Excellent Article

[Gribz 743]

Didnt get a chance to post here today but case closed IMO due to Calscots post.

[CammyF 6,784]

Excellent post Calscot and brilliantly summed up

 

You cannot change what you don't acknowledge and there is definitely one side that is far better at acknowledging than the other.

 

Cammy F

[BC2 0]

Tell my BC, why havent the exmaples of Celtc fans singing sectarian, political and offensive songs not been investigated, reported and overcome by the fans? I'll tell you why, you, your club and media don't see them as 'sectarian'.

 

I'll bet any money the firsts sectarian song sung on Saturday will eminate from the Celtc end. Hell, I'll even go as far as to predict the song that you'll sing - during the pre-match melody, the theme from the great escape is played - as usual we'll hear the lovely ditty from the Celtc fans 'Henrick Larsson, Mark Viduka, Fuck The Queen and Davie Cooper (he's deid)'.

 

As for Catholic Rangers supporters - Your right, the don't exist, why would they, if they did, they would blow your theory out of the water. Surfice to say that Govan Parish Priest (I would assume that he is a Catholic) is a season ticket holder at Ibrox. I also assume that the local Dubs who are members of the Dublin RSC are catholics (along with their polish members). Ask the Dublin RSC about tollerance, respect and sectarianism. I sat beside 4 Catholic supporters when I had a season ticket in the Main Stand. All 4 from Manchester and United fans who could no longer afford Old Trafford. They decided to travel up to Scotland and actually went to Torbett Towers initally but didn't feel 'welcome' there. They decided to come to Ibrox instead and were there 4 years later.

 

But hey, you and Spiers are right, it ain't a 50-50 problem any more.

 

 

Cammy F

 

My club see sectarian songs as sectarian. They see political and offensive songs as political and offensive respectively. Your definition of offensive and their definition may differ or may be the same.

 

I am even more certain than you about the first song on Saturday - not sectarian or political but offensive to anybody with an once of decency. I don't even have to name it, do I?

 

Your last but one paragraph is completely anecdotal, highly unlikely and proves nothing anyway.

 

What do you mean 'ain't a 50-50 problem any more' - when do you believe it ever was?

[BC2 0]

The debate over who is worse is made very difficult by the fact that there are not equal amounts of Catholics and Protestants in Scotland. It skews all calculations and that is amusingly pointed out in the comments after the story.

 

Catholics always think they are better as they don't see anything they do as bigoted as they are the minority. It's like many people who don't believe that you can be racist towards a white majority; and even where there are equal numbers there can be discrepancies in interpretation and recognition - for example discrimination against men is rarely treated seriously.

 

However, due to this, I honestly think the Catholic Celtic side is far worse. Many Rangers fans will sing the songs etc but that's about it while most Celtic fans I've met or debated with on the net are at least rabidly sectarian against the Orange Order. However, the strange thing is they argue that "that's different".

 

The guy who is pretty much my best mate at the moment is a Catholic Aetheist [sic] Celtic fan.

 

He is an easy going an intelligent guy, until it comes to the religious divide, when he changes and spouts rhetoric without reasoned argument and refuses to listen to any counter arguments.

 

I watch Celtic with him in the European games and vice versa, and while I don't even listen to the songs, he complains about Rule Britannia, the Sash, Derry's walls and the flying of the Union Flag.

 

When challenged about this and suggested that they are not bigoted and that being against them can be construed as bigoted, he says that's rubbish and then, "doesn't want to talk about it."

 

He even told me that he would be offended if I brought a Union Flag to his house despite him being a Scotsman living in England. (Not that I would but it's a bit extreme, to say the least and offended my English girlfriend).

 

He, like many Celtic fans, compares the OO to the KKK, despite the Catholic church having the worst history by far of the three, by torturing and killing anyone that disagreed with them and being guilty of genocide. And when you mention any of the heinous crimes of the Catholic church as evidence you get called anti-Catholic! Or sometimes accused of, "revisionism."

 

Another thing my mate doesn't want to discuss is that their is obvious evidence that Celtic MUST have had a sectarian signing policy as they had about 80% Catholics from a population which contained about 18%. That's not equal opportunities in anyone's book. Rangers were short about 2 Catholics in their teams, Celtic were short about 6 Protestants.

