Excellent Article

[Frankie 8,150]

BC2:

 

I do note you refuse to answer my posts about the current situation.

 

1. Where are Rangers fans 'significantly worse'?

 

2. If Graham Spiers is the 'best' journalist, why does he refuse to write about 4 clear examples of sectarianism in Scottish football this season instead only the one featuring Rangers?

 

Since you haven't answered already you have proven my pointless and disingenuous description of people trying to blame one set of fans (or one club) pretty accurate.

 

Rangers fans have nothing to hide when it comes to this subject. Gersnet have been at the forefront of confronting it, debating it and eradicating it. We're also more than happy to allow any supporters of any club discuss the subject on our main site and our forum.

 

It's a pity some people won't appreciate the work Rangers fans are doing to face their challenges in favour of continuing to argue that we're 'significantly worse' without any evidence.

 

Here's the truth. We're not.

 

Here's another truth. If you are that concerned about sectarianism, stop wasting your time on Gersnet and post on the various Celtic forums that still favour the hun word, DOB insult and IRA worship whilst laughably accusing others of offensive behaviour.

 

In addition, write to Graham Spiers (whom you obviously admire) and ask him why he doesn't broach these issues.

 

That will enable us to stop arguing about the past and look forward to our better future. Meanwhile your 'significantly better' club will stay firmly ingrained in their own bitter bigotry.

[BC2 0]

EDIT (by Frankie):

 

Your inane crap from years ago (which I certainly cannot remember) has nothing to do with the subject.

[Frankie 8,150]

In fact, this person has now been banned.

 

I'm all for Celtic fans taking part in Gersnet but when they downright refuse to answer reasonable questions put to them by several members, then slag off the place and it's users that sums up their own petty bigotry.

[Gazza_8 233]

In fact, this person has now been banned.

 

I'm all for Celtic fans taking part in Gersnet but when they downright refuse to answer reasonable questions put to them by several members, then slag off the place and it's users that sums up their own petty bigotry.

 

About time!

 

This is a Rangers fans forum so why do Celtic fans feel the need to post here? I read every post from top to bottom in this thread but never posted as I couldn't believe the nonsense I was reading from BC2. As Frankie said he never really answered the meaty questions and often went on the defensive when grumbling on about what he believed in.

 

Frankie, what did he actually post before you edited it?

 

He was nothing but a pain in the arse.

[craig 5,198]

I actually thought, in his first number of postings, that he was one of the few reasoned, level-headed, non-paranoid Tims - but this subject obviously got to him and he reverted to type.

 

Didn't provide evidence or proof to support ANY of his (OR Spiers) suggestions, his defence was based on deflection and without any substance.

 

Must have been quite a rant for Frankie to have banned him (or are those sleepless nights now starting to get to you Frankie ? :fish:). Just how is the little one doing ?

[ian1964 10,416]

I actually thought, in his first number of postings, that he was one of the few reasoned, level-headed, non-paranoid Tims - but this subject obviously got to him and he reverted to type.

 

Didn't provide evidence or proof to support ANY of his (OR Spiers) suggestions, his defence was based on deflection and without any substance.

 

Must have been quite a rant for Frankie to have banned him (or are those sleepless nights now starting to get to you Frankie ? :fish:). Just how is the little one doing ?

 

I was at Frankies house yesterday,baby is doing well and Frankie is enjoying fatherhood,although the sleepless nights haven't hit him YET !!!!!!

[calscot 0]

I'm going to answer this even though he's banned.

 

As an atheist I am one of the last people to defend any religion and agree that almost every single horrendous act against humanity throughout history has religion as its basis. I am concerned, however, that you seem to believe the Catholic Church is far more guilty in this respect than any other religion.

 

I've got to say here that looking objectively and using general knowledge, I would say the Catholic church has definitely been on of the worst and they were pretty much responsible dark ages and although I'm not a fan of Protestantism either, they conversely, were responsible for the enlightenment, democracy, equality and free thinking - the opposite of the Catholic Church.

 

The past deeds for the CC are in the past so are pretty irrelevant today and to me and I donââ?¬â?¢t hold it against them - except when people try to try to falsely portray the CC as more benign than other religious groups and strangely suggesting it is ok to discriminate and hate a religious group for past deeds ââ?¬â?? except in the case of the CC.

 

Comparisons between the Catholic Church and the Orange Order are made difficult by the fact that the Orangeism is not strictly a religion and also includes political aspirations, namely unionism, as a key part of its agenda.

