HUNS
One of the benefits of the Ibrox club being so dreadful of late isn’t just that we’re so far ahead of them on points—it’s that Scotland hasn’t had to tolerate quite so much of the bile that flows out of their stands. In short, because their fans haven’t had a lot to sing about, they’ve not done their usual lot of singing. Today, that changed.
Emboldened by a few victories on the bounce, today saw a return to the norm for them, and that is bad news, of course, for those of us who don’t want the airwaves polluted by 90 minutes of non-stop hatred. But that’s exactly what they delivered. And thank you to Sky for not muting them, allowing us to sample the atmosphere—and the bitterness.
Last week, the SPFL decided it was time to take its responsibilities seriously, issuing charges against three clubs—Celtic, the Ibrox club, and Motherwell—in relation to flares and pyro. We were one of the sites to say, “Perhaps one day they’ll grow a set and take on the scourge of this kind of singing.” Well, I’m sure, having decided to be a governing body, that some actual governing will be evident this week when they charge the Ibrox club for their fans’ behaviour.
I’m joking, of course. I shouldn’t be joking. I should be writing that for real and looking forward to an actual set of charges. But we know that won’t happen. We know those charges will never come. We know that today’s 90-minute hate-fest will go not just unpunished but almost unreported. The only people who genuinely talk about it are us. But then, the view looks slightly different when it’s your blood they’re up to their knees in.
So, they’ve rediscovered their singing voices. It’s just a pity that during their interim silence—where they were only heard booing their own team—they didn’t find some new songs. Songs that weren’t about killing people. Songs that didn’t celebrate their bigoted, outdated, racist, abysmal views.
This is who they are. This is what they are. Today, their fans were an utter disgrace. From start to finish, an utter disgrace. If we had a media worth a damn in this country, they’d be condemning every one of those horrible songs. If we had governing bodies worth a damn, they’d never have allowed things to get to this point.
Even UEFA has gone soft on this issue after taking it seriously for so many years and being the only organisation willing to enforce regulations on it. Perhaps if they’d kept it up, perhaps if they were still sanctioning the Ibrox club for every example of this behaviour, we’d be in a different place. Perhaps governing bodies in Scotland would feel compelled to act. But that will no longer seems to exist.
And here in Scotland? The will to act has never been there. It’s a waste of time even to hope for it. We know this from many years of bitter experience and a whole slew of public debates where any mention of this issue turns into a “plague on both your houses” farce, with the media determined to paint those victimised by this bile as its perpetrators. That’s one of the reasons why our fans abhor, detest, and want nothing to do with the hated Old Firm tag.
We could probably get this out of our football stadiums. It would be easier to eliminate than pyro. But the will has to be there, and it isn’t. The media won’t even acknowledge the problem exists. Instead, we get clowns like Neil McCann praising the Ibrox fans for “backing their team,” as if the manner in which they do it doesn’t matter.
If their version of “backing their team” was burning a cross, would people be fine with that? All it is, is a matter of degrees, folks. No problem ever got better by pretending it doesn’t exist. That’s the surest way to make them worse. And yet it’s hard to imagine this getting worse than what we had to listen to today.
Because that was the pits.
While there are one or two (Sevco) bigots around these shores, they genuinely aren’t particularly liked with all their (especially) Butchers Apron loving bullshit….
Shut them up a week today please Celtic…
And end the Pathological Survival Lies for once and for fuckin well all !!!
You can be anything you want in this country and the law and people’s good morals will be right behind you. Unless you are Irish. Catholic. Or a combination of both.
What we really need to do is, as a collective, is to use the recent Hate Crimes Act.
Every time it’s aired on the box or radio, we should all email Poleas Alba to report the singing of already banned offensive songs of hate. Pile the Complaints in, in their thousands. Copy n’ Paste to the Meedjia, SKY,Your Local Cooncilor, local MSP, List MSP and Wastemonster MP. Send them into the SFA & SPFL. We could set up a standard Complaint Letter and make it accessible through a link. Set up a register to count how many are issued and sent to the relevant addressees.
Then just do the same thing week after week game after game. We do it LIVE as the games are in play. We keep it up week after week until it’s addressed. If Police Scotland and the Game’s Governing Bodies don’t act on the Complaints then we pile on the Complaints to The Scottish and UK Parliaments Bury the system in paperwork. We need to keep up the pressure for action on this issue rather than sittin oan oor erses squakin aboot it.
SFATHENADIROFCHIFTINESS – completely agree. Just like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, let’s get writing letters/emails until they give in. Not putting this on James but if we could do this through the website or have someone with the digital nous to set it up where we coordinate our activities that would be awesome.
Constant ira songs are not great either, the ira have caused heartache and pain for many of families, as well as the uda. Both organizations have killed innocent people,l I think there is a hypocrisy amongst both sets of fans. I would like the green brigade and the union bears banned from Scottish football.
Jesus wept, you will be telling us next that we are two cheeks of the same arse!
Ok Thegoodguy… Certainly cannot disagree that The IRA and The UDA did indeed kill innocent people in their war to as they see was defending their communities in The Six Occupied Counties in The Island of Ireland…
I’d just like your opinion about the Brit equivalent of The Neuremburg Rally That takes place at Liebrox on an annual basis, ie – Brit soldiers absailing down stands and sitting in the stands in a killers uniform…
No doubt some of these said employees of The Brit army will have killed as well, perhaps in The Island of Ireland, perhaps not there but elsewhere for sure…
You may wish to add the disgraced name of The British Victoria Cross winners The R.U.C. to your list of killers of innocent people. Whereas I speculated about the free ticket brigade attending Liebrox, I don’t need to do that about The R.U.C. as there are libraries far less dictionaries full of evidence about their inhuman atrocities…
Killing an IRA or UDA volunteer might be portrayed by The Brit Government as defending themselves…
Killing 14 year old Julie Livingston as she innocently played on the streets of her South West Belfast estate most certainly is not…
I sincerely hope that you’d undoubtedly agree with my opinion – Certainly in the last paragraph immediately above !
It is not the same goodghuy. There was the Provo’s, then there was the Official IRA the guys who fought and died for The Republic of Irelands independence. Do not compare them both the same.
With the greatest respect to both yourself Michael and Johnny, that’s your opinions, but that opinion is most certainly not shared by the majority of people. If you were to share that same opinion with every person who lives in the uk, I guarantee well over 90 percent would disagree with that, so are we saying all these people are wrong.