Celtic Paranoia

Open Letter to Mark Hateley by Colin Paterson

2011-11-12T12:27:00.003Z

Written by a friend of mine (Colin Paterson)

Open letter to Mark Hateley

Mark, I have listened to and read many accounts of those who fought in WW1, the vast majority - and perhaps like your Grandfathers - were conscripted, not volunteers
They speak of people who were too scared to follow orders being shot in the head by their commanding officer. They did not regard themselves as being hero's. The choice was simple, do as I say and there is a good chance you will die. Don't do as I say and there is a 100% chance you will die.

Many said that choosing the former option did not make you a hero, it was playing the odds. None of those involved in the Great war and WW2 wanted to be there, true there were some with a romanticised notion of defeating "Der Hun" sic. However that notion was soon driven from them as the first howitzer fired overhead.
The point I am making is don't use your grandfathers as pawns in this debate, it belittles what they were forced to do. Do you think that compared to what they endured in those times football teams wearing a poppy decades in the future is remotely relevant?

The British football clubs and national teams went 70 years without wearing a poppy on their strips. To my knowledge the nation has not endured a collective bout of amnesia regarding the World Wars.

The whole enforcement of poppy wearing by media institutions and sporting institutions of recent years has done more to harm remembrance Sunday than those who have chosen not to wear it ever will.

Jon Snow coined the phrase "poppy fascism" an intillectual man I am sure his words were chosen with great care.

To belittle a group of people either Scotland or Celtic fans as mindless bigots for not wanting to wear a poppy is unfortunate. We are supposed to live in a nation of tolerance and respect. Respect of each others opinions.

I doubt you have ever attempted to scratch the surface of why some Celtic fans refuse to wear the poppy, or why some Muslims find it offensive.

Britains armed forces committed unspeakable attrocities the world over. None more so than in post World War 1 Ireland, some of the very same soldiers who fought for liberty in the Somme engaged in state organised violence and murder against Irish civilians, yes they got some Fenians too but the net was cast far and wide. The Black and Tans were notorious Mark.

Some of those who refuse to wear the poppy at Celtic Park would have had Grandfathers and Grandmothers just like you, but who suffered terribly at the hands of British troops. I will not ask you to dishonour your Grandfathers by not wearing the poppy. Please do not use a national newspaper to ask others to dishonour their Grandparents by wearing it.

Colin Paterson

Laptop Loyal loses its sense of humour over insolvency events

2011-10-28T21:00:00.004+01:00

The Laptop Loyal appear to have lost their sense of humour when it comes to football clubs possibly going bust. What could possibly have changed in 17 years?

Where was the hand wringing and desperate concern for "the good of Scottish football" back in 1994 when it was Celtic in trouble?

Surely a great photo opportunity is going abegging (so to speak) down Ibrox way?

The Daily Record: Why Feed the Hand that Bites You?

2011-09-17T18:22:00.021+01:00

So what happened to Neil Lennon last season, not to mention over the past 10 years or so, is all just a big joke apparently. Merely banter to liven up an otherwise mundane rivalry between Celtic and Rangers. Hatred and bigotry is a just a bit of fun according to the Daily Record. Isn't it hilarious that Neil Lennon's family home has a panic button and 24 hour security because he lives 24/7 with the threat that someone will attempt to maim or murder him?

The message seems to be, we can't beat it, in fact we're not even remotely interested in trying, so we'll just revel in it and make it all a big laugh.

And we wonder why we've got problems with bigotry and hatred in this country?

It's all just banter and a great laugh, that is until Neil Lennon has the temerity to suggest a referee might have made a mistake by awarding a penalty for an "offence" that video evidence proves did not take place and was anatomically impossible for the referee to have seen. No, commenting on a refereeing mistake - note: commenting, not "blasting", "raging" or "ranting" as headline writers in Scotland are prone to cynically misrepresent as a matter of custom - is totally unacceptable conduct which directly imperils the lives of Scottish referees and should bring the harshest possible sanction upon the culprit. There is no room for humour or inneundo when it comes to defending the integrity of referees who's honest mistakes always favour Rangers.

The hypocrisy of the Scottish media, and their pandering to the bigoted sensibilities of their priority demographic - "Ra Peepul" - is so stark and obvious it's practically Python-esque.

Then we have the "none so blind as those who will not see" neutrals, who's impotent parrott response is "bad-as-each-other..bad-as-each-other..bad-each-other" to each new media slur, death threat, riot or physical attack on Neil Lennon. They cannot be shifted from this "bad as each other" dogmatic myopia, such that as evidence builds, "offences" committed on the Celtic side are inflated to fit their bizarre world view that bigotry and sectarianism in Scotland is subject to some unnatural law which keeps the distribution of such "offences" and attitudes at a perfect 50-50 ying-yang distribution on either side on pain of the universe collapsing in on itself and ceasing to exist if the truth were to be revealed; i.e. that Scotland's problem with "sectarianism" is nothing more than a symptom of the familiar nativist hostility to an immigrant ethnic group that is repeated many times across the globe.

In fact, with each new appalling example of anti-Irish/Catholic hatred, fans of other Scottish teams seem to expend far more energy scrambling around trying to offer up evidence that Celtic/Irish/Catholics are equals in the venom and frequency of such behaviours, as they do actually condemning the perpetrators of the actual events that just took place.

If there were unconditional condemnation of these acts from neutrals without the "buts" and the "What-aboutery" maybe Scotland would get somewhere with this issue.

Sadly, the customary reaction to such events in 2011 is to inflate the Celtic/Neil Lennon charge-sheet, therefore commenting fairly and honestly in calm and measured language becomes Neil Lennon "bringing this on himself" by "waging a one man war against referees"; penalties correctly awarded to Celtic are held up as "balancing out" glaring refereeing errors and laws designed to address religious sectarianism have to be amended to encompass political expression to make the evidence fit the pre-conceived "bad-as-each-other" conclusion.

By the way, for every quote you can show me of Neil Lennon being critical of a referee, I can show you three of the manager with nosurname doing the same, and in a manner which falls a long way short of the personification of dignity persona the Scottish media have built for him.

Call it my very own "for every fiver" quote.

In contrast it seems to be an editorial law in Scotland that each and every photo of Neil Lennon in a newspaper has to strengthen this snarling, madman persona they've cerated, no matter how mundane his actual comments in whatever story it is they are reporting, a-la the graphic below:

And how about this, just so we know where the Daily Record stands over last season's "shame game" - if a game where three of the four individuals responsible for said "shame" were admonished, leaving only one to carry a sanction for little more than raising his voice and pointing - can be considered a "shame" game:

With this latest effort pushing it's nadir down yet further than it's already snake shite base, the Daily Record is seen clearly inhabiting the same cesspit as the knuckle-draggers it seeks to ingratiate itself with. The article accompanying the "Who do we hate the most guys?" headline makes effective use of the old Neil Lennon angrily pointing the finger at Ally McCoist photo which it must've published only about the 500 times by now. Any old excuse to bring out their favourite photo to keep up the character assassination of the manager of Celtic FC.

Speaking of which, here is a choice quote from the article crayoned by the Rangers PR legend that is Keith Jackson.. "There is a part of this man which seems to thrive on chaos. At times it is almost as if he feeds on it. Well, tomorrow he'll have the chance to gorge himself senseless..." Is Jackson seriously trying to suggest that Neil Lennon greedily laps up viable explosive devices being sent to his family home, physical attack and vile abuse? It appears so. This is classic "he brings it on himself so just carry on boys" stuff.

Other choice headline words on the back page include "grudge" and " Rangers backlash". I'm sure the Daily Record will be suitably outraged and full of moral indignation if any violent behaviour should occur either on or off the park tomorrow.

I'm not actually sure that "journalists" like Keith Jackson, Darrell King, Leckie etc. are capable of actually comprehending the wider view and how their pathetic apologist and whataboutery articles appear to an objective onlooker. They are now so embedded in a pro-Rangers PR machine bubble that relies on verbatim Rangers press statements and spin for their copy, or risk ejection from the bubble that sustains them that they are incapable of conceiving a train of thought that is rooted in anything other than a Rangers point of view, i.e. the bias is systemic as well as personal.

I haven't bought the Daily Record since the 'THUGS AND THIEVES' headline in 2002 and even then I was a sparing consumer of the rag. I basically don't buy any newspapers now, they're full of BS propaganda and spin whatever the subject, designed to turn the public against whatever demographic the Establishment deem the target on any particular day e.g. public sector workers, immigrants, the unemployed etc etc, basically anything to keep the working and middle classes fighting with each other rather than the bosses and owners. Funnily enough though, I still manage to keep more than adequately up to date with anything that's actually newsworthy from online sources. Much more so than the average Daily Ranger or Sun reader I can assure you.

But unfortunately there are still Celtic fans who buy this particular rag. Make no mistake, the Daily Record is nothing other than an anti-working class Rangers fanzine.

But the sad thing is... as reprehensible as the Daily Record is, the bottom line is they're only pandering to what they've identified as the major target demographic in Scotland. Tabloid newspapers are notorious for merely reflecting the prejudices of society rather than trying to shape them positively. The Daily Record obviously has data to inform their marketing to tell them this sort of bigot-pandering stuff goes down well with readers and sell papers. Doesn't reflect very well on Scotland does it? However, when stating this in the hope of some honest introspection from fellow Scots who follow neither Celtic or Rangers, the response is invariably to shoot the messenger and begin the whataboutery "..bad as each other.. bad as each other... bad as each other...brings it on himself..should tone it down..sqwuak".

Back in July, I wrote a piece for inclusion in Paul Larkin's "Dougie, Dougie: Rants from the Front of the Bus". I include the closing paragraphs here as a summary of my attitude to the Scottish mainstream media's attitude to Celtic:

"But in reality, not only are they apologists for extremist bigots, the Scottish media fanned the flames of hatred towards our manager by following an editorial policy of demonising Neil Lennon to protect the interests of the Establishment club. They did this by ensuring every photo of Neil Lennon appearing in print was one of a snarling contorted face. They did this by labelling perfectly rational comments as “outbursts”, “blasts” and wild accusations of cheating and conspiracy where none were made. The only manager who used the word “conspiracy” last season was Peter Houston in the same game where Neil Lennon was lied to by a referee and then accused of being out of control. The only manager who accused the SFA of deliberately scheduling appeal hearings to ensure a player would remain suspended for an UsVThem game was Walter Smith.

Neil Lennon is by no means a saint but the media built up a grotesque straw man caricature to insane levels, simultaneously feeding the bigots and feeding off their bigot 35p or whatever the Record costs these days. Demographics in Scotland dictate that the Establishment club have to be pandered to at any price, even if that price means dicing with the life of a Celtic manager.

I started blogging about Celtic’s treatment at the hands of the media in 2002. I can’t remember a specific date but I haven’t bought a Daily Record since their legendary “Thugs and Thieves” slur in December of that year. The Sun was binned in 2004 after Bill “It’s great to have such a big Rangers man in the studio” Leckie’s poisonous diatribe against Martin O’Neill for having the temerity to wave to his own fans from the pitch at Mordor. The Evening Times has been persona-non-grata for a similar length of time. I gave up radio phone-ins shortly after reaching puberty.

So what have I been missing all these years?

To employ the words of the CQN legend that is Bournesouprecipe – unmitigated Hunguffery.

I’ve missed out on being told which superstars the Gers are going to sign and how Celtic’s star players are perpetually unsettled and on the brink of leaving the club.

I’ve missed Celtic players being wrongfully accused of thuggery and sexual infidelity and about “Old Firm” stars being accused of indecent assault.

I’ve missed reading about how each successive Celtic manager is even more “paranoid” and “stubborn” than his predecessor whilst those who perform the role at Mordor are the personification of dignity even as they complain about everything from refereeing appointments to fixture scheduling.

I’ve missed reading about how lucky Celtic have been to progress to the 2nd round of the Champions League twice on the back of favours from other teams and the glorious European triumphs of Glasgow Rangers, the 0-0 win over Barcelona and the stumble to Manchester.

I’ve missed reading about Celtic cheating their fans by failing to prise open the biscuit tin whilst Rangers refuse to be held to ransom by greedy unscrupulous provincial SPL clubs.

Name every kind of hunguffery you can imagine and I’ve missed it.

Boy is my life better for it.

Do I find out when Celtic sign a new player at the same time as everyone else? Yes

Do I find out when Celtic appoint a new manager at the same time as everyone else? Yep

Do I find out the Celtic results at the same time as everyone else? Sure

Do I find out when Rangers sign Ronaldo at the same time as everyone else? Yes I just look for the pig in the sky
.
I get all this but I don’t get all the hunguffery in between. I’d thoroughly recommend it to every Celtic fan. Celtic Quick News, Celtic Underground, Celtic Minded, Kerrydale Street, Celtic News Now and a plethora of contacts on Twitter, Facebook and across the Internet are more than sufficient to keep me abreast with real Celtic news, not Hun propaganda.

You wouldn’t pay money to read the Rangers News so why pay for it under another guise? Why feed the hand that bites you?

This is why books such as these and those written by Paul, the Lost Bhoys, myself and others are so important – we can’t let history be written by those who wish to bite us
.
Let’s support guys like Paul Larkin, Paul Brennan, Chris McGuigan and Eddie Pearson.

Let’s support ourselves. Let’s support the Celtic family.

Bin the rags and blank the hundits."

2008: It's the new 1966

2011-09-15T21:03:00.005+01:00

Did you know Rangers played in the UEFA Cup final in 2008? The Scottish media seems to think you don't because they take every tenuous opportunity to slip a reference to it in no matter how unrelated the subject matter.

Prime example - two seperate references on BBC stories today, one previewing CELTIC's match against Atletico Madrid tonight and another about the life and recent death of David Francey.

"Rangers fans will remember Diego fondly, given they knocked him out of the Uefa Cup on their way to the final in 2008 when he was at Werder Bremen."

Or maybe they don't have a scooby who he is like 99% of the players they "knocked out" on the way to the UEFA Cup final in, what year was it again.... aye 2008. They probably remember him as fondly as they remember Martin Bain.

"John Barnes was the BBC Scotland commentator the last time a Scottish team was in a European final, when Rangers lost to Zenit St Petersburg in the Uefa Cup in 2008."

Any excuse eh?

At least England actually won in 1966.

.

Media poodles react to Bain papers in typical fashion

2011-09-11T13:46:00.008+01:00

BBC Radio Scotland yesterday made fleeting reference to the "leak" of court papers in Martin Bain's case against Rangers accompanied by the usual hand-wringing about being hampered in what can be reported due to mythical "rules" that constrain their keen journalistic spirit, in much the same manner as fictional stock exchange "rules" prevented the media investigating circumstances around the most protracted takeover in football history.

The nature of these "rules" allowed them to report that "the papers claim" there is a danger of insolvency if Rangers are found to be liable for a figure of over £15million as a result of the HMRC First Tier Tribunal, but ignore the parts about Whyte not paying a penny over the £1 for Murray's shares into the club, failing to honour his promise to pay the £2.8million "wee bill" and most significant of all, mortgaging FOUR seasons of the FAN'S season ticket money for current spending (or his back pocket).

Jabba Traynor's phone-in was a bizarre combination of calls about next week's Celtic-Rangers game, schools football, league reconstruction and the Scottish football pyramid system discussed at length, whilst the gorilla and elephant languished together in the corner of the studio.

Rangers made a statement on the matter which was dutifully reported variously as the club "blasting" or "denying" the veracity of these papers.

This STV report was typical

“Rangers FC has strongly denied the accuracy of leaked legal papers which appear to raise questions about the club’s solvency.”

No they haven’t. They said it was an “illegal leak”

Describing these "journos" as dimwits is being kind, poodles is more like it.

How can a “leak” of fake papers be illegal? If fraudulent papers were contrived as part of a “whispering campaign” they would be described as fake or some similar adjective not a “leak”.

The reference to the Levy & McRae "minor sum of money" is also interesting in that it took legal action for Rangers to eventually pay this apparently piffling amount of money as per their legal obligations. As Paul67 said on CQN - "these people do irony very, very well".

Whispering campaign? Not among the Old Scottish media that's for sure. It's more like a muffling campaign from them. They even invent mythical rules to excuse their self-censorship.

Again, New Media sources demonstrate that the mainstream media cannot be trusted to inform the public on matters relating to Scotland's Establishment club, no matter the gravity or possible ramifications for that club and Scottish football in general.

Explosive leak of Martin Bain case papers

2011-09-10T12:20:00.001+01:00

Pages 11,12 - Summary of Martin Bain case papers:

Whyte “took over” the debt from Murray he “did not eliminate the debt”

The assets which enable Rangers to trade as solvent could not be sold without the club ceasing to trade ie Ibrox & Murray Park (and we know value of Ibrox is grossly inflated)

Whyte told the old board he would pay no more than £15million if the tax bill crystallises, anything above this and he will let the club “go under”. HMRC’s assessment is £35million + £14million penalties.

Whyte has mortgaged the next 4 years season ticket money for current cash flow i.e. The "Warchest" is a fantasy (as if we didn't know)

Whyte promised the old board he would pay the £2.8million “wee bill”. He has failed to do so.

There is no evidence Whyte has paid one penny more than the £1 he paid Murray

Pity it took the paranoid Mr Bain to bring this to light rather than the joke that calls itself the Scottish press and media.

Well it sounds better than "Unknown ginger chancer to buy Rangers for a pound"...

2011-09-08T19:07:00.006+01:00

And just for good measure....

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

It's the way he tells 'em.

Oh by the way.... remember this? Bit of a contrast.

Europa League - The biased hypocrisy of Radio Clyde clowns

2011-09-04T15:31:00.007+01:00

Jim Delahunt and Gordon Dalziel show us that they're only interested in supporting one Scottish team in Europe

The Europa League is vital for revenue and the profile of Scottish football. That is, until Rangers get knocked out of course.

Just one last thing....

2011-09-03T20:32:00.004+01:00

Courtesy of oisin71 taken from RangersTaxCase.com:

[Colombo, heading towards the door, suddenly stops and turns back to a solitary CW]

Colombo: "Oh, just one last thing; I never did understand why you bought them in the 1st place."

[CW throws a £1 coin to Colombo]

CW: "I didn’t!"

[Colombo turning the coin over, checks both sides. Colombo smiles]

Colombo: "I suppose you didn’t."

[Colombo throws the coin back to CW]

[CW snatch catches the coin, puts it in his pocket and smiles back at Colombo]

[Colombo turns away from CW to walk out the door. As Colombo's hand reaches for the door handle...FREEZE FRAME .....ROLL CREDITS]

Let there be a bid...

2011-09-01T20:57:00.007+01:00

In an unknown club, in an unknown universe, a long long time ago.... 1690 in fact.

There was "a senior source at Rangers"

And the Rangers was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the Rangers, which was just as well, because it was fuckin ugly.

And the Whyte snake moved upon the face of the waters.

And the source said.... "Let there be a bid"

And lo and behold there was a £6million bid.

And on the 2nd day the bid was £9million. And the bid was in the Record, the bid was in the Sun and the Herald and the Evening Times.

But on the 3rd day Lawwell the Celt saw the bid, and saw it was shite, and Lawwell mocked the bid and it was found to be a bag of pish.

On the 4th day the Rangers were overcome with ice, it's craven distorted face was permanently contorted in an expression of perma-ice-rage by a virtuous force. The same crown force that the Rangers had coveted for so long

The end

'An unknown club from an unknown universe' on Facebook

"Rangers Stakeholders Group" censor NUJ journalist Phil MacGiolla Bhain. Temporarily...

2011-09-01T19:16:00.002+01:00

From the Celtic Network

A failed attempt to silence a journalist.
Sep 01, 2011

It’s been an interesting day.

I awoke to find out that my site was suspended by my web hosting company.

They had received after an email from a dignified chap claiming to be part of “a stakeholders group” that was, apparently, concerned about the Rangers FC related content of my site (www.philmacgiollabhain.com).

Their concern centred on the possibility that my journalism would scare away potential investors because I was giving the impression that all was not well, financially, at Rangers.

It is rather unfortunate timing, to say the least, that on the day that my site was accused of spreading malicious rumours about the health of Rangers as a business that the moderator of the Follow Follow website started a thread about HMRC freezing the club’s bank account.

I have had no formal communication from Rangers FC or from anyone representing that football club about the content of my site.

Needless to say I am sourcing another hosting company and I hope to be online again soon.

In the meantime I stand by everything that I have written about the state of Rangers’ finances and their unresolved issues with HMRC.

My journalism on these subjects has been well sourced, evidence based and non-actionable.

I have been heartened by the support shown to me today many in the Celtic Family and by my colleagues in the NUJ.

I will continue.

Oh, one other thing.

HMRC staff were at Ibrox today.

It wasn’t a social call.

Phil Mac Giolla Bhain

UPDATE on SCOTZINE

The American writer Marshall Lumsden said: ‘At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer.’

Well today someone hit my thumb with a hammer when they persuaded my web hosting company to suspend my account and close down my site.

If I say the air turned blue you will fully understand my thinking when you discover the people demanding the site be closed were Rangers ‘stakeholders.’

According to the system administrator at the hosting company one Archie Ferguson MCMI, MIET, MBA who claimed to be the representative of a stakeholders group.

We can forgive the member of staff in the hosting company in Australia, perhaps, believed that he represented Rangers FC threatened legal action against me and the company.

According to Archie, I Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, had “harmed the commercial standing and good trading name of this company” namely Glasgow Rangers FC PLC.

Archie and ‘his legal team’ are considering legal action against the company.

According to Archie I had “has shed doubt on the company’s inability to run its financial affairs and implied that there was some impropriety on the part of the company with regard to its tax affairs.”

According to Archie I had written a “litany of…misguided suppositions.”

How did the meeting with the HMRC team at Ibrox go today? Final score Rangers 0 HMRC 1.

I have another question for Archie Ferguson MCMI, MIET, MBA.

Who was the source of the story about the nine million pound “mystery bid” for Nikica Jelavić?

Everyone in the Scottish press knows his identity, but will you read about it tomorrow?

Probably not so why wait? It was Gordon Smith.

You are stakeholder so you will be able to ask your club’s Director of Football.

Tonight on BBC Radio Scotland Chick Young was sombre and dignified about the perilous financial situation at Rangers. Your club is staring into the abyss.

Chin up now Archie.

Dunkirk spirit and all that…

Written by Phil Mac Giolla Bhain

A Freelance Journalist based in Donegal, Ireland, Phil has broken some of the most high-profile exclusive stories in recent times regarding Scottish Football. From the Hugh Dallas email scandal to the Rangers tax issue, the Neil Lennon letter bomb attacks not to mention tackling the racist Famine Song. Phil has written for the likes of Celtic View, Caledonian Mercury, Irish Independent, Guardian, Irish Post and The Irish Times.

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say, this or that never happened, that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth.

’Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.

All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

George Orwell

Pat Nevin "I will mention it every time I hear it"

2011-08-03T21:21:00.009+01:00

Half-time at the Celtic-Motherwell Scottish Cup final, 21st May 2011.
Pat Nevin -

"I'm gonny mention it every time I hear it and I don't care if it's Celtic or Rangers or Hearts or Hibs or whoever, I will mention it and lets embarrass these teams".

Conveniently for Mr Nevin, this statement was made at the last game of season 2010/11 with no opportunity to employ the CIA listening devices to further "embarrass" supporters of Rangers or indeed their equally venomous but smaller Rangers Lite Edinburgh branch.

Should be a busy season for him then. I expect he hopes we have all forgotten about this little outburst by now.

I for one will be looking out for him fulfilling his promise, though I will not be inhibiting my respiration in anticipation.

I hope the BBC are keeping you in a LOT of soup Pat.

Goodwillie - BBC scrape the barrel for a pro-Rangers headline

2011-06-22T19:52:00.011+01:00

Breaking story...

Rangers make a bid for David Goodwillie, Dundee Utd tell them to GTF

What would be an appropriate headline for this story?

"United Reject Gers offer"?

"Gers bid KO'ed"?

"United snub Gers bid"? (see Whittaker headline below)

Who knows, perhaps Stephen Thompson might even choose to "blast" Rangers for a derisory bid as we know he would if a certain other Glasgow team were involved.

But no, the scrupulously partial BBC plumped for.....
"Rangers reject £2m Goodwillie fee"

So let me get this right.... Rangers are rejected... then reject their own rejection?
Eh??!!

I sense another Stevie Naismith evil dastardly ransom stand off on the cards.

Unless Cardiff come in with a bid.

I wonder how long it will be until the Daily Ranger wheels out Goody's da to tell us about the human rights abuses his son has suffered from not being allowed to move to ra gers for whatever amount of money/ginger bottles ra peepil deem fit. Not long I expect.

Incidentally, back at the height of the "Make Stevie Nasmith a Hun as Soon as Possible" campaign in 2007, the Laptop Loyal reported Celtic's "interest" in Marco Ritgers only to add that "bumbling Celtic lost out on Dutch striker Marco Ritgers after dragging their heels.. blah blah yadda yadda yadda biscuit tin etc"

Next we'll be reading about Rangers rejecting Lee Wallace after bid rejected by Hearts who were rejected by Rangers who didn't really want him anyway.

.

Recycling the anti-Celtic way

2011-06-03T22:21:00.011+01:00

What is the top story in Scottish football at the moment?

The Rangers Tax Tribunal?

What is the probability of the result going against Rangers?

What would the consequences be? Could they go bust (nod yer head)?

What did Alastair Johnston mean when he said Rangers fans should be “vigilant”?

Why has Craig Whyte refused to reveal his sources of finance and provide details on his future plans?

Blood on the Ibrox boardroom floor?

What is the nature of the "financial irregularities" leading to the suspension of Martin Bain?

No.

Don't be daft.

The Scottish media know that Scottish football fans are not interested in any of that unsavoury sideshow.

No, the big story, the one that puts everything else in the shade, the story every Scottish football fan is desperate to know more about, is.....

according to the Evening Times anyway.....

Celtic got pumped 5-0 by Artmedia Bratislava 6 years ago...

Lenny puts Myth and the Laptop Loyal in their place

2011-04-24T17:27:00.011+01:00

Walter Myth bows out of Celtic-Rangers games with a rant about how it's no fair that Celtic get penalties.

The manager of a team who've had Steven Naibalance sent off this season for trying to con the referee into giving a penalty, stated that Celtic's tactics this season have been to complain and try to win penalties.

This from the man who's team came to today's game fresh from having been awarded THREE penalties and THREE opponents sent off in their previous fixture.

Clearly, Celtic getting a penalty against Rangers is such a rare occurence that it really puts the Establishment team out of sorts when it happens.

You'd almost think the Man with No Dignity doesn't fancy his team to win the league from here on in.

No doubt Hugh Keevins will describe this as Nosurname having a "nip" at the referee, rather than deride the bitter old man as paranoid and for bringing the game into disrepute, as we know he would if Neil Lennon said anything similar.

The Laptop Loyal also have a go at Neil Lennon for cupping his hands to his ears in response to that mythical minority of Rangers fans singing "What's it like to live in fear?", reverberating as it was from three Ibrox stands.

Good to see the decent Rangers fans in reflective mood in a week when some in their midst have taken to sending bombs to the Celtic manager and others.

Of course the natural reaction for the media is to talk about Neil's reaction and ignore the singing.

Make the victim the culprit again, it's the Scottish media's way.

Their answer to racism, sectarianism and discrimination is - don't annoy the bigots. Keep your head down, put up with it and don't talk about it, so we don't embarrass either the bigots or their media apologists.

Listen to Lenny's response to Nosurname's sour grapes here:

Lenny puts Walter Myth in his place

Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson's out of character reticence regarding sectarian chanting

2011-04-23T15:19:00.017+01:00

Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson has earned himself a reputation as somewhat of a renta-quote. He likes to portray himself as proud fearless defender of the wee teams from the evil O** F***. Or more accurately, Celtic.

Following sustained sectarian chanting from Rangers fans throughout the Dundee Utd-Rangers SPL fixture of 19th April, United supporters group - ArabTRUST - issued a statement of condemnation:

“Members of ArabTRUST have reported that illegal sectarian chants were sung by ‘fans’ of Glasgow Rangers at Tannadice Park last night. These chants were heard throughout the stadium and ArabTRUST condemns these so-called supporters who bring down their football club and tarnish the reputation of our national sport. ArabTRUST has accordingly reported the matter to the relevant authorities.”

According to the Trust, Rangers fans were responsible for ‘many deplorable chants’ making specific reference to one particular sectarian chant which they stated ‘could be heard in the stadium and on BBC Radio Scotland:

“We are Rangers, Super Rangers, No one likes us, We don’t care, We hate Celtic, Fenian bastards, We will chase them anywhere.”

You'd think their chairman, fearless defender of decent non-O** F*** supporters - Stephen Thompson - would be proud of such a principled stance against behaviour that is proving the scourge of Scottish society and fuelling cowardly acts designed to maim and kill?

Apparently not according to this Dundee Courier article:

Dundee United distance themselves from ArabTrust's sectarian whistle-blowing

The use of the term "whistleblowing" in the title is faintly comical, suggesting as it does, that somehow all of this rampant sectarianism from Rangers fans had gone undetected for all these years until the ArabTRUST made their statement.

This is what the Dundee United chairman had to say on the matter:

"Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson has stressed that fans' group ArabTRUST acted independently of the club when reporting Rangers supporters for alleged sectarian singing."

"Thompson is understood to have contacted both Rangers and the SPL yesterday to stress ArabTRUST were not speaking on behalf of United.

"I am aware of what ArabTRUST have said," commented Thompson, who was at the launch of the club's new season ticket package at Tannadice.

Thompson added, "They are entitled to whatever view they want to have but they do not represent Dundee United. ArabTRUST are not speaking on behalf of the football club.

"We have a good relationship with Rangers and all clubs are working hard to eradicate sectarianism."

