Celtic fans targeted but Souness the real victim? Demented hack finally loses it.

So yesterday, someone pointed me in the direction of an article in The Sunday Mail. I won’t tell you who the writer was — I’m fairly sure you can guess that on your own.

It was a piece of outright trash from the guy. An article so bad that, to paraphrase Orwell, “if it were possible for an article to give off a physical stench then this one would.” Yeah, it was genuinely that bad.

The first part read like a love letter to Andrew Cavanaugh, prior to his takeover at Ibrox — a guy the writer has never met and doesn’t know. But apparently, from a glance at his body language, he reckons Cavanaugh is someone not to be messed with. Body language, scrutinised for a grand total of two seconds, by the way, as the man brushed past the media on a recent visit.

I remember the same person waxing lyrical about the body language of van Bronckhorst, and then about Clement, predicting — based solely on that — that both of them would see off Celtic managers. He’s not a body language expert. He’s not a writer either. But the body language stuff is just horrific, and he should stop doing it for his own good. It makes him sound like a blithering, doddering old idiot.

Then he indulged one of his favourite pastimes — slagging off supporters for their behaviour. To paraphrase he suggested that the derby was a complete disgrace because of various incidents, but, of course, he was careful never to point the finger at the home crowd. It’s just pathetic fence-sitting of the worst and most cowardly kind.

Other journalists have been quite clear where the trouble originated. It’s hard not to be, when it’s so bloody obvious.

There’s real moral cowardice in this guy.

To lump our fans in with theirs, to talk about the trouble as if it were our supporters who shelled our own goalkeeper… it’s what I expect from him by now. A gutless fraud, determined at all costs to maintain as easy a life as possible.

He takes shots at our players all the time. He’s taken shots at our manager with great abandon. But those are easy targets. No pushback, no hassle.

When it comes to actually taking a stand on something that matters, this guy’s never done it, and he never will.

Eventually — and not a moment too soon — he got to the actual point of the piece: that Graeme Souness should be horrified and offended and infuriated that his image was used on an offensive banner. The last part of the article is a love letter to Souness, a glowing endorsement of the man’s character.

And that part pissed me off.

I’m sure it pissed off the person who sent me the article too — and I’m sure that was his reason for wanting it critiqued. He’s absolutely right. It deserves to be critiqued. In fact, it deserves to be torn to shreds.

Let’s talk about Souness himself. This supposedly wonderful human being. This guy who has used his media soapbox to attack our supporters again and again and again. I believe, last year, he said our fans were “everything that is wrong with Scottish football.” Our fans. Souness, the genius who thinks the Ibrox club should spend £50 million trying to catch us — and whom the press constantly lauds for that “inspired” idea, even though it was barely half a thought he probably shouldn’t have voiced.

I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if Souness had voluntarily offered his image for that disgusting banner. He has no love for us. He doesn’t respect us. And as for the image itself? I don’t know whether the writer of yesterday’s piece is aware, but it wasn’t dreamed up by some Union Brat in a bunker. That’s an actual picture. Souness actually posed like that. God alone knows why.

But here’s where the real issue lies for me. That banner is a bigoted, and quite possibly racist, attack on our fanbase. It suggests we’re only good for shooting. And the writer never once approaches it from that point of view. His concern is with “identity theft” and the supposed insult done to Souness.

What about the insult done to us? What about the suggestion that our fans deserve to be shot? Do we not even warrant the writer’s consideration?

He thinks their club should apologise to Souness — because it was his image used on the banner. But he doesn’t spare a moment’s thought for the targets of that banner. That makes this one of the most grotesque takes I’ve read in a long time.

Everyone knows I’m not a fan of the writer. I’ve said so, over and over again, on dozens of occasions. But this? This is a low even for him. Souness is the one who deserves the apology? Our fans deserve the apology.

We’re the victims here. Souness — who hates our club — is not the victim, and this attempt to turn it into something about him is absolutely abhorrent. It was a banner that suggested our fans be shot; the injury done to Souness is what the writer is getting animated about? For God’s sake.

There’s being spineless — which this reporter certainly is, and always has been. But then there’s the outright refusal to treat this for what it is. It takes someone incredibly blinkered to see it only through the lens he did. And that’s not just cowardice.

That’s what moral and intellectual bankruptcy looks like.