 

I think it�s obvious that the reason for that is that there is a Catholic promoted political and terrorist movement to annex a legitimate part of the UK to another country; a part of the UK where many OO live. Eire have no more present day claim on NI than England have on Normandy or Argentina have on the Falklands or Germany and Alsace and large parts of Poland. In all these cases, their main claim seems to be proximity and history - in which case the UK have a legitimate counter claim on Eire.

 

However the Irish thing seems to be also mainly about religion ââ?¬â?? with all the Catholics in NI backing it. Thatââ?¬â?¢s where the religious tension comes from, the same reason there is religious tension from Islam ââ?¬â?? it happens when people are putting a common religion before the welfare of themselves and their neighbours and community.

 

I find it very strange that Muslims are upset at the West getting rid of a leader who killed many Muslims as it was a Muslim country, yet they are fine when another Muslim country like Iran kills more Iraqi�s than anyone. And the Muslims blame the West for Muslims killing Muslims in a sectarian power struggle.

 

There is a similar thing going on with Catholics in Ireland. It seems people want to shift their land to belong to another country merely because of which religion they were brought up with. It�s just madness.

 

I�m sure if British terrorists started bombing Paris to get back Normandy which used to be part of England, and make it a protestant enclave, then there would be no sympathy from anyone but universal condemnation instead.

 

The acts of which you accuse the Catholic Church, however, are historical; the intolerant anti-catholicism of the Orange order continues.

 

It could be argued that the Catholic church are still intolerant of the OO and as the OO are only usually threatened by the CC then it�s not surprising they are against it. As a religious order they also don�t let in Jews, Muslims or many flavours of Protestants but it�s only Catholics who threaten them.

 

However the Catholic church has still shown to be anti-other religions in the modern day as well as discriminating against women and homosexuals. Their protection of children form their own priests seems very poor too. I remember recently reading about someone who won a discrimination case as they were refused promotion in a Catholic school due to not being a Catholic. The Catholic church is not exactly innocent today and they are also complicit in things like the spread of AIDS and other diseases with their dogma on contraception.

 

The Catholic Church is mainstream; the Orange Order is extreme. You then try and make a chicken and egg type argument. The Catholic Church was not founded with the hatred of the Orange Order as one of its corner stones. The Orange Order, however, would not exist without the Catholic Church. Which is the chicken and which is the egg seems clear enough to me.

 

The CC was intolerant of everyone that disagreed with them, well before the OO came along. They discriminated against Protestants in Ireland from the birth of the reformation. There is no question that if you want to answer who started it all, it�s got to be the CC.

 

The incredible thing is that I am not religious and have no fondness at all for the OO and think they should become a more tolerant order ââ?¬â?? but having seen a programme about them, itââ?¬â?¢s obvious that they are trying. But the defence of the CC and attack of the OO in the face of the evidence is baffling. All Iââ?¬â?¢m saying is that the CC are in a glass house with no right to condemn others and yet here is a non-Catholic doing just that on their behalf. It just shows you that the Cetlic ââ?¬â?? Catholic agenda is so strong it affects even their non-Catholic supporters.

 

Basically, I�m saying the OO should not harm or irrelevantly protest against the CC and vice versa. BC is saying that it should only be one way.

 

Next you proceed to make some incredibly sweeping generalisations about catholics and protestants which even manages to offend an atheist with its arrogance, all of it seeming based on your opinion of a pal.

 

I would rather people were actually specific when attempting to slight my character. I would then have the chance to defend myself.

 

Your argument about the religious make up of the teams gets sillier and sillier. One thing Big Jock bloody well did know was that if had the choice of a catholic and protestant player of similar ability, he would sign the protestant as Rangers would never sign the catholic player.

 

But what about the rest of the Scottish teams? Surely they are not all bigoted? Surely they would provide competition? But the answer is that these players, being Catholics, would choose Celtic not just over Rangers, but any other team.

 

But if that was the case, unless Catholics are innately better than Protestants at football, with your assertion that Protestants were preferentially picked, logic follows that the Celtic team would have less Catholics in it than the population: ie 1 or less. The facts are in total opposition to your hyposthesis ââ?¬â?? unless someone can prove that Catholics are better than everyone at football ââ?¬â?? and no rubbish about Maradonna and Pele being Catholic. Weââ?¬â?¢re talking Scotland.

 

I am not damning the number 0; the number damns Rangers. You then seem to shoot yourselves in both feet and the genitals ââ?¬â?? why do you think Celtic, as you correctly claim, were able to choose the best of the 18%? Surely Rangers were trying to sign the best catholic players too? Werenââ?¬â?¢t they?