So we're back to the putting our fingers in our ears and hoping it will go away approach to eradicating sectarianism and racism are we?

As Thompson & co are so keen to distance themselves from comments condemning sectarianism, I can see why they have such a good relationship with Rangers. Obviously they have been busy mending fences since Craig Levein left.

Thompson's comments are depressing, if entirely predictable.

He hasn't always been so reticent when it comes to speaking out against perceived faults of the O** F*** clubs though...

Yes, following in the footsteps of the Yorkstons and Peats of this world, "fearless" defender of the wee teams Stephen Thompson has absolutely no problem putting the boot into Celtic.

Apologists for Thompson's stance may point to the explosive devices mailed to various individuals linked to Celtic as an explanation for his motives in distancing himself and the club from the ArabTRUST statement - as the Courier article does. However that doesn't explain Thompson's enthusiasm for getting tore into Celtic.

After all we are just as bad as each other, so surely attacking Celtic puts him at the same degree of mortal danger as allowing a supporters organisation statement criticising Rangers fans to go out in his club's name?

In another twist, Stephen Thompson is a member on the SFA Disciplinary Committee which failed to dispense an additional suspension to Bougherra and Diouf for their part in the so-called "shame game" of 2nd March and who upheld Sally McCoist's appeal.

The same Disciplinary Committee that upheld James Forrest's farcical straight red card against Hamilton Accies on 12th January.

I'm sure you will agree, Thompson's credentials to serve on on the committee of such an inept and dysfunctional organisation as the SFA are impeccable.

I anxiously await Thompson's next selective anti-O** F*** rant. He and his manager make an ideal double-act.

.

Mark Hateley: Anti-racism group are FARE game for criticism

2011-04-23T12:41:00.014+01:00

On 25th September 2008, Mark Hateley lent his support to Show Racism the Red Card's "Fortnight of Action" by taking part in a photo opp alongside Billy Singh of SRTRC, Jean-Claude Darcheville and Derek Ferguson . As the article below from Rangers FC website explains, this was an event co-ordinated by the FARE (Fans Against Racism in Europe) network. No quotes from Hateley were made available but it can be assumed from the statement that "RANGERS are completely behind" the initiative against "racism and discrimination", that he shared those sentiments.

Fast forward two and a half years, and it seems that Hateley was only against certain types of racism and discrimination, and perhaps forgot to qualify this when he was previously happy to be portrayed as "completely behind" the FARE initiative of 2008:

Photo opps and flowery words are all very well, but when UEFA started threatening to take tangible action to punish sustained anti-Irish, anti-Catholic discriminatory chanting, Hateley's view of FARE suddenly altered. From being "completely behind" their work against racism and discrimination in September 2008, Hateley now views FARE as "deeply sinister... Stealthy, unidentified individuals lurking around in the shadows deliberately seeking to do as much harm as possible to a club they themselves can't tolerate because of their own deep-rooted prejudices".

Strong comment from the ex-Rangers striker turned Rangers PR man. Celtic fans have nothing to teach the Rangers-minded when it comes to paranoia it seems.

Anyone familiar with the editorial style of the Daily Record would not be surprised one iota at this staunch defence of their preferred constituents, Rangers FC, complete with sectarian, racist baggage et al.

Jim Traynor kept the Whattaboutery ball rolling with an opinion piece on 18th April entitled "Prove it's a Fer Cop", misleadingly giving the impression that there is somehow some doubt over Rangers' guilt in the matter. In fact Traynor's angle of attack was to cast doubt on the integrity of FARE's personnel and selection process.

Jabba is a far more astute propagandist than Hateley and although he peppers the article with the usual feeble "condemnation" of the bigots and claims that he only wants to see "transparency" so that "twisted fans" won't make "connections" that aren't there, it is clear that his greatest concern is with the potential harm that may befall Rangers if FARE's observations are upheld by UEFA.

Perhaps if Jabba & co derided such "twisted fans" as paranoid nuts in the way they do with most Celtic fans who call their kangaroo court phone-ins, and left out the Whattaboutery, then none of these "connections" would actually matter.

As it happens, one of the "connections" Jabba was able to make all on his own was that Piara Power (executive director of FARE) "has to understand he is already being viewed with deep suspicion by many Rangers fans because he has become an ambassador for a company called OnSide along with former Celtic player Paul Elliott. OnSide will operate in sports coaching and are a wholly owned subsidiary of Milestone Group in which Celtic director Dermot Desmond's son, Brett, has a stake."

There you have it - the media are quite prepared to assassinate the character of Celtic fans, not to mention players and officials, for their "paranoia", but then come over all concerned and pragmatic when Rangers fans view something "with deep suspicion". Why not just tell them to "Shut up and get on with it" Jim?

Jabba's powers of deduction in being able to track down this suspicious link to Timmy are all the more impressive when you consider that the entire Scottish media have proven unable to glean even the most cursory information on Craig Whyte's background or finances - he of Fakeover fame.

In marked contrast, after about 15 minutes of Google searches, "paranoid" Celtic fans have been able to ascertain that Whyte owns a couple of companies with broom cupboards for head offices, one set to be liquidated and one set to be struck off from Companies House after failing to return accounts, not to mention Whyte's links with about half a dozen liquidated companies over the past 4 or 5 years.

More honest mistakes we're expected to believe, or honest 'too busy-ness' as Moira Gordon of the Scotsman would have us believe.

Traynor's technique is to superficially condemn the bigots before indulging them throughout the rest of the article with reams of Whattaboutery. He can then claim to have condemned their unacceptable conduct having written a piece specifically designed to defend them. In this instance the piece is headlined to put FARE on the defensive and it's main thrust is to question the integrity of the organisation, not to condemn the bigots.

And we wonder why bigotry is still a problem in this country?

Hateley himself unintentionally provides the answer in his "Empty Threats" article where he goes on to speak of the awful racist abuse meted out to England team-mates John Barnes, Viv Anderson and Mark Chamberlain in the 1980s. He goes on to proudly quote this as proof that such attitudes can be changed.

What Hateley's tiny mind probably can't fathom is, that such attitudes were changed in the case of black players in British football because such behaviour was UNIVERSALLY and UNEQUIVOCALLY CONDEMNED.

There was no "Chelsea/Millwall/Spurs/Arsenal/Man U fans do it too" Whattaboutery.

There was no "French/Spanish/German fans do it too" Whattaboutery.

There was no "Let's scrutinise the background of the complainant" Whattaboutery.

And as a consequence things have improved greatly. They're not perfect, and never will be, but racist chanting against black players is reasonably rare in England and Scotland.

Sectarianism and anti-Irish racism is a strong as ever in Scotland due to the media's unwillingness to UNEQUIVOCALY condemn it. The Scottish media is held in an impotent thrall by the bigots.

Things are now so desperately bleak in Scotland that the Scottish media would rather attack an anti-racism group than unequivocally condemn racist and discriminatory behaviour.

Now that really is Scotland's Shame.

.

Herald and Daily Record spin postal bombs and bullets as a Celtic issue

2011-04-22T18:52:00.021+01:00

What's in a headline?

It's been a vintage week for the Laptop Loyal. It started with staunch affirmation of another highly-debatable Rangers penalty award, the kind they invariably get in their hour of need, which allowed them to overcome a spirited St Mirren defence and turn 1 point into 3.

TV pictures showed that John Potter of St Mirren made the merest of contact with Nikica Jelavic which was enough for the Rangers striker to fling himself spectacularly to the ground. Rather than debate the merits of the controversial decision the media offered only stoic support of referee Norris's decision.

On Radio Scotland, Scott Booth stated emphatically that it was "100% the correct decision" and on Sportscene Pat Nevin launched into his best doth-protest-too-much routine by attacking Celtic fans for their future thought crimes. "This is the kind of the thing that will get the Celtic fans coming up with conspiracy theories but it was a stonewaller" said soup-taker Nevin, begging the question - if it was such a "stonewaller", how could it simultaneously be "the kind of thing" that leads to conspiracy theories?

Doublethink rules OK.

John Potter tells the press that it wasn't a penalty and the press give his comments less column inches than a forced apology to Martin O'Neill.

The next day, Celtic comfortably dispatched Aberdeen out of the Scottish Cup courtesy of a 4-0 win at Hampden. Aberdeen were dead in the water after central defender Andrew Considine naively tripped Gary Hooper when through on goal, conceding a penalty and earning himself a red card. The hundits on Radio Scotland, for reasons known only to themselves and the paranoid, were unable to verify the validity of the referee's decision preferring to speculate at length over the potential "controversy" of the award.

In a post-match interview, Chris Maguire "rages" at the first Celtic penalty stating emphatically that Considine didn't touch Hooper and Aberdeen were "ROBBED". The Daily Record gives these comments a double-page spread under a headline of "Decision to red card Andy Considine cost us a chance of reaching Final"

Not a bad effort from the sub-editor, but I'd like to suggest a couple of more accurate headlines that could have been used:

"Andy Considine's diddy defending cost us a chance of reaching Final" or
"Our shiteness cost us a chance of reaching Final"

A bit of a contrast there in the column inches afforded by the Laptop Loyal to comments made in very similar circumstances. What is the variable that accounts for the disparity in headlines then? If you don't know the answer then you're reading the wrong blog.

The following Tuesday, Rangers broke their own World Record when they were awarded THREE penalties against Dundee United at Tannadice, who had THREE players sent off.

United manager, Peter "Celtic thought they'd won the League here today" Houston - he of the infamous "Dougie McDonald conspired to give a penalty against us for nothing" rant - was remarkably low key in his after-match comments.

Houston said he had "no complaints" about the three penalties despite the second being clearly outside the box (see below). He did express a degree of frustration at the number of red cards issued but did so by bizarrely linking it to the red card given to Considine the previous Sunday, as if to helpfully remind everyone that players are sent-off against Celtic too.

One can only imagine the excesses of Peter "Stevie Naismith didnae dive" Houston's rage if a United player is ever sent off against Celtic.

Now the usual spin to perpetuate the "O** F*** get all the decisions" myth is one thing, but for the Laptop Loyal to muddy the waters with "bad as each other" propaganda where bullets and bombs are involved is simply beyond the pale.

On Wednesday 20th April 2011, it was revealed that "viable explosive devices" were posted to Neil Lennon, Paul McBride QC and Trish Godman MSP. Over the next few days Cardinal Keith O'Brien and former MP Brian Wilson were sent similar devices.

The Herald chose to headline the story as a Police hunt for a "Celtic bomb fiend" (see above). This is an outrageously misleading headline and gives the impression to anyone who doesn't go on to read the full contents of the article that the "bomb fiend" in question must be someone with a connection to Celtic.

Perhaps it was a journalistic "honest mistake"?

But there was no-way Jabba Traynor and his Daily Record propaganda rag were going to be out-Rangered by any upstart broadsheet in Rangers' hour of need; an hour of need that seems to have lasted longer than the mythical 48 hours of fakeover fame.

To that end the Record fabricated a "Celtic threat" against essentially everyone connected with Rangers FC. The excuse for this misleading anti-Celtic story was the "news" that police had briefed Moonbeams, Mr Nosurname and Baldy "about their security", a not unexpected if supremely cautious course of action in the absence of any "threats" actually existing in the real world in which the rest of us all exist.

"Rangers bosses on terror alert following Celtic threats

"RANGERS bosses Walter Smith, David Murray and Martin Bain were warned last night by anti-terror cops that they are at risk of attack.

Officers briefed the men about their security in the wake of the attempted nail-bomb attacks on Celtic manager Neil Lennon, his QC Paul McBride and Celtic-supporting MSP Trish Godman.

A Rangers source said: "What happened to Neil Lennon is despicable, and there's a concern that some twisted individual might think it's a good idea to gain some kind of revenge."

So the "concern" of a "Rangers source" is reported by the Daily Ranger as a "Celtic threat" where no such threat has actually been made. It's the ultimate "Whattaboutery" just when you thought Jabba & co couldn't sink any lower.

The source said: "It all happened very quickly, without prior warning, which tends to suggest a bit more urgency about it."

What, no warning about the warning? It must've been serious.

"Rangers players were also being spoken to about their security, with particular attention paid to Ulstermen Kyle Lafferty and Steven Davis."

After all, we're both as bad as each other aint we? I mean these guys have been receiving bullets in the post as retaliation for the same being sent to Paddy, Neil and Niall. Oh no, wait...

"And police advised Gers staff to search the mail rooms at Ibrox and the Murray Park training complex. The searches were carried out by the club's own security team."

The police advised Ibrox and Murray Park staff to go on some sort of bomb hunt?? Surely if the "threat" was so credible the police would take this responsibility on themselves with suitably qualified personnel?

I smell made-up shite again...

"But the Record's source said the terror cops were "most concerned" about the potential threat to Smith, Murray and Bain."

Ah, and at last we get a peek behind the smoke and mirrors; this is a "potential" threat, which in the world of the Daily Ranger translates as an excuse to denigrate the image of Celtic fans to drag them into the gutter occupied by Rangers.

Despite the Record's baseless hysteria, it's likely the police are currently spending a lot more time dealing with the numerous threats that actually exist in the real world we live in and not the fantasies of a Daily Record editor's imagination.

This is no more than the usual "Whattaboutery" deflection, based on "insiders" and the Record's "sources" (i.e. no credible, verifiable sources) that ultimately allows the bigots to justify their actions by pointing their fingers to the other side, except in this case, the justification is for bombs rather than words of hate.

The Scottish media have proven themselves a barrier in attempts to eradicate sectarianism and anti-Irish racism by, not only their failure to recognise the true nature of the issue, but by consciously conflating it as a "bad as each other" problem.

The Daily Record have presented speculation as fact, exaggerating a common sense, worst-case scenario approach from the police into some sort of mortal threat against the lives of Rangers employees.

Does this not feed the bigot monster further?
Will those who sent bombs to Neil Lennon & co not feel that they need to escalate things in the face of "threats" to their club?

With this article alone, the Daily Record has proven there is no level below which it will not sink in its willingness to whore itself to the Rangers pound and pander to their bigots.

.

This is what 'No Evidence' looks like according to the SFA

2011-04-14T15:40:00.017+01:00

I posted yesterday that media reaction to Paul McBride QC's comments would be hostile. From what I've seen, as of yet, there has been little condemnation of McBride and/or Celtic, however the groundwork is underway, witness today's Evening Times back page:

Why Rangers trio escaped bans by Matthew Lindsay

The SFA’S Disciplinary Committee were left with no option but to effectively slap the wrists of Rangers trio Ally McCoist, El-Hadji Diouf and Madjid Bougherra – after no evidence was presented that could allow them to impose stiffer penalties.

Details have emerged of what went on at Hampden on Tuesday, when the Ibrox three appeared to explain their conduct in the now infamous Old Firm ‘shame game’ on March 2.

The Laptop Loyal are really grasping at straws to spin this in favour of their beloved Queen's XI in the face of the formidable Mr McBride and the utter ineptness of the SFA. The best they can come up with is to laughably endorse the notion that there was "no evidence" with which to suspend either of the players involved or the hypocrite TV quiz man failed actor.

By the way, can the cup tie of 2nd March still be referred to as the "shame game" when nearly all parties have practically been exonerated by the SFA?

In any case, this is reminiscent of yesterday's hopelessly biased effort by the BBC. On a day when a prominent legal figure accused the SFA of bias and favouritism to Rangers in the application of their rules, who did the BBC turn to for an "objective" opinion on the matter?

None other than ex-Rangers player and ex-SFA CEO Gordon Smith, who caused shockwaves measuring 0.0 on the Richter Scale by claiming there is no evidence of any SFA bias to Rangers.

Monty Python couldn't live with comedy material like this.

In true Monty Python fashion we are expected to blindly take Smith's word that...except for the biased decisions of the Disciplinary Committee, the selective use of the Video Review panel, sectarian emails, emails ‘getting it right up’ Celtic, the SFA president celebrating a Rangers goal and offering to postpone the Cup final to suit Rangers, a multitude of honest mistakes by referees, almost every office-bearer having a connection to Rangers... apart from that, there’s no evidence of bias at the SFA.

Another desperate justification offered by the Laptop Loyal for the success of Quiz Man's appeal, is that Neil Lennon accepted the ban therefore it's not bias because Lennon passed up the opportunity of his own appeal.

Utter shite.

Firstly, given the media smear campaign against the man already this season (and for the past 10 years), can you imagine the derision heaped upon Neil Lennon and Celtic if he had submitted an appeal?

Remember the Laptop Loyal were already fuming after Lennon's successful appeal of the SFA's vindictive and draconian six game ban for a first offence, and for then having the temerity to resist the SFA's attempts to bend their own rules to force him to serve two 4 game bans consecutively, even though this was contrary to their own rules.

An appeal of the ban arising from 2nd March in these circumstances would have led to armageddon in the Scottish media. The same hacks who smugly point out that Neil Lennon accepted his fate, would have been at the head of a lynch mob baying for the "stubborn" Celtic manager's blood.

Neil Lennon understands this all too well, hence his comment to the Daily Mail on the matter:

Asked if he regretted that decision now [to accept the ban], the Northern Irishman, who returned to the touchline only last night after five games in the stand, said: ‘Would there have been any point? That’s why I didn’t appeal.’

Quite.

When the SFA routinely turn down appeals such as James Forrest's red card against Hamilton Accies, you can't help but concur with the Celtic manager's cynicism.

Presumably it would have been OK if Forrest had simply booted a goalkeeper in the head.

In the same interview quoted by the Daily Mail, Lennon subtley threw down the gauntlet to the Laptop Loyal to prove their "integrity", or more accurately, their bias:

‘I can’t comment on it more. I will be interested to see the fallout tomorrow and will keep my counsel for another time. You have to write about it. I can’t comment on a lot of things these days otherwise I will be back where I was last week (in the stand).

‘You’ve got to see it for what it is if you have any integrity about you at all. I just find it interesting that out of the four from the “shame game”, as people called it, I’m the one who got punished and three other people were let off.

‘I’m not surprised, just interested.’

So if the Laptop Loyal's defence of the hopelessly biased and beyond stupid SFA, is that there was "no evidence" to justify a ban, the question must then be -

On what evidence were McCoist and particularly Bougherra and Diouf fined?

There must have been SOME evidence with which to fine them, surely they weren't fined for NOTHING.

In the case of Bougherra, the evidence must've shown that he physically handled and restrained the referee. How they can then come to any decision other than some sort of suspension defies belief without the aid of paranoia pills.

Lapdog Lindsay's article reveals that MIB Callum Murray played a blinder for the committee, claiming in his report that Bougherra grabbed his arm -

“in a pleading gesture not to be sent off”.

It did not, therefore, constitute violent or threatening conduct. The Committee also heard evidence from Murray which downplayed the incident.

If that is the case, then one thing that I can't quite get straight in my head is -

If a Rangers player TWICE manhandling the referee can be justified as a "pleading" "non-violent" act; why were the impartial Laptop Loyal baying for blood and at least a FIVE GAME BAN back in 2005 when Neil Lennon DID NOT PHYSICALLY HANDLE THE REFEREE WHATSOEVER?

Actually I can get my head round it but only with a heavy dose of paranoid pills.

Incidentally, Jim Traynor got particularly carried away at the time and branded the SFA "cowards" for not hitting the then Celtic captain with a TEN game ban. It's OK to call the SFA cowards it seems but they get a bit tetchy when you accuse them of bias; a bit too close to the truth you see.

After a few days of coverage like this, by which time the Laptop Loyal will have managed to kid on that actually, the SFA were right, or at least had "no choice" due to circumstances outwith everyone's control and absolutely nothing to do with bias; they will then turn their guns on Celtic's "paranoia" and their big shot QC who have cruelly sucked money from the game which could have been put to better use housing orphan waifs.

To end, here's a little selection to prove the dearth of evidence that the SFA's Monty Python fan club had to work with in considering these appeals:

Justice SFA-style - The Hypocrisy of McCoist 2 (and Willie Young, Stuart Dougal, Kenny Clarke etc. etc. etc.)

2011-04-13T21:57:00.001+01:00

The Hypocrisy of McCoist - "We are back in 'get it right up them' territory"

2011-04-13T12:36:00.004+01:00

From Celtic Quick News:

‘Shame game’ supervisor Willie Young demands 5 game ban for manhandling refs

Former referee, Willie Young, was the referee supervisor when Madjid Bougherra manhandled referee Calum Murray at Celtic Park last month.

In 2005 after Neil Lennon confronted referee Stuart Dougal and received a three match suspension, the same Willie Young said, “In such circumstances, where there is physical confrontation with an official, [the SFA] should be considering a five-match suspension”.

Dougal, who has been a media ever-present in recent months when the subject of refereeing is heard, said of Neil’s three match punishment, “This was about the future protection of Scotland’s referees and that’s where the feeling of disappointment comes in”.

Ally McCoist, assistant to then Scotland manager Walter Smith, wrote in his Daily Record column, “When I heard the news of his three-match suspension, with no additional points added to his disciplinary record and a return date that puts him in line to play against Hearts on October 15, I was surprised to the point of being staggered by the SFA’s leniency.”

“If I was the match official involved I would feel I had been let down by my employers at the SFA.

“Before anyone is narrow-minded enough to think I’m speaking as a former Rangers player, let me nail that one to the wall straight away.

“If Fernando Ricksen had clashed with Dougal at Ibrox in an identical manner, I would have advocated the same, heavier sentence for him too. This is about the punishment fitting the crime and nothing to do with allegiances.

“Whatever I have to say about Lenny’s case is the opinion of someone trying to be an objective journalist. And someone who, as part of Walter Smith’s coaching team, is trying to think of what’s best for Scottish football.

“If Lennon had been given a five game ban on Tuesday night at his Hampden hearing I’d have said that was a real result for him.”

In summary:

We have the referee supervisor Willie Young at the “Shame game” calling for a five match suspension for “physical confrontation with an official”.

Former referee and now media contributor, Stuart Dougal, has a “feeling of disappointment” at a three match suspension for a Celtic player for the same offence, adding the issue was “about the future protection of Scotland’s referees”.

Rangers assistant manager, Ally McCoist, making it clear that “before anyone is narrow-minded enough to think I’m speaking as a former Rangers player”, saying, “If Lennon had been given a five game ban on Tuesday night at his Hampden hearing I’d have said that was a real result for him.”

And as we discussed yesterday, SFA chief executive Stewart Regan, has said, “Only a matter of months after our referees withdrew their labour, we had to witness the match official, Calum Murray, being manhandled, while another player who had been dismissed brazenly walked to his own supporters in defiance.”

So why no ban from the SFA?

Where is the outcry from the refereeing community when Rangers players and the SFA lead a horse and cart through their attempts to protect officials?

There can be no mistake, we are back in ‘get it right up them’ territory.

Embarrassing, against the rules and shameful

2011-04-13T11:35:00.000+01:00

Published on 13 Apr 2011

hugh macdonald

THERE are moments when the Scottish Football Association just takes the breath away.

There was the one when a leading office-bearer described Celtic complaints as “tiresome” when cases were under consideration. Two “tiresome” complaints subsequently resulted in victory for Celtic, with Neil Lennon’s first ban for an incident at Tynecastle being deemed excessive by an independent hearing. His second ban was against the association’s rules.

When a QC pointed this out, the SFA took the huff, complaining of having to spend money on their QC to defend the indefensible. A simple keek at the rule book might have saved them, and our national game, money.

Then we had the referee who gave Celtic a penalty, then rescinded it. Then lied to the match observer and to Neil Lennon. He was given a warning by an SFA committee before he had to be prised from his job.

Then there was the referee who gave Rangers a penalty in an Old Firm match while looking the other way. Then last night there was the official who, from 10 yards, watched as Michael Duberry, presumably believing he had been fouled, used both hands to control the ball on the ground. No penalty.

There have been other major instances of downright incompetence but all of the above may charitably ascribed to “the pressure of the game” by sympathisers. After watching another referee give Rangers a penalty in a cup final then change his mind and book a player for diving without recourse to further evidence, my patience is exhausted. This referee – Craig Thomson –incidentally gave Celtic a penalty in an Old Firm game; unfortunately this occurred 24 hours after the final whistle.

The decisions by the disciplinary committee of the SFA yesterday, though, are the high point of the season in terms of absurdity. They are the Monty Python sketch in the comedy that this nation’s football has become. They also fly in the face of the policy to support referees.

Whatever one’s view on yesterday’s deliberations, it was not a show of support for Calum Murray. One must wait for the ballot today when the referees, presumably enraged at the leniency of the sentences, take to the picket line. After all, Madjid Bougherra manhandled one of their members as he was about to book him. And then he did it again. Bougherra was fined and told not to do it again. Presumably, the naughty step was being used.

Another Rangers player, El-Hadji Diouf, bumped into the Celtic physio, had a slanging match with Lennon, who was banned for his behaviour, then would not leave the field when advised to do so by the referee. He then ignored the intervention of a police officer and threw his jersey into the crowd. He was warned and fined.

Lennon, who has served a ban for his part in incidents at Tynecastle and Celtic Park, was on the touchline last night. He watched as Iain Brines comically missed a penalty so obvious that the Celtic manager had to be forced into humour. “He just used the two hands,” he said of Duberry’s intervention.

He was strictly serious when addressing the sentences imposed on two Rangers players for, as the charges had it, misconduct of a significantly serious nature and the clearing of his counterpart Ally McCoist for their confrontation.

“You have to write it. I can’t comment about a lot of things these days,” said Lennon. “You have got to see it for what it is. If you have any media integrity, you will call it as it is.”

It is embarrassing, contrary to the interests of the game and to the rule of match officials, and shameful.

SFA bias gives free thuggery pass to Rangers players and officials

2011-04-12T18:35:00.030+01:00

"Officially tonight, we now know the SFA to be the laughing stock of world football. Their decisions are incoherent and on the face of it, thoroughly dishonest, and I never thought they were biased or prejudiced, but now, hearing what they've done today, it's very hard to escape that conclusion" Paul McBride, QC

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so let's see a few examples of what the SFA accept as normal conduct from players and officials. Having upheld appeals or failed to suspend any of the players concerned one can only infer that the SFA sees nothing wrong with this behaviour:

The SFA's verdict on all this?

Like I said, a picture paints a thousand words:

Surely this was a one off though?

No, the SFA saw nothing amiss with any of the following behaviour either by upholding appeals or simply ignoring anything they didn't wish to deal with:

A couple of other points.

It’s not only the SFA who are exposed as the biased laughing stock. I’ve yet to hear any reaction from the media to Paul McBride’s comments but can tell you right now it will be hostile.

Whilst I fully support his comments this will give the Laptop Loyal just the distraction they need to make the victim the offender once again. This story will become all about our “paranoia” and the conduct of the three thugs will be airbrushed out.

We should remember that not only was Neil Lennon the only individual to receive a ban as a result of events on 2nd March, he was given a THREE game suspension in September 2005 for a PURELY VERBAL confrontation with referee Stuart Dougal.

The Scottish press were up in arms about this, not at the severity of the suspension – no the PR wing of the Scottish Football Establishment were incandescent at the LENIENCY of the ban, some hacks such as Traynor suggesting it should have been at least an EIGHT game ban.

We anxiously await the ire of the Scottish media in support of the inevitable outrage from Scottish referees.

A few choice quotes:

IMAGINE THERE’S NO FAIRNESS: FOR NEIL LENNON, IT’S EASY IF YOU TRY
By Phil Gordon, The Times

“Football reporting? Oh, just use your artistic licence. The most commonly used descriptive mistake about Lennon’s confrontation was that he “manhandled” the referee and linesman. Now, according to the Oxford dictionary, “manhandle” is to “move a (heavy) object with great effort or to handle roughly by dragging or pushing”. Anyone who looked at the incident again could see that such a description did not fit what happened at Ibrox. Lennon, in football parlance, may have “lost the plot” but in strict legal terms he and Dougal came shoulder-to-shoulder and there is slight contact with the linesman, James Bee.

The offence was entirely verbal. Dougal’s match report confirms this. The red card was issued because the Celtic captain called him “a f****** disgrace” and “a f****** joke”.

It is misconduct, pure and simple. It was not as serious as the barging of linesman, Andy David, last season by Saulius Mikoliunas at Tynecastle. The Heart of Midlothian player did not, as has been commonly reported since Lennon’s incident, suffer an eight-game ban: he received three matches as an instant punishment for his two red cards and his five-match penalty for misconduct was brought down to three on appeal. Not by “the SFA cowards”, as some newspapers have branded the Lennon jury, but by Lord MacLean, an esteemed Law Lord.”

“In the intervening time since Lennon lost his temper that day at Ibrox and Tuesday’s hearing, this was a man who, if he read the papers — which he does not — would have noted a string of articles that bordered on the litigious. A “backstreet thug” was one gem. It moved out of the realms of reporting and comment on a match, and its aftermath, into open warfare on one man.

Neil Lennon has been demonised by the press. They don’t like him. That is fair enough if it is an individual point of view, but when it is carried into print simply to pursue a campaign, it has unedifying overtones. This opinion, by the way, will be in a minority of one, or almost.”

SFA

“DAVID TAYLOR, the SFA chief executive, has backed the three-match ban handed out to Neil Lennon, the Celtic captain.

Taylor is adamant the punishment fits the crime. “Zero tolerance is exactly what we practice and a three-match ban on top of an automatic one-game suspension is a clear sign that this kind of behaviour is not tolerated,” Taylor said. “That’s why we introduced a five-match guideline for physical assault of an official, but we didn’t consider this to be in that category.”

Although industrial action would be unlikely, the Scottish Senior Referees Association is looking at a protest against the three-game suspension.”

Dougal unhappy with Lennon’s ban

“Referee Stuart Dougal says he is disappointed at the leniency of the ban given to Celtic captain Neil Lennon for his misconduct against Rangers.