 

Not many Catholics or Celtic fans will acknowledge that one, yet they bang on, inaccurately about alleged Rangers signing policies despite their being no evidence of it in the last 30 years. It's akin to lambasting the present SA government and people for apartheid. That behaviour is a type of bigotry in itself.

 

I argue with Rangers fans all the time against much of the singing and chants but what real sectarianism there is only boils down to a few things - F.T.P., No Pope of Rome and the more contentious use of the Fen1an word which is probably in effect more political.

 

Apart from that, the only real argument I have against the rest is that it is irrelevant to football and that with two sides doing it, it stirs up hatred.

 

However, the main reason that it seems to rumble on, in my mind is that Catholics choose their football team due to their religion which reseeds the whole circular problem. All other religions tend to have free choice of the 41 other teams.

 

If Rangers had nothing to do with Protestantism there would still be about 75% "Protestants" in the crowd. The fact that there is more is not because they reject Catholics (how could they?), it is the fact that there are very few non-Celtic supporting Catholics left; and most of them will refuse to support Rangers.

 

Catholics and Celtic fans then perpetually attack Rangers and their fans and so it's no wonder that many of them adopt an opposite stance. The extreme ones then adopt all the opposite rubbish and hatred in return. You get the two tribes thing going and all that goes with it.

 

The question that comes back is that without a Catholic team, what would happen to the Rangers bigots? They would hate the fans of the biggest rival team and find a different excuse for it. If Rangers and an Edinburgh team were the biggest two then their would be trouble between people from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

 

However, it would probably have less hatred as the nearby sectarian killings in NI have really het up the whole situation for the OF into something far worse than it would have been.

 

The reason there is far more trouble with religion in Scottish football is that it is the one place where it seems almost all of a religious minority support the one team and there is a neighbouring, related country with a history of pretty much a sectarian civil war.

 

I really all boils down to "us" and "them" and it can happen anywhere, just look at Yugoslavia with its war which event went as far as ethnic cleansing.

 

You cannot change what you don't acknowledge and there is definitely one side that is far better at acknowledging than the other.

 

Calscot is one of the best posters on GersNet, but this is not one of his best posts and the congratulations from others leave me scratching my head.

 

I agree in the broadest sense that the problems in Scotland are an almost inevitable consequence of its particular demographics rather than one religious group being inherently more intolerant than the other. After that he completely loses me.

 

Comparisons between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church are valid; the Orange Order, however, are an extreme and anti-catholic organisation. It IS different, completely different.

 

If your friend is 'a catholic atheist' then I (through my upbringing) am a 'protestant atheist'. In reality both of us are simply atheists. I should know. More importantly, I have no idea what an anecdotal version of a single Celtic fan's views brings to the debate. It is rather like your fellow fans trying to damn my club for a single cretin running onto the pitch a couple of weeks ago while defending literally tens of thousands of your fans singing rampant and blatant bigotry for decades.

 

I am no lover of either the Catholic Church or the Church of Scotland. Force me to choose and I'd pick the latter. That does not mean I dislike anybody who follows either. I don't accept your comparison between the Catholic Church and the Orange Order or Klu Klux Klan, both of whom hold a fundamental dislike of other creeds as central to their beliefs. The Catholic Church does not.

 

Anyone with an IQ over about 70 can see the obvious statistical flaws in your arguement about signing policy. For starters, try turning numbers into percentages and you'll find 0% looks pretty poor compared to any other number. I could go on but I suspect even you recognise how feeble your case is here.

 

You rather spoil your only semi-valid point by ridiculous exagerration. Maurice Johnstone was signed (to the disgust of many Rangers supporters) in 1989 which is 18 years ago, barely more than half of your claim of 30 years. Rather damaging for your credibility and indeed that of your club.

 

What exactly is contetious about the word 'fen1an'?

 

What exactly is political about the word 'fen1an'?

 

We move on to catholics choosing their football team. Why would anybody in their right mind choose a football team whose fans sing about killing members of their religion and of wishing to have intercourse with their leader? Protestants have a valid choice when it comes to this, catholics do not. That is why many protestants support Celtic and almost no catholics support Rangers. Or do you believe that protestants are somehow more open minded and therefore better than catholics?

