Celtic Fans Should Remind McLeish That Black Sunday Was Cheating, And It Killed His Club.

At a time like this, before one of these games, there is always a little bit of fun to be had in seeing who the media manages to dredge up to promote the line that the Ibrox club are brilliant and can do no wrong. As I said in a piece yesterday, most of the hacks aren’t as confident as they have been making out, which is why they have to cast that net out wide for those who are.

Step forward one Alex McLeish, banging on about his favourite subject again; Black Sunday. And every time he does that, every time he talks about it, I feel a very big desire – even a need – to remind people that McLeish was at Ibrox throughout the EBT years. If he wants to bring that season, and his record, up then it’s only fair that it gets the scrutiny it deserves.

No manager in the history of Scottish football has won things by shadier means that Alex McLeish. His record elsewhere is just not that great. His two title wins were ridiculous; one he won by a single goal and the other by a single point.

It is impossible to argue, with a straight face, that he would have been able to do any of it without the industrial cheating that was going on in the background.

The claim that Rangers gained “no sporting advantage” by spending more money than they could afford, and at a time when they had to conceal that even from the SFA, and then won those titles by the flimsiest of margins is risible and nobody really believes it.

As we shall see, McLeish himself freely admits this.

McLeish should keep his mouth shut about the events for which he thinks he is famous.

The actual term is “notorious.”

A lot of those who have risen by dishonest means make the same mistake. If I was in his shoes, the less people who scrutinised that spell the happier I would be. Those results and trophies and titles aren’t just tainted, they are blackened by corruption.

This is yet another example of the Scottish media ignoring historical fact to push a preferred narrative.

But as much as they might want to ignore this, they cannot re-write it.

The facts are in the public domain and we all know that title stripping should have followed. I have never wanted those titles given to Celtic, but the idea that there wasn’t one point or one goal of a difference that can be laid at the door of the EBT’s is ludicrous and to mount an argument otherwise would be futile and an insult to our collective intelligence as fans.

“You seen how close it was,” he said on a documentary once upon a time (I am not tidying his grammar up, that’s his own problem) “in terms of winning the championship. There was a goal in it. We were so level it wasn’t true.” (Jesus, what a mess that statement is.) “It we hadn’t paid the same type of money Celtic paid for players we’d have been behind them.”

That’s a close to a confession as you can get; in fact, it is a confession. They broke the rules in order to match us, that’s the truth of it. Not only did they defraud the tax man but they cheated the rest of Scottish football.

Yeah, he got Black Sunday out of it and their other dodgy title win, and there were others under Smith … but you know what? In the end those titles cost them their club. Those trophies, and the means by which they won them, are what destroyed Rangers, because it was that tax bill that, combined with what Whyte did, which sent them to the grave.

So, he gets asked about it to this day; I daresay he does.

But the people who should most get in touch with him are Celtic fans, to remind him exactly what those tainted titles are worth and what was achieved by them.

They killed Rangers. Celebrate that.