The SFA imposed a three-match ban on Lennon for abusing Dougal and jostling his assistant James Bee.

STUART DOUGAL

But Dougal believes the length of the ban sends out the wrong message.

“This was about the future protection of Scotland’s referees and that’s where the feeling of disappointment comes in,” he told the Daily Record.

“To be honest I have not had enough time yet to fully absorb the decision but it is fair to say I am disappointed.”

WILLIE YOUNG

“Former referee Willie Young also believes Lennon’s three-match ban is too lenient and will disappoint Scotland’s match officials.

“I think Scotland’s referees will not be over the moon about the outcome”.

He says guidelines were brought in by the Scottish FA after a ban on Hearts’ Saulius Mikoliunas was reduced.

“In such circumstances, where there is physical confrontation with an official, they should be considering a five-match suspension,” said Young.

“I am surprised that that is not what they went for.”

So where are the outraged referees threatening strike action due to the farcical leniency shown to Bougherra and Diouf and the "Zero tolerance policy" disappearing quicker than Nacho Novo up a drainpipe?

No, in the case of the Huns it’s a “don’t do it again” slap on the wrists for two players who will be gone in less than two months.

“Only a matter of months after our referees withdrew their labour, we had to witness the match official, Calum Murray, being manhandled, while another player who had been dismissed brazenly walked to his own supporters in defiance.”
Stewart Regan, SFA chief executive, 3 March 2011.

….. but neither action was worthy of a ban according to the SFA Disciplinary Committee.

For the Laptop Loyal's part, Dougie Vipond laughably attempts to suggest to Paul McBride QC that manhandling a referee may only be worthy of a yellow card in a BBC interview.

What happened to the media's support of the "Zero Tolerance" policy?

That is how embedded in the pro-Rangers psyche the Scottish media have become. They can't help themselves.

Add this naked hypocrisy to all the vomit-inducing hyperbole and hollow pontificating surrounding the Hampden Summit which was supposed to show us how serious the SFA and authorities are in tackling the “scourge of sectarianism”

All the main antagonists get off scot-free. That’s some message to send.

The SFA are a laughing stock
The Scottish media is a joke
Scottish referees are hypocrites
The authorities are spineless cowards

But the question is - did we expect any different from them?

.

15 years of Press lickspittlery complicit in bringing Rangers to the edge of the abyss

2011-04-12T14:22:00.008+01:00

For the past year or so the financial difficulties facing Rangers FC have been widely, if not accurately, publicised. The average Scottish football fan could be forgiven for assuming that the problems emerging in the media are a recent phenomenon. In reality, Rangers have been facing a monolothic debt problem for the best part of a decade, however the Scottish media has played it's part to the full in pandering to their Ibrox masters by obfuscating, spinning and covering up the debt issue whilst at the same time indulging each and every utterance from David Murray as the herald of a new dawn of moonbeams.

The irony here is that Rangers' current predicament is one that only the Establishment Club could be faced with. One only needs to look back to the period 1993-94 to realise that no other Scottish club would be indulged to such a degree in the face of such financial mis-management. Back in 1993, the cracked Celtic club crest was a daily feature of almost every newspaper, one particular tabloid taking great delight in hiring a hearse for a photo opportunity outside Celtic Park.

Debt figures were the source of frenzied speculation in newspapers who also moved to deride the Celtic board's proposal for a new stadium development in Cambuslang. Reporters managed to track down the office of the London-based private equity firm who the board claim were financing the project - Gefinor - and gleefully reported their denial of involvement in any such project.

In the end, this worked in Celtic's favour as it helped mobilise the Celtic support in the face of such stark realities.

Fast forward to 2011, and we have Moira Gordon of the Scotsman telling us that the media are too busy (presumably condemning Neil Lennon) to investigate either the HMRC case or Craig Whyte's background of which, virtually nothing has been revealed in the press.

Well as they fret over the future of their beloved Queen's XI, the Laptop Loyal can console themselves with the knowledge that their role as PR arm of the club and mouthpiece for Sir Minty Moonbeams latest cunning plan, has succeeded in cocooning the Rangers support from impending disaster until the brink of oblivion has finally been reached.

For this I thank you.

Don't buy it? Well cast your eyes over some of the finest lickspittlery to be found across the globe. Fox News, Pravda and Goebbels could only marvel at such feats of propaganda.

Jim Traynor features prominently.

No parody required.

Make sure you have at least an hour to spare, and it would be a good idea to have a sick bucket handy...

Ken Gallacher, The Herald 15 April 1996
Long, hot summer of superstar signings
THERE were those last week who tended to play down the notion that Gianluca Vialli could be tempted from Juventus to join Rangers. Now these doubters will have to re-assess their thinking to come into line with football's new order. Rangers have done that, ahead of the game as they usually are when entrepreneurial skills are called into play, and they have held talks with the Italian, and they will not stop there.

In this potentially troublesome post-Bosman era, the Ibrox chairman, David Murray, is clearly setting out his stall. He senses the opportunity to add some new, glamorous, glittering names to those already at Ibrox, and at the same time impress upon the rest of European football that his ambitions for Rangers are without limit.

If Murray and his manager, Walter Smith, can put together a truly international team at Ibrox, they could perhaps force their way towards a place in the elite grouping which dominates the money-spinning Champions' League. That is why a player of Vialli's stature assumed enormous importance for Murray and Rangers. Last season, Paul Gascoigne heightened the Ibrox profile in England when the Champions' League games took place. Vialli would do the same in his own country as Brian Laudrup and Erik Bo Andersen will do in Denmark.

Therefore a gamble of £6m spread over a three-year period could provide a massive pay-off for Rangers. Vialli cost Juventus £12m when they signed him from Sampdoria four years ago. Now, thanks to the Jean-Marc Bosman case, he will cost nothing. In fact, the budget which Murray hands manager Smith each close season will not be used on transfer fees this summer but on securing top players and having them under contract for as lengthy a period as possible.

In essence, the six or seven million pounds which was spent last summer bringing Gascoigne and Oleg Salenko to Glasgow could profitably land Rangers three or four players. Stars will be chosen from around Europe to stress the international quality of the Glasgow club. Smith has maintained that the essential heart of the team will remain Scottish but, at this moment, few of our native-born artisans attract attention from around the world.

Players such as Vialli do, and while Rangers await his reply to their offer, Murray has promised that if that deal does not stand up, another one will be put in place. I do not doubt that. Murray is once more raising the ante, just as he has done on a regular basis since taking over the reins at Rangers. His transfer fees over the past few years have beaten those of any other Scottish club. The salaries paid at Ibrox dwarf others in the premier division. Now he is pushing these salary limits even further, encouraged so to do by the abolition of the transfer fee.

It is a bold initiative and one which, if successful, will make Rangers even more powerful next season. And the season after that, and on and on and on as the wealthiest club in the country simply becomes stronger and stronger. At the moment the target is a bigger share of the cash on offer in the Champions' League, and a team with top players from a clutch of countries can help provide that.
In the future the target is surely a place in any European League which seems certain to be formed. That may be several years away, but by that time Murray will have added to his international roster of stars and Rangers' reputation will have been established at a continental level.That is what the present multi-million pounds negotiations are about. The pay-off Rangers hope for is that spot among Europe's finest - in the meantime, their support will be entertained by some of the biggest names in the game.

How the rest of the clubs in Scotlan keep up is another matter and one which will no doubt be discussed in more than a few boardrooms over what will be a long, hot summer of superstar signings.

Ken Gallacher, The Herald 18 April 1996
I understand that Vialli's advisers, who met Murray last week, have been impressed with the way the Scottish champions have handled the negotiations. Under the Bosman ruling, Vialli is a free agent in the summer, and he had made it known that he wanted to try British football.

Initially that meant English football - until Rangers stepped in to prove that they can match any of the big spenders in European football.
Last night, Vialli admitted: “Everything I have heard about Rangers has been positive. I am ready to talk to them.'' Next season, Vialli could be hearing the same salute, but it may come with a Scottish accent.

There is no doubt that he remains a potent force at this level. If the talks go as well now as the preliminary discussions did, then Vialli will be a Rangers player, and David Murray and Walter Smith will have added another huge name to the list of stars they have paraded at Ibrox in recent years.

Chris Starr, The Herald 26 October 1996
"We will make the biggest moves that Rangers Football Club have ever made both off and on the park.I am totally committed to taking the club forward to be even stronger. By the year 2000, we will be double our size. We have a business upon a business providing the club with resources to compete at the highest level.”
“I can assure every Rangers supporter that I am committed to the cause, everybody behind the scenes is committed to the cause. We are going to double the size of the commercial department, we have got a new supermarket opening, coupled to all the things that are going to happen and I think it's great times ahead."

Mr Murray said that Sean Connery, who has been a regular guest at Ibrox, would help him in business ventures but “he isn't into the football business''. He said: “The people who are interested are interested in investment opportunities. We are looking at people taking a long-term position and taking a view in football in five years."

James Traynor, Daily Record, 2 November 1996
£80m TO SPEND
Kenny will be given a roving role to go out and recommend - and try to attract - the best."We're not talking about young or middle of the road players - we're talking the VERY best. Dalglish will be given an open chequebook to make sure the big names are made an offer they can't refuse. Murray knows the name of King Kenny will not only help capture top stars, but will increase interest from potential investors.

That Dream Team in Full

Ajax attackers PATRICK KLUIVERT and MARC OVERMARS would immediately create a £15 million hole in the Ibrox funds - but would no longer be an impossible prospect.

Paris St Germain's brilliant Brazilian RAI would also come into the equation and players like JURGEN KLINSMANN and PAOLO MALDINI would become targets.

Dalglish's brilliant record in England could prompt moves for ERIC CANTONA and ROBBIE FOWLER.

Top agents like Edinburgh's Jake Duncan reckons even Barcelona's RONALDO would not be out of Dalglish's reach.

If Rangers are making millions then the sky is the limit.

That's funny - when Kenny Dalglish returned to Celtic in June 1999 I don't remember the Laptop Loyal creaming themselves about Celtic signing the likes of Denis Bergkamp and Michael Owen. Must have been O*d F**m bias.

Simon Bain, The Herald 23 January 1997
RANGERS chairman David Murray has arranged British football's biggest investment in a remarkable £40m deal.
Mr Joe Lewis, a billionaire tax exile who owns part of Christie's and deals in currencies, has been enticed into putting £40m into Rangers as the first block in building a new international leisure business. The £40m injection will be used to buy players, begin a 150-bedroom hotel and sports bars development at Ibrox, and establish a new player development centre with training facilities. A final planning application on the hotel is likely to be made very soon.

Mr Murray said. ”This investment will enable Rangers to operate on a different plane. It gives us the necessary clout to do all the things we want to do and still have cash available.

Mr Murray added: “We have the second biggest turnover of any football club in Britain and we have no Sky revenue, £5 less at the gate than in England, so we have built a better business than anybody else.'' Mr Murray takes no salary or fee from Rangers. “I am not interested. I get my salary elsewhere. The only dividends I want are trophies."

Ken Gallacher, The Herald 23 January 1997
Rangers may spend £28m this summer
The kind of cash which will now be available to Smith will compare with the substantial television payments which have transformed the fortunes of every club in England's Premiership since the deal with Sky was signed. That deal has enabled English clubs to sign such as Fabrizio Ravanelli, Gianluca Vialli, Dennis Bergkamp, and others.

Such money from TV contracts is not on offer in Scotland - though it may yet come - but Murray's shrewd selling of a part of his stake in the club and his decision to re-invest in making Rangers still bigger is going to provide a financial launchpad which the chairman hopes will carry the team into Europe's elite. That is Murray's dream and, until now, he has been hampered by the status of Scotland as a footballing nation.

The Herald, 31 May 1997
Ronaldo
Striker Ronaldo is reported to have turned down a financial package worth a few pounds short of £40m, £20m being the transfer fee, to join Rangers. The 20-year-old Ronaldo is expected to join Inter Milan. Rangers chairman David Murray has used the massive bid to underline the fact that, in the first place, it was not a publicity stunt, and secondly that Rangers were able to compete with the biggest clubs in the world, although obviously showing his disappointment at probably losing out in this case.

Paul Sinclair, The Herald 23 June 1997
"I can accept the reasons why [Manchester] United may receive more television money, but in other terms we can match or better them. It is time for us to compete better commercially" Murray says.

The branding of Rangers can be expanded world-wide. We have already seen from the signings we have made that we are acknowledged as a major name as far afield as Italy and Chile. Now we want to take commercial advantage of the support we have at home and also in places like Canada and Australia - wherever we are known," Murray says. "I think we would open shops in Australia even if it was not the most viable operation" Murray insists. "It would provide a service for our supporters there and take our name to a new market. We are looking at the Far East as a potential market, but we know you have to get things right at home before you start to try to export abroad."

I'm sure the rest of the world will be taken with your 'Rule Britannia, WeeeeArrraPeeepell' club ethos and come clamouring to buy We Are the People wristbands and union jack shorts.

James Traynor, Daily Record 19 November 1998
SECRET FEAR THAT DRIVES ME TO WIN
10 IN A ROW: Rangers chairman David Murray opens up on the highs and lows of his decade in charge of Rangers and promises that the best is still to come
Exclusive: James Traynor

To hear him speak was to listen to a man who believes himself to be charged with some kind of great and mighty mission. Murray, who chose to talk only to the Record about his dreams and ambitions for Rangers, said: "No one should doubt that Rangers are the biggest club in the country, but I know that talk is cheap in this business and that we will have to prove just how big we are.

"That doesn't really bother me because as long as I am able to influence this club we will be the biggest and we will be the best. I have spent 10 years of my life, and I know that sometimes I gave up too much of myself to Rangers, but I am not about to give up now. Neither am I willing to stand aside and allow another club to overtake Rangers. The failure of last season hurt me a lot and that pain was something I didn't need nor want. It is also a pain which I never want to suffer again, but by God that sort of thing just makes me even more determined to succeed. I am still as driven, still as enthusiastic and I will welcome the challenge of anyone out there."

"I look upon these last 10 years as a having been a great era, but it is over and Rangers are about to head on into a new era," he said over a glass of the finest red.

He was about to take in another mouthful of the most succulent lamb - anyone who knows Murray shouldn't be surprised to learn he is a full-blooded, unashamed red meat eater - when he put down his knife and fork. It was like a statement of intent and looking directly across the table to make sure I hadn't yet succumbed to the wine, he said: "Bring on the next 10 years, there's more to come for Rangers.”

"What I'm saying here is that no matter who buys Celtic from Fergus, they will need to have the deepest of pockets imaginable. The fresh challenge would be good for the Scottish game and lift the profile, but Celtic's new owners had better be prepared to spend. In the past, Celtic's people maybe just haven't fancied trying to take Rangers on financially, but if I have to go in deeper to keep my club up there then I will. I have done it too many times to be frightened now. "From anyone else such talk could be dismissed as no more than empty rhetoric, but with Murray you just feel it is more than bluster and besides, he does have a track record as a spender.

There have been times in his 10 years when he has taken Rangers somewhere between £15m and £20m into debt and he knows that if this season goes belly up like the last one he could be looking at a potential debt of £20m. However, having taken the value of Rangers from £6m to approximately £186m in 10 years he knows how far he can gamble in pursuit of success. This season alone he has allowed his new manager Dick Advocaat to spend almost £30m, but he refuses to lose any sleep over it. He said: "I don't because I consider spending as much as £5million on someone like Andrei Kanchelskis as a necessity. If a club like ours doesn't do that then we fall by the wayside.

"Look, I have many other businesses so I could find many other things to worry about, but I love sport and I want Rangers to be successful. I know this won't be accepted by some people but this isn't about making money. £56m has been invested in the stadium and in my time £200m has been turned over and after interest our trading profit is minimal. Perhaps as much as £60m has been spent on players and I have even paid in about £1m in hospitality but never taken a salary from the place.”

"I get six complimentary tickets the same as everyone else and if I want extra I have to pay for them the same as everyone else.There are no free lunches for David Murray at Ibrox and I have never taken part or been at the centre of any of the numerous victory celebrations we have had.”

"I hope I can say that in my 10 years so far I've been fairly good at that, but the day I run out of ideas is the day I'll know it's over. I'm sure someone will tell me because I have good people around me, I always have. But I'm not ready yet to step back and I see enough fresh challenges, staying ahead at home and winning a place at the European table, ahead in the next 10 years to keep my own adrenaline flowing."

He knows roughly how much it will cost him and he's heard the rumours that ENIC, who have invested £40m in Rangers, are uneasy at the club's spending policies but Murray claims these backers have always been supportive of his methods. He said: "They could kick up a fuss but they don't. Besides, I am the owner of the club and so far most people seem to like what I've done."

The Times, 15 March 1999
DAVID MURRAY, the Rangers chairman, has revealed that a UEFA ruling forced him to abandon his plans to buy Manchester City, of the Nationwide League second division, last year. Murray confirmed that he had several meetings with representatives of the club with a view to a £30 million takeover.

However, Jim Farry, the then chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, advised Murray that if the deal had gone through, UEFA could have used its powers to expel Rangers from European competition.

"Mr Farry advised me there could be serious difficulties with me having a controlling interest in Rangers and Manchester City if we were both in the same European tournament," he said. "One of the teams would have been forced to withdraw from the competition. Therefore, we decided that it would be better to walk away from the deal".

Sunday Herald, 13 July 1999 KEN GALLACHER
David Murray reveals his ambitions for the Ibrox club
Rangers have won 19 trophies during your time as chairman, does that bring you a great deal of personal satisfaction?

Murray: I'm not interested in personal glory. After the cup final - which I left five minutes early, by the way - I went back through to Edinburgh to have dinner with friends. I didn't even go to the celebration party. That was for the players. I only join them when they lose and they don't do that too often, I am glad to say.

There has been a wage explosion following Bosman. Do you see danger signs for clubs in this?

Murray: Yes. Some of them will go bust. I don't say that about the top teams, but the middle-of-the-road teams in England - the ones who are trying to keep up by using television money - will find themselves in trouble.I don't know where some of the medium-sized clubs get the money to pay the kind of wages they are currently paying to players.I don't see it happening here in Scotland but there is a problem in the south. The big clubs will survive - they will always survive - but the others tucked in just below them could be in serious bother.
Something has got to give - and something will.

News of the World, 21 November 1999
If Dick stays on at Ibrox he will go on to stake his claim to be simply the best of the legends

DICK ADVOCAAT could have walked into the Real Madrid manager's seat vacated by John Toshack last week. That says everything about the calibre of the man currently in charge of Glasgow Rangers. It's still very early days in the Dutchman's Ibrox reign but so many things are beginning to fall into place under Advocaat. I suspect we could just be witnessing the arrival of the best pound-for-pound manager in Rangers' history.

Spanish insiders revealed last night that the Euro giants were willing to DOUBLE Advocaat's Ibrox salary after being impressed by Rangers' displays in Europe this season.

Murray told me: "Dick has made me fully aware that certain parties have been in contact with him to see if he would be interested in moving. "He informed me right away and told me in no uncertain terms he would not be leaving Rangers.

Rodger Baillie, The Sun 31 March 2000
£20m man Dave's pledge
MEGABUCKS tycoon Dave King is pumping £20million into Rangers because he wants them to be as big as Manchester United inside five years.The South African-based Gers fanatic is investing a huge slice of the Pounds 100m he made from the sale of his financial company.

He revealed the only return he wants from his old favourites is European glory.
King said: "I want to see Rangers consistently high performers on the European stage, the position Manchester United have reached now.

"The Old Trafford club know they will operate at the highest level every season in the Champions League, and that must be our target too." Chairman David Murray is putting £10m of his own fortune into the Ibrox war chest.

Sports management chief Alastair Johnston and Blackpool Tower owner Trevor Hemmings will chip in around £3m as part of a share issue to raise £53.1m.
Murray said: "We're going for it. I don't want to waste two or three years of my life by not having a right go."

"If we do that and it doesn't happen we'll hold our hands up but I honestly think we're on the verge of something. "When that Champions League music plays every season I want Rangers to be part of it."The Ibrox club are also considering a Stock Market flotation. But Murray emphasised firmly: "If we do it then I'll still be in charge. "I've seen what happens with other clubs where control changes hands and that won't happen with Rangers."

And Rangers are working on other money-spinning ventures via the internet and pay-per-view TV. Murray has been working for months on this package. He said: "This is not a begging letter to the existing shareholders and I'll understand if some of them don't want to take part. It's not for widows and orphans to join in."

The Herald, May 2000
KEN GALLACHER
Murray's Blueprint
Just as promised, Rangers are moving on to another level from the rest of Scottish football, as chairman David Murray announced a new investment of £53m for the Ibrox club, with a further massive cash boost soon to follow. The eventual cash injection could soar as high as £80m as Murray guides the club into what he believes will be a new, golden era for the Scottish champions. The money involved, the biggest financial boost for any Scottish football club, will enable them to move into Europe's elite over the next few years. Yesterday, however, Murray maintained, as always, that he will not turn his back on Scottish football to play in any other league, and that while he remains in charge of the club, he will retain a responsibility to the domestic game."

It is clear from this latest move, however, that the Glasgow giants are setting an agenda that no other Scottish club can match - and that appears to include their Old Firm rivals, Celtic, who are trailing by 15 points in the Premier League championship and are now looking at a financial gap which the Parkhead club might not be able to bridge. There have been hints around Glasgow that Celtic could be ready to attempt a share flotation of their own, but it would seem unlikely they would be able to match the financial clout that Murray has put together. The Ibrox chairman promised his shareholders good news and a more prudent financial strategy at the last annual meeting of the club. He has now delivered this by taking on board several very heavy financial hitters, South African-based David King is worth around £300m - £20m of which he is investing in the club he followed as a young man in Glasgow."

The Ibrox chairman has spent several months and many sleepless nights piecing together the plans which will eliminate Rangers' debt, currently sitting at around £40m, provide finance for the new training centre and the soccer academy which will be housed there, and still allow cash to invest in new players. He said: 'I want to make it clear from the outset that while our small shareholders, our supporters who have an interest in the club, will have the opportunity to invest again if they want, there is no pressure on them to do so. The bulk of the rights issue is being taken up by myself and David King and some other smaller investors, including Alastair Johnston, who is a long-time Rangers' supporter.'

Andy Devlin, The Sun 27 November 2000
RANGERS are on course to become one of European football's biggest clubs after revealing a turnover of over £51million for last year. Murray said: "As a result of the rights issue and the PTV agreement, we closed the year with funds in excess of £21million. The Rangers brand still has further potential value with the strength of our management team and worldwide supporter base.

Iain Dey, The Scotsman 13 December 2002
'Scottish football is bust' says Murray
"Football is bust," Murray said. "Rangers and Celtic will survive because they're brands. I've got a 50million pounds debt at Rangers. But we can service that, and we can pay that back because we've got a stadium, we've got a training ground, we've got players. But at other clubs which have got debts, you wonder how that can ever be repaid. There's no assets. "Rangers' stadium and players could be worth £100-£150million depending on what day of the week it is and how you want to value it. That's the business."

James Traynor, The Daily Record 21 June 2003
We're not as broke as some folk say
Rangers' honorary chairman decided to suspend his self-imposed silence to talk exclusively to Sports Record so that Rangers fans could deal with the "truth" rather than rumour and conjecture. He also went out of his way to stress his commmitment to his club remains strong even though he is no longer chairman and it was clear the rumours about his lack of concern had cut deeply.

Murray can be cold and brash, but he believes that if he is guilty of anything then it is over ambition for Rangers. "If that's a crime then it isn't such a bad one is it?" he asked before letting fly in all directions spitting out words like bullets. First, he spoke about the level of debt and said: "People talk about our debt being as high as £70million or £80 million, but that just isn't the case.
"It's nonsense, although we do have a high level of debt, but we can manage and it will peak at £60m to £65m for everything, players, training facilities, shops, the lot. We will work to reduce our debt and we have a four-year plan in place to take us forward. Of course there is a level of debt which we will not go above, but I've made a commitment to have the Murray business help out if and when the club needs assistance. For instance, if at some point in the new season Alex McLeish needs a player or players in a hurry then he will be given the money. "He already has Capucho signed up, Michael Mols has agreed a new one- year deal, and Zurab Khizanishvili has been offered a contract with the Georgian having to decide over the weekend and by Monday at the latest."

Although he refused to divulge the amount his busines empire will plough in to help Rangers my belief is there will be a credit line which could rise to £20m as Murray tries to make sure his club and manager don't have to go empty handed despite the severe financial restrictions which currently afflict the game.

James Doherty, The Scotsman 24 March 2004
Ibrox takes a gamble on casino to restore fortunes
"RANGERS Football Club has unveiled an ambitious £120 million plan to transform Ibrox and the surrounding area in Govan into an entertainment complex complete with casino. The Scottish champions confirmed the development will include a casino, private flats, a community sports facility, a health care centre and hotel and conference facilities. The club chairman, John McClelland, said the proposals, which have been drafted with Glasgow City Council, should generate substantial profits for the club and create more than 2,000 jobs. The entertainment complex, in partnership with the US-company Las Vegas Sands Inc, is worth an estimated £80 million alone."

Lindsay McGarvie, The Sunday Mail 29 August 2004
MURRAY IN £8.3M GERS SHARE WIN
RECLUSIVE Rangers investor Joe Lewis has sold his stake in the club to David Murray for a £31.7million loss. Murray paid just £8.3million for the billionaire financier's shares last Friday. Lewis paid £40million for them in 1997. The 20 per cent stake held by Bahamas-based Lewis' ENIC was bought through Murray MHL Ltd.

Murray now owns 86 per cent of the Ibrox club and is expected to launch major sport and leisure ventures to capitalise on the brand. He may open hotels and casinos in a bid to wipe out Rangers' pounds 70million debts.

Sources close to Murray say buying Lewis' stake shows 'his hunger to bring back the Ibrox glory days'. A close friend added: 'David played a magnificent hand of poker against Joe Lewis - a man he hasn't even met’.

It's going to allow him to take the club to a new level.'

Yes, administration!

Murray is expected to officially announce his return as Rangers chairman in the coming week.

Siobhan MacFadyen, The Sunday Mirror 29 August 2004
IBROX TO DIG DEEPER
RANGERS will transform the face of Ibrox in an amazing £10million revamp, the Sunday Mirror can reveal. The audacious scheme will see 5,000 new seats added to the Glasgow stadium as the club battles to keep pace with rivals Celtic. Ibrox chiefs reckon the rebuilding will bring in pounds 25million in extra gate receipts over the next 10 years.

The operation could take place as soon as next summer and it's hoped it will be the answer to the club's debts and cash-flow problems. Approaches will be made in the next month to five building firms to compete for the contract. The plan is to dig up the Ibrox turf and then excavate five metres of the ground below it. Builders will then dig beneath the front of the existing seating to create a cavity big enough to fit five new rows of seats - making a new bottom tier around the whole ground.

It will raise the capacity of Ibrox from 51,420 to 56,420 - moving Rangers closer to Celtic's capacity of 60,832. The news comes amid today's vital first Old Firm game of the 2004/2005 season at Parkhead. It will be a huge tonic to Rangers fans worried about the £68million debt hampering the club's prospects - and coincides with the announcement that club owner David Murray will resume the chairmanship at Ibrox next week.

The club will set tough deadlines for the building contract, with all work to be completed in a two-month window in the close-season. A club insider said: "Everyone is massively excited. "It's been a difficult time at Ibrox with Celtic in the ascendancy lately. This shows that Rangers mean business - on and off the park. It won't be easy to get the work done before the start of next season but it could happen that quickly. These extra seats will bring another £2.5million into the club every year - that's a lot of money, especially in the current climate. The plan is to take the pitch down by five metres (16 feet) and insert another tier around the full circumference of the pitch. It would be impossible to build up, as the stands would collapse, so they have come up with plans to dig down.

All that done in two months???

The whole place is buzzing because it means more season tickets and more cash for the club.“David Murray is a very astute businessman. He led the way in redeveloping Rangers after he bought the club and now he is doing it again."

Martin Hannan, Scotland on Sunday 12 September 2004
Ibrox minted after Murray's £50m sweetener as charm offensive continues
"He has got a plan," said a leading stockbroker and veteran Murray-watcher, "and if I was guessing, I would say that people who have invested in Murray Holdings and made a profit may now use that money for Rangers." The same stockbroker speculated last week that Murray was preparing an "exit strategy". Other Murray-watchers speculate that two or three years from now, Rangers could be under new ownership even if Murray retains a sizeable shareholding. With 86 per cent of the club after buying ENIC's stock, he can do with Rangers plc what he likes.

"Let's say he tidies the whole thing up," said a stockbroker, "and gets the balance sheet looking much better, the question will then be, has he got somebody waiting in the wings to maybe come in and take over Rangers? "If this were an ordinary company, which Rangers most definitely is not, then you would have to conclude that he is gearing up to turn it over, but to whom?

Didn't realise that "Murray-watcher" was a bona fide career. I'd guess that there are a lot of "Murray-watchers" heading for the dole queue since he retired to the Fuhrer Bunker on a permanent basis.

Funny how the laptop loyal can find "leading stockbrokers" and "insiders" within the financial whizz community when it comes to bumming up the Huns, but the HMRC issue is just too complicated for them and they just don't have the time to go and find an expert to explain it in simple terms because they're too busy writing furious poison articles about Neil Lennon.

Andy McInnes, Daily Express 2 October 2004
Rangers £10m on horizon

GLASGOW-born businessman Alistair Donald is set to plough more than £10million into Rangers to boost Alex McLeish's transfer kitty. The lifelong Rangers fan, who has an estimated fortune of pounds 70m, has been holding talks with chairman David Murray for several weeks regarding the investment.

