up and get on with the job in hand that is restoring rangers back into shape and one way it can be done is to get in good coaches to help the raw talent to improve their footballing skills you cant make a footballer but a good coach can improve them .

 

Positive stuff! The only hope for the future is that there are more fans like you and less fans like me, Compo.

[Calgacus 8]

Andy Steel is so right. We look back because we all have good memories to cling to. In contrast, we are fearful of looking forward.

 

to quote the Bard..and forwards though a canna see, I baith guess and fear...

[andy steel 0]

Andy Steel is so right.

 

I've always liked you, Tom.

[Crimson Dynamo 128]

Aye, things are very bleak and it's increasingly difficult to find solace in much to do with the club nowadays. Is this where I write things are always darkest before dawn?

 

PS: Threads is one of my favourite movies! Scary stuff!

 

Threads is great if bleak as is the day after.......anyway completely off topic

[26th of foot 5,824]

The original piece should have Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds most melodic and nostalgic piece playing as background, Justin Hayward's, Forever Autumn'.

 

The best post-apocalyptic literature I have read is Cormac McCarthy's 'the Road', harrowing stuff. Appropriately, spring arrives after the death of the main character.