Can you imagine, for one minute, the reaction of the media here in Scotland to an event where two ex-Celtic players appeared on stage for a Q&A, and at which Republican singing was heard throughout?
Can you imagine the headlines had said players then joined in?
And can you imagine the outcry and shrieks of fury had it later transpired that this same event was visited and patronised by a former leader of a dissident Republican group that had shot people dead for no other reason than their religion?
Take a second and ponder that.
Think of what the press reaction in Scotland would have been like.
Let me talk you through how this has been covered … or, should I say, uncovered.
First we got the initial stories about how “Gazza” had wowed the crowds in Irvine.
The local police described it as a well-attended event.
They’d received no complaints from anyone in relation to it, and were satisfied with how it went.
Then we got the first roll back from that, and the mainstream media ran the story that a small number of idiots had ruined the event for everyone else, by singing sectarian songs and engaging in bigoted chanting.
The story was supposed to die there.
And it would have, except footage emerged showing the guest of honour giving his own hearty renditions.
So the focus was put on the player, and his agent mumbled some nonsense about him “getting used” and how he had to be protected from his own supporters, who “influence him” as if we weren’t talking about a grown man here at all but a child needing shielding.
The story was supposed to die there.
Except there was more, and when social media broke it the press had to.
Lo and behold, the event was opened by another former Rangers player, Andy Goram, he of the black armband and the dodgiest of friends and associates; a pure bigot, who once freely told the story of how he racially abused Pierre Van Hooijdonk after saving a penalty against him. A man who was “honoured” with a benefit dinner which bore the official sanction of the club itself, and who, until recently, still wrote frequent columns for national newspapers.
Once more, the story was meant to die with that.
Yet even as the murk deepened from that revelation (and there’s more, plenty more, stuff that wasn’t in the news; misogyny, at least one fist-fight, groping of females … I could go on), we come to the last, and most troubling, piece of the picture.
The presence at said event of one Johnny Adair, who needs no introduction and who’s presence there takes it above and beyond a mere show and tell with an ex player and elevates it into what it had started to look like the other day; little more than a bigots beano, a get-together of numpties and nutjobs and people better left in the dark.
This is how information control works; you get the initial story and then, as people dig, you let out little bits and pieces over a course of days, one revelation at a time.
You do this to buy yourself time, and to avoid having the whole matter put in context, but also in the hope that at some point people get tired of the story and let it drop.
If you’re lucky – if you’re really lucky – that’s happened before the full damage has been done.
The local authority which organised this has to investigate it fully.
The local police have their own questions to answer, because I absolutely do not believe the glib assurances they gave when the initial story broke that this had been a normal night in Irvine and they’d received no complaints.
It’s transparent nonsense, fit only for mugs.
So too is the assertion that the now infamous photo of Gascoigne posing with a terrorist isn’t as bad as it seemed because the former midfielder “didn’t know” who Adair was.
Anyone who believes that has suffered a dramatic drop in their IQ.
Adair had a VIP pass on, and had been invited by someone amongst the organising committee; if Gascoigne didn’t “know” Adair then I can suggest at least one person – his pal, Goram – who would have been well capable of filling him in.
The stink of this will be wafting around Irvine for a long time to come.
Heads will have to roll amongst those who let this event take place, but that’s for another time.
The stink of this also wafts around Ibrox, although indirectly because this wasn’t a club event, it wasn’t sanctioned by them and it wasn’t covered or advertised (as far as we know) in any official publication or publicity.
They are, in some ways, immune from this.
But of course, that’s not strictly true. Because this was an event for Sevco fans. This was an event at which Rangers, the club they claim this one is a direct continuation of, was a focal point … and that, right there, is the problem they have.
It’s also the problem our media has, because they went out of their way to make this about a handful of people at the start and only now is the full picture clear to us.
What was their motivation in keeping part of this under wraps?
What was the objective in not putting the whole sordid (and it’s sordid, alright) story out in full at the beginning?
Part of it is this; this thing pollutes the Sevco brand, and it should because for all that club claims to have done in “combating sectarianism” too many of its fans are still mired in this and too many of them still think this kind of stuff is normal and right.
The club has never sought to cleanse itself of these people and many of us fear it never will.
When Graham Spiers wrote, recently, that an Ibrox director had praised The Billy Boys as “a great song” (yes, I believe him) the club’s reaction wasn’t damage limitation or finding that individual; instead they went after the journalist and his newspaper.
That should demonstrate how seriously they take the issue itself.
Stuff like this hangs around Sevco like a bad smell, and it will continue to as long as they let it, as long as they don’t take a firm stand and try and distance themselves from it once and for all. These people still allow the annual bigot fest in Linfield every year, for God’s sake … what does that tell you, right there?
People will say I’m making associations which I have no business doing.
Go back to the question I asked at the start.
Imagine this had been two ex-Celtic players, appearing onstage with a terrorist, in front of our fans.
Imagine the headlines.
Imagine the reaction.
Now imagine them leaving our club out of it.
No, I can’t imagine it either.