Murray will reveal the finer details of the share issue aimed at easing the club's £74m debt at Thursday's AGM - leaving the majority of Donald's cash injection for new players. Donald said: 'I have been speaking to David Murray for some time with a view to making an investment which will be north of £10m.

£10 million or "north" of £10million, which is it Andy? Or is this a game of pick a numberm double it and multiply by the number you first thought of?

'David will be attacking the debt and wiping it out very soon so I expect a large proportion of the money I am pledging will go to the manager. 'I feel with the proper resources Alex McLeish can take Rangers even further in the Premier League and in Europe.' Donald made his fortune with internet companies in Europe and America in the 1990s and, now that he plans semi-retirement when he turns 50 next week, he is keen to buy an interest in the club he has supported all his life.

Murray confirmed that talks have been ongoing over recent weeks. He said: 'We have been having amicable discussions over a period of weeks now and I look forward to a profitable outcome in due course.'We're determined to get the club back on a strong financial footing and help the manager and the team further their ambitions at home and abroad.'

Stephen Halliday, The Scotsman 8 October 2004
Murray Silences Ibrox critics
DAVID MURRAY yesterday produced arguably the most polished performance witnessed at Ibrox so far this season when he cruised unscathed through his first Rangers annual general meeting as chairman for three years.

Despite providing no specific detail of how he intends to fulfil his recent pledge to eradicate the club's £74million debt within the next year, Murray was afforded a largely rapturous welcome back to the front line of the Rangers command structure by an audience of around 1,500 shareholders.

The proposed rights issue, which Murray hopes will raise £57million for the club and which he will personally underwrite through his Murray International Holdings Limited company, was approved unanimously and will be undertaken within the next two months."My intention is to wipe out the club's debt completely within the next 12 months," said Murray, whose recent £8.7million acquisition of ENIC's shares in Rangers took his controlling interest in the club to 86.3 per cent. "I'm prepared to take my share of the blame [for the debt] but I have plans and schemes in place which hopefully will alleviate the problem."

Murray also provided a vague response to a question over the reported intention of wealthy supporter Alistair Donald to invest £10million in Rangers to be used as a transfer kitty for manager Alex McLeish. "We would welcome any investment," said Murray, "and we will see what happens."

He claimed Rangers can expect to receive between £4million and £6million a year in rent from the Las Vegas Sands Casino development proposed for the site currently housing the club's Albion car park. A planning application will be lodged with Glasgow City Council soon and the agm approved the purchase of the car park, currently owned by Murray's Premier Property Group company and leased back to Rangers, for the nominal sum of £1.

There were also echoes of Murray's Old Firm one-upmanship of old as he stated Rangers' intention to earn £10million a year from a new kit deal, double the amount Celtic announced when striking their recent contract with Nike. Rangers are in talks with two companies to replace current kit suppliers Diadora.

How'd that one work out Moonbeams?

On the playing front, Murray was quizzed about persistent speculation surrounding Jean-Alain Boumsong, the French international defender signed on a free transfer from Auxerre in the summer, and insisted Rangers are not out to make a quick profit on him. "I think we did a remarkable job in bringing a player like Jean-Alain here," said Murray, unable to resist taking personal credit for the signing as he added: "The old private jet thing still works."

John Shields, The Sun 14 December 2004
Murray's £50m has freed Eck from New Year sale

RANGERS chief David Murray says the success of the club's new rights issue means boss Alex McLeish will not have to sell players.

Except Jean Alain Boumsong the lapdog hack forgot to say.

The club announced yesterday that more than £51million had been raised, with Murray's own MHL Limited company underwriting more than £50million of the total sum. That still leaves Gers almost £23m in debt but the news that will interest fans most is chairman Murray's claim that McLeish is no longer under pressure to reduce the wage bill and unload players.

Except Jean Alain Boumsong the Hun lickspittle forgot to say.

Murray said: "It now means we are in a position where we do not need to sell any of our players. However, if we do sell any players...."

Doublethink rules OK??!!

"... the money will immediately be given to Alex McLeish for replacements. Rangers can now look forward to a brighter future."

Existing shareholders had the opportunity to match their shares one for one and the results of the rights issue were announced yesterday, with £51,430,995 being raised through the issue of shares sold at £1 each.

Murray MHL Limited, a company controlled by Murray, took its rights to 11,785,479 and subscribed for a further 38,489,521 shares - a total commitment of £50,275,000. The total number of shares owned by Murray now represents 91.8% of the issued share capital.

In some cases, existing shareholders applied for additional shares, and the rights issue also succeeded in attracting 1,263 new shareholders, raising a further £307,530. Murray believes the financial future of Rangers now looks far more optimistic as a result of the issue.

He said: "I am delighted by this response. It was our intention to have a share issue that was open to all our shareholders and supporters. The number of existing and new shareholders who have subscribed means that we have achieved this objective. "The success of the fundraising was guaranteed by MHL underwriting the issue, but the investment by over 4,500 subscribers demonstrates strong support for this initiative."

Hun share issue raises just over £300K from new shareholders and this is lauded as a roaring success by the Scottish media.

Darrell King, Evening Times 7 October 2004
Rangers £6m casino windfall

RANGERS are set for a £6million windfall after agreeing a car park deal to allow a massive casino next door to Ibrox. Shareholders today agreed a resolution which will see the club buy the Albion car park to allow a (pounds) 120m casino to be built. Chairman David Murray estimated the transaction could earn the club between £4m and £6m. He said: ''We are getting great backing from Glasgow City Council on this project and we estimate those are the kind of figures the club could earn in rent from Las Vegas Sands, who will build the casino.'' Rangers last month submitted plans to create a Las Vegas-style casino resort at Ibrox.

PETER JARDINE, Daily Mail 19 November 2004
Pupils to be Proud of but Lessons Still to be Learned
THREE and more years have elapsed since David Murray cut the ribbons on the impressive £14million training facility in Milngavie which now bears his name. Wait five years or a decade for the real dividend, noted most observers. The immediate imprint was felt on the Rangers balance sheet. But, almost imperceptibly, the Murray Park graduates are starting to make a mark on Scottish football.

Come tomorrow, Alex McLeish is liable to name three of them in his squad for the latest Old Firm 'Judgment Day' against Celtic - Hamed Namouchi, Alan Hutton and Chris Burke.

That'll be Hamed Namouchi that they signed on a free from Cannes. How that fits in with the "Murray Park conveyor belt of talent" propaganda is not explained by the hack.

The Scotland Under-21 squad on Tuesday night against Sweden featured three more - Partick Thistle defender Andy Dowie, Falkirk's Darryl Duffy and midfielder Peter Leven, an SPL goalscorer for Kilmarnock against Hearts last weekend. Sheffield Wednesday striker Steven Maclean continues to wrestle with goalscoring in the lower divisions in England while, in the Bell's First Division, Billy Gibson would probably claim, like team-mate Dowie, that Partick are better than their league place suggests.

All grist to the argument that, in a corner of Milngavie, sandwiched between a golf course and a tennis/hockey club, something is starting to stir.

A dodgy tax evasion scheme??

Andy McInnes, Daily Express 25 February 2005
IT'S BOUM TIME FOR RANGERS
Murray insisted the recent figures for the six-month period to December 31, 2004 showed the Ibrox club was already getting onto an even keel financially. He said: "I'm certain that the cornerstones are in place for the delivery of continued improved results both on and off the field for future years. We have a solid structure in place, assets in our stadium and Murray Park that require little in the way of development work, and a playing squad filled with quality players of a relatively young average age."

Rangers turnover for the period was £30,932,000 - £2,832,000 less than the corresponding six months in 2003. Profit before tax was £5,509,000 but, after interest charges of nearly £2m, dropped to £3,537,000.

Em..... so that'll be a profit before tax of £3.5million then.... pesky interest charges.....and em...a after tax that'll be a loss then! What do you mean, what tax?? ?

And they wonder how they are in the mess they are in.

The Sun
Andy Devlin, 15 June 2005
007 sewed up Hem
DAVID MURRAY has revealed how James Bond star Sean Connery helped him lure Brahim Hemdani to Rangers. The Ibrox supremo roped in his close pal 007 as the Marseille captain swithered between Gers and German aces Bayer Leverkusen. Murray set up an airport meeting between the 27-year-old French-Algerian stopper, left, and Connery.

The veteran actor convinced Hemdani to head for the SPL champs on a lucrative four-year-deal. Murray said: "I enlisted Sean's help to sell Scotland to Brahim. Leverkusen were chasing him too and I arranged for Sean to meet him at Cannes airport to help sell Scotland to him. Brahim then flew over and had a good look round and I'm delighted he agreed to sign."

Daily Express
Andy McInnes and Gary Keown, 6 July 2005
FAN THE MAN FOR GERS

RANGERS last night completed the signing of Jose Karl Pierre-Fanfan on a three-year deal, leaving Old Firm rivals Celtic licking their wounds after failing in a bid earlier in the day to land the French defender. The 29-year-old Paris St Germain star completed his medical last night having been flown into Glasgow on chairman David Murray's private jet to look around Murray Park and Ibrox.

However, while the French central defender was being welcomed to Govan Rangers were issuing an angry ultimatum to Sotirios Kyrgiakos to make his mind up now on a return to the club.

Gers chairman Murray slapped down the "sign it or beat it" demand after revealing it was the Greek defender who was holding up his permanent transfer to the Scottish Champions and not his previous club Panathinaikos. "We can't wait for ever so we want an answer from Kyrgiakos about his future as soon as possible, " declared Murray. "It is entirely up to him now. Neither Rangers nor Panathinaikos are holding up this move. It is him. He has said he loves Rangers and wants to play for us, so now he must prove it."

Wonder if an EBT played any part in negotiations...?

The Herald
Darryl Broadfoot, 29 July 2005
BARGAIN HUNT ALEX McLEISH'S CANNY EXPLOITATION OF THE TRANSFER MARKET HAS MADE RANGERS TITLE FAVOURITES
THIS summer's shopping has cemented Alex McLeish's reputation as one of British football's most prolific and prudent Bosman customers. With the possible exception of Sam Allardyce at cosmopolitan Bolton Wanderers, few have negotiated the market as adeptly as the Rangers manager.

Rangers begin the Bank of Scotland Premier League season as favourites for the first time under McLeish's stewardship and he has wasted little time equipping his squad for such heightened expectation. Brahim Hemdani, Jose-Karl PierreFanfan and Ian Murray, established defenders at Marseille, Paris SaintGermain and Hibernian respectively, have galvanised the club for a title defence and improved challenge in the ultimate proving ground, the Champions League.

With SPL transfer budgets now regarded as a luxury, McLeish has again painstakingly pored over the Bosman directory and been rewarded for his diligence. Indeed, this season's Rangers starting XI could comprise seven players recruited for free. Ronald Waterreus, should he retain his place despite the return of Stefan Klos, Marvin Andrews, PierreFanfan, Murray, Alex Rae, Hemdani and Dado Prso are all ideal examples of McLeish's astute policy.

Cue....Celtic winning the league by 20 points and the Huns finishing 3rd behind the Wee Huns. Give that man a job at the SFA!!

Darrell King, Evening Times 10 February 2006

FOR a man who likes to think of Rangers as his family, clearly being attacked from those within his inner circle was just too much. The 300 fans who protested outside Ibrox after last week's Scottish Cup defeat to Hibs, and the dozen or so who unfurled a 'Murray Out' banner at Pittodrie before Wednesday night's defeat, may have been small in number.

But David Murray sensed a major fall-out was on the way - something that may even have ended in damaging feuding or even acrimonious divorce. When the final whistle blew in Aberdeen, Rangers yet again on the end of a defeat, the Ibrox owner and chairman knew it was time to act.

Today he has called for unity behind his decision to reveal that his embattled manager Alex McLeish will go at the end of the season. In his own inimitable style, Murray also rolled out the big guns - a new manager is more or less in place, huge investment is on the way to fund his rebuilding of this pitiful Rangers line-up and the club is making record amounts of cash.

Like the head of the family calling everyone around the table, he has spoken.

Now, he wants the Rangers support to prepare themselves for what he will bring to that very table - and if they are not pleased, he says they can protest all they like.

Murray said: "I will leave no stone unturned. I am working very hard with Martin Bain to bring all these deals together and bring the direction this club needs. "That (protests) is not Rangers' way. I understand people have the right to stand outside and protest. But Rangers do things another way, not like that. That's why I meet the Trust, the Assembly, we do it by talking.

"It is people's entitlement. It does not sway me, nor does it put me off - I will still do my job to the very best. I can understand 300 people getting bloody annoyed if they felt there wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel - but there is a massive moonbeam of success waiting for us.

"People must accept there are legal issues, stock exchange issues, timing factors - but this will happen.

And when we make the changes, and if people are not happy then protest all you want - but big plans are on the way for Rangers. There is a massive moonbeam of success coming to us"

Darrell King, Evening Times, 9 March 2006

ON the day after their European dreams came to an agonising end, the Rangers support received the fillip their chairman had promised. As always, the timing from club owner David Murray was impeccable.

But this is no sweetener just to keep the legions happy after defeat in Villarreal consigned them to nothing more than 10 SPL games between now and the end of the season.

Murray wasn't in at the start 20 years ago when Graeme Souness kick-started the Rangers revolution that reshaped the face of Scottish football. But the Edinburgh millionaire is at the very forefront this time, in direct response to a season from hell that has seen his club fall so far behind Celtic in the league championship that it is simply intolerable for the supporters.

In a momentous week for the Ibrox club, which included the brave end of their Champions League adventure, the Rangers fans have now witnessed the first shafts of light in the "moonbeam of success" that Murray said was lying in wait for the club. The outstanding French coach Paul Le Guen is expected to confirm this weekend that he will take charge of Rangers next season.

That news preceded the tie in Villarreal. But the announcement last night of the massive guaranteed £48m retail deal that Murray has brokered with sports chain JJB, proves to fans that Le Guen will be armed with the transfer cash he needs to rebuild the team. It is believed Le Guen will be handed upwards of £15m this summer to spend on new players, and that eight new faces have been earmarked.

For some time now the name of the £6m-rated French internationalist Sidney Govou has been circulating. Every manager has a player who follows him around the clubs he works at and, such is the relationship between Le Guen and Govou from their time at Lyon, the winger is said to be the incoming manager's No.1 target.

Lille's Greek defender Stathis Tavlaridis was the subject of two failed transfer attempts last summer by Alex McLeish. But in recent times Le Guen's No.2 Yves Colleu, has watched the former Arsenal centre-half in the flesh and he is likely to appear back on the radar.

Nantes keeper Mickael Landreau has been told he can leave the club this summer on a free transfer after seven years. Suggestions in France are that Le Guen rates him highly and will move for the 26 year-old as Lyon shot-stopper Gregory Coupet would be too expensive. Closer to home, a deal for Hibs' Derek Riordan - who Rangers missed out on in January - remains on-going and he should be at Ibrox by the time Le Guen arrives in the summer.

His Easter Road team-mate Scott Brown, was the player McLeish wanted to sign for a year now and that is another move strongly being tipped in the Ibrox corridors. With eight new players expected, Le Guen will have to trim the squad but that can be done without too many problems.

On yerself the lapdogs!!

.

SFA in ‘get it right up’ Celtic email controversy

2011-04-11T16:51:00.011+01:00

From Celtic Quick News:

Some days ago I was pointed in the direction of the copy of an email posted online, apparently from Scottish FA council member, David Dowling, sent to what looks like SFA colleagues, including president George Peat and vice president, Campbell Ogilvie, multi-committee member, Findlay Noble, as well as a wide range of non-SFA contacts, discussing Bobo Balde’s Celtic contract.

Fifa require clubs to submit a copy of all players’ contracts with their domestic association. The email contains details of Bobo’s financial remuneration during his final three years at Celtic, a period during which he played very little football. The email explains what Bobo cost Celtic per game and per minute each season, both inordinately high figures, and finishes with the sentiment:

“ahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha go on yerself bobo – get it right up them”

David Dowling and Findlay Noble are both on the SFA Disciplinary Committee and Appeals Committee. George Peat’s period as SFA president is due to end this summer when Campbell Ogilvie is expected to take over from him.

I have decided not to provide a link to the version which details confidential financial information, or the various email addresses involved, but you can see a link to a copy of the email with all the sensitive data blocked here.

Sentiment like this is, of course, wholly unacceptable. Clubs must have faith that confidential contract information, submitted to the SFA, does not become the subject of casual gossip or mocking.

The profane “get it right up them” sentiment being bandied around is indefensible. It is claimed the email was sent at the end of Bobo’s contact in the summer of 2009, so predates Celtic’s recent hardening attitude about their treatment by the SFA, but explains the context of the club’s action.

This season has already seen the Celtic manager lied to by referee Dougie McDonald, the Referees’ Committee subsequently admonish McDonald, while the SFA have tried to revision their own rules to further punish Neil Lennon. A pattern of behaviour is emerging.

Celtic fans have long suspected a hostile attitude existed at the SFA towards their club. We appear to be at a watershed time with abundant evidence of this hostility. If this email proves accurate, future accusations of ‘paranoia’ will be rebuked by evidence.

David Dowling is the Vice Chairman of the SFA Referee Committee, although it would be paranoia to read anything into a man sending e-mails laughing at "getting it right up" Celtic holding this position.

He's also a Rangers FC shareholder. But again, it would be paranoia to... blah blah blah

From the Inverness Courier:

"Among the photos [in Dowling's office] is a picture of him with his two sons Scott (24) and Christopher (27) — both partners at Cairngorm Windows — all wearing Rangers shirts at the UEFA Cup final in Manchester last year.

He is a shareholder in the Glasgow club he has supported from boyhood but when it comes to club loyalty there is only one place you'll find him on a Saturday afternoon — watching Clach."

Some in the Celtic community have posted that this is the endgame for the SFA, that surely now they are exposed for the rotten, corrupt, out of their depth cabal that they are in the face of this shocking revelation.

I'm afraid I have to disagree.

There's a scene in the movie Batman Begins where Lieutenant Gordon utters the immortal line "I'm no rat! ... In a town this corrupt, who is there to rat to anyway?"

So in a town as corrupt as this, who do Celtic rat to if we are to expose the full extent of the bias at the SFA?

The Scottish media - PR arm of the Scottish football Establishment??!

I don't think so.

The Laptop Loyal are nothing if not predictable. The agenda they are tied to prevents them from being anything other.

They will try to ignore the story as much as possible but it is likely to trickle into the mainstream as the story gathers momentum online. Eventually their hand will be forced by someone mentioning it on a Radio Snide or Fake Radio phone-in, requiring the lapdogs to give it some cursory attention, in much the same manner of their reluctance to address the Rangers debt and HRMC issues until the elephant's head pierced the ceiling showering Scottish football in little pieces of shattered smokescreen.

I fully expect them to find an angle - however weak and laughable - to make this episode Celtic’s fault. Something like “What do you expect for being so paranoid and complaining so much, can you no take a joke?” blah blah.

The victim will be portrayed as the offender yet again.

Much attention will be placed on the whistleblower - drawing attention away from the offenders - no doubt accompanied by some vomit-inducing paeity over the part publication of a few e-mail address apparently putting these biased huns' lives in mortal danger.

Like I said, the Laptop Loyal are nothing if not predictable.

We are dealing with institutionalised, self-justifying, 'cannae see the woods from the trees' prejudice and it won’t go away any time soon, even in the face of such damning revelations as these.

.

Rangers officially Paranoid

2011-04-09T16:25:00.006+01:00

“The other point is that this has emanated from people in Scotland who have their own sectarian agenda against Rangers.

“There’s an obvious agenda at work from journalists, politicians and other people who are not friends of Rangers and who are peddling their own sectarian agenda.

“There’s a great deal that comes from the Celtic support that I find offensive, songs in favour of sectarian organisations. But there’s not even a whiff of anything happening in that direction.”

Stephen Smith, chairman of the Rangers Supporters Trust

Traynor's Succulent Lamb part 2

2011-04-04T20:53:00.023+01:00

Recent revelations reveal that Rangers have been in a loose "administration" since Donald Muir's appointment to the board in October 2009, yet even now, Rangers see themselves in a position to tell the effective administrator (Lloyd's) to GTF and that due to their financial wizardry, they see their current situation as a mere "cash flow" issue??!!

The chairman mumps and moans about the effective administrator having the temerity to take 10 or 20% from the sale of players, as opposed to the 100% that would apply under real administration if the whole charade was finally discarded. But still we see a compliant media punting the 'evil bank persecuting the unfairly maligned Establishment club' myth.

It's not a cash flow issue, which in itself is serious enough, but an accumulated debt and future sustainability issue, which they brought on themselves.

Ostriches rule OK!

The bank are obliged to deal with them fairly. Note: fairly does not mean punitively, however it also means that they will not be let off lightly.

Bear in mind these are pleas for leniency from an ‘Institution’ that has insulted it’s principal creditors in it’s public statements ("Gers chief blasts Lloyds" etc.); sought to mendaciously avoid tax payments; allegedly acted with bad faith in negotiations with their potential ‘saviour’ (the Whyte Shite); displayed a chronic lack of competent corporate governance; and has their media lackeys at each other's throats.

It increasingly looks like the endgame as the chairman's pronouncements get yet more surreal and removed from reality.

Previously we've had the

"we willnae huvtae pay becoz we took expert advice" story....

then the

"we willnae huvtae pay becoz MIH/Murray/Llloyd's/Santa wull pay" story....

but these are put in the shade by Alastair Johnston's latest effort in relation to the "left-field" £2.8million tax bill grenade....

the "we willnae huvtae pay becoz we didnae huv a clue" story! (see bold in article below)

Priceless.

Darrell King now puts the cost of Ibrox repairs at £14m. I would not trust any statement from a Scottish football journalist that involves money....or a statement. At £14m, you would not be too far from the point where it would be better to build a new stadium using more modern techniques.

Quite what Darrell’s agenda is in publishing this is unclear. It might just be that he is ready to escape the confines of the “I will give you an exclusive if you don’t print anything negative” lobby system Murray has operated successfully for over 20 years. King has always been more of a Rangers fan than a Murray stooge. Likewise, Chick Young will always have Rangers’ best interests at heart.

We have reached a point in the game where we see the divide opening between the Rangers fans in the media - King, Young - and the bought & paid-for puppets - Traynor, Jackson - who may or may not also be fans.

Speaking of puppets, Jim Traynor stepped up to the plate in his master's hour of need with a piece to rival his 1998 Succulent Lamb classic. His best effort to flog season tickets to the gullible amounts to yet more recycled "Gers chief blasts Lloyd's" shite.

"Yesterday their chairman got off the stool and landed heavy, crunching blows and sharp, cutting jabs. These are desperate days for Rankers and the time for fancy footwork and business-speak had come and gone."

There you have it, apparently Rangers are going to batter their way out of their debt position. If only they thought of that earlier. I'm sure everyone would agree that Rangers as a club are far more suited to fighting and battery than to diplomacy and protocol.

In their hour of need Traynor chooses to evoke the spirit of Manchester to rally the troops. What a masterstroke from a great masterstroker:

Rangers find man to fight their corner in Alastair Johnston
By Jim Traynor on Apr 2

Alastair Johnston should have been wearing a gumshield. His fists ought to have been wrapped in bandages as he sat inside Ibrox like a man ready and willing to go one last round.

There was only one option left.

Rankers had been boxed into a corner and someone had to stand up and fight.

Yesterday their chairman got off the stool and landed heavy, crunching blows and sharp, cutting jabs. These are desperate days for Rankers and the time for fancy footwork and business-speak had come and gone.

So the golf and Orlando's Lake Windermere were left behind. Rankers ' interim figures were being announced and although decent - the debt is hovering around £24million - they were never going to disguise bleak reality should Craig Whyte's bid to buy out Sir David Murray fail.

Rankers are reeling. They needed a champion and so Johnston set aside his usual weapons, dilplomacy and protocol. It was time to come out swinging.

And for a dapper figure, who'd probably fall into the welterweight division, his was a bludgeoning performance. Johnston didn't miss. He picked off his targets one by one.

Donald Muir, the man who sits on the Ibrox board as a representative of Lloyds Banking Group, but not for much longer having been removed from the Murray Group board on Thursday, was shredded.

The bank, who have been squeezing the life out of Rankers , were battered and the people responsible for an unexpected £2.8m bill lying over from more than a decade ago were thumped.

At times it appeared as though Johnston was struggling so much to control his anger that if he had been wearing a gumshield he'd have bitten right through it. But he remained focused and delivered an impressive performance as chairman.

Rankers fans were told Muir was on the board as a representative of the Murray Group but yesterday he was dramatically and finally unmasked as a Lloyds man.

Johnston said: "It has been denied by a lot of people but I'm telling you what the issue is right now. I have decided that I might as well come out and say it.

"Let's be very clear on the subject of Donald Muir. It is a condition of our credit facility agreement that Donald Muir is a representative of the bank on the board.

"It has been terribly compromising to have a situation like this. It is very tough to engage in conversations at board level in terms of strategies with the bank when we know the bank guy is sitting there."

Muir remains on the board but Johnston added: "He doesn't have an ongoing role."

At that moment there could have been a slight din from another room. A cheer from the boardroom perhaps? Surely not.

And Lloyds themselves? The question was barely out before Johnston had the bank recoiling. He said: "The bank look upon us as a short-term project to the extent that, at every opportunity, they are not willing to concede that there isn't an occasion or a transaction where they might want to participate.

"We've been engaging them for a while and asking them things like, if we sell players is there any certainty that we would get all the money back to spend, 90 per cent of it or even 80 per cent of it?

"It makes our management very difficult. How can we plan for selling players when we don't know how much we will get to keep?

"It also creates an environment where the management team are reluctant to sell players because they don't know if they'll get money to replace them.

"So the bank is compromising our ability to plan in three-year cycles. They are never going to give us the carte blanche to make our own decisions with our own money. If we make it into the Champions League, they want a part of it. We are never very sure what's going to happen in the future."

If this had been a fight the Windermere Windmill's cornermen would have been telling him to slow down and save energy but he was straight into the tax issue. No, not The Tax Issue but another one.

Only a few weeks ago Rankers were hit with a tax bill for almost £3m - it is believed this relates to the signings of two or three players brought in during Dick Advocaat's reign - and Johnston was livid.

The much-publicised court battle with HMRC over alleged unpaid taxes is looming but neither Johnston nor any of the directors had a clue about this new bill.

He said: "Our numbers today would be £2.8m better today if it wasn't for the fact we had to take this charge.

"As the Americans say this one came from left-field. And if you can see my teeth gritting a little more then you will know it is really frustrating because no one knew about it a couple of months ago.

"And let me put on record that if we had known about it we would have had to put it in our annual report and taken a liability in the accounts."

That brought him around to the man who would be king. Whyte's bid to buy the club could be signed and sealed by the middle of next week but it's not clear who will pick up the tab for the new tax bill.

Johnston said: "It's a cash-flow issue someone has to pay for and as far as I'm concerned we don't have it in our budget."

By this point a man who had just flown in from the more sedate world of the American golf circuit and who spends as much time as he can at his Orlando home should have been exhausted but Johnston's adrenalin was flowing.

The bank, he insists, have squeezed the very last drops of revenue from the club and now they must rethink a strategy which will choke the life from Ibrox if Whyte's takeover fails.

Johnston was fighting for his club's survival. Someone had to and at the final bell he stepped forward to prove he and Rankers remain defiant.

Jabba v Dung - Rearranging furniture on the Titanic

2011-04-03T21:49:00.007+01:00

Jabba Traynor comes out on top with his King Canute attempt to stem the tide.

Alisdair Johnson nodding his head to the question "could Rangers go bust?" was not an admission said the Professor of Semantics at the Comical Ali School of Propaganda.

It's an indictment of the BBC that they continue to provide this odious cretin of a man a platform to promote and espouse the views of his rag of a Rangers puppet newspaper.

Conflict of interest, no?

Jabba comes into conflict with fellow Rangers puppet Chick Dung, as he tries desperately to force the genie back into the bottle on behalf of his master, taking services to the field of Rangers propaganda to new lows.

So much so, that he even manages to have the listener supporting Chick Young in this wee exchange. Jabba uses his customary bully boy tactics, twisting words - "could go bust" becomes "would go bust", a misrepresentation that would not be necessary from a position of strength - before backing his opponent into a corner by challenging Young to call Johnson a liar.

This is the tactic of the man with no argument, brow-beat your opponent by switching the focus onto a side-show about someone being "a liar" or not, away from the relevant matter in hand i.e. Johnston admitting the frankly obvious to all non-Rangers lickspittles.

It's called smoke and mirrors.

Incidentally, how many lies makes you a liar? If one is enough, then there's an awful lot of liars out there.

Ultimately, the sound of Traynor angrily clinging to his King Canute semantics act at all costs, when even CHICK YOUNG admits the gravity of the situation, just illustrates how embedded in the Ibrox pockets this excuse for a journalist is.

And just for an added bonus. Jabba's previous for brow-beating opponents. This time punting an anti-Celtic agenda rather than a pro-Rangers one.

Jabba Traynor goes for the Straw Man tactic in a debate with Michael Kelly "are you saying Celtic are the ONLY team that get decisions against them?" before going on to angrily declare "YOU AND YOUR TYPE!"

And we've got you're number Jabba.

.

Is Craig Whyte The Man Who Never Was?

2011-03-30T17:37:00.004+01:00

A comment from the Rangers Tax Case blog

Auldheid says:
30/03/2011 at 2:43 pm

I have a theory on the fakover based on Operation Mincemeat

OPERATION MINCEMEAT - WWII HISTORY

or for those of the black and white movie generation “The Man Who Never Was”.

The theory portends that the Whyte takever is a fakeover; an illusion that serves a number of purposes, chiefly keeping the Rangers support in hope (or the dark) whilst fate takes it course, but also more fraudulently, enabling the SFA to approve Rangers licencing application, particularly in relation to "proving" them to be a going concern in season 2011/2012 by which time the size of the tax bill should be known.

