Our writer Johnybhoy gives his take on the future of Scottish football and the media’s role.
The horror! The horror!
Is it just me or is the Scottish Media absolutely bloody mental?
They remind me of Dennis Hopper’s character from Apocalypse Now; the crazed American photojournalist who buys into Colonel Kurtz’ madness and rants and raves to Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard. The photojournalist (as he’s billed in the film’s credits) thinks he sees the purity of truth in Kurtz’ actions. He perceives a method behind the madness and understands that he is in the shadow of greatness, of godhood. Unfortunately for the photojournalist he was blind to the real truth; that Kurtz was bat-shit insane and I presume it came as a surprise when Kurtz beheaded him.
The photojournalist in the film was completely blinded by his unwavering devotion to Kurtz, despite Kurtz’ obvious lunacy. He had been totally brainwashed and accepted whatever Kurtz decreed, justifying within himself Kurtz’ horrific actions as necessary. In the end his devotion to Kurtz ended in the only way it was ever going to, in his death. It is an apt metaphor for the circus that the MSM currently find themselves willing participants in.
Our old friend – the perennial Yorkshireman – Charles Green once again assaults our ears with his inane ramblings. It’s getting to be a daily occurrence. Green appears to be on a mission to offend, ridicule, bamboozle and baffle absolutely every single person in modern football.
Most recently he was banging on about signing Barcelona’s cast off academy players for a couple for million, then selling them with a profit of tens of millions of pounds. This comes days after his incredible rants about playing in the American MLS and challenging FIFA over sexual discrimination laws if they refuse to allow Sevco to play in a foreign league. All of this was printed verbatim. Not one journalist pointed out any of the glaring gaps in Charlie “I’m from t’Yorkshire, I am” Green’s logic. The man even referred to himself in the 3rd person! An hour after the “story” broke, internet Bampots everywhere produced a multitude of facts that shot Green’s argument to shreds.
The majority of people with common sense would see through this circus clowns performance, but not the Mainstream Scottish Media! When Sevco were talking about bringing young Australian goalkeeper Matt Ryan over to Scotland to train, with an eye to buy the young “Starlet”, the MSM were jumping up and down with excitement. Did they totally forget about the registration ban currently hanging over the new side that plays at Ibrox? Same for any of the other players they’ve been linked with recently. The MSM gleefully print this guff with nary a question or query raised. Elsewhere the move was teated exactly as it should have been – with derision. Only tonight (Monday 14th) the move was rubbished on Australian TV in the football programme “The World Game”. The potential move was described as “odd” with the presenter adding “They (Sevco) are curently playing in the 4th tier of Scottish Football, why would any player want to go there, unless it was for money, which I hope it wouldn’t be?” Rightfully so Tom Rogic’s potential move to the Bhoys was greeted with some excitement, but that’s tangential to this article.
In a matter of months we’ve gone from Green publically announcing that Sevco were a new team to the revisionist version where Green is the defender of 140 years of dignified protestant history (with a baseball bat no less) and they’re the exact same club…apparently the SFA said so. Regularly we’ve heard Green contradict himself on a daily basis, sometimes even in the same press conference. And not a voice is raised in protest out-with us Internet Bampots.
Here’s a message for the press gang and by extension the people who run Scottish football.
Stop. Take a breath and step back. Look at the bigger picture. In allowing this con-man to spread discontent and ill-will you are disenfranchising an entire generation of football fans. The fans of each and every other club in Scottish Football are being made to put up with this tripe.
What is this blind devotion to the club that used to be called Rangers (RIP)?
Why is every other club second place to them?
Why are you clinging desperately onto the past?
Sevco are not the dignified, professionally run club they claim to be. They are not your fathers Rangers, nor your grandfathers. This club is a whole new, undead beast.
Traditions are great things, they can keep you grounded, they can educate and inform younger generations. However, the minute traditions begin holding you back, the minute they become outdated then they are useless. Cast them off and move forward. Evolve.
