Rangers could face punishment over sectarian chanting

[boabie 230]

Most of the English TV (Sunday Supplement, for example and all Euro coverage) and papers (Mail, Guardian especially) are full of praise for the boisterous craicsters. It's enough to make one despair.

 

When there are complete erses like Greenslade working for the papers down there and doing their best to blacken Rangers it's easy to become angry rather than feeling despair mate.

[ranger_syntax 3,787]

How many SNP MPs are known Rangers supporters? Or MSPs? Or MEPs?

Has the penny dropped yet?

 

Hmmm, why are so few Rangers supporters getting into politics?

[SteveC 150]

When there are complete erses like Greenslade working for the papers down there and doing their best to blacken Rangers it's easy to become angry rather than feeling despair mate.

 

I know, but I've been raging for so long that I'm running out of steam. I'm getting on you know...now I vacillate between boiling rage and deep despair

Edited December 31, 2015 by SteveC

[RANGERRAB 3,292]

Hmmm, why are so few Rangers supporters getting into politics?

 

This is something which needs to change.

[ian1964 10,431]

Most of the English TV (Sunday Supplement, for example and all Euro coverage) and papers (Mail, Guardian especially) are full of praise for the boisterous craicsters. It's enough to make one despair.

 

No mention of their 8 UEFA fines in three years?,or the stadium wrecking?,or their Iraoke?.

 

On a side note when the Rangers fans are getting hammered by all and sundry did the Motherwell fans get their punishment for the game against us last year?

Edited January 1, 2016 by ian1964

[der Berliner 3,274]

Why? The instigator of what could have resulted in major trouble at Fir Park, i.e. Lee Erwin, has not faced any charges thus far. That, and the witch-hunt against Mohsni - is enough to know how Scottish "authorities" work. Would have been neat had Mohsni appealed against the verdict and taken the SFA et al to the cleaners.

 

This is so one-sided that it beggars belief.

Edited January 1, 2016 by der Berliner

[Scott7 5,225]

Hmmm, why are so few Rangers supporters getting into politics?

 

Too busy working, running businesses, operating in the real world - that sort of thing. Politics is for idle folk and they're mostly idle because they have no talent other than the ability to bray like donkeys.

[ian1964 10,431]

Lifted from FF:

 

 

 

Strickland Banks

Strickland Banks is online now 1st Team Regular

 

Join Date

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Default "Addiction to an anti-Rangers narrative"

 

If you have a spare few days, read on!

 

Addiction to an “Anti-Rangers narrative”

 

For some time now it has become clear to me that the constant and non-stop negative portrayal of all things Rangers has grown from the obsessions of a few rival supporters to an all-out pandemic, dare I say addition to the majority of Scottish Football.

 

I am certain that there is a probably a medical/psychological term for this phenomenon, but I am happy to accept it as a mere addiction until I am informed otherwise.

 

The addiction has had several stages and symptoms and I will cover them in detail in this article:

 

The origins of the “anti-Rangers narrative” can be traced back to the dominance of Rangers, mostly since Souness and certainly since 9 in a row. This was the time that Rangers underlined our status as the most successful club in the world, and the resentment set in from there. The physiological damage done to our rivals during that period, by landing trebles, signing Mo Johnstone, scarred a whole generation.

 

When Celtic eventually began to catch, up a long overdue challenge arrived, there was finally a two-horse race at the forefront of Scottish Football, which saw many seasons of both sides featuring top class players fight it out for the honours. Despite a fairly equal share of the spoils between 1998 and 2005, the Rangers triumph in 2003 & the 2005 “Helicopter Sunday” League win only served to dement the green half of Glasgow further.

 

It was shortly after 2005 that the first signs of a strategy to destabilise Rangers off the pitch were seen, when a sinister agenda started to emerge to coincide with Rangers reaching the last 16 of the Champions League. The warning signs for fans of Rangers were there early in the new millennium, and I recall now reading an fans forum blog circa 2004 warning of an agenda to “Espanyol-ify Rangers” ie, to make Rangers as irrelevant to Celtic as Espanyol are to their city rivals, the mighty Barcelona.