 

'How could they reject catholics' - you're having a laugh, surely?

 

In your final paragraph you totally miss the point. Perhaps (and only perhaps) Rangers fans do acknowledge their problems more, but like the entire Scottish establishment you incorrectly assume that one side has as much to acknowledge as the other.

[Frankie 8,150]

I think it's impossible to quantify who is worse than the other. Not to mention pointless and disingenuous.

 

Rangers have had a large problem with sectarianism over the years. As have Celtic.

 

To say one is worse than the other cannot be proved. Singing policies, disgraceful job offers to legendary managers, connections to sectarian terrorist groups, arrests this season, offensive websites, fen!an, hun, DOB, ***, FTQ, IRA etc etc. Anyone trying to sift through that baggage just to lay claim to being better than the other is wasting their time.

 

Oh and Graham Spiers is a liar, a charlatan and as balanced as Little and Large on a see-saw.

[BC2 0]

I think it's impossible to quantify who is worse than the other. Not to mention pointless and disingenuous.

 

Rangers have had a large problem with sectarianism over the years. As have Celtic.

 

To say one is worse than the other cannot be proved. Singing policies, disgraceful job offers to legendary managers, connections to sectarian terrorist groups, arrests this season, offensive websites, fen!an, hun, DOB, ***, FTQ, IRA etc etc. Anyone trying to sift through that baggage just to lay claim to being better than the other is wasting their time.

 

Oh and Graham Spiers is a liar, a charlatan and as balanced as Little and Large on a see-saw.

 

Frankie- perhaps very hard, by its very nature, to prove in a strictly legal sense, but I would equally struggle to prove that Maradona was a better player than Darren Jackson, but we both know the reality.

 

I have slightly mixed feelings about Graham Spiers. The standard of sports journalism in Scotland is so utterly execrable that he is, in my opinion, regardless of what you think about what he has said about Rangers, one of the best. That is not saying a lot.

 

I suspect that the problem most Rangers fans have is that you have enjoyed hugely favoutable coverage for so long. I therefore admire Spiers for having the balls to discuss things previously regarded as off limits.

 

I agree that he can be arrogant and pompous and rather enjoys winding you guys up, sometimes (but not always) slightly gratuitously.

[BC2 0]

And why exactly is it pointless and disingenuous to quantify who is worse than the other, unless you secretly know for sure it's you?

[Frankie 8,150]

You're right we do know the (current) reality.

 

Rangers (and their fans) have had a problem with sectarianism. Other than one small incident this season at Inverness - we've certainly fixed the problem very well.

 

Celtic (and their fans) have a similar problem with sectarianism. This season you have had one (possibly 2?) arrests for such behaviour. In addition, the majority of the home support used sectarian terms to describe Hearts fans. Further, the away support used the same term to sing about Dundee fans. In the same game they sang about the IRA.

 

That's the reality.

 

The journalist you mention wrote about one of the above sectarian incidents. Can you tell me which one?

 

Further, taking the above into account, can he (or you) really suggest Rangers have a 'significantly worse' problem than Celtic?

 

:D

[Frankie 8,150]

And why exactly is it pointless and disingenuous to quantify who is worse than the other, unless you secretly know for sure it's you?

 

Because it's impossible to do so. That's why.

 

Now, if you want to suggest we have a worse problem - please show me. Currently you can't. Historically you can't.

 

Neither could I if I tried to prove the opposite. That's the pointless part.

 

The disingenuous part is where one tries to do the above without showing any evidence whatsoever while trying to suggest their sectarian problems are somehow very small compared to the other.

 

[craig 5,198]

And you hit the nail on the head Frankie - as I said in my first retort to BC2... not once does Spiers, in his article, prove that one is worse than the other - yet BC2 very conveniently considered Spiers rantings as proof positive.

 

Subsequent to that not one piece of evidence has been provided to prove Rangers problem is "significantly worse".

 

Indeed, with Cammy's posts pointing some of the instances where both have been as bad as each other (the number of deaths in the last 15 years for instance) that post was ignored - convenient ? Of course it is.

 

Oh and Spiers isn't really discussing anything - he is merely trying to throw as much shit as he can and hope that some of it sticks.