The licencing rules are complex but they do pose questions that require assurances and it is hard to see what assurances can be given, unless The Man Who Never Was is fitted up with an identity that would enable the SFA to say that Rangers have an administration-free future.

That licencing process is already underway and has until the end of May to be completed. Details are at

SFA Club Liscensing - Policy and Objectives

These rules can be viewed at:

SFA Club Liscensing

where A 51

8.1.6 states:
Written Representations Prior to the Licensing Decision looks relevant but others with more legal training might wish to comment.

My understanding is Rangers face no problems with their licencing but how the tax elephant can be discounted, especially with no takeover alternative (back to my theory) is beyond me except the SFA wanting to protect our game by protecting Rangers. Such a less rigorous and disrespectful application of their rules would of course cost Celtic big time and fly in the face of the:

Joint Statement by SFA CEO after the summit.

5. We therefore agree the following:

* To ensure that the existing rules and regulations of Scottish football are rigorously applied and respected

Remember it is only a theory ;0)

Lies, damned lies, and Scottish football journalism

2011-03-29T19:37:00.004+01:00

Taken from an excellent new blog devoted to accurate reporting of Rangers FC's tax case. Bookmark this site: http://rangerstaxcase.wordpress.com

29/03/2011 BY RANGERSTAXCASE

Being privy to many of the facts related to Rangers’ tax ordeal, the last year has been a revelation to me. I find it hard to believe that every journalist in Scotland is naive enough to believe the nonsense being fed to them. In their hurry to publish, they shamelessly rush from fax machine (or whatever PR firms use these days) to the press without editing or critical thought. In short, readers are paying to read PR-fluff written and produced by people with agendas.

Then there are a number of hacks who surely cannot claim, after all of these years, to have simply been hoodwinked by purveyors of succulent lamb? Some Scottish journalists’ track record of doing the bidding of the country’s more media savvy businessmen goes back to a time where a simple loyalty to their favourite football team cannot explain everything. This has the odour of “bought and paid for” reporting. A passionate and diehard Rangers fan could not go along with this fakery. Only the most naive or corrupt of journalists could continue to do the bidding of people whose interests are diametrically opposed to Scottish football as a whole, and most specifically, Rangers FC. Yet Rangers fans are fed this diet of regurgitated lamb and foolishly lap it up like it is a kebab at closing time. It seems that any bearers of bad news, regardless of allegiance, are dismissed as troublemakers (and worse).

That brings us to today’s topic. We will take a quick look some of the myths and lies which our national media have helped weave into the popular debate on the subject of Rangers’ financial and legal woes.

We can see in the link below, as fine of an example of journalistic creativity as you will ever find, and how even Graham Speirs- Scotland’s most erudite sports journalist- can resort to just filling his pages with a collection of random ‘facts’ with no relevance to the actual story:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/scotland/article7110036.ece

Let’s put a few of these myths to rest:

Image Rights: Absolutely nothing in the case against Rangers has anything to do with image rights. The hacks must have just picked up some detritus from stories about English clubs. This is completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.

Overseas Trusts/Companies/Bank Accounts: There is nothing ‘overseas’ about the current case. Some individual players might have some explaining to do in this regard, but the case against Rangers FC has no overseas component to it. Again, the journos must have seen these words in English newspapers and decided that they would look good in their copy too.

“The tax bill is a matter for MIH”: Rangers’ Chariman, Alistair Johnston, started this myth with some artfully worded statements. It is pretty obvious that he was trying to be “economical with the truth”. However, the Laptop Loyal took his inferences and fed them to the masses. Today, a large number of Rangers fans still believe that the tax bill will be paid by the parent company, MIH. Let me state without fear of contradiction, the tax assessments (bills) are addressed to: “The Rangers Football Club plc”. Rangers FC are responsible for these bills. If they cannot pay them, no one else is obligated to contribute: not MIH; not Lloyds Banking Group; and not Sir David Murray (more on this later).

“No one has been accused of doing anything illegal”: Yes they have. Rangers FC have been accused of breaking UK tax law. The First Tier Tribunal process is a civil matter, and there is no current criminal case against anyone. However, that is at the discretion of HMRC and it will remain at the discretion of HMRC whether to bring criminal charges in the future. In cases not involving lawyers or financial professionals, it is unusual to go down the criminal path as the burden of proof is much higher. Depending on how things turn out, and how much of the bill is actually extracted from Rangers, it is mot impossible that individuals could be pursued. However, that would be quite some way down the road- if it ever happens at all.

“Murray / Lloyds will guarantee the tax bill to facilitate the sale of Rangers”: Let me also give my opinion on the notion that someone with underwrite a tax bill which could be up to £60m. It is absurd in the extreme and just laughably stupid. As things stand, no one else has to pay this bill. If Rangers cannot pay it, they will end up filing for administration. The creditors, which would include Lloyds, HMRC, and holders of The Rangers Bond, would carve up the proceeds of a sale of the club. If it does not cover all of the bills, then tough. No one else pays. (I will discuss some potential risks to the personal wealth of Sir David Murray and other directors in a future post).

By what financial alchemy can someone create a logical argument for Lloyds, MIH, or Murray accepting this liability? Even if the numbers being touted for a Rangers sale were true (which I don’t believe for a second), £33m would be divided between bank debt (about £20m just now) and money for Murray (£13m). I am laughing as I type because the idea of anyone paying this price is hilarious! It is not unusual in corporate transactions for sellers to provide guarantees of accounts receivable and tax liabilities. However, these are made when there are no known issues or where the risk represents a tiny fraction of the total deal. In Rangers’ case, the tax bill is almost the entire deal.

We are supposed to believe that Lloyds, who would probably recover the full value of their loans to Rangers through the administration process, would accept this risk and have nothing to gain? We are supposed to swallow the idea that Murray would, even if he received the fabulous sum of £13m, run the risk of having to pay £60m?
Murray might want to give away ’his’ shares just now, but they are not his to give away. 85% of Rangers’ shares are held by MIH. MIH is a vassal company for Murray. Through their convertible preference shares, Lloyds own MIH in everything but name.
So where are the members of the Fourth Estate to bring sanity to this madness? Why has every Scottish media outlet: print; radio; and TV, lined up to give this story credibility?

No story about Rangers’ financial position is credible without a discussion of the tax case. Until the tax case is resolved, the equity in Rangers FC is worth nothing. Without the tax case, Rangers’ current financial position would be quite healthy. All of the problems being blamed on bankers (with foreign sounding names) and “enemies within” really just begin and end with Rangers’ attempts to gain a financial advantage through a tax dodge. Rangers’ fans could put their energies to better use planning for the worst case scenarios. It would do all of Scottish football some good if they ensure that the individuals who brought their club to the brink do not duck the blame for their own incompetence and maladministration.

.

Why the fans who sing songs of hate are committing an offence

2011-03-29T19:11:00.001+01:00

Published on 29 Mar 2011 Herald Scotland

The controversy over the League Cup Final, and in particular the reported behaviour of some sections of the crowd who were in attendance, has been full of sound and fury but with little emerging in the way of legal clarity about what, if any, offences were committed (“Church to send Old Firm film to police”), The Herald, March 26).

A recent experience which I had in a Scottish court may shed some light on the issues involved.

I was called to attend a case as an expert witness in a sheriff court in which the accused were charged under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice ( Scotland) Act 2003 with committing a breach of the peace aggravated by religious prejudice. I can only surmise that I was asked to take part in these proceedings because I had advised civil servants during the time of the McConnell government on anti-sectarian policy and also edited an academic study, Scotland’s Shame ? Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland, published in 2000.

The accused were charged with singing sectarian songs in a public place. They stated they had indeed sung the Fields of Athenry as they were supporters of Glasgow Celtic and that the song was a firm favourite among the Parkhead crowd. However, they denied they had sung any other lyrics, suggested by the Crown, which included such phrases as “up the IRA”, “the black beret” and “Bobby Sands” .

Early in the proceedings the Sheriff ruled that the Fields of Athenry was an Irish folk ballad and in no way could be construed as having sectarian overtones. The court then proceeded to hear submissions on whether references to the IRA, especially those which implied approval of that organisation, could be considered an offence aggravated by religious prejudice under the 2003 legislation.

To understand which followed next it is important to be aware of the specifics of the Act. It states that an offence is aggravated by religious prejudice if : (a) “the offender evinces towards the victim (if any) of the offence malice and ill-will based on the victim’s membership or presumed membership of a religious group, or of a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation; or (b) the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards members of a religious group, or of a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation, based on their membership of that group”. The key issue therefore was: Could vocal approval of the IRA in a public place be considered not simply a potential breach of the peace but one aggravated by religious prejudice? The sheriff listened to the evidence, including my own statement, and the various submissions on this question both by defence lawyers and the Crown. He concluded that doubtless some members of the public might take offence at songs being sung in support of an organisation which the UK Government considered to be a terrorist movement. Nonetheless, he ruled that the IRA was a republican military organisation, was not sectarian in intent and that those who showed support for it, real or rhetorical, were not showing “malice or ill will towards members of a religious group’’. The charge could not therefore be sustained under the 2003 legislation and the accusation of a religiously aggravated breach was dismissed.

To my knowledge little of this case was reported in the press, which is a pity because its results have significant legal implications as to how Scottish law officers and the police respond to fan behaviour at these matches. One conclusion is abundantly clear. Those who sing songs of hate against another religious group are, prima facie, committing an offence under the 2003 Act. I was not present at the League Cup Final nor did I see it on television. But press reports suggest that many thousands of spectators were brazenly and enthusiastically singing such songs in full view of the cameras, the media, a large audience outside Scotland and the police at one of the major occasions in the Scottish sporting calendar.

As a democratic and civilised society we should hang our heads in collective shame, not simply as a result of the vile chants which were heard against the religious beliefs of our fellow citizens but because the forces of law and order did nothing to stop it.

Prof Tom Devine,

Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography,

University of Edinburgh,

Teviot Place, Edinburgh.

"Honest Mistakes" 2009/10

2011-03-23T16:52:00.001Z

A film from youtube documenting last season's vintage "Honest Mistakes"

Graham Spiers on the "excruciating example" of Rangers fans in the Co-op Cup final

2011-03-22T19:36:00.005Z

In the piece I wrote yesterday, primarily about the farcical praise Kenny MacAskill and Strathclyde police chief heaped on everyone for a "marvellous occasion" on Sunday, I alluded to the fact that although Graham Spiers had condemned the bigoted chanting from Rangers fans on Twitter he hadn't actually written an article in his newspaper addressing the issue.

Well today, to his further credit, Spiers did exactly that and once again his words are exactly on the money.

Graham Spiers Commentary
Last updated March 22 2011 12:01AM

Another week, another excruciating example of the problem Rangers have with a large section of their support. Walter Smith’s team, going into Sunday’s Co-operative Insurance Cup final as underdogs, won quite a few admirers for their gritty 2-1 win over Celtic.

Alas, no one who was at Hampden Park as a neutral, and who had any understanding of the type of songs that were being sung, could have found anything remotely appealing in the antics of the Rangers support.

For fully 120 minutes the Ibrox legions belted out stuff about the Pope, Fenians, and some of their other favoured subjects.

Quite a few of us have become used to “the Rangers problem” over the years but Sunday at Hampden was still quite an eye-opener. It was the consistent, incessant nature of the bigoted chanting that was truly shocking.

One of the problems we have in tackling bigotry in Scottish football is the sheer ignorance of the subject that we have to put up with. For instance, Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, clearly didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, to judge from the fatuous statement he released after attending the match at Hampden.

After the prejudiced chants had boomed out, the following was MacAskill’s take on the whole spectacle. “This was the showpiece everyone wanted to see — it was a great advert for Scottish football,” he said. “The players, management and fans contributed to a memorable occasion, and I urge that their positive example inside the ground is replicated outside it over the course of the evening and beyond. Football is a force for good in society.”

Given the nature of what was chanted inside Hampden, this was an utterly ludicrous statement. MacAskill, clearly, is totally unfamiliar with the sort of problems given an airing at Hampden if he thinks that the sort of chanting which the Rangers fans kept up apace represented “fans contributing to a memorable occasion.” This is risible.

I didn’t expect a Rangers statement yesterday on the shocking tone of their supporters’ singing, and nor was one forthcoming. Rangers’ preferred position on their problem is this: let’s just have a general media silence on the subject, and let’s keep any fuss to a minimum. From Rangers’ point of view, the fewer headlines there are about their problem, the less need there is of any requirement to act.

But that is a tough scenario to hope for. The Ibrox club have already been censured by Uefa over bigotry, and more than that, a number of Rangers supporters’ songs have specifically been banned by European football’s governing body. So it is asking a lot for every newspaper to turn a blind eye (or deaf ear) towards songs which have repeatedly been outlawed.

What is more galling for those who want to be rid of this poison is the seeming ignorance — such as was revealed by MacAskill — or inability in government or police circles to be able to fix it.

Hampden on Sunday rang out to bigoted chanting from the Rangers end, yet the police statistics for “sectarian-related crimes” were paltry, never mind MacAskill’s absurd words about how wonderful it all was.

This isn’t government action. On the contrary, this is inaction, and even incompetence. The truth is, we are getting nowhere today with the problem of sectarianism in football. In fact, we are regressing, Edinburgh summits or not, at an alarming rate.

Rangers, in trying to fight their own specific problem, have lost ground. Indeed, if you were at Hampden on Sunday, with bigoted chant after chant ringing out, you would think that the club had gone back ten years in their quest to solve the problem. And for many others, meanwhile, it actually means very little.

OK, so there is sectarian chanting, they say. So what? What does it matter? Just let it go, let’s just concentrate on the football.

Rangers lack the guts to truly take on their own support on the issue, and the same applies for the Scottish FA.

The docking of points really would force the bigots to stop their chanting, and the SFA has the power to do this, but it is too scared to.

Meanwhile, too many other people won’t touch this problem with a bargepole, claiming the accompanying aggro that comes with such debate simply isn’t worth it.

So Scotland just goes on living with its embarrassing bigotry problem. Ignorance, incompetence and cowardice ensure it.

More doublethink exposes Scottish politicians' empty words on sectarianism and racism as a bad joke

2011-03-21T19:38:00.009Z

It seems that the Scottish Media are not alone in their 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' approach to Rangers' appalling sectarian and racist problem.

In Sunday's Co-operative Insurance Cup final, viewers were treated to No Pope of Rome, Big Jock Knew, The (racist) Famine Song, The Billy Boys, No Surrender, What's it like to live in fear (about Neil Lennon of course), Who banged all the boys.

All clearly audible to TV viewers around the globe.

Oh dear.

This level of depraved bile was clearly an embarrassment to Scotland, so what did the Scottish Justice Minister have to say about it? What was his response? What action did he immediately propose to deal with the issue?

"This was the showpiece final everyone wanted to see, and it was a great advert for Scottish football. The players, management and fans contributed to a memorable occasion, and I urge that their positive example inside the ground is replicated outside it over the course of the evening and beyond."

Doublethink - n deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

The SNP Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill's response to naked racism and sectarianism?

Sweep, sweep.

The predictable silence from the Scottish media on the issue is no surprise, after all it's been their approach to the issue for over 100 years, with a few exceptions where they can find a photo of a Celtic fan making a monkey or aeroplane gesture. The "sectarianism summit" hastily organised in response to a wee bit of pushing and shoving between McCoist and Neil Lennon and Rangers players losing the plot, has been exposed as nothing more than empty political opportunism.

MacAskill and his cronies were interested in nothing more than spinning the stunt that was the "summit" as decisive action in the complete lack of same.

The message is clear - Rangers fans can belt out the racist Famine Song, revel in the death threats made to Neil Lennon and spout their customary religious hatred with complete impunity.

Make no mistake, they are fully aware that no Scottish politician has the backbone to get to the bottom of the problem and frankly none seems particularly interested.

The appearance of action and the spin of empty words is all that the Scottish Government has to offer, whatever the party in power.

"The Holocaust is over why don't you go home?"

"The Slave-trade is over why don't you go home?"

It's inconceivable that such abuse of those of Jewish or Black descent would be tolerated in 21st Century Scotland for a split second. Yet it's tolerated of the Irish.

What would the Justice Minister, or any other Scot think of Canadians singing "The Clearances are over why don't you go home"? to Canadians of Scottish descent in Toronto?

Of course such a scenario is highly unlikely as Canada is a modern, confident well-adjusted nation with few of the petty insecurities that give rise to such bilious racism.

But if it did, would it be dismissed in Scotland as banter?

Barely a year ago the SNP managed to get it's knickers in a twist over a German TV advert that played on the stereotypical "thriftiness" of Scots.

Angus Robertson MP snottered "You wouldn’t do it with orthodox Jews, so why do it with Scots?"

Indeed Angus.

So why turn the other way when it's done to the Scots-Irish?

The same Telegraph article demonstrates that Mr MacAskill's sensibilities can be offended by "racism" of a much milder nature than that of the caustic bigotry of the Famine Song - as long as condemning it does not create the unpalatable prospect of having to take any sort of difficult action of course.

In 2002, Kenny MacAskill, who is now Scotland’s justice minister, branded a Ford campaign in Austria as racist. The advert showed a mechanic opening a bonnet, at which point bagpipe music started playing. A voice-over then stated: “Experience the saving potential of the new Ford engine.”

So a German TV advert playing on the stereotype of the thrifty Scot is racism, but Scots mocking the death of up to a million Irish in the Great Hunger is just banter to be ignored?

Doublethink - n deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

By way of some small comfort there are the usual dissenting voices on the periphery of the mainstream.

Graham Spiers couldn't bring himself to actually write an article on the matter for his English-based Times newspaper but did at least comment scathingly via his Twitter account, which puts him in a minority of one among Scottish journalists:

"The incessant bigoted chanting by Rangers fans at Hampden was shocking. Unarguably the most socially-backward fans in British football."

Sorry??

What happened to the "great advert" and "memorable occasion" of an orgy of religious and racist intolerance??

Somebody is off message here.

George Galloway is no stranger to being off-message. His comments on the political realities of UK and US foreign policy have him relegated to the periphery of the news media, to be wheeled out on Question Time to represent the "radical" view of the latest hypocritical bombing campaign.

George Galloway doesn't mess about when it comes to the truth - as witnessed by his comments on the whole sorry fiasco as reported on Phil MacGiolla Bhain's website.

"I suppose a man like Kenny MacAskill, who has been nicked by police at a football match for allegedly being drunk and disorderly, finds nothing untoward about fans singing racist and sectarian songs at the game. For most of us it's a continuing and shaming embarrassment to the country. The Famine Song, just one of the anthems of hate that assaulted us from our TV, has been ruled as racist by an eminent judge. The police, who praised the fans and the comparatively low number of arrests, clearly stood back and allowed the sectarian and racist abuse. Is that now police policy? To ignore law? And does Mr MacAskill endorse this or, indeed, did he give guidance to the Strathclyde police in their policy of non-interference?"

Also commenting on MacGiolla Bhain's site, Danny Boyle of the Harps Community Project said: "it has not gone un-noticed in the Irish community that, once more, anti-Irish racism has been allowed to be flaunted inside a Scottish soccer stadium with impunity. The Famine Song is racist and we are sick of hearing it. No other ethnic group in Scotland is subject to this level of racist abuse"

The reality though, is that Spiers and Galloway are pissing against the wind in terms of highlighting the true nature of the problem.

The Scottish Government have made their position on it clear - Nothing to See here, move along quietly.

Poor European Records - The Scottish Media's Selective Use of Statistics 2

2011-03-19T11:44:00.015Z

It's not necessary to point out to the average Scottish football fan that the Scottish press and media absolutely LOVE to go on about Celtic's poor away record in Europe.

Fair enough, it is indeed a poor record over the past five or so years.

Of course there is the old saying about lies, damned lies and statistics, and with selective use of statistics you can make anything look better or worse according to your agenda.

As is the case with Celtic's away record in Europe and, funnily enough, Rangers' home record in Europe.

In the case of Celtic's away record, this is highlighted at every opportunity by the media. Now, as I said, reference to the away record is fair comment when Celtic are playing away from home in Europe, as it's a fact pertinent to the game Celtic are about to play. However this record is mentioned prior to just about every single game Celtic play in Europe i.e. including home games.

Again, you could argue this is fair enough, but that argument would hinge on the same standards being applied to all other teams.

There is also the distinct impression that Keith Jackson, Raman, Hugh Keevins, Jim Traynor et al, are having to hide their raging erections from view when the subject of Celtic's failings abroad is broached.

When Celtic faced their final CL group phase tie of season 2008/09 at home to Villareal the airwaves were bristling with anticipation as Keevins and Traynor excitedly informed listeners that anything less than a win for Celtic would result in the Celts taking on the mantle of having the worst record of a British team in the Champions League in a single season.

Strangely enough, the radio hundits managed to avoid mentioning the name of the current holders of the record at that time.

I can't work out why. Could you?

Clue: That team went on to surpass that record, lowering the bar the very next season (2009/10). It should take you a few nanoseconds to work out.

Of course after Celtic won the game all talk of such a record disappeared faster than a Scottish journalist up a drainpipe.

Maybe a non-O*d F**m fan prole could explain the apparent disparity to me.

Back to Celtic's away record and how bad/good something can be made to look with the selective use of stats.

I trace Celtic's poor away record to the debacle under Gordon Strachan in Bratislava. There were some performances under GS that were decent but resulted in defeat e.g. 0-1 in Barcelona (0-2 was portrayed as some sort of tactical genius in the case of Wattienacio the very same season), 0-0 at AC Milan (0-1 after extra time)and 2-3 at Man U.

But there were also dire performances against Copenhagen, Aalborg and Benfica, so the overall picture was not good.

However the Scottish media like to home in on the Champions League group phase record, which allows them to lump Martin O'Neill's time into the shitey away performance cauldron and present this as an 10 year record of embarrassment.

Of course MON had his lowlights as well - Anderlecht, Rosenborg, Porto (some would say not too shabby a team mind you).

What this selective criteria allows the media to do is ignore:

1-1 draw Bordeaux 2000 UEFA
3-1 win away to Ajax 2001 CL qualifier
2-0 win away to Blackburn 2002 UEFA
1-0 win away to Boavista 2003 UEFA
4-0 win away to MTK Hungaria 2004 CL qualifier
1-1 draw with Barcelona 2004 CL
0-0 draw with Barcelona in 2004 UEFA

Can you imagine the orgasmic reaction of the Scottish media if Rangers managed a draw in the Nou Camp, far less TWO, and knocking them out the UEFA Cup!

I've spoke with Scottish football fans who don't remember that Celtic knocked Barcelona out of the UEFA Cup in 2004, but who can tell you that Dundee United did the same thing in 1987.

These games are approaching the dim and distant past but dispel the notion that Celtic's away record was a dismal dead loss under O'Neill.

There are a few other mitigating factors in relation to MON's time also -

1-2 Bayern Munich 2003 Celtic 1 up late in the game before Hedman throws the winner into the net

2-3 Lyon 2003 Hedman throws another one into the net before a soft penalty given against Balde in last minute wins the game for Lyon

1-3 AC Milan 2004 Celtic level going into the last minute before losing two goals.

Celtic lost these games but held their own against top European sides.

Overall, Celtic still have a poor record away from home in Europe over the past 5/6 years and its an area that really needs serious improvement.

But you'd think that they were the only Glasgow team who's European record leaves a lot to be desired if you listen only to the Scottish media.

Funnily enough this myth is so strong that a cream bun even came onto this blog claiming that Celtic have the worst record of any team in the CL:

Anonymous said...
Er Celtic have the worst record in CL I think you'll find
19 March 2011 09:43

Tony Bananas said...
Er.. well you think wrong.

*Celtic have qualified from the group phase of the CL TWICE

*Rangers have qualified from the group phase of the CL ONCE

*Celtic have won three games in the CL group phase THREE times

*Rangers have NEVER won three games in the CL group phase (after more attempts)

*Celtic have NEVER gone through a CL group phase without winning a game

*Rangers have gone through a CL group phase without winning a game TWICE (1995/96, 2009/10)

*Rangers hold the record for the WORST PERFORMANCE of a British side in the CL (2 points 2009/10)

*Rangers also hold the record for the SECOND AND THIRD worst performances by a British side in Europe (3 points - 1995/96, 1996/97)

But you think Celtic's is the worst record?

Just shows the media have done their job well.

They've also done their job well to avoid mentioning Rangers' home record in Europe under Sir Walter the Myth, in contrast to mentioning Celtic's bad away record at every turn:

The Myth’s final 15 European home matches:

FORTRESS IBROX

1. PSV (H) 0-1
2. Sporting CP Lisbon (H) 1-1
3. Man Utd (H) 0-1
4. Valencia (H) 1-1
5. Bursaspor (H) 1-0

2009-10:
6. VfB Stuttgart (H) 0-2
7. Unirea Urziceni (H) 1-4
8. Sevilla (H) 1-4

2008-09:
9. FBK Kaunas (H) 0-0

2007-08:
10. Fiorentina (H) 0-0
11. Sporting CP Lisbon (H) 0-0
12. Werder Bremen (H) 2-0
13. Panathinaikos (H) 0-0
14. Lyon (H) 0-3
15. FC Barcelona (H) 0-0

Played: 15
Won: 2
Lost: 6
Drawn: 7

Goals for: 7
Goals against: 17

Rangers ONE win in last TWENTY ONE European ties in all competitions.

Of Sir Myth’s final 11 European ties at Ibrox, number of times Rangers scored more than one goal: 0 (ZERO)

Anti-football, at its best. The rest of Europe surely won’t miss it.

But in contrast to Celtic's away record you will not see any mention of the above stats in any Scottish newspaper or radio programme.

Must be O** F*** bias.

.

.

Double-think and an Alternative Universe where the Scottish Media apply the same standard to all

2011-03-16T22:32:00.008Z

Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself using the word “doublethink” a great deal – more so than at any point over the ten years I’ve been writing about Celtic in the media – and believe me, that’s a lot of times.

I am fully aware that using Orwellian terminology immediately marks you out as some sort of crackpot loon among so-called sober and informed onlookers. Terms such as “conspiracy” and “Establishment” have lost their true meaning in the eyes of a proletariat now conditioned to consume words, rather than think about them. Our news is packaged with carefully chosen emotive terms accompanied by headlines which frame the meaning of the story, often totally contradicting the content therein, and/or the actual statements of the people concerned; but as passive consumers of this propaganda masquerading as news, sadly the average reader accepts the spoon-fed doublethink as truth.

A typical example? Unions make “demands”, whereas management make “offers”. In reality, all that’s happening is that two parties are negotiating in their best interests. However when humble workers start doing this, the greatest champions of free-market laissez-faire start howling about “unreasonable” Unions “hijacking” negotiations. Market forces of supply and demand are fabulous when it comes to the profit part, but not apparently, when it comes to labour supply. Back in December, BBC News 24 presenter Ben Brown accused a young man with cerebal palsy of rolling towards police in his wheelchair “in a threatening manner”. Does this sound like agenda-free reporting to you? If you think the BBC is above tabloid media culture, think again.

Consequently, anyone espousing a “conspiracy theory” is immediately dismissed as delusional before a word is even read or heard. The credentials of those who decide what is “conspiracy theory” and what is “rational statement” are never examined, despite being in a position to completely skew any given story in the mind of the reader simply by the use of a few emotive adjectives. In fact, to go down the murky path of questioning the motives and agendas of a news publication is usually enough to have you branded a “conspiracy theorist” yourself in any case. This loop forms a perfect circle of information management and mind control, the triumph of a beautifully simple propaganda framework.

But it’s not hard to see through the propaganda with an open mind and a modicum of critique.

Dictionary definition of ‘doublethink’ –

— n deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

If the generic ‘news’ media is guilty of a constant stream of selective information designed to mould us as passive, unthinking consumers, the Scottish Football Media is damned as an unsurpassed bastion of connected networks, proliferating a constant stream of biased, vindictive and utterly hypocritical propaganda, the purpose of which is nothing other than to promote “sectional interests” rather than those across the Scottish footballing spectrum. Of course, for “sectional interests” – as former Scottish First Minister Henry McLeish called it in his recent report on the state of Scottish football – read “Establishment club interests”.

Better get old Henry a bed in the Paranoid Ward along with the rest of us quick.

Dictionary definition of ‘Establishment’ –

— n the existing power structure in society; the dominant groups in society and their customs or institutions; institutional authority

In this context anyone referring to a club that refers to itself as “the People”, Scotland’s Premier Sporting Institution second only to the Church of Scotland, has links to pervasive and secretive institutions and customs, and whose ex-players form a veritable Mafia completely dominating football coverage within the Scottish media; must be completely paranoid.

But to return to doublethink, anyone who didn’t witness the Celtic-Rangers Scottish Cup tie of 2nd March with their own eyes and who gleaned their entire understanding of the events and implications of that night from subsequent reporting in the Scottish media could be forgiven for believing that Rangers FC were the injured and innocent party in the whole unsavoury episode.

Now, even for someone like me who is under no illusion that the Scottish media is nothing other than four-square in the corner of the Establishment club, that is an astonishing statement.

No red-menace-politbureau-esque-Ministry-of-Truth type organisation could compare to a news media who, in a supposedly enlightened and civilised 21st century society, can – fairly easily – convince the majority of the Scottish population that Neil Lennon was essentially to blame for the litany of disgraceful cheating, tantrums and histrionics that spewed forth from Rangers players and management that evening. Outwith the Celtic support, there is hardly a Scottish football fan I’ve met who believes anything other than, at the very least, Celtic were equally to blame for the loss of discipline witnessed that evening.