 

When Rangers were paired with Villareal in the last 16 of the champions league, early in 2006, the announcement that Celtic had signed the ageing ex-Man Utd captain Roy Keane was made moments before the Champions League draw, obviously designed to grab the limelight, which it duly did. Nothing wrong with this, very smart PR, but a sign that there was a clear appetite from across the city to grab the news, and positive publicity, side-lining Rangers.

 

I digress, the big story in the lead up to the Villareal tie was the leaked news that UEFA were ready to “hammer Rangers” for sectarian singing, in an unprecedented move from the European footballing authorities. The clandestine nature of this move to sanction and harm Rangers had now come to light, with bloggers and journalists identified early on as the protagonists, an early warning of what would follow over the next decade.

 

Anyway, the tie came and went with Rangers perhaps a bit unlucky to exit on away goals, but the predicted report of sectarian singing found its way to UEFA HQ in Zurich, who quickly dismissed it, citing it as an issue for national authorities to deal with. The fall-out of this news was met with dismay in some quarters of the Scottish media, who quickly “outed” themselves and their agenda was exposed. Constant lobbying to UEFA and another unprecedented “appeal” against their own decision followed, and Rangers were fined and warned of future conduct. The offending “Billy Boys” anthem was subsequently outlawed everywhere, and Rangers informed that its “retirement” would satisfy all. It wouldn’t.

 

The anti-Rangers cabal had now obtained success in having Rangers warned and financially sanctioned for chanting. Like most things in life, when people achieve success using a strategy, they tend to copy the formula in the hope of more success. Fast forward a year, and a few add-ons to “Simply the Best” in an empty Spanish stadium, an hour after the game, were highlighted on a fans upload to YouTube, and the hordes were out again, successfully forcing UEFA to further sanction the club, which was warned that any further breaches in a 3-year period would trigger further and perhaps more hard-hitting punishments. Again, the haters failed to hide their appetite for Rangers-battering, demanding stadium closures and bans from European completion.

 

Thankfully the next few years passed off without further incident, although the 2008 UEFA Cup Final in Manchester carnage did allow those who hate the club an open goal to stick the boot in. However, anyone who thinks 200,000 football supporters of any club descending on a fairly “local” city on a warm May day with trolleys of bevvy, would pass off completely peacefully is deluded, but the dregs of the support showed themselves up that day.

 

This is where the “naughty singing” drug takes a well-deserved break, partly due to the fact that supply has dried up, but a new drug is now available for the cabal, the “rangers financial drug.

 

Early 2009 brings news that the banking crisis which forced the “shot-gun wedding” of Lloyds and HBOS has resulted in Rangers “Account” being scrutinised closely by its new Lloyds guvnors, who are desperate to recover the £30m Rangers debt liability. With potential financial problems at Rangers and with Sir David Murray keen to sell the club, the new drug is quickly becomes an addiction. A special bonus for the addicts around this time is the emergence of social media, with Facebook, and Twitter much easier vessels for “dealers and addicts” to do business.

 

Before long, the Rangers debt to Lloyds puts the bank in charge of the club, and cuts off any investment in the team, and the financial demise of Rangers is the preferred drug. However, Walter Smith manages to milk every last ounce from a settled squad and keeps the trophies coming, ensuring Rangers remain number one, despite the fiscal difficulties.

 

The “Rangers financial drug” has been so addictive that surely nothing can top it. Wrong, a new variety appears on the market, called “the Rangers Tax case”

 

When word that HMRC are pursuing the club for a potential £48m tax bill for an aggressive, but legal tax avoidance policy, social media is in full swing, and the new drug finds thousands of new users from across the land, who don’t even need to leave their bed-sits or mothers spare rooms to achieve their daily fix.

 

Specialised blogs are created, some from leaked and stolen information, most with guess-work, which provide the daily fix and ramp up the addiction to a new level.