Sevco are a thing of the past. Servitude to the king of the Ibrox castle died with the gangrenous carcass of Old Rangers. We’ve entered a new, fairer era, one of equal opportunity for all, or as some call it, the 21st Century.
If you don’t heed the warnings of falling paper sales and reader discontent then you’ll end up the same way as Dennis Hopper’s character in Apocalypse Now.
So what is there to look forward to?
The most competitive league race in years, a Scottish team in the last 16 of the Champions League, league reconstruction, happier fans.
Apocalypse…never?
Follow me on Twitter @johnybhoy
I also write for Disinfo.com and whatculture.com
I have a blog: www.fauxlosophycentral.com.au
Traynor has a big wooden spoon so that he and Green can stir up the supporters and the clubs of the SPL as a revenge for their demise. Just get used to their urine soaked bile. . .it’s all they got!
The problem lies in what you have written.
The team in the last 16 of the CL – Celtic.
Close run league – it will be won by Celtic.
That is completely unacceptable to the belief system that permeates the corridors of power within Scottish football.
For almost a generation there has been a revolving door between Hampden and Ibrox. Somebody leaves one and within a few months they turn up at the other one.
Players are refused clearance to play, a succession of managers are persecuted for speaking out when members of a specific club are allowed to say whatever they want. Presidents attend hearings when there is no reason for them to do so. Bans are handed out contary to their own rules. Those same rules are ignored when the outcome that they would lead is unpalatable.
The belief system of entitlement is handed down from appointee to appointee to ensure that the standard is maintained.
The problem is that it is a sub-standard that they wish to maintain.
It ia a standard of elitism, egotism, and yes sectarianism at the heart of Scottish football. This is ably supported by a group of Scottish journalists that could not think of a probing question if their life depended on it.
Well thats not true they can ask probing questions of everyone accept the club down Govan way. This type of shoddy journalism is why readership is collapsing. The allegances of either the reporters, or the directions given to the reporters by editors, is nothing more than a national disgrace.
That a group of individuals in charge of the media in Scotland can collude to supress information from the public by design or, that they are part of the belief system mentioned above, is in a modern democracy in the 21st century a scary proposition.
The fact that not one these business men cannot take an opposing view, just to see what their readership figures would do, speaks volumes for their business accumen.
These people are not going to give up their positions easily. They have managed to convert two Englishmen to their cause in about two years.
They will fight to the ‘bitter’ end to preserve that which should have died out thirty years ago.
This is the problem in Scotland. The fact that Chas word is taken as gospel is just another symptom of the problem.
“The problem is that it is a substandard they wish to maintain”.
Nail on the head. They want to drag everyone down so they can still kid themselves on that they matter. They’d rather destroy Scottish football than admit that they don’t matter anymore.
Spot on, Johnybhoy. I see the newshounds have “caught up with” Bobby Petta to get him to nod to their suggestion about Chuckles being right to rail against any decision that doesn’t get Sevco fast tracked into the SPL. I was just saying to a friend recently, “What’s Bobby’s take on all of this?” Now I know.
There is an urban myth that in 1865 the hacks in America missed the obvious story when they asked “Anyhow, Mrs Lincoln, how was the show?” Laughably, in recent times this has been surpassed by Darrell etc.
Surely they don’t have the effrontery to put ‘journalist’ on their passports?
Oh, BTW, where’s Bomber?
Is that the same Bobby Petta they once branded a “Thug and a Thief”?
Wow you bhoys have good memories. Personally I just wish the carriers had been ” bought ” by someone with a bit of class. The right man at “the rangers ” right now could have made a real difference to the future of Scottish football in all sorts of ways. Instead. Very predictably. They somehow get some random English nutjob with more chips on his shoulder than a bag of orangemen. This can only go one way. The exact same way it’s been going for 125 years. Scotland has missed the bus again and we will all rue the day the would be crazy horse coalminer gained control of our perennial abusers. Especially the rangers fans themselves. HAIL HAIL
All we have to remember is that Rangers no longer exist.
James