Enter the knee-jerk response of the prole non-O** F*** supporter – “They’re just as bad as each other”

3 Rangers players sent off, none from Celtic – “They’re just as bad as each other”

7 Rangers players booked, 3 from Celtic – “They’re just as bad as each other”

Rangers headcase striker with more baggage than terminal five at Heathrow, barges the Celtic physio, confronts the Celtic technical area and refuses to leave the field of play after being sent off – “They’re just as bad as each other”

Rangers players repeatedly manhandle the referee, Celtic players remain calm and don’t get involved – “They’re just as bad as each other”

Rangers assistant manager loses the plot, and has to be restrained from entering the Celtic dugout and physically confronting the Celtic manager. There is a verbal confrontation between the two at the end of the game – “They’re just as bad…em…sorry…It’s all Neil Lennon’s fault”

Funnily enough, the one instance where a Celtic employee lost discipline for a matter of seconds by reacting to the provocation of his Rangers counterpart, is the exception where suddenly they’re not just as bad as each other.

No, this isn’t North Korea, the former Soviet Union or the press releases of Comical Ali, this is propaganda Scotland-style 2011.

And there’s another field where the “They’re just as bad as each other” mantra isn’t held by the Scottish football proles – paranoia.

According to our Scottish version of Pravda – the Laptop Loyal – this season Neil Lennon has embarked on a one-man paranoid crusade against Scottish referees, unjustifiably demeaning their character on the basis of paltry evidence such as blatantly offside goals being awarded against his team and likewise finding himself at the wrong end of blatantly incorrect penalty decisions.

This unprecedented fatwa consisted of such outbursts as “it was a strange decision, you very rarely see the linesman over-rule a penalty decision like that” and the even more outrageous “if the referee doesn’t see it, I don’t know how he can give it”.

These statements were held up by the Scottish media as unfounded paranoid ranting, whilst at the same time, very reluctantly it has to be said, admitting that all of these decisions did indeed go against Celtic since October 2010 (this is not an exhaustive list):

 No penalty despite blatant handball by Dundee United defender
 Penalty to Rangers for Broadfoot’s dive when Collum had his back to play
 No penalty for a blatant handball against Hearts
 Hamilton goal allowed to stand despite an active attacker caught yards offside
 Penalty to Celtic not given after blatant trip on McGinn who is then booked
 James Forrest straight red card after an unremarkable sliding challenge that barely made
contact
 Samaras flagged offside against Rangers despite being several yards onside in Ibrox cup tie

-n doublethink – deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

The Hamilton Accies game provided a classic example of prole doublethink. The proles could not help themselves from unthinkingly presenting the fact that Celtic scored from a penalty and Hamilton had a player sent off as evidence that refereeing mistakes go equally for and against all clubs, including Celtic. This was generally accepted as a valid argument and passed into conventional wisdom among the Scottish media and fans.

Let’s just consider that for a second.

Three game-changing refereeing MISTAKES cancelled out by two CORRECT decisions?

-n doublethink – deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

This Pavlovian knee-jerk response is the product of a mind so embedded in a dogmatic “Celtic are paranoid” mindset that it immediately rationalises the evidence to meet the pre-conceived belief, rather than use the evidence to come to a substantiated conclusion. This mentality is now so embedded among the proles and media alike that it is merely a subconscious mechanism that apes the reaction of your average Rangers fan, rather than a conspiratorial effort to twist things, although clearly a lot of that goes on in the media.

So for example, when Rangers qualified for the 2nd phase of the Champions League in 2005 with a meagre one win from six games, the media were practically calling for flags to be flown from the Scottish parliament. Although this reaction was typically orgasmic and over-the-top, one has to admit that for a Scottish club this was an achievement worthy of some praise, even if achieved in a rather dull and fortuitous manner, dependent to a large degree on Artmedia failing to beat Porto at home in their last group game.

In contrast, when Celtic qualified for the 2nd phase for the second season in succession back in 2007, the media chose to emphasise very strongly that Celtic would not have progressed if Shakhtar had won their final group game, going as far as to state that this was the only reason Celtic qualified – as if somehow, all five previous group games and Celtic’s three victories, including one over the reigning European Champions, somehow didn’t happen. Keith Jackson’s Daily Record match report of Celtic’s 0-1 defeat in our last game gave every impression of someone utterly devastated at Celtic’s achievement. This is no exaggeration.

To return to Neil Lennon’s paranoia and general poor character, any reasonable person returning from Outer Mongolia, presented with the current characterisation of the Celtic manager in our media would reasonably assume that he must be alone in his bitter condemnation of referees.

Let’s just consider that for a few seconds.

Peter Houston

“Dougie was very inconsistent today. He is quite quick to give penalties against us, we've had it in the past and no doubt we will have it in the future."

"Dougie couldn't get his finger to the spot quickly enough. It's not the first he has given against us, I thought his performance was below average today. I've got to be honest. then Dougie McDonald conspires to try to give a penalty against us. Then it transpires that it is not a penalty. What has happened there? I don't know what goes through Dougie McDonald's mind, permanently.”

"It was embarrassing, Celtic thought they had won the league here today. I'm going to start running 30 yards down the track when we score a goal. Celtic seem to get away with it. But any time I go out my dugout I get the fourth official pulling me back but watch me running down the track the next time we score - I will probably get sent to the stand."
17 Oct 2010

Jim Jeffries

"I saw the referee at half time and said 'you are due me an apology' and I got spoken to like I was a little boy, they ask for respect, but they don't seem to give you any respect back. "What is frustrating is that you are a yard away from the man that's clearly offside looking along the line and the referee's standing the other side of you and does not put the flag up. I have reported it to the SPL delegate, John Connolly, and will go through proper procedures."

"I would probably have been sent off in the second half as well because Templeton was held back by the defender and that should have been a penalty," said the manager. At 2-0 you say the next goal is important and we had a golden opportunity when David was held back, but we didn't get it. My assistant, Billy Brown, said that the fourth official said that the linesman said he thought it was a penalty. I don't know how they work as a team. Maybe the batteries didn't work or the microphones are too low."

"I think earlier on he had given a couple of decisions that were offside as well, but if they keep doing it and doing it, they get fed up with the fans giving them stick and, if you are not strong enough, they will give it,"
11 Sep 2010

Derek McInnes 'bored' with referee talk as he focuses on cup glory
27 October 2010

"There wasn't a lot in the game. At 1-0 we had hit the bar in both halves and should have had a penalty. Andy's shirt was pulled, Sissoko had a full hand on it and I'm disappointed the ref hasn't seen it. "If we'd got the goal at that point we'd have been looking to go and try to win. You can normally tell by the player's reaction and Jackson was incandescent. And having seen it again it's a penalty. I know refs aren't going to get everything right but it was a key moment and a sore one for us."
Nov 7 2010

McInnes felt hard done by and said: "My lads are adamant Wotherspoon handled the ball before he scored and actually parried it down to himself. The referee has apologised to me and thinks he may have called it wrong. It feels like a defeat as we dominated the game."
Mar 6 2011

"I'm really aggrieved by the decision, it was the defining moment of the game. "You watch the Hearts players, the only one claiming for it is the boy Templeton," he added. "We go to all these referee's meetings and talk about unnatural positions. I don't know where your hands are supposed to be when your standing. It was by his side and Ian Black has run across him, so Jamie Adams hasn't even seen the ball. At the very end he's tried to jump and his hand is just slightly above his waist but no more than that. It changed the game, especially with it coming so late."
14 November 2010

"For me, the penalty's very, very soft, I thought we won he ball. I don't think the referee was convinced that he had made the right decision either.” (McInnes speaking as a pundit on Sportscene highlights show on the Sunday evening stated that the Brechin player had “conned” the referee)
12 March 2011

Mixu Paatelainen

"If it happens, it's disappointing. But there has been too much talk of referees and I don't think that's healthy."
21 Nov 2010

Mixu following his own advice...

"I feel the boys were very hard done by today with the decisions that went against us. The first one was a foul on Pascali and their penalty should never have been given. But our complaints don't count, the ref made the decisions and we have to move on from it."
13 Feb 2011

"I realise how difficult a job they have, but we get players sent off for lesser offences than our opponents every week. It's unbelievable. I'm so disappointed - our player getting sent off and nothing happening to them.”
6 Mar 2011

“We are grateful to get one penalty here (Ibrox), it’s a difficult place to get penalties so maybe two would have been too much. I thought they were good, strong cases but the referee thought not.”
13 Mar 2011

That’s quite a volume of criticism from just a small sample of SPL managers, not including the main offender – Walter , but more of him later.

So why no furious condemnations of these guys? The answer is simple – there is no underlying pattern to the small number of refereeing mistakes afflicting them and it would be absurd to suggest there was one. It’s self-evident there is no agenda against Kilmarnock, therefore it is not necessary to attack and discredit their manager to disguise it. The same cannot be said for Celtic though, so the media must attack the club with gusto, creating a smokescreen of hype to disguise the face that every statement made by Neil Lennon regarding a refereeing mistake since he was appointed manager has been entirely justified and based on fact. The reason the media have to attack our manager and the club in general for our “paranoia”, is that statistics suggest a pattern to the misfortunes befalling us at the hands of referees. Our “paranoia” is uncomfortably close to the truth, therefore the facts have to be avoided and hype created to distort them – in essence a smear campaign is called for.

Now if we are talking paranoia – how about a club who’s “sectional interests” are pandered to at every turn - who’s misdemeanors are consistently ignored, escaping the kind of censure routinely dispensed to other clubs, and who are statistically the beneficiaries of a farcically high percentage of honest mistakes from referees – complaining to the media about the injustices they’ve had to endure? Not only that, but these crocodile tears come only a few days after their players and management team disgraced themselves and lost all semblance of discipline in a match against their biggest rivals?

Surely the derisory laughter from the media must be deafening?

Absolutely not. Remember, we live in the world of Scottish media doublethink.

No, what actually happened was the Daily Record fully endorsed the paranoia and pathetic whattaboutery of the Establishment club by printing it without challenge under a heading of “Celtic’s war with the SFA has led to referees treating us unfairly”.

As a matter of fact nowhere in Bain’s statement was the word “unfair” used – that word was placed in the headline by the newspaper itself, one can only assume to strengthen and support the sentiments expressed therein. What was “unfair” about any of the refereeing decision is not explained, ostensibly because there was nothing unfair about any of them. Sir Walter laughably claimed that Madjid Bougherra shouldn’t have been sent off for two career-threatening violent fouls in a post-match interview which was then quoted widely in the media without challenge or contradiction.

The BBC were no better, lending their support to the Rangers cause by running with a headline of “verbal abuse led to tension”, the clear implication being that everything was actually Celtic’s fault.

I’m sure you can imagine the media reaction to Neil Lennon claiming Scott Brown shouldn’t have been sent off under the same circumstances and Peter Lawwell coming out and blaming it all on “unfair” referees and some bad words that the nasty Rangers boys said nearly three weeks prior.

Derision hardly covers it.

I’m sure deep down even the proles would come to the same conclusion as us “paranoid” Celts if they engaged in this simple mental exercise, although would never admit to it.

So to summarise:

Neil Lennon’s accurate statements regarding Dougie Dougie, handball at Hearts, offside goal at Hamilton Accies etc are paranoia and disgraceful slurs on referees.

Bain/Smith’s deranged whattaboutery and unjustified statements regarding referees are not challenged in the media and so pass as fair comment.

- n doublethink – deliberate, perverse, or unconscious acceptance or promulgation of conflicting facts, principles, etc

But imagine for a moment we did not live in a world of Scottish football doublethink.

Suppose the Scottish media applied the same standards to Rangers as those they apply to Celtic in their reporting.

In that alternative universe, rather than varying between mute acquiescence and outright cheerleading for every hypocritical rant from the Establishment Club, we would see newspaper articles along the following lines:

RANGERS BOSS SMITH IN NEW BLAST AS GERS GO TO WAR WITH REFS
By Tim Jaynor 13 Mar 2011

WALTER SMITH last night refused to be silenced and launched an attack on referee Alan Muir after Rangers scraped to a 2-1 win over Kilmarnock at Ibrox.

The Gers boss was raging after his side were not awarded a penalty when Nikica Jelavic went down spectacularly in the Kilmarnock penalty area after a challenge by Sissoko.

In an astonishing outburst Smith blasted: “Kilmarnock managed to get themselves a penalty. It got them back in the game. If that was a penalty and Nikica Jelavic's at the other end of the pitch wasn't a penalty then I have wasted my time in football for a long while”. He also took a swipe at Kilmarnock and again blamed the referee for not clamping down on what he claimed were time-wasting tactics "I don't mind any opposition wasting time but for their keeper to go through 90 minutes wasting that amount of time and the referee hasn't spoken to him once is absolutely amazing”.

Smith’s latest outburst could put him in collision course with the SFA, coming less than two weeks after he savaged Callum Murray for red carding Madjid Bougherra in an ill-tempered clash at Celtic Park where his team lost their discipline as well as the match. Smith accused Murray of “over-reacting” when sending off the Algerian hard-man for two bookable offences, the first of which on Gary Hooper could arguably have merited red on it’s own.

The Rangers manager has a track record of severely criticising referees* and had to serve a four match suspension in season 2009/10 for entering the field of play to berate Connor Sammon and ref Steve Conroy in a 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. Smith was handed a four match ban after having been sent to the stand earlier that year for an amazing touchline bust-up with Mixu Paatelainen at Ibrox where the Gers manager physically manhandled the fourth official.

This is the latest episode in Rangers ongoing war with officialdom with Chief Executive Martin Bain weighing in to support his managerial team by launching a salvo accusing referees of bias against his side in the aftermatch of the Celtic defeat and appearing to blame Callum Murray and Celtic for his own players losing the plot.

Bain raged: “There has been extensive criticism of referees and the SFA this season and we are now questioning the impact of that criticism. Refereeing Old Firm matches is an extremely difficult task but the number of bookings on Wednesday compared with recent games indicates the match was not controlled in the same way. We should point out that in recent matches between the two teams the number of bookings and sendings off has been unremarkable."

Bain also astonishingly attempted to justify the violent reaction of his players on “verbal abuse” from a game fully three weeks before “There was indeed increased tension at the match, mainly as a result of incidents at previous matches where two of our players were the subject of extreme verbal abuse in the tunnel and around the dugout area at Ibrox”. This is the latest in a long line of complaints from the Ibrox club with Bain’s “strongly-worded” letters on issues ranging from fixture scheduling to disciplinary procedures becoming something of a weekly event.

The Rangers manager and Chief Executive would be better advised focusing on ther clubs on and off the park failings rather than attempting to sniff conspiracy in the spring air. Certainly neither has done anyone in Scottish football any favours by making these ill-advised comments less than a week before Celtic and Rangers run out at Hampden Park for the Co-operative Insurance Cup Final. Smith’s comments are likely to inflame passions in the stands and have put referee Craig Thomson in an impossible position ahead of this powder-keg fixture.

Certainly it would be trite, but valid, to suggest that the Rangers manager take a look across the city to the home of his great rivals to learn how to conduct himself properly.

See how easy it is to frame a story by completely distorting facts and statements to suit your agenda? To be fair though, there isn’t much distorted about the example above.

Simple use of the word “raging” to refer to Neil Lennon, as opposed to use of the word “frustrated” to refer to Walter Smith; use of the word “blasted” to describe Neil Lennon’s comments, and use of the word “said” to describe Mr Nosurname’s statements; this is all it takes to radically change the preception of either man, and who knows, could be the difference between the personification of dignity and a bullet in the post.

I began on an Orwellian theme so I will end with another quote from the great man:

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say, this or that never happened, that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth.

’Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.”

All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*References (Walter Smith quotations)

“Kilmarnock managed to get themselves a penalty. It got them back in the game. If that was penalty and Nikica Jelavic's at the other end of the pitch wasn't a penalty then I have wasted my time in football for a long while.” (13/03/2011)

"I don't mind any opposition wasting time but for their keeper to go through 90 minutes wasting that amount of time and the referee hasn't spoken to him once is absolutely amazing” (13/03/2011)

"Firstly, the first booking Steven Whittaker got he was fouled before any challenge, and didn't warrant one" (02/03/2011)

"Madjid Bougherra, he quite clearly wins the ball and because he slides the Celtic player goes over the top and I felt that was a complete over-reaction.” (02/03/2011)

"The ref had two decisions to make. One - was it a penalty? And clearly it was. But the second part of the decision is he then has to send the player off. That makes it awkward for the ref. Tonight he opted out of making what was a very clear-cut decision. At Champions League level you would want a better decision from such a clear-cut circumstance. You'd expect better at this level. They have to make strong decisions. That is why they are the best referees. He was perfectly positioned. They have to make strong decisions. When they are chosen as the best referees you say at times anyone can make an error. But he was up with play, he did see it - and he has opted out of making the decision. You have to be disappointed with that." (29/09/2010)

“McGregor’s was an innocuous foul. In fact it wasn’t even a foul, but that is how they see it and we can’t do anything about it. Last season, they (the SFA) quickly organised a disciplinary hearing for Kenny Miller’s appeal, so that he would miss the Celtic game.” (29/08/2010)

Walter Smith last night promised an official complaint to the SPL after insisting Rangers have been unfairly disadvantaged by fixture anomalies since the controversial league split was introduced 10 years ago. Vowing to query the imbalance, Smith said: He said: “We've not had an answer yet, no. I would hope we would get one. There's a hell of an imbalance when you see it. The fact that we have to go to Tannadice three times and we are having to do that nearly every time.”

“The whole thing about the split is impossible to do. When the human element comes in, there has to be a question as to why Rangers have to do it so many times and Celtic haven't. Other clubs are having to do it so many times and Celtic haven't and they are the ones who were doing the complaining. The thing that annoyed me about the three games away from home this year is, the season we had the UEFA Cup final, we were told that nobody would be asked to play three games at home or away. Now they have given us three when it suits them. I can't understand that point of view. Somebody, somewhere, is actually making the conscious decision to do that to us”(18/04/2010)

“I felt Kevin Thomson's one wasn't really a bad tackle; he got the ball, he's played it away… the first one I would say was quite a soft one" (21/03/2010)

”Everyone wants people to get ordered off, everybody wants penalties against us, everybody wants everything against us. We seem to be reaching a ridiculous stage where refereeing decisions actually become far more important than the game itself." (06/03/2010)

“It was deemed violent conduct but, having had a quick look at television replays, there does not appear to be too much in it. Both players were on the ground and Kenny seems to have been trying to free himself and caught big Dods on the shoulder with his calf.Will the SFA be closed? That wouldn’t be too clever. I’m working this week.” (31/12/2009)

"I didn't think Pedro Mendes' first booking was a booking. I felt it was a rather innocuous challenge in the first place. When you do get a yellow card then you're on a bit of thin ice, you've got to watch what you're doing and I wasn't sure about the second one either. I didn't think they were bad fouls.” (21/09/2009)

"No it wasn’t a sending off. It was an opportunity for the referee to send him off [Kevin Thomson]. There wasn't any great contact made. If there had been, the player wouldn't have been able to continue like he did for the rest of the game." (23/08/2009)

“But whatever happens it was an incredible sending off. I have seen both red cards and first of all I have to say I was disappointed with my own player's reaction. But the second sending off is incredible. It meant we lost a player for the majority of the game for a circumstance that was not the case." (17/05/2009)

“Mr Murphy was quick to allow a Scott McDonald goal at Celtic Park and was quick to disallow that goal tonight” (13/11/2008) [how can you be quick to allow a goal???]

“It's an incredible decision for a linesman who is in line with the play. We got a bad one at Tannadice earlier this season, which has been forgotten about, maybe because we don't make that much of a fuss about it - same situation here [Pittodrie]” (22/09/2008)

“But we bring out the best in the Aberdeen support and sometimes the referees get carried away with that aspect, or should I say the linesman. It wasn't a dirty game but then we had the situation with Lee getting sent off. It's not very often you see a linesman running 70 yards to get a player sent off. They won't run for a ball and that is the one circumstance which is a little disappointing….…I haven't seen it on TV and I was standing next to the linesman, so he must be sharper than me and the referee won't speak to me so I don't know the reason why he was sent off. You get a situation where the two lots of players are together and that always happens here. That's not unusual. What is unusual is the linesman running 60-70 yards. If he wants to be a referee, he should be and not a linesman. If the referee, one is in a good position, deems it as okay, doesn't see anything and wants to play on, then ... I'll be interested to see it.” (23/12/2007)

Scotland's Shame - Media campaign against Neil Lennon stretches back 6 years and the rest

2011-03-09T21:45:00.008Z

This piece could have been written yesterday and would still be completely on the money. The truth is, despite their hollow doth-protest-too-much rhetoric, far from occupying some sort of moral high ground and doing everything in their power to address the problem, the Scottish Media i.e. The Daily Record, The Scottish Sun, Radio Clyde, Radio Scotland et al, stand shoulder to shoulder with the denizens of the RST and the Follow Follow forum in their bloodthirsty pursuit of Neil Lennon. The Scottish media may employ a bit of spin by way of a thin veil for their ugly bigot apologist faces, but essentially they are echoing and endorsing the sentiments of the foaming mouthed anti-Neil Lennon mob. How else can we interpret BBC Radio Scotland handing over air-time to some yahoo from the RST to make personal attacks on Neil Lennon unchallenged, and then for this to become a NATIONAL UK news item on the BBC and other "news" outlets? Of course the latest death threats and fake bomb packages received no such exposure.

Where We are Neil Lennon, the Scottish Media are Follow Follow.

The Times
September 22, 2005

Imagine there's no fairness: for Neil Lennon, it's easy if you try
By Phil Gordon

LOOK UP next year’s edition and you may well see a mugshot of Neil Lennon next to “Contempt”. Or perhaps Lennon will simply be underneath “Kangaroo court”. That is what the Celtic captain has been exposed to over the past few weeks, following his controversial confrontation with Stuart Dougal, the referee, after the the Old Firm match at Ibrox on August 20.

On Tuesday, both men had their day in court — or Scottish football’s version of it. The SFA disciplinary committee at Hampden Park reviewed the incident in which Lennon was shown a straight red card as he left the pitch after the 3-1 defeat by Rangers. It handed out a three-match suspension. That has not been enough for a media lynch mob that had been talking, wildly, in terms of an 11-game ban, or perhaps a cell on Devil’s Island next to Dustin Hoffman.

For anyone who studies these things, it fitted perfectly. It was a punishment to fit the crime. “Misconduct of a significantly serious nature” was the SFA’s verdict. That is swearing at the referee, to you and me. The only problem has been that many newspapers have either never looked again at the incident on television, or simply chosen to ignore the nagging feeling that it was not as bad as it had been hyped up to be, because it got in the way of a good — or in this case, bad — story and steamy headlines.

The most alarming thing to emerge from the Lennon- Dougal affair was the nature of the coverage. If this had been in any other area of the newspapers, other than the sports pages, a lot of it would have been thrown out by the lawyers in case it got the paper into deep trouble.

Perhaps I am just being old-fashioned, or it is the product of too many days spent watching real-life court cases, but the one thing drummed into me by the law professor on the journalism course at City University was beware of contempt of court. In news, business and especially court reporting, you have to get the facts 100 per cent accurate — 98 per cent is not good enough — or else you and your newspaper could find yourself in front of a judge.

Football reporting? Oh, just use your artistic licence. The most commonly used descriptive mistake about Lennon’s confrontation was that he “manhandled” the referee and linesman. Now, according to the Oxford dictionary, “manhandle” is to “move a (heavy) object with great effort or to handle roughly by dragging or pushing”. Anyone who looked at the incident again could see that such a description did not fit what happened at Ibrox. Lennon, in football parlance, may have “lost the plot” but in strict legal terms he and Dougal came shoulder-to-shoulder and there is slight contact with the linesman, James Bee.

The offence was entirely verbal. Dougal’s match report confirms this. The red card was issued because the Celtic captain called him “a f****** disgrace” and “a f****** joke”.

It is misconduct, pure and simple. It was not as serious as the barging of linesman, Andy David, last season by Saulius Mikoliunas at Tynecastle. The Heart of Midlothian player did not, as has been commonly reported since Lennon’s incident, suffer an eight-game ban: he received three matches as an instant punishment for his two red cards and his five-match penalty for misconduct was brought down to three on appeal. Not by “the SFA cowards”, as some newspapers have branded the Lennon jury, but by Lord MacLean, an esteemed Law Lord.

Lennon’s three match suspension is a reflection of his disciplinary record since coming to the Premierleague five years ago. Have a guess how many red cards this menace to society has to his name? One. That’s right, his Ibrox crime was his first. Set against men in his line of work, ball-winning midfield players, Lennon would not even get first use of the soap in Alcatraz: Patrick Vieira registered eight at Arsenal, Roy Keane seven at Manchester United.

Anyway, that’s the facts out of the way. Enough of that boring stuff. How come the lynch mob managed to screw it up and watch Lennon get off almost Scot-free? Beats me. They certainly tried hard enough.

In the intervening time since Lennon lost his temper that day at Ibrox and Tuesday’s hearing, this was a man who, if he read the papers — which he does not — would have noted a string of articles that bordered on the litigious. A “backstreet thug” was one gem. It moved out of the realms of reporting and comment on a match, and its aftermath, into open warfare on one man.

Neil Lennon has been demonised by the press. They don’t like him. That is fair enough if it is an individual point of view, but when it is carried into print simply to pursue a campaign, it has unedifying overtones. This opinion, by the way, will be in a minority of one, or almost.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask the former Rangers player who defended Lennon on Tuesday at the SFA. Fraser Wishart, the secretary of the Scottish Professional Footballers’ Union, was not pleading for Lennon because it is his job, he did so because he believes it is right.

Now Wishart finds himself being portrayed in the media as some sort of Uncle Tom or, worse, a Lennon-lover. Not even OJ Simpson’s lawyer had the sort of questionmarks placed against his name that Wishart has.

“One of the things we argued was that you had to take Neil Lennon out of the equation because he is some kind of demonised figure,” Wishart told reporters outside Hampden as he explained his defence strategy. “They (the SFA) also had to forget it was a Rangers-Celtic game and look upon it as an isolated incident.

“One of the interesting facts is that Neil Lennon has never been sent off in the Premierleague and never been suspended. He has never been over the points threshold and that is a remarkable fact for someone who plays his position and the number of games he has played for Celtic. I think that record was taken into consideration and I think three games (ban) is reasonable.”

Hold on, there. We can’t have reasonable creeping into this, can we? Wishart underlined the whole unseemly thirst for blood when he added the name of Ian Wright, who was was banned for two games for pushing Willie Young, the referee, at Kilmarnock. “There have been similar cases over the last five years,” Wishart said, “but the players were not punished to the level that there seemed to be such a clamour for in the case of Neil Lennon.”

Bizarrely, Stuart Dougal turned up at Hampden Park with his own lawyer, for what was an in-house SFA disciplinary meeting. The irony of Dougal and Wishart being on opposite sides is that the players’ union man actually jumped to the defence of the referee in 2004, when the SFA fined Dougal £200 for using the same industrial language as Lennon — television viewers reported the referee for telling Christian Nerlinger of Rangers to “f*** off”. You would have thought this might be one man who would have cut Lennon some slack on a day in which his team had been well and truly beaten by Rangers.

Still, Dougal applied the letter of the law and Lennon was correctly punished for it. The newspapers that have ganged together to pursue Lennon could not claim to be following the letter of the law. They have treated Lennon with contempt in its most literal and legal sense. There is an agenda at work. Selling more newspapers might be one justification, but there appears to be darker motivation.

Newspapers may say that they merely reflect public opinion, but they also try to manipulate it. Unlike someone who has had a bad game, the newspapers’ mistakes are not usually as visibly and publicly denounced, though one former editor now has reason to rue his choice of headline, “Thugs and Thieves”, after unsubstantiated reports about a Celtic team night out in Newcastle turned out be nothing more than allegations.

Dougal and his referee colleagues were yesterday called the most vilified characters in Scottish football, but the truth, however unpalatable, is that that status is reserved for Lennon. There were no banners at Ibrox that day proclaiming Dougal to be a bigot; there was for Lennon. The referee has not been attacked in the street, or in his car; Lennon has. Death threats scrawled on the pavement outside the house? That will be Lennon again.

Helping to create such a public enemy No 1 is irresponsible when merely kept to the confines of a football ground, but when being demonised changes the way you walk down the street, it is time to think again.

TAYLOR BACKS THREE-MATCH BAN

DAVID TAYLOR, the SFA chief executive, has backed the three-match ban handed out to Neil Lennon, the Celtic captain.

Taylor is adamant the punishment fits the crime. “Zero tolerance is exactly what we practice and a three-match ban on top of an automatic one-game suspension is a clear sign that this kind of behaviour is not tolerated,” Taylor said. “That’s why we introduced a five-match guideline for physical assault of an official, but we didn’t consider this to be in that category.”

Although industrial action would be unlikely, the Scottish Senior Referees Association is looking at a protest against the three-game suspension.

But Taylor insists match officials do have the full support of the governing body. He told BBC Sport: “The SFA is 100 per cent behind referees on the park, but, after the match, it is out of their hands. It is similar to policemen and law courts, but we have very good relations with our referees and encouraged them to set up their association.”

The curious case of The Herald's low-key Rangers exclusive

2011-03-09T20:04:00.001Z

Very interesting piece on the Celts are Here blog about the Laptop Loyal burying news to protect the Establishment Club.

I thoroughly recommend it.

.

Can the bias and double standards be any more blatant?

2011-03-08T11:30:00.006Z

I look forward to a host of Scottish referees and ex-referees coming forward to condemn this. Just as soon as they get back from their trip on Pig Airways.

"MARTIN MCMILLAN

RANGERS DUO IN THE CLEAR

8 Mar 2011
HERALD Sport understands that neither El-Hadji Diouf nor Madjid Bougherra have been reported to the Scottish Football Association for misconduct following their red cards in the ill-tempered Scottish Cup tie against Celtic.