 

By the time Sir David Murray is forced to offload the club to Craig Whyte for £1, the addiction is out of control, with every day another feeding frenzy of Rangers hating in Cyber space and in the Scottish media, who are now addicts as well as dealers. You would think that they eventual administration of Rangers in February 2012 and eventual banishing to SFL 3, due to Whyte’s refusal to pay and tax or VAT over 9-months would see the climax of the addiction, but there is now such a demand for the drug, that its production and distribution goes into overdrive.

 

Even positives that emerge such as 38,000 season ticket sales, and a successful IPO of £20m do nothing to temper the effects, every day is now a Rangers hating day, regardless of what happens. Even wining the big tax case, and its subsequent appeal, is met with junkie denial, as there cannot possibly be anything positive relating to Rangers.

 

Fast forward at pace, and every snippet of Ibrox news is now smoked, injection, snorted and tweeted by the hating, addicted cabal, in the hope that there is negativity which can force a hit, and to be fair, the Green, Ahmad, Stockbridge regime, and the Easdale / Ashley alliance provides some excellent fixes for a culture now in minute-to-minute demand of their fix.

 

Then one year ago, the game changes. “£2m of Rangers share purchased –that rules out Dave King then  “ I am of course paraphrasing from of the many addicted haters, knowing that any King investment and control would signal the beginning of the end of the party for the junkies.

 

When it becomes clear that King, the 3 bears and other Rangers will seize control, the addiction ramps up even more, and the negative portrayal of Dave King is the new drug. “Not fit and proper, no investment, no NOMAD” are some of the substances now running through the veins of the cabal, and every TV, Radio and newspaper is just as happy to keep on selling, as well as the free-hits available on hourly social media. The smarter addicts on Twitter quickly realise that they could deal as well as “use” and there is now more than one mentalist dealer/junkie feeding their own habit with the dosh of other donating lunatics. Whilst “We are the People” they are certainly the “PayPal”

 

As the storm clouds begin to clear over Ibrox for the first time in years, the addicted cabal have found a new hero in the extremely large shape of “Big Mike” Ashley, a modern day Fagan, whose supposed “advancing” tanks are now the new needle used to administer each new delusive hit.

 

Desperation for Mark Warburton to be spirited back to England, and Dave King being banned as Chairman, or jailed, are now some of the desperate substances being absorbed in the collective cabal bloodstream, but in reality, they know the game is up, and the supply is drying up with each passing day.

 

The clearest indication of this was the desperate return to drug number one, “the sectarian song book” which followed Rangers defeating Hibs in front or 50,000 at Ibrox on Monday. This will always be the drug of last resort, such has its success been to date, and it was the only fix available after an amazing show of strength by a resurgent Rangers.

 

But for the moment, the addicts still have a few more glory “hole” days to feast on until the distribution dries up.

 

2016 will provide the final ultimate junkie-fest of the Green, Whyte, Withey, etc trials, which will no doubt see social media and the mainstream media go into overdrive, with the cabal unaware that Rangers will soon be seen as the victim of fraud and deceit. The year ahead will also likely see a full and final appeal decision on the high court tax case, which will finally put to bed the issue, one way or another, although be prepared for a short-term “junkie-apocalypse” in HMRC are successful, but at least the title-stripping appears off the agenda.

 

The most-likely final substance that hordes will have to ingest will be the battle for resolution of the Sports Direct deals at Ibrox, which will not be fully sorted until after Charles Green is convicted of fraud and corruption. Once “Big Mike” has been vanquished, their game will be over.

 

These are historical issues which still have to run their course, but there are no new problems on the horizon.

 

So strap yourself in bears, the day of the anti-Rangers narrative is almost up.

 

Then we will be back to arguing over a songbook forever more, their only point of attack, but they will still give it a go. In the words of Barry White, who captured their obsession well, we are their first, their last, their everything. 

 

Happy New Year, bears, we are the people.

[compo 6,209]

HULLAW HULLAW WE ARE THE BILLY BOYS offensive my face .

[der Berliner 3,274]

One would be inclined to ask the FFer whether it can be posted on the Gersnet main site (and thus go world-wide).