 

Rangers didnââ?¬â?¢t NEED to try too hard to sign Catholics, they had all the other denominations that make up 82% of the population. They obviously could put a competitive team out without Catholics. As has been mentioned, there are stories now of Catholic players who turned Rangers down for fear of reprisals ââ?¬â?? from Catholics. Rangers were not founded as an anti-Catholic team ââ?¬â?? what happened is that another club started up for Catholics. When you create something like that, the world tends to react and produce and opposite.

[calscot 0]

Without even trying, I can think of at least one Jewish Celtic player. He scored twice against you at Ibrox about 8 years ago if that helps you. What point are you trying to make anyway?

 

ONE Jewish player in the same modern day where after Rangers have had teams full of Catholics. The point is that Catholics and Celtic have a well known history of anti-Semitism. The last example was when a Celtic fan protested against Jews by running on the pitch at Ibrox. Now you may answer that it was a political protest about Palistine, but then why did he wear a T-shirt of the Pope ââ?¬â?? surely that watered down any political protest and turned it into a religious one?

 

It is a statistical inevitability that small groups will often be under or over represented. Think of your own club and former Austria Vienna players last season for an interesting example of the latter. 18% of a country with a population of 5 million people, however, is not a small number, and for Rangers to have gone decades without signing a single catholic is not some simple statistical anomaly.

 

But then I�m not denying Rangers for a time had a sectarian signing policy. It is You that is denying Celtic also had one, albeit not to exclusion due to choosing from a minority, whereas Rangers chose from a majority.

 

We accept the sectarianism at Rangers and are trying to correct it. Celtic only deny everything.

 

If 30 (instead of 23) was a typo you must have a very unusual layout to your keyboard.

 

No, I typed 30 instead of 20, on my keyboard the 2 and 3 are next to each other. But don�t let intelligence get in the way of pedantry.

 

Maurice Johnstone may have been a hero to many Rangers fans, but you must recognise that a significant minority never accepted him.

 

No it was a very small minority.

 

You must also recognise that the reaction of some Celtic fans was due to the fact he signed for Rangers after agreeing to resign for Celtic rather than simply the fact that he was a catholic playing for Rangers.

 

There is that except that the reaction was way beyond a player reneging on a signing deal. You don�t get death threats for that and I�m pretty sure he received sectarian abuse and called DOB etc. Celtic had a chance and have ever since to show that they applauded Rangers for signing another Catholic but they have always shown that they don�t actually WANT Rangers to sign Catholics and are still banging on about the signing policy more than 20 years after it was abolished.

 

Even accepting that you genuinely define fen1an as you state, how many of your fellow fans do you think allude to this when they use the word?

 

I doubt many people know much about itââ?¬â?¢s meaning. Itââ?¬â?¢s biggest meaning to most people is probably, ââ?¬Å?Celtic fanââ?¬Â. After all, Catholics playing for Rangers are not called Fen1ans or abused at all.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that Rangers fans sing Billy Boys (being up to your knees in somebody�s blood usually means they�re dead) and FT P because catholics chose not to sign for Rangers?

 

I would say itââ?¬â?¢s an anti-Celtic song more than anything. However, as itââ?¬â?¢s a contentious word it should have been removed before the song was banned. ââ?¬Å?Up to our knees in Celticââ?¬â?¢s bloodââ?¬Â, while not being much different in tone would, it seems, not be sectarian and I suppose Celtic fans would have been happy with that? Actually I doubt it.

 

Frankie butted in at this point and made the same mistake our impartial CEO of the SFA made. It is one thing to state that ââ?¬Ë?no-one can claim the moral high-groundââ?¬â?¢, but why is suggesting one is worse than the other false. Firstly (as Frankie has challenged me) where is the evidence? Why is the default position that both are equally bad? Secondly (and more importantly) surely statistically the chances of this in any case are absolutely miniscule. As I said earlier it is about as likely as your garden having exactly the same number of weeds as mine. Are Italian women exactly equally as beautiful or ugly as Belgian women? Itââ?¬â?¢s just nonsense.

 

Of course it�s nonsense to try to compare who is worse than the other. If you have two prolific thieves does it matter who steals the most? You still have to punish both even-handedly for each crime you catch them commit. You can�t let one off because some people perceive them to steal less than the other.

 

If you deal even-handedly and punish their crimes, the worst one will automatically get punished more often.