Bougherra, who has since apologised for his actions, was seen to hold down Calum Murray’s hand as the referee administered his second yellow card to the Algerian.

Diouf also received a second caution after the final whistle before ignoring the pleas of stewards and police to throw his shirt into the away end in an apparent act of defiance.

Some reports have suggested Diouf had been issued with a second red card for his after-match antics and that further punishment was likely for the striker and Bougherra after Murray made reference to the incidents in his report to the SFA.

But it appears that, with Murray reporting “no additional misconduct” in his paperwork, the referee, at least, is content that both players were dealt with sufficiently at the time."
-----------------------------

In 2005, Neil Lennon was suspended for THREE games for a similar incident where he did not touch the referee and was said to have "jostled" assistant James Bee although it is questionable as to who "jostled" who as Mr Bee was the one who placed himself between Mr Lennon and Mr Dougal.

Anyway, all questions of "jostling" aside, a plethora of Scottish referees and ex-referees where unanimous THAT ANY PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH THE REFEREE SHOULD WARRANT A SUSPENSION OF SEVERAL MATCHES.

----------------------------

Dougal unhappy with Lennon's ban (BBC website 21/09/2005)

"Referee Stuart Dougal says he is disappointed at the leniency of the ban given to Celtic captain Neil Lennon for his misconduct against Rangers.

The SFA imposed a three-match ban on Lennon for abusing Dougal and jostling his assistant James Bee.

STUART DOUGAL:

But Dougal believes the length of the ban sends out the wrong message.

"This was about the future protection of Scotland's referees and that's where the feeling of disappointment comes in," he told the Daily Record.

"To be honest I have not had enough time yet to fully absorb the decision but it is fair to say I am disappointed."

WILLIE YOUNG
"Former referee Willie Young also believes Lennon's three-match ban is too lenient and will disappoint Scotland's match officials.

"I think Scotland's referees will not be over the moon about the outcome".

He says guidelines were brought in by the Scottish FA after a ban on Hearts' Saulius Mikoliunas was reduced.

"In such circumstances, where there is physical confrontation with an official, they should be considering a five-match suspension," said Young.

"I am surprised that that is not what they went for."

The question for all you "neutrals" out there is - How blatant does the double standards have to be before you cut the "O*d F**m" crap, and accept there is a bias in Scottish football only to Rangers?

Thoughts of a Celtic fan on "O*d F**m Shame" and the mechanics of the anti-Celtic agenda

2011-03-04T21:24:00.010Z

A friend asked me to comment on Ewan Murray's article on the Guardian website about the O*D F**M (i.e. Rangers) Shame game on Wednesday night. He's a fan of a "provincial" team and a good guy with no axe to grind looking for a genuine opinion. I thought my response was worth sharing:

Re this article, if you want the view of a Celtic supporter trying to be as impartial as he can - I wouldn't go as far to slaughter it but it's fairly meaningless as a critique on the problems of Old Firm sectarianism. It suffers from the perennial problem of a complete inability to criticise Rangers for misdemeanors without inflating a charge sheet against Celtic to maintain the holy cow that is "The Old Firm are equally as bad as each other". No-one's claiming Celtic are angels but this line that Celtic are equally to blame in each and every instance only adds power to the elbow of those on the Rangers side who then feel justified and even vindicated that they were only acting in the face of "provocation" or whatever other excuse
and so the pantomime turns full circle back to step 1.

If you think that's all paranoid rubbish then Graham Spiers must be paranoid too.

As I said, this is not to say Celtic are whiter than white but let's get things in perspective, which the Scottish press and media have thus fair failed to do. The explanation as to why everything kicked off on Wednesday night is remarkably simple:

The thuggery and confrontation were a direct result of Rangers losing the plot at getting beat.

- Diouf, McCoist and Bougherra lost the plot.
- Lennon also lost the plot when he would have been better simply laughing at the fat TV quiz man and asking him what the score was. Easier said than done though.

All the on-pitch indiscipline involved Rangers players ostensibly because they knew they were losing the game and couldn't handle it.

Lennon's involvement came after Diouf ran 40/50 yards from the centre circle to the Celtic dugout, giving the Celtic physio a dull one on the way, and then McCoist had to be physically restrained from entering the Celtic dugout.

This is reported in the media as "Neil Lennon getting involved".

Now I wish Neil Lennon hadn't reacted and if there is some sort of reprimand for both him and McCoist then I wouldn't have a problem with that, but the media have now put Lennon centre stage as the catalyst for all of the trouble. Some in the media are agreeing with the assertion that trouble has intensified in these fixtures since the Neil Lennon was appointed Celtic manager - ergo this is Neil Lennon's fault. This is essentially the mindset of the bigot and racist justifying their prejudice.

The worst example, where I could hardly believe what I was hearing, was Richard Gough on BBC Radio Scotland; without any knowledge of what went on between the parties involved; in so many words, stating that "Alistair" is not the type to get upset, so everything must've been Neil Lennon's fault. As part of the character assassination he referred to Neil Lennon walking onto the pitch at Ibrox which is in Dick(head)'s words "inflammotary". No mention of the clown who did the very same the other night, and for an added touch of Myth, Gough made the comparison that you don't see Walter Smith doing that.

Well, actually you do Richard, but it's usually to berate referees or opponents, and sometimes he can assault the 4th official before he gets that far, but anyway - the
coup de grace was when he offered the example of Alan Shearer kicking Neil Lennon in the head as proof that "he get's under people's skin".

I mean what the fuck is this I'm hearing??? I'm forced to listen to this shite on the national supposedly impartial taxpayer funded broadcaster??

So kicking people in the head is now OK under the right provocation is it? He supported this statement by saying Alan Shearer was "let off with it because Lennon had got under his skin". This is the mentality of the wife-beater blaming the wife for her latest doing.

Shearer was not "let off" because Neil Lennon "got under his skin" (have you ever heard such preposterous justification for an assault anyway?), he was "let-off" because England had a World Cup coming up (1998) and Shearer threatened not to play if he was punished and consequently the FA capitulated. That tells you something about Alan Shearer's character. This is not Gary Lineker we are talking about. Alan Shearer had a well known nasty streak and was involved in a fair few flare ups in his career being a bit of a dab-hand at the art of niggle himself. Roy Keane famously succumbed to his particular brand of skin getting under.

Now, this is a dangerous game the likes of Mr Gough are playing. We are dealing with a guy who has been sent bullets. If we can be so concerned about toning down criticism of referees for fear of reprisals because a halfwit made a threatening phone call can we not be concerned about the possible implications of coming out with
half-baked shite like this in relation to someone who has been sent bullets in the post? Fair criticism where it's due is fine, I'm not saying Neil Lennon is untouchable, but selective comment like this to deflect criticism from other parties, even your pal "Alistair" I feel is utterly reprehensible.

I also note that some of the parties making a great deal about the crowd's provocation of Diouf as a mitigating factor, including the writer of this piece, are the same ones who stated that there can be no possible excuse forsome of Neil Lennon's reactions to abuse as a player "he's highly paid professional, he has to expect this sort of thing and not react, blah blah blah..." Fine. Well if that's the
standard we're operating to can we not make it consistent for everyone please? That's all we're asking.

Ewan Murray by the way, made a comment on Twitter jibing Neil Lennon for his "criticism" of the early start date of next season's SPL (i.e. he responded to a question from hacks by saying "he's not over the moon about it") and comparing this with a quote Lennon made on 27/7/10 after Celtic were pumped by Braga to the effect "we didn't have much preparation time".

Now clearly that was just Neil Lennon's excuse for getting pumped in Europe and it's not the same as saying you want the season to start earlier, but the point for me was that Murray was very well briefed on the specific statements made by Neil Lennon on specific dates.

He appears not to be so well briefed as to statements made by other managers such as "they can't do it now [extend the season], I think that's' fairly straighforward". If I sound like a broken record on double-standards like this it's because these journalists simply have no credibility in my eyes and the eyes of most Celtic supporters when the agenda they are promoting is so clear. I don't necessarily characterise it as a completely conscious 'let's get the boot into Celtic' mentality - although clearly editorial policy is pretty much in that ball park - I think a major part of it is that these journos simply can't see the woods from the trees because they are so embedded in the conventional wisdom that Walter/Rangers are dignified statesmen and Celtic/Lennon are paranoid nutcases, the relative statements of both are simply slotted into the appropriate pre-conceived notion allotments i.e. "Livid" Lennon "raged/ranted/slammed", whereas "Frustrated" Walter "was unhappy/stated/called for" etc.

The human mind has fantastic capacity for self-delusion in order that we can sleep at night. Therefore, in the style of Orwell's 1984, Big Brother's editorial straight-jacket is perhaps initially a troubling inconvenience, but soon the Laptop Loyal hack learns to embrace it, then comes to love the media lie before finally it's unshakeable truth permeates every cell of his being.

Murray is technically correct to say that IRA chants continue, but they are in fact rare and exclusive to away games. Any IRA chant is one too many so I'm not defending it, and I think if you have an open mind about it, you will find a lot of condemnation of these chants among Celtic fans on many forums, they are not generally defended. This is ostensibly because it is a genuine small minority who are responsible so other
fans can feel safely empowered to do so.

Rangers on the other hand, well it's not even the supporters, you have James Traynor and Bill Leckie defending the Famine Song as "banter" so what hope do you have? No wonder their own fans defend it. I can sympathise with Martin Bain on this to some degree as he's fighting a losing battle with his support on this and runs the risk of completely alienating his constituents by taking this head on. He's already issued statements even if some are couched in the "don't do this otherwise we will get into trouble" terms rather than because there is anything wrong with it. Likewise fellow fans run the risk of being assaulted if they try to take their counterparts to task.

If "neutral" journalists aren't prepared to do it, then how can the club themselves? Graham Spiers is an honourable exception, who as you probably well know is a Rangers supporter, or at least grew up as one.

Again - I have no interest in defending IRA chanting, my attitude is, show me the chants and I'll say they are unacceptable, but I go to Celtic Park for most home games and I simply don't hear it, nor do I hear songs about the Ibrox disaster or Davie Cooper which are also usually flung on the chargesheet in the ongoing Whattaboutery game.

I suppose I've went off the beaten track with this but again re the sectarianism, please don't take this as a "we are the angelic good guys it's all them" piece of whattaboutery , it's about getting things in perspective which you need to do if you are serious about eradicating or reducing the problem. I think the police statistics would be very revealing in identifying the proportion of the problem.

To give you an idea of where I am coming from, how would you feel if everyone told you and generally believed that Stirling Albion have as severe a bigotry problem of Rangers? Of course you would be a tad unhappy! Likewise, Celtic fans are unflattered by the comparison.

Again I am absolutely of the view no IRA chants and rebel songs evoking armed struggle. We have enough football songs to avoid the subtle nuances of the
difference between the IRA in 1916 and the 1970s or how cultural or political a
rebel song is, it's simply an area we don't need to tread, especially when we can quite happily hijack Depeche Mode. Ban the monkey imitating guy from Celtic Park if the charge is proven, even if it smacks of the balancing the charge sheet game yet again. The act itself is unjustifiable, if the photo is proven to be genuine.

As a Celtic supporter I can genuinely say, Celtic fans' outlook is generally a positive one in terms of supporting the team and positive singing and enjoyment.

Again Rangers are far more guilty of Murray's charge of being more obsessed with the
other side than their own team, as their songs and demeanor attest to. The vast majority focus on negatives and anti-this and anti-that or the Famine or Nakamura eating dogs or an obsession with paedophiles and Catholics. I'm not sure what all this Penny Arcade nonsense is about but in any case its far too tenuous to upset many Celtic fans but is kind of a window into the deranged psyche that is always looking to mock and denigrate.

So, there you go my honest opinion in summary:

1. Rangers have a very much worse problem than Celtic

2. The Scottish media's failure to recognise 1. causes the issue to be
mischaracterised and is therefore an obstacle to mitigating/eradicating the problem.

3. Celtic have a much smaller problem relating to IRA/rebel songs at away games(also the Remembrance silence issue - which has been fudged and politicised but surely we can observe one minutes silence in any case)

4. No end to the problem in sight, in fact in my experience/opinion the problem has worsened in direct correlation with Rangers' financial problems and the siege mentality coincident with UEFA taking an interest has hardened attitudes. So also has the perceived injustice as to lack of action
against Celtic, which is simply a symptom of the problem being much less, but this cannot be computed by the "bad as each other" mindset {see Smith, Gordon "there's an agenda against Rangers"} so is interpreted as double-standards resulting in more resistance to change and demands to punish Celtic for non-existent Ibrox disaster/Davie Cooper songs and back to whattabouttery and where we started.

There you go, the mind dump of a "paranoid" Celtic fan trying to be objective.

.

Richard Gough: 'It's OK to kick Neil Lennon's head in"

2011-03-03T21:35:00.035Z

Last night Celtic beat Rangers 1-0.

Steven Whittaker's sending off on 36 minutes was the cue for Rangers players and management to lose the plot.

The photo above is a former TV quiz panelist's reaction to the Celtic manager speaking to the 4th official about a Rangers player (Diouf) assaulting the Celtic physio.

You might be surprised to see this image as the Scottish media have for some reason, that can't have anything to do with bias or spin, not publicised it, preferring to report the soon-to-be Rangers manager's tantrum as "Neil Lennon getting involved again".

What was also reported widely in the Scottish media as "Neil Lennon getting involved" (including in the BBC highlights) was El Hadji Diouf running 60 yards from the centre circle - assaulting the Celtic physio on the way - to confront the Celtic manager.

Work out how that equates to "Neil Lennon getting involved". I can't.

A quick rundown of the "flashpoints in the game"

- Whittaker (Rangers) sent off
- Bougherra (Rangers) grabs the referee's arm in some crazy attempt to prevent his team-mate being sent off
- Diouf (Rangers) assaults Celtic physio
- Diouf (Rangers) runs 60 yards to the Celtic dugout to confront Celtic management team
- Ally McCoist (Rangers)has to be physically restrained from attacking the Celtic manager
- Bougherra (Rangers) is booked for a deliberate and cynical career-threatining foul on Gary Hooper
- Bougherra (Rangers) sent off for using excessive force against Commons
- Bougherra (Rangers) engages in a fit of histrionics and yet again physically man-handles the referee
- Kyle Hutton (Rangers) attempts to take Scott Brown out of the play and is booked
- At the final whistle Diouf (Rangers) receives a second yellow card for sarcastically applauding the referee three times and then offers the referee his jersey
- Diouf (Rangers) walks over to the Rangers support in an attempt to throw his jersey into the crowd and has to be restrained by police
- McCoist (Rangers) and Lennon (Celtic) have a verbal confrontation on the sidelines.

A couple of observations about the above list.

1. Apparently walking onto the pitch of your great rivals to wave and acknowledge your own fans was a heinous crime and an act of outrageous provocation back in 2004 if your surname happens to be O'Neill, but appears to be only a minor matter barely worthy of comment in 2011.

2. The very man pictured losing the plot above and seen on camera making his snide remarks to the Celtic manager was, unbelievably, one and the same who just the day before made this statement - "Why wind people up when you don't need to? That's my opinion on it."

Changing their opinion on things is a bit of a habit down Ibrox way at the moment isn't it? When's the season extension due again? Dignity indeed.

It is not necessary to understand the general picture, but you may want to count and compare the Rangers misdemeanors against the Celtic ones. Of course it was only too depressingly predictable (or tiresome as a certain SFA official might say) to be confronted with media headlines about "O*D F**M SHAME" the next day.

This is bad enough, but despite the litany of shame perpatrated by Rangers players and officials listed above, the Scottish media tonight have decided to round on Neil Lennon making him the focus of the story.

Darrell King on Radio Clyde says the root of all the trouble is Celtic having a "controversial manager".

Apparently receiving death threats and being repeatedly the victim of assault makes you "controversial" and completely to blame for your assailant's crimes.

Even Graham Spiers has been got to tonight, agreeing with one particularly rabid caller that Neil Lennon has brought all of this on himself.

But the most disgusting example of bigot apology and doublethink came from former Rangers captain Richard Gough.

Gough's credentials for working in the Scottish football tabloid media are impeccable - he used to play for Rangers and is only slightly less partisan in his views than Mark "Goebbels" Hateley.

After misleadingly describing the McCoist-Lennon confrontation as "Neil Lennon getting involved yet again", Gough claimed to know Neil Lennon personally before going on to basically perform a character assassination on him, with the usual "he brings it on himself" claptrap packaged up in the language of "he gets under people's skin".

By way of some contrast, the impeccably objective ex-Rangers captain then offers a glowing character reference for his good friend "Alistair" exonerating him for his actions in the face of whatever outrageous provocation the media have now created out of their febrile imaginations.

Mr Gough then criticises Neil Lennon for coming onto the pitch at Ibrox in an "inflammotary" manner to applaud the Celtic fans. Mr Gough says nothing about the headcase Diouf's histrionics in front of the Rangers support last night so presumably condones that.

He then pipes up with the Walter Myth, that you never see the man with nosurname do anything like that. Well, maybe not to applaud fans, but certainly the Myth has entered the field of play many times before, for example to berate Connor Sammon and referee Steve Conroy resulting in a charge of "adopting a threatening and aggressive manner". The Myth also has previous for berating and assaulting the fourth official. But why let all that get in the way of a convenient Myth.

This is enough to have us reaching for the sick bucket but then Gough astonishingly offers the case of Alan Shearer kicking Neil Lennon in the head back in 1998 as some sort of proof of the Celtic manager's poor character. "It shows that he gets under people's skin" according to Mr Gough.

So kicking people in the head is now OK under the right provocation is it? He supported this statement by saying "Alan Shearer doesn't kick people in the head" and was "let off with it after a big investigation because Lennon had got under his skin".

This is astonishing nonsense to hear anywhere, far less the BBC, who's boasts about objectivity are no more than a bad joke. Gough's mitigation of the abuse heaped on Neil Lennon by Shearer, Diouf and his "good friend Alistair McCoist" is no better than the mentality of the wife-beater blaming the wife for her latest doing.

No-one on BBC Radio Scotland took issue with Gough for offering this as an argument against Neil Lennon's character. No, apparently letting someone waffle on in defence of his "good friend" whilst simultaneously smearing the character of another party, qualifies as fair comment on the "neutral" BBC. As I said, bad joke.

Now let's get away from Gough's biased opinion and claptrap and back to some facts - Shearer was not "let off" because Neil Lennon "got under his skin" (have you ever heard such preposterous justification for an assault anyway?), he was "let-off" because England had a World Cup coming up (1998) and Shearer threatened not to play if he was punished and consequently the FA capitulated. That tells you something about Alan Shearer's character. This is not Gary Lineker we are talking about. Alan Shearer had a well known nasty streak and was involved in a fair few flare ups in his career being a bit of a dab-hand at the art of niggle himself. Roy Keane famously succumbed to his particular brand of skin getting under. Neil Lennon actually spoke on Alan Shearer's behalf at the resultant tribunal, despite his own reservations (believing, probably correctly, that Shearer had indeed intentionally kicked him in the face).

Now, this is a dangerous game the likes of Mr Gough are playing. We are dealing with a guy who has been sent bullets. If we can be so concerned about toning down criticism of referees for fear of reprisals because a halfwit made a threatening phone call can we not be concerned about the possible implications of coming out with
half-baked shite like this in relation to someone who has been sent bullets in the post? Fair criticism where it's due is fine, I'm not saying Neil Lennon is untouchable, but selective comment like this to deflect criticism from other parties, even your pal "Alistair" is utterly reprehensible.

It is also notable that some of the parties making a great deal about the "provocation" of Diouf as a mitigating factor, are the same ones who stated that there can be no possible excuse forsome of Neil Lennon's reactions to abuse as a player "he's highly paid professional, he has to expect this sort of thing and not react, blah blah blah..."

Fine. Well if that's the standard we're operating to can we not make it consistent for everyone please? That's all we're asking.

Incidentally, Alan Thompson was sent off in 2004 after squaring up to Peter Lovestodive who needless to say fell to the ground spectacularly when no contact was made. "By the letter of the law Thompson had to go. The act was violent and aggressive even if he never made contact" was the opinion of the Scottish media to a man and woman.

Yet, here we are in 2011, and the Laptop Loyal are full of mealy mouthed excuses for the tantrums of spoiled and beaten Rangers players and officials, and we have one of them saying it's OK to kick Neil Lennon in the head because "he gets under people's skin".

This is the calibre of "neutrality" and objectivity proferred by Radio Clyde and their counterparts at Fake Radio and Radio Shortbread who are little better. Clyde should simply go the extra step and get a flute band in to play musical interludes between each rabid perma-rage Rangers supporting caller. We know they want to and their priority constituents would certainly love it.

Mr Gough's scandalously biased comments were brought to you courtesy of the BBC, the national broadcaster funded by the taxpayer, who love nothing more than to crow about their reputation for impartiality, whilst every Radio Scotland broadcast is positively bursting at the seams with ex-Rangers players and self-confessed supporters queuing up to criticise Neil Lennon and Celtic in general.

Neil Lennon was unfairly and squarely blamed for imaginary death threats to referees back in October, as according to our discredited media, he "provoked" Celtic fans into a state of frenzy against our bedraggled officials by having the temerity to make the most mind-numbingly obvious statements in reply to their questions, and for having the gall to be lied to by a referee.

Well, who is then to blame for the bullets sent not just to Lennon, but to other Celtic players, a much more serious threat than one made up by Darryll Broadfoot or from some drunken halfwit over the phone? Who has been responsible for whipping up the neanderthals with access to live ammunition by validating their vile prejudice by providing the excuse that Neil Lennon "get's under people's skin"?

God forbid, but if anything sinister should happen to Neil Lennon then the spineless apologists for the bigots in our Scottish media should be in the dock.

LINK TO MR GOUGH'S APOLOGY FOR THR BIGOTS:
Richard Gough: "It's OK to kick Neil Lennon's head in"

Fir Park Pitch and Penalty double standards

2011-03-01T19:37:00.021Z

A couple of observations concerning the reaction of the unashamedly pro-Rangers Scottish media to events at Fir Park on Sunday.

Firstly... we can be accused of sour grapes re the pitch, however can you imagine the reaction of the Daily Ranger, Scottish Hun, Evening Times et al if Rangers had lost 2-0 on a pitch like that??

Fines, floggings and expulsion from the SPL would be the demands from the fourth estate. Well maybe not the fine.

But what have they got to say about it now? Not a peep.

Secondly... can anyone cast their mind back as far as August? Same ground, Sean Maloney through on goal, about to pull the trigger, is taken out from behind, stonewall penalty, cue headlines "SEAN DENIES HE'S A DIVER" "MALONEY GOES DOWN TOO EASILY". Craig Brown is harangued by the Scottish Press into making a half-hearted condemnation so they can dredge up some semblance of an excuse to label the player "MALONEY: I'M NO DIVER [NUDGE, WINK]".

e.g. Angry Motherwell boss Craig Brown blasts Celtic's Shaun Maloney over penalty tumble Aug 30 2010 Hugh Keevins

The Daily Ranger conveniently leaves out the part about Craig Brown admitting it was a penalty, which the BBC website managed to mention through gritted teeth:

Brown accepted the challenge by Steven Saunders on Shaun Maloney merited the award of a penalty but was unsure whether the Motherwell defender should have been sent off.

"And the penalty was the most softly conceded foul."

Now, call me niaive or paranoid, but isn't the word "foul" a slight giveaway here? I realise there are people who really hate Celtic and don't want to see us win but please spare us the Orwellian "technically it was a penalty = it wisnae a penalty really" doublethink.

In fact isn't all this 'soft penalty' patter even more apt regarding the one given to Motherwell on Sunday whixh wasn't even a foul? Where are the "LASLEY: I'M NO DIVER [NUDGE, WINK]" headlines?

"Maloney is on his left side, his weaker side, he's going away from goal,"

Brown's statement about Maloney heading away from goal was simply utter pish, and watch out for FIFA amending their rules on a red card for preventing a goalscoring opportunity to stipulate that a player must be preparing to shoot with his stronger foot...

But, not a peep in the Laptop Loyal about Motherwell's penalty that wasn't. At a push they make grudging mention of the "soft award" but personal diatribes against Keith Lasley were completely absent... unlike the smear job they did on Maloney for an incident WHICH THEY ALL ADMITTED WAS A PENALTY. Impressive doublethink or what?

Of course there is method behind this madness, and that is to get every last ounce of mileage out of anything that can be remotely construed to have been an unfair advantage to Celtic so that it can somehow be gauged as commensurate with the avalance of "honest mistakes" encumbering Celtic and favouring Rangers.

Doublethink is a handy tool for the media to turn routine correct decisions into some sort of cruel injustice unfairly benefiting Celtic to the detriment of the poor wee teams, thereby strengthening the 'O*d F**m get all the decisions' myth (see, Hamilton Accies v Celtic a correctly awarded penalty and an Accies player rightly sent off, evens out the THREE RIDICULOUS errors going against Celtic as a prime example of this).

And another thing, the Daily Ranger (I picked it up on a bus in case of some emergency arising that would require a substitute for lavvy paper) gave the referee a mark of 6/10 saying he did OK but took too long to book Forbes and Majstorovic. Work that one out.

.

Scottish Press stays silent as Rangers fans sing sectarian songs - Roy Greensdale

2011-03-01T18:54:00.002Z

Roy Greenslade The Guardian

Scottish press stays silent as Rangers fans sing sectarian songs

Comments (47)

A very unusual article appeared in The Times yesterday, Why do Rangers
fans besmirch club’s name with ugly chants?

Unusual because, as the writer, Graham Spiers, candidly pointed out,
there is a press aversion to covering the subject, especially in
Scotland.

Spiers reports that Rangers fans were guilty of bigoted, offensive
chanting when their club played a recent match in Lisbon. There were
shouts of “F*** the Pope” along with the singing of The Billy Boys
(for the uninitiated, a sectarian song that includes the line, “We’re
up to our knees in Fenian blood”).

Despite official disapproval from club officials and warnings from
European football authorities, the anti-Catholic chanting shows no
signs of abating.

“So,” writes Spiers, “you would think it might be deemed quite a news
story that such songs have come back into fashion at Rangers… though
the press in the main isn’t touching it.”

Why is that? Spiers offers three possible reasons:

First, it “is a wearying topic, not so say embarrassing for modern Scotland.

“Two, there are some, no doubt, who will not want to embarrass Rangers
or cause the club any trouble, especially as they might go far in this
season’s Europa League.

“Three, a commercial media needs to keep it customers onside, whether
they are bigots or not.

“So the refrain, ‘don’t touch that subject’, is sometimes interpreted
as self-protection.”

In other words, the newspapers in Scotland are prepared to remain
mute, overlooking the bigotry, because they fear a loss of sales.

Isn’t the free press a wonderful thing? It is certainly to the credit
of Spiers and The Times (which sells about 24,000 copies a day in
Scotland) that they broke the wall of silence.

News broadcasters have also failed to cover the misbehaviour by
Rangers fans. Spiers writes: “There has been little media pressure
brought to bear on the problem”, and adds:

“It is far better for Rangers, frankly, if the media remains quiet on
the subject. What really makes Rangers worry is when comment is passed
on their supporters’ behaviour, because that only adds to the inherent
danger of Uefa punishing the club again.”

He concedes that Rangers executives “have tried to lance the boil
among their fans” but without notable success.

As for Celtic, Spiers laments that “pro-IRA chants” are heard. Though
“less virulent than Rangers’ problem… it embarrasses Celtic and needs
to be tackled.”

And how did commenters react to Spiers’s piece? In predictable
sectarian fashion, of course.

The Broony: A Beginner's Guide

2011-02-28T21:16:00.000Z

Scotland's Shame on Tour 2011: Lisbon

2011-02-28T21:02:00.002Z

Scotland's Shame living down to their usual standards in Lisbon, February 2011

Scottish media continue to propagate Walter's Myths

2011-02-26T13:00:00.003Z

Walter Myth seems to me, basically a decent guy who would have been distressed to see moronic fans of his club revelling in the death of Tommy Burns in Lisbon recently. The real problem is with the Scottish media who have proven themselves incapable of performing anything other than the role of toadying cheerleaders for every utterance made by the Mythical one and anyone else connected to Rangers FC, no matter how absurdly contradictory their statements may be.

After all, Myth is the Rangers manager and why shouldn't he say whatever it takes to gain an advantage for his team? Well I suppose it's a bit rich coming from a club that regularly crows about dignity, accepting its lot with good grace without complaint and attacks others for their "paranoia" - but apart from that, why shouldn't he try to promote the interests of his club? It's actually the job of so-called journalists to tell him he's talking unmitigated pish and provide an objective view. By now I need not elaborate further to prove this is not the case; the Only an Excuse team seem to understand this pretty well.

This is the third year in succession that either Bain, Myth or a combination of the two, have launched into a sour grapes whine about fixture scheduling only to be embraced enthusiastically by a sympathetic media who themselves have gone to great lengths to corroborate these whinges. For example, last season the Daily Record helpfully printed every set of post-split fixtures to show that Rangers had to play Dunfermline 3 times away from home in 2002 when the league was already mathematically over. Oh the injustice. The fact that playing a few teams like Kilmarnock away form home 3 times was down to completely random chance was ignored in favour of Myth's "someone is deliberately doing this to us" paranoid nonsense. Remember, unsurpassed dignity, we don't complain blah blah etc etc.

Myth's latest U-turn contradictory paranoia pish is classic, if not unprecedented. The whole furore in 2008 started after Myth categorically stated Rangers would not ask for an extension to the season. Interestingly it was the media who brought the question of a season extension into the public domain, not Rangers, implying that the club were briefing reporters on what questions to ask in press conferences in a manner that would have done the Politburo proud.

