Tonight, the drums are silent. There will be no march to Dublin for those who so desperately wanted to go.
Before the game they raised their blue bus banner, promising to travel there to cheer on their team, hell-bent on going there to take over the streets. That would have been … interesting.
Thankfully we’ll never know. Out they went, like a blown light-bulb and with that same faint popping sound.
What was it TS Elliot said? “Not with a bang … but with the wet sound of Todd Cantwell falling on his backside on a soaked pitch.”
It was something along those lines anyway.
The Benfica goalkeeper spent most of the game trying to work out the words of the Ibrox fan songs which rose up and down as the night wore on. I can save him the trouble of playing it back; fella, you really don’t wanna know.
But UEFA should, and I’m going to cover that in a little more detail in the morning. But for now, let’s just say that these Peepul got what they deserved tonight and we can only hope they continue to get it as this season winds down.
That was a festival of sweat, snotters, tears and the bile that poured forth from the stands. On a night as savage as that, you don’t expect to see a lot of football, but there were public park teams all around Scotland tonight who would have been thinking “we could have taken either of these” as the game dragged on and on and on.
Watching large spells of that was like injecting poison directly into your own eyeballs.
The single goal that decided it was, actually, a pretty well taken one.
Most amusing, even more than the near certain knowledge that it had put the Ibrox club out – as they had never seriously tested the opposition keeper – was the commentary team trying to convince themselves that “the VAR lines” would knock it off.
Amazing that none of them twigged until some member of the backroom team gave them the bad news that only one line mattered, the halfway line, and both Benfica’s players had been clearly behind it.
Too bad, so sad. The linesman’s flag had gone up but the goal stood. There will be people crowded onto subway platforms right now telling themselves that the Unseen Hand had reached out from Rome again to do them wrong.
Well, you keep on singing about killing fenians before you die and that just might upset people. And they did that all night long.
The one thing that struck me tonight is that this is an Ibrox team which looks dead on its feet. Without officialdom’s intervention at the weekend against Hibs, who knows what the state of that club would be right now, but they do not look like they have much energy left in them. I would have been glad for extra time on top of that.
Two more games in this competition for them wouldn’t have bothered me one bit either; Benfica were, and are, a bad lot who are not going to trouble the sleep of Milan or Liverpool or even West Ham, all of whom would clearly dispatch either of these sides with measured ease.
Where that team of theirs would have found the energy to even contest those games I do not know.
It’s a moot point like everything else. STV News can put their speculative piece on how Dublin would cope with a Sevco-Liverpool final in the bin where it should have been in the first place. Ain’t nobody gonna need to worry about that now.
My old man turned to me at one point in the second half, after their latest long ball bomb had gone over the heads of everyone on the pitch and landed in the stand and asked me “How are this lot top of the league?”
A good question with a simple answer; because of us. Yet their manager enjoys the long honeymoon and the adulation of the media.
And it’s because of that gush of emotional ooze that it’s satisfying not only seeing them go out tonight but to go out in the manner that they did, barely troubling Benfica at all, looking like a team with not much left in the tank.
That could be interesting.
That could be very interesting indeed.
But across Sevconia tonight the drums are silent. The march to the home of the enemy will not now take place.
And so Dublin’s fair city will remain fair, absent the sounds of crashing and baying and breaking and smashing.
There will be no pools of vomit, vodka and blood. The Peepul are not coming. They never really were.
For those who enjoy the comments on here, there’s a new site you should check out and register on; it’ll publish one article per day on a point or topic of interest to our fans, and from there you can debate that issue and any other peripheral one. The site can be found at the below link; you will need a verified account to log in and start the discussions but I hope to see you all there.
Officials And Injuries Need To Be Managed. Celtic’s Season Depends On It. – An Internet Bampot
Defeated from the worst Portuguese side I think I have ever witnessed.
How fitting was that the 67th min the team from lisbon ??????????
Ha Ha – Excellent Spot indeed Phelim…
Lisbon haunted Rangers for 45 years and 21 days until they left this world –
They’re haunting Sevco as of today 11 years 230 days old…
Stats the truth ya know !!!!
