This is a subject I’ve wanted to write on for a while, but I always found something better to do, whether that was cutting my toe-nails or scraping the bottom of my shoes. Because, really, who cares what nonsense gets printed on the most nonsensical page of the most idiotic tabloid in the Western World?
Certainly not me.
But the sheer dumbness of some of the people on that page offends me. It has always offended me. It continues to offend me. The picture it paints of Scottish football is one of parochial small-mindedness, of a game populated by half-wits.
Tonight I’ve cracked. The reeking bigotry and nuttiness that wafts off their website’s headline has done it. The deranged mind that came up with it has inspired me to the keyboard. There is a clear imbecile quotient in Scottish football, we’ve known that for years.
They are the same people who phone the Clyde Superscoreboard line and gush about how smart and brilliant and funny the panellists are; yes, even when one of them is Derek Johnstone who ticks none of those boxes or any of the adjacent ones either.
But it’s a piss-take when you read crap like the following:
“Dembele to Manchester Utd? Dream on – maybe FC United of Manchester if he’s lucky. He looked average down south, has been very poor in the Champions League but looks great against Hamilton and Dundee.”
Or when you read pitiful insults like this:
“Will Brendan Rodgers, Scott Brown and the Scottish media take a reality check? They will discover Celtic are not good enough for the Champions League or the Europa League. Concentrate on Scottish football and they might win the BetFred Cup.”
Maybe the clowns who edit that page think this qualifies as wit:
“Dembele confirmed in the 52nd minute that he is worth every penny of the £500,000 Celtic paid for him.”
Or maybe this is considered cutting edge commentary:
“I reckon Barcelona have just knocked £19 million off the price of Dembele. He’d struggle to get a game for Queen of the South on that display. Celtic were atrocious.”
Gary Ralston edits that page, he of this morning’s article on why Sevco fans need to vote for their club’s Resolution 11 so they can finally limit the power of Ashley and other people we’ve not heard from in about two years. A piece of PR designed to con the club’s own fans.
This must be what he does during his coffee break.
“At least one caller brought a sensible overview,” Ralston wrote, “as he reflected on a group that saw Celtic pitted against squads with a net worth in excess of a billion pounds.”
Yeah I would agree that this represents a sensible overview, but that wasn’t what Ralston decided to highlight. As per usual The Record let the idiots have the floor first, and made sure that theirs were the headline moments. The symbolism doesn’t escape us.
This is the measure of not only the paper but its audience.
The question that opens this piece asks if the editorial policy is only to publish the calls from imbeciles, but who else but an imbecile would dial their “Hotline” and hand them the money just so it can be given a spot alongside the views of gutter rats and the Goon Squad?
It’s the same reason I used to marvel at the low IQ’s of the majority of callers to Radio Clyde, and be especially pleased when one of the sane, rational, knowledgeable guys got put through by some quirk of the screening system.
And then I realised; he was the only sensible guy to phone that night.
The rest were the cast of the Muppets.
This is the image Scottish football presents to the world.
Shame on that “newspaper” for putting that across like it does.