The Daily Record has today published a truly reprehensible little piece of excreta, apparently in some kind of morbid defence of what Billy Gilmour’s mother did and said to journalists when her son was unveiled as a loanee signing at Norwich.
Entitled “The Celtic and Rangers colour code violations as Billy Gilmour’s mum follows peperami ban and blue shirt no go,” it is a crass, mindless, stupid and offensive piece of internet clickbait which wouldn’t get published on the worst blog.
The article goes on to list examples of the “tribalism” in Glasgow “for the uninitiated.”
As if anyone would want to “initiate” people into the ridiculous mind-set that sees the world through a poisoned prism.
The whole article utterly trivialises bigotry. It suggests that Gilmour’s mother’s pathetic gesture “caught the imagination of supporters.” How about “sparked the revulsion of otherwise sane people?” Because that, actually, is what it did.
It then goes on to list the “colour missteps” which put people on the wrong side of the “tribalist” tendencies here in Glasgow. Here’s what it lists, in order.
Gordon Strachan wearing a blue shirt to his Celtic unveiling. And driving a blue car.
Ibrox’s peperami ban.
Dominos colour change inside Celtic Park.
Caixinha’s green boots ban.
The decision by the Celtic shop to sell a “Scotland” strip at £55.
Now, you’ll notice that three of the five involve our club.
One appears to be entirely fictitious. One is an idiotic change for the sake of marketing and the other is based on a handful of internet complaints. The Ibrox two are well known and I remarked on Caixinha’s green boots ban at the time, but also that “he” had the brainwave of daubing a supremacist slogan on the walls.
All this stuff is pathetic.
Whoever suggested changing the Domino colours should have been marched out of Celtic Park never to return. It was a commercial decision, fine, but it treats our supporters like idiots and insults our intelligence.
Strachan claims there was a “reaction” on his unveiling day because he wore a blue shirt.
From who? I think that’s bollocks and I have no problem saying it.
Not a single person I know would have given a shit and no-one gives a shit now.
Nor do I believe, for one second, that he was “advised” to change the colour of his car.
Celtic players have driven, and drive, blue cars.
Who cares? Nobody does.
Gordon Strachan is forever telling these kind of exaggerated stories about Glasgow.
If one person commented on his shoes he’d find a way to make that person representative of the whole football watching community. He enjoys painting football fans as Neanderthals, it’s one of the reasons I can’t stand him as a person.
I don’t believe a word of this nonsense.
As to the strip situation, I don’t know anybody who really cared less about that either.
A few online obsessives tried to turn it into a big deal.
The rest of us had more important things to worry about and much more pressing business to take the club to task over.
All this article does is take a handful of examples – and please note the glaring omissions, such as the bigoted ban on Eggs Benedict at Ibrox, menus priced at £16.90, orange strips and all the rest of the pandering to the lowest common denominator over there – and tries, again, to pain this as “tribalism” and thus rope us into a story which was about one particular goonish individual who even on a huge day for her family couldn’t contain herself.
I am sick and tired of seeing this kind of thing laughed off as if it were nothing.
In promoting these kind of attitudes as examples of “how it is here” the Record makes us sound like a backward footballing banana republic and I’m sick and tired of that as well.
This is one of the many reasons we have long abhorred this “Old Firm” nonsense, the whole thing is backward and bigoted and we want nothing whatsoever to do with any of it.
It’s the press, which thrives on this, which keeps it going … them and the Ibrox club which would have no place in the modern world if it couldn’t somehow anchor itself to us.
Some people might enjoy wallowing in this muck, but leave our club and the majority of its fans out of this sleazy cesspit.
Articles like that do nothing to promote our game or anything in it; they dredge the gutter and hold up what they find in it as some sort of prize.
Shame on the media for indulging this kind of idiocy.