What is it about the last couple of weeks that’s brought out all the whackos?
Is it the proximity to Halloween or something else?
Because there are a fair number of them bouncing from one newsroom to another at the moment.
I was going to write this article before today’s latest nonsense, where Sevco fans have accused our supporter liaison officer of inventing an email.
I was going to write it before reading one of their websites attacking a former BT Sport journalist for having the sense to call their club a mess. I was going to write it anyway, but these developments convinced me I’m right to.
You get weary, you get fed up, of hearing people like Souness and Alex Rae coming out with this stuff, over and over again.
Rangers; the victims.
It makes you sick.
Let me tell you a story; this broke last week sometime. It’s a non-football story, but I found it amusing because of the way it mirrors some of the nonsense in the media. I pointed out yesterday that there are real victims here – the hundreds of creditors who were stiffed – but their plight is unimportant to the Sevco enablers who continue to push this lie.
So let’s talk about victimhood.
It comes in many forms.
Back in August, during filming of the latest series of Love Island (a show I have, I assure you, never watched as much as a minute of) two of the “contestants” (I have no idea if that is the right word to use or not and don’t care) had a private moment together which they filmed. Last month, the SD card on which that film was saved was stolen from a car parked in a motorway service station. Naturally, both “participants” are screaming blue murder.
Victims, right?
They certainly want you to believe that they are.
They are screaming about invasion of privacy, and dreading this thing popping up online somewhere. They are informing their families of what might be in store, with all the self-suffering, self-pitying you might expect if you somehow found yourself in the same position.
Sounds open and shut, right?
Yeah in the same way as the idea that Rangers was “demoted” from the top flight and “forced” to start at the bottom by the cruel haters in the SFA and SPL. Depending on who you’re talking to and what you actually know of the true story, that too can seem open and shut.
But as with the Rangers story there’s a lot more to the Love Island one than you’ll get from the first impression.
First, it turns out that the car from which this thing was stolen didn’t belong to either of them, but to their “publicist.” And why, might you ask, was their publicist in possession of such a private, participants-eyes-only piece of film?
Well, as hard as this will be for many of you to believe, especially when the two un-named people are telling all of Fleet Street that they feel violated and are terrified of where and how this might surface, he had it because he was representing them, as their agent, in a deal to sell it as a porno movie, with the caveat that he got at least £100,000 for it.
So they weren’t victims of a gross invasion of privacy so much as they were victims of their own greed and their PR guy’s stupidity in not securing it properly.
When they speak of being “devastated” and fearing the impact on their families if this thing ends up on Facebook, they are actually worried only about losing money. There’s little reason to have sympathy for either of them.
In fact, you’d be forgiven if you thought of them from here on in as amongst the most loathsome people on the planet.
Rangers was one of the most loathsome clubs on the planet.
I can write those words with no equivocation whatsoever, and what bothers me most about all this whining about their being the real victims here was that it would have been bad enough if the EBT years had been the worst of it, or their latent sectarianism or the way they corrupted Scottish football … the worst of it is that when Murray International was grabbed by the bank and the bank itself was then grabbed by the government that every one of us had to swallow this. As tax payers we ended up paying for all of it.
The whole Murray ego trip was at our expense.
See, I know there are some Celtic fans who still don’t get this, who still don’t know why it’s important that we cut through all the bollocks and force the truth down people’s throats, why we challenge the Victim and Survival Lies every time they raise their heads … it’s quite simple to me; not only were we cheated and robbed, but that we paid to be, in one way or another. Even if you never attended a game through the period of their doping – and I barely missed one – they still had a hand in your pocket. You ended up writing a cheque anyway.
But, see, they always had good PR and they always had perfectly willing people in the press rooms who were quite happy to trot out garbage on their behalf. Good PR can do just about anything; look at how some in Hollywood are still tip-toeing around Kevin Spacy after his publicist released a statement saying he was “dealing with his problems and seeking treatment.”
For what, exactly?
Is not being able to keep your hands to yourself an illness now?
Rangers, in their own way, are just like the Love Island couple who’s homemade porno got nicked; they were up to no good, the plan went off the rails and the rest of us are meant to feel sorry for them because of the damage their own recklessness has done to them.
The couple in question has offered a reward for their recording – £25,000 if the “seal” on the card isn’t broken which means that it hasn’t been watched far less copied – in an effort not to protect their modesty or that of their families but because they want the big pay day they expected.
When I read that story I couldn’t help but think of all those people who keep on telling us that Scottish football “needs” a strong Sevco, even if that means more rules have to be subverted or ignored for the “greater good.”
When you are in possession of all the facts and not just some spin doctor’s take on the story it’s easy to spot the holes and to get right to the heart of the matter … and we’re being sold a right old line, one that’s as clapped out as a 30-year-old Lada.
They can push it as hard as they can … but it’s going nowhere.
If these people ever decide to stop telling lies … well we can stop telling the truth, can’t we?