As I commented on Phil’s site a wee while ago, I had mixed feelings about them going out – there was no danger of them winning it with the 3 big clubs you mention still in it (plus Bayer Leverkusen!) so it would just have been a distraction for them – but I thought a Dublin final was the ultimate insurance policy…. Even if they won the league their fans behaviour in the Fair Ciity would likely result in a European ban!
But I watched the second half in a pub full of huns and the singing was familiar but rather grating if you know what I mean, so come the final whistle I found I had a warm, happy glow, and it was not from the very average beer in there….
Haha just a brilliant written piece James
My exact thoughts on the whole thing James! You summed it up totally. You can rest easy Dublin ?
Lost count on how many times commentator said “sevco player goes down.. play on says ref ” ” cantwell falls down.. no free kick says ref”
Commentators must have said that 10 maybe 15 times(each half)
If it was a Scottish cheating ref every falls down/goes down is a free kick to sevco..
And the Benfica goal is off side… just because :-/
The Scottish version of the KKK has been drummed out of Europe. Hopefully, Celtic will finally do their job and put these filthy racist scum to the sword in the league, as well as the cup.
One win in last 4 games ( against 9 men )
And two home defeats in those 4 games
When was the last time Separate Entity FC Won a 2 leg game in Europe. Answers on a postcard please.
You go on and on about the songs The Famous Glasgow Rangers fans sing completely ignoring the songbook the Mhanky tramps have
Walter Smith
Davie Cooper
Ibrox disaster
IRA songs
To name just few.
Get your own house in order before commenting on anybody else.
Wow – That’s a great new name for Sevco so it is Billy Boy…
Separate Entity FC – Very true indeed about Sevco that is –
With such wit I should really have addressed ya as Billy Bhoy !
Separate Entity FC right enough Billy bhoy. They insist they are the OLDCO when it comes to claiming the history and titles of Rangers, but are a NEWCO when the victims of Gordon Neely seek compensation from them. “Nothing is do with US as our NEWCO didn’t exist back then, so take your claims to the liquidators of the OLDCO”.
@ BB. The rage is strong in this one. Maybe tho, through yer obvious ‘despair’ ye can explain somethin. Ye mention ‘separate entity’. WHY, then, when victims of these despicable acts inside your own club came forward, they were told tae take it up with the ‘old’ club. All that ye hear is, according tae yous, is that ye’s ARE the same club. How is that. Which is it ? When ye have a feasible answer come back ya moron.
F**k off you Jacobite basta*d and suck your own piss out of the toiled you scum sucking dog
Well, they had a grand day for it!
Wouldn’t it be funny to end the season with Nowt ?
@ Del. You should fkn know.
“ ahh bit that Portigal is wan aye them thur kafflik Cuntrys and the fishells wur aw blessin thumsells afore the gemme an its no far frae that Rome place so its nae wunner wey goat bait. Its wan aye thay kafflik consp….eh…eh plo.. eh fixes”.
Brexshit ya bas.
Sevco-shot their go early….AGAiN!!
What a disappointment klub !
Succinct.
Sevco have done ever so well for such a new klub…balls fair to sevco!
Dublin will welcome Liverpool fans with open arms. It will be a great day in the fair city. Even better, there will be no Sevco fans with their ignorance, bile and hatred. Hail Hail!
Nae surprise really. Ah think anybody wi at least a bit of rational mindedness would know, they were gonnae be out first good team they came up against that had its act together. And once more, shows what an utter embarrassment this media are. Ffs one over excited DR joker graeme young had the ibrox club down as ‘bona-fide heavyweights’. No tae mention jackson’s ‘specialists of the remarkable’ tag. The type of stuff that would be laughed at outside Scotland. Always a pleasure tae see the reality gettin slapped home.
That game showed the Gap between the Champions League and Europa League is large, the Rangers Manager showed tonight that he is a con man. His team was caught out by basic hitting on the break, a class team could have scored 4 on the break against them. Wee Ally was pointing this out from early in the game, yet this so called top class manager didn’t seem to spot the danger.
Well said ??????
That’s how they will play next game against us we need to be on the counter at every opportunity this is when the season falls apart for the baldy leader