Another anti-Celtic “neutral” cries bitter tears as his team exits Europe.

One of my exes is a girl from Fife and a Dunfermline fan.

We used to talk football a lot, and although our club wasn’t her cup of tea, she had very little time for the one across the city. None of the Pars fans I’ve ever spoken to have had any time for that lot. And although they sneer at us as glory hunters and whatever else, by and large they don’t hate us. They certainly don’t hate us whilst holding a certain reverence for our local rivals.

Most fans who hate one of the Glasgow clubs hate the other one just as much. That’s a fairly common phenomenon across the spectrum. Almost every fan I’ve spoken to outside the city just labels us both under the Old Firm tag, which I think is both stupid and lazy—but trying to change their view is like trying to push back the tide.

This is why I’ve always found Bill Leckie to be absolutely unbearable. A bitter, spiteful little man hiding behind a ‘neutral club’ preference, when in fact his clear preference is for the side across the city. It’s well known. It’s well established in his writing. No matter how much he squirms or spins, he cannot hide that simple fact. And the more he rails against it, the more I know I’m right.

Regular readers will notice that I spend an awful lot of my time focusing on certain newspapers and certain media outlets. Those are the ones that are available and free to read every single day—provided, of course, you know how to climb over a few paywall ladders. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

But those little tricks don’t work on every site, and the Murdoch Press in particular has gotten really good at putting up solid blockades for anyone who doesn’t want to cough up cash to read their stuff. And since I can’t imagine a single scenario under which I would ever pay to read anything in a Murdoch title, I’ve learned to live without it. I’ve learned to live without their warped, jaundiced, right-wing, liberal-bashing, anti-woke view of the world.

I suspect my IQ is slightly higher because of that decision. I expect my stress levels are lower because of it. I’m probably a bit happier too, not being subjected to their racism, bigotry, ideological hatred, paranoia, and picket-fence fantasy vision of Britain that bears no resemblance to reality.

So if it seems like I single The Record out, it’s only because I know that stuff just as bad is being written in The Sun—but I don’t read that paper, and I wouldn’t sully myself by reading that paper. Doing so would mean paying to read it. Almost everything I know about what gets said in that rag, I get second-hand.

And that’s probably for the best.

The more I know, the less I want to know about that publication and the people who write in it. Truthfully, they really are the bottom of the barrel. When I talk about some of the writers at The Record as being the worst journalists in the country, at least I’m elevating them to a level where they can be referred to that way.

I don’t even extend that courtesy to the writers at The Sun. I don’t give them that status, because that “newspaper”—if we’re being generous enough to call it that—simply does not deserve it.

And if you think the standards at The Record are bad, just remember: Leckie has been writing for The Sun for years, and is clearly considered one of their star performers.

Leckie is a terrible writer. He’s so bad I’ve never even subjected him to the Jackson treatment. I’ve been sent the full text of dozens of Leckie articles over the years, and I’ve never once felt the urge to give him the Full Jackson. He doesn’t rise to the level required. I disavow that idea for the same reason I’ve never given the Jackson treatment to anything written on an Ibrox fan blog.

Jackson is a better writer than Leckie. Jackson has a better grasp of language than Leckie. Jackson’s attempts at humour—although crude and painfully unsophisticated—are vastly better than what comes from his contemporary at The Sun.

Leckie may not be the worst writer in the country—there may be worse ones hiding out there at that paper of his or at other similar rags of the right—but he is certainly one of the worst currently making a living in a media industry that is dying on its backside because it employs people like him.

His most recent article is about last night’s game. Someone sent it to me this morning. It’s so bad it’s almost unbearable.

I’ve written about McCoist having a rant over it. I’ve written about other media people squealing like pigs about it—including the Village Idiot’s Sky Sports meltdown, which was glorious—but Leckie? He turns in a piece so drenched in venom, anger and frustration that it’s laughable to even pretend he’s neutral.

It follows on from some of the most poisonous pieces he’s written about Celtic in recent years—on subjects I won’t even touch, and which Leckie, with his low intellect and stunted writing style, should never have tried to pontificate on.

But what really jumps off the page when you read him usually is just how much he hates Celtic. And I don’t think “hate” is too strong a word. You can feel how much emotional investment he’s got in the club across the city. Today’s piece, virtually dripping his bitter tears and fury, was a sterling case in point.

And I’ve met a fair few Dunfermline fans over the years—and that’s not what any of them sound like. That’s a guy who should be writing for a pro-Ibrox blog, not pretending to be a neutral voice in a national newspaper. Not even that one. And anyone who read my Hillsborough piece earlier this week knows exactly how I feel about The Sun.

I don’t know what it is with these people and their need to pretend to be something they’re not. In case he hasn’t noticed, there are more ex-Ibrox players working in the media right now than there are people who ever went to journalism school.

In case he hasn’t noticed, The Daily Record itself resembles nothing short of an Ibrox fan blog when you look at its writing quality and the direction of its coverage. So I don’t see what the disadvantage would be for Leckie in just being upfront about who he is and where he’s coming from.

Does he think there’s anyone out there with even the faintest doubt about what he is and who he supports? Is there anyone who thinks Leckie isn’t an arch-Ibrox fan? I think you’d be hard pressed to find even one. And having read some of his recent pieces—which, helpfully, folks keep sending me—I’m glad I don’t read him regularly. I’m glad I don’t delve into his stuff. I’m glad there’s a firewall between his “work” and my eyes.

Because if this job did require me to read him more regularly, well… who the hell needs that in their life?

Let him rant. Let him rave from behind that paywall. I’m happy to leave him there, safe in the knowledge that there are only a handful of people in this country who think his views are worth paying for. And that’s the thing about paywalls—they limit your audience to the people who genuinely believe you have something worth saying.

If you’re one of the sad souls out there paying to read “neutral” Bill Leckie for wisdom or insight, then frankly, you’re already beyond saving. And there’s nothing more I can—or should—say to you.