Fear And Loathing On Radio Clyde. Carboard Cut Outs And Sevco Tears.

Rarely – very rarely – do I listen to Radio Clyde, but I knew that tonight would be special, that it would be one those nights, that it would reach for that special kind of magnificence which only a parade of angry Ibrox callers could get to.

From the first minute to last it was glorious.

And I mean from the first minute, and the first caller, a grown man who actually openly admitted on the radio that he owns a cardboard cut-out of Steven Gerrard but that it was now turned to face the wall.

That’ll teach the Scouse toe-rag eah?

“Joost you face that wallpaper; ah don’t even want tae talk to you the night.”

Whilst I was still trying to ponder how nutty that caller was the second came on, almost choked up with tears of frustration and anger, furiously spitting about how Gerrard had actually left them on Remembrance Day.

And I realised at that moment that for some of them all this poppy stuff is an actual Real Thing, all wrapped up in their self-image now, not just about baiting Celtic and finding another reason to hate us.

For them, Gerrard’s most egregious sin is not leaving, not even that he has left at this stage of the season, not that he took the whole backroom team with him or just days after saying he was happy in front of the cameras and not even naming his daughter Lourdes … no, this is the Final Insult.

This guy probably got the confirmation during the minute’s silence and violently cursed with a reference to fenians or something before realising there were still 52 seconds of quiet time left to go.

One guy was almost crying at “how quickly it all happened” as if he was talking about a death in the family … and he made sure to say Gerrard is now banned from the family as far as he’s concerned. It was a call reeking with entitlement.

And it was, every call, all in the same vein; absolutely bonkers.

You know what was almost completely missing from the discourse, as though anyone who had intended to make the point was prevented from getting through?

Any notion that Gerrard is jumping before the ship goes down, which is blatantly obvious to anyone who is looking at this with a fully critical eye.

Even the one guy who did get on to talk about that rambled nonsense about how Gerrard didn’t have tie on for his Villa unveiling and then suggested that it was the club itself which pushed him out the door to bring in some cash.

“It’s easy to join the dots now,” Gordon Duncan said when trying to suss how this could have happened.

Aye, and it was easy to join them months ago, way before the accounts came out as well.

Some of us managed it quite easily.

He also suggested, with desperation in his voice, that there must be some players at Ibrox who “would do a job in the bottom half of the Premier League.”

As if Gerrard’s new team will only play games against those clubs!

That’s not quite how it works, as someone should explain to him.

As it happens, their financial position could be worse … think, for a start, about how so much of their club merchandise comes with Gerrard’s image on it. Think of all those cardboard cuts out for a start … worth nothing now.

The cost of replacing that stuff could cost more than the compensation they got! Even their future projections have to change now; so much of their marketing is based on him, and his profile which is much higher than that of the club.

Of course, no-one on Clyde commented on that either.

What was more incredible in some ways than the callers were was how gutted two of the panellists were. I was only disappointed that Alex Rae wasn’t on; his own pain would have tasted better than a cold Amstel on a warm night.

(Not Mark Wilson, obviously. He sounded like he enjoyed much of the evening’s entertainment.)

They struggled with their own emotions, and Gordon Duncan was so pissed off that he slammed Gordon Dalziel for indulging in “hallmark birthday card pish” for trying to cheer them up and actually openly snarked that “seeing Gerrard holding up that Villa top was like seeing your ex with her new man.”

I listened to that in stunned silence, then burst out laughing.

And I knew instinctively, “That guy is gonna go home and turn his cardboard cut-out to face the wall, isn’t he?”