 

However, Celtic fans disagree with this and want immunity for themselves and a witch hunt against Rangers. Rangers fans mostly want ALL teams in the SPL to be treated equally and fairly.

 

You should choose or reject a team to support, but in Rangers� case they did actually reject catholic players and did effectively reject catholic supporters. Don�t you understand that?

 

Rangers FC did not and could not reject Catholic supporters. If you were Catholic and wanted to support Rangers, who could stop you? No-one can ever stop what is in your heart. Rangers signing policy may have caused Catholics to choose not to support Rangers, but with Catholics mostly choosing Celtic over all other football teams in Scotland, I don�t think it made much difference.

 

Catholics may be offended by Rangers anti-Catholicism but surely there must be many Protestants who didnââ?¬â?¢t support Celtic due to their discrimination towards non-Catholics as well as being anti-UK and pro-IRA. The latter two would put most British people off ââ?¬â?? except Scottish and Irish Catholics for some reason.

 

Then we have more ridiculous generalisations. You pluck figures of 0% and 100% out of thin air.

 

You either acknowledge or you don�t. If you do it�s 100%, if you don�t it�s 0%.

 

Rangersââ?¬â?¢ idea of acknowledging Billy Boys was to ask their fans to stop singing it in case the club was punished. I am still to hear ââ?¬Ë?Sirââ?¬â?¢ David, anyone else at Ibrox or even a single fan acknowledge it by asking their fans to stop singing it because it is plain wrong.

 

Rangers have been campaigning against bigotry at Ibrox for years so you are dead wrong. However it�s hard to take extreme action to punish your own fans without alienating them. UEFA allowed Rangers to take a hard line while being able to deflect the blame onto UEFA. To be honest it�s probably been very good for Rangers as it�s stopped the silent majority taking a blind eye and making other non-bigots take a look at themselves and what they are singing.

 

It took extreme efforts and punishments by the government to properly make drink driving very unpopular and condemned by most people. These days, people are against drink driving due to the dangers to everyone, not because it�s illegal.

 

I accept most of your examples of false accusations of sectarianism. I could draw up a similar list for my club. You may not be aware that Celtic were very nearly thrown out of the league by the SFA for flying the Irish flag above their stadium in the 50s. I understand that Rangers, to their credit, supported Celtic. We are regularly criticised about republican songs. Gerry McNee, recently referred to ââ?¬Ë?Irish toshââ?¬â?¢ on Scotsport.

Try substituting the word Pak1 in there and he would have been arrested.

 

In my opinion both clubs should forget the past and start promoting themselves as non-political, secular, Scottish based clubs that are fully inclusive to all races, religions, nationalities etc.

 

However, while Rangers seem to be going that way and may succeed in this, I really canââ?¬â?¢t see Celtic even contemplating it ââ?¬â?? and I have doubts that they could actually survive it. Without their Catholic fan base, where would Celtic be? Whereas, Rangers could actually INCREASE their fan-base with more Catholics.

 

 

These examples, however, do not in the main form the basis of accusations of sectarianism made against your club. I am sure that there have been some Celtic fans with a low IQ and/or prejudice who hold these mistaken views and from time to time get their moment on some stupid phone in or in the letter section of their paper, but almost all of the constructive and informed criticism concerns FT P, Billy Boys and the like.

 

Those are mostly gone and Celtic fans are still howling about Rangers.

[Guest ackbar]

Someone posted earlier that the Celtic fans would sing a song that contained the words FTQ in it.

 

I have to ask in the interests of a balanced debate what is sectarian about FTQ? Her Majesty is not the leader of a religion or sect!

[Super_Ally 0]

I don't think the sun shines out of his arse if that is what you are asking - he is no Hugh McIllvaney - but I greatly admire him for having the balls to go into areas conveniently ignored by the Scottish establishment for decades.

 

'Questions the fallacy' would have been a better choice of words. The fallacy had been destroyed in my eyes a very long time ago.

 

If you "greatly admire" Speirs then quite frankly, whatever you have to say is of no consequence to anyone. The man is a laughing stock within his own social and working circles.

 

Edit: In seeing you on this site before I thought you were well written and one of the more sensible "timposters".

 

Your recent actions have shown you to be childish, a nuisance and frnkly unwelcome.

 

All your Rangers=bad, Celtc=good nonsense coming to light now.

 

Grow up, accept some of your clubs failings. E.g you do have a problem with sectarianism, political and offensive songs and glorifying terrorists. And Boruc does act like a ned a lot of the time.