The party was at full swing, and it was starting to get rowdy.
People were drunk.
There was no social distancing.
Faces were twisted in triumph, snarling in their supremacy.
The songs were blasting out.
Peepul were climbing on things.
The sectarian chanting started.
Nobody objected.
Nobody said to the rest to stop.
Those who didn’t join in were clearly unconcerned by those who did.
Politicians would line up later, and newspapers would pour out their condemnation, on the ugly scenes in George Square and out on the streets.
But the scenes I’ve just described didn’t happen out on the battlefields of Glasgow City Centre … they happened inside Ibrox.
And that wasn’t neddish fans, it was the players and officials of the club calling itself Rangers.
The videos of the event are crystal clear. There is no ambiguity about them. The Ibrox player’s lounge held a sectarian karaoke and everyone was there.
And so far, nobody in the media or in the Scottish Government has uttered a word.
The idea that the anti-racism charities will say anything is for the birds, although they will proudly show up at Ibrox in the coming season and praise all the “good work” the club is doing.
I’m guessing Nil By Mouth will let exactly nil come out of their mouths, although this is literally their day job.
I have a question for them – all of them – and as many mainstream journalists as can be bothered answering it; who the Hell are you supposed to be?
Do you have an inch of backbone or a yard of guts?
What did you get into your profession for?
A soft seat?
Do you look in the mirror and actually manage to convince yourself that you’re “doing good” and “making a difference”?
Do you know the word “acquiescence?”
It means consent by silence.
If you aren’t speaking out and speaking up, then you are a cowardly fraud.
You are not part of the solution; you are the problem itself.
It is people like you who let this stuff carry on.
One hack this morning, Keith Jackson, has said that the thuggish fans “let down Steven Gerrard” who he describes as a man who has “oozed class”. Well, there’s something oozing here alright but it isn’t class and it isn’t pooling from around Gerrard.
Gerrard has shown no class whatsoever.
He’s swallowed the Ibrox tribalism and poisoned mind-set whole. Imagine the cognitive dissonance it must take to be at the centre of that sectarian sing-along at the weekend and then go home to your daughter Lourdes.
Well, nobody ever said he would win Mastermind but it’s high time the press stopped lionising him.
Gerrard was certainly part of the problem at the weekend, and in the previous trouble in George Square.
He encouraged the fans to party when he led the players across the pitch at Livingston the night before we flogged the title. He let the players go out and greet them at Ibrox from behind locked gates.
He encouraged them again in midweek and on Saturday.
Even as I write this, their club has issued a contemptible and thoroughly dishonest statement condemning the actions of a “small minority” who’s behaviour was “in a manner not reflective of our support.”
What nonsense this is. The “small minority” was in the tens of thousands.
They sang bigoted songs all day long. If they are allowed to continue getting away with this “small minorty” argument then we all might as well chuck it and accept this as a fact of life here forevermore.
Incredibly, this ridiculous missive goes on to say, they “have besmirched the good name of Rangers Football Club” and ends on this nearly perfect note. “These so called ‘fans’ should reflect upon the values and ethos of our club.”
You know, I think they understand the “values” and “ethos” of the club just fine.
So all says the statement issued by their media department, headed up by a hardcore Ulster Loyalist on a day when the videos of their players and their officials engaging in the same sort of behaviour comes to light.
Who is going to call these Peepul the charlatans and hypocrites that they are?
Who’s got their big boy pants on today, or will our media continue to flail about desperately, appeasing, enabling and making excuses for this vile football club which stains this whole country?