In any case, we all know what happened "We willnae ask furran extension", became "we demand an extension", to "it's fckin ridiculous we didnae get an extension...well the extension ye gave us isnae enough".

There's an interesting wee fact just at the end there. Hands up if you've recently read in a newspaper, or heard on the radio a statement along the lines of - "Rangers face a repeat of 2008 where they were faced with a fixture pile-up after the SPL refused to extend the season"

Hands up who remembers that the season actually was extended in 2008?

A quote from Orwell seems apt at this point:

"If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say, this or that never happened, and if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed if all records told the same tale then the lie passed into history and became truth "

So, here we go again in 2011:

20 Dec 2010 RANGERS BOSS WALTER SMITH QUESTIONS SEASON EXTENSION
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/9305423.stm

Walter Smith says the Scottish Premier League cannot extend the season to accommodate the number of fixtures that will have to be rescheduled.

"Surely if the season's not going to be extended for one team, they can't extend it for any," said Smith.

"There was only one team going to benefit from the season not being extended then and that was Celtic. So they refused to do it then, so they can't do it now. Is that not fairly straight-forward?"

Smith admitted Rangers would be powerless to stop the SPL taking such a step this time, but said the club would be annoyed if it did happen. "I think that's probably all we can be isn't it, if they make the decision? But surely they can't make the decision after saying to us before that they can't extend the season," he added.

But while he acknowledged that an extension to this season could then help his side, he was adamant the SPL would not be able to justify it. "Of course it would be of benefit to us, and that would have been a benefit we would have accepted two years ago and we tried to get it, but they said no," he continued. "Much as we would like them to extend the season, we would have liked them to extend the season a couple of years ago, we would like them to extend the season if it's necessary. But they can't."

Pretty emphatic stuff? The SPL can't extend the season now because the myth says that they didn't extend it before. Glad we got that straightened out. Oh no, wait a minute...

26 Feb 2011 Walter Smith: Rangers' Euro result has done Scottish game a favour - now we want one in return
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/2011/02/26/walter-smith-rangers-euro-result-has-done-scottish-game-a-favour-now-we-want-one-86908-22950481/

The precise "favour" Keith Jackson wants the "Scottish game" to "return" to Dignity FC is not explicity stated, however we are not left in any doubt what Myth and his media lickspittles expect:

"But Smith's hopes of landing a third successive SPL crown in his final season in charge could now suffer as a result of those European heroics with a possible fixture pile-up now on the cards. Rangers must squeeze at least another two ties, against PSV Eindhoven, into an already jammed schedule and league bosses have warned they would rather make the champions play four domestic matches in eight days than attempt to grant them breathing space by extending the season."

Myth said:
"If they're going to try to help the teams by starting the season a fortnight or three weeks earlier, what are they going to do for the teams who are still in Europe at the end? We are the ones collecting more points than anyone else. With that in mind I'd want them to be a bit more sympathetic than they were the last time."

"Celtic have a clear run at it this season with fixtures and they have a freshness about their team. But that's a challenge we have to accept. We need to match that consistency over the season"

Excuses, excuses... er .. I mean unsurpassed dignity, just getting on with it without complaining blah blah etc etc

"I read all about Celtic doing this and doing that this season and that's fine. But then I'd say we did all that in our first season too. When you get to the fourth one and you've not had the ability to change an awful lot of players, then that's difficult."

Excuses, dignity, not complaining blah blah

"Whatever comes our way in terms of criticism we'll accept and take on the challenge by getting on with it."

Well more accurately - first we'll have a good wee moan about fixtures before accepting the challenge by getting on with it.

By the way, this is lapped up by the same media who railed against Neil Lennon accusing him of instilling, what they called, a "dangerous" 'everyone's against us' mentality among the fans, although he didn't quite manage to incite any fans to send any bullets to referees are Rangers players.

Maybe he could learn something from the Myth.

No wonder the Old Media is dying.

I'll finish with Orwell again:

"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record.

All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."

There are no Masonic Scottish referees, you are paranoid.... Repeat: There are no Masonic Scottish referees, you are paranoid...

2010-12-30T22:27:00.025Z

Bobby Tait passed into legend as the referee who added on time for non-existent injury stoppages in Rangers' last home game of 1997/98 season, inadvertently allowing Kilmarnock to snatch a winning goal and deliver a devastating fatal blow to the Huns' 10-in-a-row hopes. Of course that was paranoia, the extra time added was an "honest mistake", presumably a 'slip of the watch'.

It is widely understood that Bobby Tait was granted this match at his own request as some sort of retirement ritual customary among Scottish masons.... sorry referees. This would be Tait's last season as a Grade One official. Such speculation is dismissed as paranoia by sober minded objective commentators however.

Bobby Tait also refereed a few games involving Celtic that season.

In February, he was at it again (or to be more chronologically correct, for the first time that season), adding on non-existent injury time with Celtic leading Hearts 1-0 at Tynecastle, having had a second goal dubiously disallowed. Tait must have been delighted when Hearts' Jose Quitongo scored deep into this "non-existent" injury time. However that last statement is purely paranoia.

In early April, Tait refereed Celtic-Hearts yet again, this time at Celtic Park. A slight statistical anomaly for the same referee to be assigned to the same fixture within such a short timeframe particularly with both clubs challenging for the title one might have thought - if you were paranoid. In any case the scoreline was 0-0 with Celtic well on top and pressing for the winning goal as the game moved into the 90th minute. However despite one particularly lengthy stoppage following an injury to Stephane Mahe, Tait bizarrely blew for full-time right on the 90th minute, allowing no injury time whatsoever. With the top three in the league separated by only two points (Celtic, Huns, Mini Huns), Rangers were the clear beneficiaries of the result. Pointing this out is complete paranoia of course.

Anecdotally, it was known that when not refereeing Scottish league matches, Bobby Tait travelled around the country on Rangers supporters buses to watch his favourite team. More paranoia.

It was also known that Tait was in the habit of turning up for his refereeing fitness assessments in full Rangers kit. Obviously this was just paranoia though.

Stories abound of Bobby Tait touring the Masonic Lodge after-dinner speaking circuit, boasting proudly of having never awarded a penalty against Rangers. But these claims are simply paranoia.

Bobby Tait was known to be a Mason but this is proven paranoia. Oh no wait....(see below)

But Tait was a Grade One referee over 10 years ago and of course there are no Masonic Scottish referees today...

This stuff about masonic referees is all just complete paranoia

2010-12-19T12:06:00.002Z

Chick Dung on the callous murder of Bambi and her mother

2010-12-01T20:33:00.006Z

They should publish a new edition of the Oxford dictionary and next to the word 'hypocrite' they should simply include a photo of Chick Young, Jim Traynor, Bill Leckie, Darrell King et al. They could do the same under 'liar' and 'lickspittle'.

I've been moved to comment by Chick Dung's latest blue-tinged nonsense and whilst this buffoon is best ignored he's just too easy a target for ridicule.

According to his latest propaganda shite, Dullas and Dougie Dougie are the victims of evil and heartless hunters, who, after disembowling Bambi for sport, turned their crosshairs on this pair of innocent lambs and launched a vicious and unwarranted attack.

"The hunters killed their prey. Mission accomplished. I assume their assassins are happy."

Not really Chick. Celtic fans would much rather the constant flow of "honest mistakes" was plugged, and of course I mention Celtic fans because we all know who exactly you're referring to, as you hypocritically rant about nudges, winks and innuendo whilst indulging in the very same yourself. Come on Chick, nail your colours to the mast, we all know you couldn't tell St Mirren's ground from Toryglen ASDA.

"Referees on strike, lies and accusations, counter-accusations and nod-and-a-wink allegations of dark forces at work."

In a way it's almost impressive how the Scottish media can recount their tales of clutching dying referees to their bosoms and nursing them through their final agonies whilst railing against the injustice of this cruel world, and - without exception - fail to acknowledge the fundamental reason this clown and his pal were "resigned" i.e. Their own dishonesty.

Al Pacino's 1992 Oscar winning performance for his portrayal of a blind former Lieutenant Colonel of the US army has nothing on the fake blindness of the Scottish media. "And the winner for the best propagandist masquerading as an objective journalist goes to... "

Yes, in the real world and not the hallucinogenic world view of the Scottish football hack, the hunters did indeed kill their prey - if by that you mean that the prey came into the hunter's tent, pissed all over the hunter, shot itself in the foot with the hunter's gun and then was then mauled by a passing grizzly bear when it left the tent.

Despite all the "nudges, winks and innuendos" that Dung claims to deplore, Celtic had nothing to do with Dullas's departure.

So who did?

"Churches and politicians who want to get involved..."

I'm not Catholic, but I can understand why the Catholic church would want to comment in the case of a high-profile public figure defaming the head of their organisation. Only a twisted mindset or someone operating to an agenda could interpret it any other way. Chic Dung and his pals fit the bill perfectly.

Politicians are not welcome in the sporting arena either we are told. We should simply hide the festering sore of bigotry under a sticking plaster rather than sterilise the wound. This is not about an argument over the punishment meeting the e-mail crime (and the cover-up, self-serving "strike" etc), this is the message trotted out time and again by the Scottish media. Whether it be desecration of a dead Pope's memory, rioting abroad, the message is always, "turn the other way... hide the geriatric granny in the attic before the neighbours see".

Politicians for their part are charged with the social well-being of the public, with anti-social behaviour and sectarianism falling under that remit, but our fearless crusading media would rather the blind eye was employed and the puss left to gather under the sticking plaster provided by the media apologists.

I anxiously await their next heartfelt outpouring on the ills of sectarianism. Someone coughing during a minute's silence for an ex-Rangers reserve goalkeeper's great nephew's dead parrott should be enough.

And of course, Celtic's current chairman is a former politician. Is he to be considered an outsider too? So the defamed organisation and the club that were lied to should just but out of the business of making their lives as difficult as possible is the message from the Scottish media.

Returning to "the hunters", maybe Dung thinks that Celtic used some sort of Jedi mind trick to get Regan to hypnotise Dallas and Dougie Dougie into resigning? Why would they resign if they are as put-upon and innocent as the media would have us believe?

Ask Steven Craven. He didn't seem to share the same rosy, blue-tinged sycophantic opinion of Dallas, rather he spoke of a bully running a clique, where it was his way or the Queen's highway. But the media don't want to talk about that for some reason, unless it's wheeling out Charlie Smith to dismiss the charge, and who could be more objective than one of Dallas's subordinates?!

But wait...Stewart Regan is merely a puppet and was put in the SFA CEO job by the Machiavellian machinations of John Reid and Peter Lawwell. That's the latest 'Follow Follow' rumour doing the rounds, and wadda ya know, Scottish journalists suddenly rediscover their appetite for investigative journalism and vow to get to the bottom of the story.

Remind me which club it is that's paranoid again?

"Scottish football, meanwhile, wraps itself up in its little cocoon of small-mindedness where club chairmen would rather point the finger at referees than discuss the joys or follies of their clubs."

Again we are presented with the Scottish media's hallucinogenic world where black is white and glaringly contradictory statements pass unquestioned as conventional wisdom.

Dung bemoans this "little cocoon of small-mindness" whilst spouting the media party line that clings to the old pecking order of unaccountable refereeing committees running the show and referees demanding to be showered with praise no matter how abysmal their performances, whilst squealing about clubs having the temerity to subject them to "scrutiny".

The same media that for years talked sneeringly of the "blazers and the bureaucrats", now wails and shrieks like a skewered pig at the appearance of an SFA CEO with the cojones to stand up to the Sunday Boy's club network, bringing the prospect of a real shake-up rather than hollow promises to punish Lithuanians and Livingston players who dive.

Dung is part of a media that has enthusiastically endorsed the notion that clubs should be deducted points for criticising refereeing decisions. Now anybody with half a brain can see that this proposition is ever so slightly against the media's own self-interest, given their reliance on hype and tittle-tattle to flog their gossip rags and radio phone-ins.
But this is the hazy world of the deranged Scottish football hack where black is white and white is black, at least whenever an opportunity to put the boot into Celtic arises.

Like the saying goes - a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.

"Give us our ball back - or get me on the first flight to Spain."

Tell you what Chick, fuck off to Spain, the Faroe Islands, or better still, just stay up Mr Nosurname's rectum permanently and give us all peace. No-one will try to stop you.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9247843.stm

SCOTTISH REFEREES - WADING THROUGH THE SMOKE AND MIRRORS

2010-11-30T17:23:00.051Z

Former Head of Referees, George Cumming's recent performance on radio was as laughable as it was also nakedly biased, but of courses passes uncontested into the Scottish media arena of "debate" and so becomes truth. As far as "debate" on the current Scottish refereeing crisis goes, there is more diversity of opinion in the state-owned North Korean media, as there is among the pathetic stooges who populate the Scottish media on the issue.

With regard to Cumming's performance - the latest in a long line of ex-referees and SFA officials the Scottish media have wheeled out to attack Celtic - he constantly referred to the problem of Celtic's "unreasonable behaviour" pre-dating the 'Dougie Dougie' game (17th Oct). He then stated several times that the Willie Collum O** F*** game (24th Oct) was where the "problem" first surfaced, stating this at least three times.

As well as the assertion that the current refereeing crisis is all big bad nasty Celtic's fault being utter nonsense, Cumming has his dates completely inaccurate as well. The O** F*** game was the week after 'Dougie Dougie'. Here you have, in a nutshell, the quality of individual who holds high office at the SFA, one who can't even get simple chronology correct, far less a sponsor for the Scottish Cup. And we are all supposed get the flaming torches and pitchforks out and go after Celtic on the basis of this guy's word?

Throughout the interview he openly and brazenly blamed Celtic for the predicaments of Hugh Dallas and Dougie McDonald. Cumming then accused the SFA of not standing up to Celtic.

Just remind me… who lied to who ? Who was guilty of cover up ? But Cumming attacks Regan for not standing up to Celtic. Apparently, subsequent events had nothing to do with lying, cover-up, sectarian e-mails or a "strike" designed to get one guy off the hook for aforementioned sectarian e-mail.

Cumming could not have made a bigger fool of himself if he took lessons from Peat and Dallas.

What he also quite clearly demonstrated was a (convenient) ignorance of the facts. Celtic have made two public statements on McDonald and none on Dallas. The first statement was by Neil Lennon, publicly asking what went on, the second by John Reid after the lie and cover up were exposed, stating the obvious i.e. How can you go around demanding respect when you have those in your midst who can go around lying and covering up with impunity? A sensible statement by anyone's definition.

But the SFA refused to punish anyone for anything, much to the incredulity of everyone outside of the Scottish media. That was, until the Scottish media told fans of all other Scottish clubs how they should think. Well that's not quite true.
It's known that Stewart Regan wanted to part company with McDonald as soon as the lie was exposed but the mechanism for doing so is through some old pals act Referee's Committee - an arrangement that the Politbureau in it's heyday would have considered too undemocratic. The Committee's decision? "Don't get caught next time Dougie".

Cumming's attitude exemplifies that of referees towards Celtic in particular and Scottish football in general. They believe they are untouchable and unaccountable to anyone apart from each other.

Now the new target is Regan. This was tiresomely predictable from the second Dallas handed in his resignation. The referees will try to force him out, the media, particularly the Daily Record, are already after him. Traynor rails against him, accusing him of being too weak. The real root of Traynor's problem is the exact opposite, Regan was strong enough to stand up to Hugh Dallas and his self-serving referee's "strike" (the fact that Dallas offered to call the "strike" off in exchange for quietly dropping the e-mail issue not mentioned anywhere within our disgrace of a media).

Keith Jackson has also written in scathing terms. They know he is a vehicle for change, and they dont want change. What they want is more of what we have had for 100 years. It's called toeing the Establishment line or acting in the interests of the Establishment.

Traynor has stated that enough is enough. Its time to restore the pecking order and he does not want Celtic to have any more influence. He also doesn’t want Rangers to have any more either, which is hardly penal when you have every Head of every significant committee a Rangers sympathiser. It's quite a clever statement really, giving the superficial, and entirely false, impression of impartiality.

How much more influence can you have when the post of President of the SFA is simply passed on from one Rangers supporter to another? When the Head of Referees position has exactly the same succession planning.

Key to all this is propaganda.

What propaganda does is it distorts and deflects. It distorts the truth by focusing the argument on superficial matters and hence away from the undesirable truth i.e. Smoke and Mirrors. In the current case, we end up talking about imaginary abuse and death threats rather than the abysmal mistakes regularly made by officials, and non-existent links made between comments by the Celtic manager and this alleged abuse. The conclusion then arrived at is that Celtic should shut up because the poor wee referees are getting a hard time, and who can argue against the condemnation of threats of violence, but everyone's attention is conveniently drawn away from the fact that these referees have repeatedly made glaring errors that have disadvantaged Celtic to an overwhelmingly anomalous degree. The media don't want you digging any more into that pit of sand.

It also distorts the statements actually made by Celtic. Reasonable opinions on whether a particular penalty award was correct or not, the same opinions shared by the Scottish media themselves i.e. Broadfoot penalty, Hearts handball; are built up into the rantings and ravings of a paranoid lunatic and exaggerated so that they can be referred to as a "war on whistlers" or a "referee witchhunt".

Check the quotes. Check what Celtic actually said. It rarely ties in with the headline attributed and the obligatory snarling-faced photo of Neil Lennon that inevitably accompanies it. The media don't want you to look at the quotes, they want you only to see their twisted snarling distorted headline.

All of this is diversionary propaganda and would be called for what it is by any objective onlooker - a Smear Campaign.

The third element, is to break each issue up into discrete silos so that no observable trends may be identified.

So the media story re the Rangers penalty at Parkhead becomes the alleged "death threats" to the unfairly maligned official and attention is diverted from another "honest mistake".

And the media story re the Hearts handball becomes a case of Neil Lennon losing the rag and abusing a fourth official. Attention is deflected from the referee's mistake and more importantly - no links are made with any previous "honest mistake" which may inconveniently for the Establishment and media stooges, point to a distinct and easily observed trend.

Propaganda allows the media to avoid the most mind-numbingly obvious conclusions that a five year old child could understand.

Since an important element of propaganda is to portray each "honest mistake" as a discrete aberration, rather than related events which are ostensibly the result of a consistent mode of behaviour - I will outline the chronology of events relating to the current Scottish refereeing crisis free of the emotive and misleading headlines used by the Scottish media. See how it stacks up against the version you have read about in newspapers and heard about on radio and TV:

• A Scottish referee, aided and abetted by his assistants, has been exposed lying to his Supervisor and an SPL manager with no tangible consequence (Dougie McDonald)

• Scottish referee management have been proven to be complicit in those lies, and to perpetuate those lie to the media (Hugh Dallas)

• The SFA Executive Management is apparently powerless to manage the SFA Referees Committee – it is not accountable to any outside party (lack of sanction to McDonald; see Regan)

• The SFA Referees Committee is accused of lack of balance (consists of ex Referees and at least one Rangers shareholder)

• The SFA Head of Refereeing chooses referees for SPL matches

• The SFA Head of Refereeing is accused of interfering in the Performance Management of referees (see Craven, McDonald)

• The SFA refereeing assessors think nothing of putting information in match reports they know to be untrue (see McBurney)

• The SFA Head of Refereeing is accused of bullying (see Craven)

• There is evidence of potential bias against Celtic and for Rangers when assessing referees (see Craven : marked down for not sending off McManus and for booking of Broadfoot)

• There is evidence it may not be abnormal to lie when completing match reports (see McDonald “tell him (McBurney) anything”)

• It has been stated in the public domain that SPL referees match reports may have been tampered with (see CQN). In the context of the lack of transparency and accountability over the referee appointment and performance management process, this casts great doubt over the integrity of the SFA and referees in general

• Scottish referees demand unconditional respect, the removal of any right of scrutiny from SPL clubs and make a few other vague pontifications around the question of integrity before going on "strike". From holding the SFA to ransom via the Referee's Committee they now hold the SPL and SFL to ransom in the absence of Scottish clubs falling over themselves to tell referees how wonderful they are.

• The SFA is left open to accusations of institutionalised sectarianism (see extent of distribution and handling of Dallas email) – in the context of Scottish football, this is “atomic”

• The sectarian singing of the “Billy Boys” by Rangers is illegal as far as UEFA are concerned and yet the SFA have not censured the club. The means to do this is through referees assessors’ reports (see above for doubts as to the integrity of this process)

• Scottish courts have ruled the singing of “The Famine Song” illegal and racist yet SFA have not censured Rangers for their fans continuing to sing it. The means to do this is through referees assessors’ reports (see above for doubts as to the integrity of this process)

• Despite no action being taken on the above - the mechanism to sanction such behaviour being announced to much pomp and moralistic bombast in the Scottish media over three years ago - an ex-referee calls for Celtic to be deducted points following the resignation of Hugh Dallas (Dougal). Why Celtic should be deducted points in relation to an SFA internal disciplinary matter is not adequately explained but is enthusiastically received by the Scottish media.

• Rangers have publically stated their concerns as to the financial security of the club (ref: any number of statements from Bain, Smith and Johnston).

• Rangers have been unsuccessfully up for sale for a number of years (see any number of statements from Murray)

• Rangers are under investigation (have been served with an outstanding bill) for £51m from HMRC (see NOTW). This remains contested but unresolved.

• The only significant means for Scottish clubs to generate large amounts of income is through participation in the Champions League. Only the SPL winners have been able to guarantee this income over the last two years. Qualification for the 2nd place team has been made more difficult through UEFA's re-structuring of the competition to favour league winners.

• External pressures on income for all Scottish clubs intensifies:
Television income for Scottish clubs has been falling
The recession has reduced attendance and merchandising / other income streams

• Evidence exists of a pattern of around 40-50 glaring errors by Scottish referees over one season (2009/10) (that is more than 1 per game week) that appear to favour one specific team – Rangers (see “Honest Mistakes” dossier). Refereeing mistakes are part and parcel of football, as we are told. Having an overwhelming number favour one team would appear to be anomalous to any notion of statistical probability.

Is there no journalist out there who wants to take the above mixture of fact and circumstantial evidence and investigate? Imagine the shockwaves throughout the game if even half of the circumstantial evidence was corroborated! The kudos for the journalist would be immeasurable, his or her name would go down in history.

That is of course assuming we have a free media, and not one tied to an Establishment party line, in which case such a journalist would effectively become persona non grata throughout the industry.

Perhaps this explains a lot.

The owner of the Celtic Quick News blog - one of the most widely read Celtic sites among lazy tabloid journalists as much as Celtic fans - Paul67, made an open invitation to all Scottish journalists, inviting them to peruse the evidence of amended match reports during 2009/10 season but this offer was passed up BY EVERY SINGLE JOURNALIST IN SCOTLAND.

Such information would provide the basis of Scottish football's story of the century, yet NOT ONE SOLITARY Scottish journalist was interested in examining the evidence.

Do you still have any doubt over the naked bias of the Scottish media?

• We have Motive (MONEY/RANGERS IN DIRE STRAITS/VESTED INTERESTS and SECTARIANISM)
• We have Opportunity (LACK OF TRANSPARENCY WITHIN THE SFA and LACK OF ACOUNTABILITY OF THE REFEREEING PROCESS)
• We have Means (DALLAS and the REFEREES COMMITTEE);
• We have Victims (EVERY CLUB IN SCOTTISH FOOTBALL BAR ONE, PLUS SOME REFEREES)

Do we have some brave souls willing to ask a few questions other than one across the Irish Sea?

The current refereeing crisis is a direct result of their own abject performance and shady agendas.

The trouble with respect is, it has to be earned. There are no free lunches.

How many more times can the "Paranoid" excuse be trotted out before it becomes untenable?

.

You can call a referee a cheat as long as he's not Scottish

2010-11-23T16:35:00.003Z

Isn't it funny how criticism and accusations of bias and cheating are OK when it's your own team on the wrong end?

"the foul on Alan Hutton by Giorgio Chiellini was an appalling mistake that could have been described as robbery and cheating. The assistant referee is only yards away from the incident and for the referee not to over-rule him was incredible" Craig Brown (Daily Record, 19 November 2007)

"We all accept that officials make honest mistakes. They have to decide instantly on 'is it?' or 'isn't it?' 'Did he or didn't he?'. Jimenez did have these things to consider when he raised his flag. He had to decide whether Alan Hutton had been fouled or not. There was nothing else to consider - but he chose to invent one for himself. In my 30 years of refereeing I've never witnessed such a blatant deliberate error. It was no mistake. The big team were going to get a little help." David Syme (The Sun, 19 November 2007)

"I hope action is taken against the referee. We've been punished so why should he not be punished?" Lee McCulloch (Daily Express, 19 November 2007)

"If it was a player making a terrible decision in a match, he may not play in the next match. UEFA have to ask if he should be in a game like this. He made a horrendous mistake and doesn't deserve to be officiating at a high level" Alex McLeish (The Sun, 19 November 2007)

"You would not have seen a decision like that late free-kick on a public park" George Cumming (The Sun, 19 November 2007)

"Ethically, what happened at Dumbarton was just not right [alleged spying on Scotland's training session]. I'm not sure if there is something In UEFA's rule book which states that this kind of thing is not allowed. But I would be very interested to hear UEFA's views on the matter. I would like to know if there are rules which have been broken and if UEFA believe what the Italians did was a moral or ethical way to behave." Gordon Smith (Daily Record, 19 November 2007)

So Spanish referee Juan Carlos Yuste Jimenez was fair game for any accusation you care to throw at him then. No wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about death threats, or the depraved abuse that was subsequently posted to his Wikipedia entry on the Internet. No calls for action against Craig Brown or David Syme for inciting the lunatics. Why the double-standards? Oh, let me take a wild guess....

THE SFA, SCOTTISH REFEREES & THE SCOTTISH MEDIA = LYING MORALLY BANKRUPT HYPOCRITES THE LOT OF THEM

CELTIC PARANOIA: THE LAPTOP LOYAL DIARIES 2 (HONEST MISTAKES & OTHER STORIES)

2010-11-17T18:12:00.004Z

Season 2009/10 will be remembered by Celtic fans the world over as the 'Season of the Honest Mistake'. In the sequel to Celtic Paranoia the Laptop Loyal Diaries - Author Anthony Hamilton takes us on a meander through the hazy twilight world world of the deranged Scottish football hack, cataloguing the anomalous number of refereeing "honest mistakes" that encumbered Celtic that season, tearing apart the Scottish media's Orwellian doublespeak and analysing their role in the perpetuation of Scottish Football's Status Quo, with the Establishment Club at the head of the table.

The author provides lucid and humorous insights into such issues as:
- The "Ridiculous" Case of Madjid Bougherra
- Straw Man v Iron Man
- Celtic Managers & The Media
- The Booze Brothers & Whattaboutery
- Laptop Loyal Doublespeak
- The Effect of all those "Honest Mistakes"
- "Dougie, Dougie" & the Definition of Conspiracy
- The Lickspittle Galleries

And many, many more.

Click the link below to buy on Lulu website:

CELTIC PARANOIA: THE LAPTOP LOYAL DIARIES 2 (HONEST MISTAKES & OTHER STORIES)

Jim Traynor laughably tells Lenny to look to the Man with Nosurname for lessons in dignity

2010-11-12T17:09:00.004Z

In another opinion column full of biased tripe, Traynor suggests Neil Lennon studies the way WS conducts himself after matches.

I had a quick perusal of this guff on the DR website. What caught my eye was a comment from someone calling themselves Alex, who seemed plausibly a genuinely neutral fan of neither Celtic or the Huns, but who has obviously sapped in all the pish about the great dignified statesmanlike Walter who never speaks out of turn yadda yadda blah blah shite pish etc. Before launching into the predictable tiresome "it's aw us wee teams that get all the bad decisions and yooz get everything" patter, Alex wrote something about Mr Dignity in relation to how Neil Lennon conducts himself, prompting me to actually post a response to the DR website article as below. At the time of writing 10 minutes later, it hasn't appeared on the site and I've a feeling it won't be, so I decided to post it here:

Alex says "Walter Smith is a much more mature (and generous) appraiser of football matches"

What a bad joke. The rose tinted deification of the Rangers manager shows up the Scottish press, with the Daily Record at the head of the table, for just how hopelessly biased they are to "Scotland's Premier Sporting Institution"

Let's just have a quick wee gander at how generous Sir Nosurname is in his appraisal of the Scottish game and his own club's experiences:

Oct 2010 ” Walter accuses Aberdeen of only wanting to beat rangers ”

Oct 2010 “McGregor’s was an innocuous foul. In fact it wasn’t even a foul, but that is how they see it and we can’t do anything about it. Last season, they (the SFA) quickly organised a disciplinary hearing for Kenny Miller’s appeal, so that he would miss the Celtic game.”

Sep 2010 Mr Smith - "If he's happy with the way Scottish football is at the moment, then he's in the wrong job. Was the Kilmarnock chairman one of the people who agreed to the Setanta deal?"

Mar 2010 "I felt Kevin Thomson's one wasn't really a bad tackle; he got the ball, he's played it away… the first one I would say was quite a soft one"

May 2010 ” WS hits Andreas Hinkel with a stinging blast , Who do you think you are ”

Apr 2010 "Walter Smith last night promised an official complaint to the SPL after insisting Rangers have been unfairly disadvantaged by fixture anomalies since the controversial league split was introduced 10 years ago"
Walter - "somebody somewhere is making a conscious decision to do this to us"

Apr 2010 Walter Nosurname "Everyone one wants players sent off against us, everyone wants penalties against us, everyone wants everything against us"

Dec 2009 “Smith left seething after Collum sends off Kenny Miller ”

Oct 2009 Walter "Gonnae just pack it in and stop asking me difficult questions"

Sept 2009 Smith says ” Konko of Seville should have been sent off ”

Sep 2009 “Furious smith accuses ref Jonas Eriksson of bottling out of doing his job”

May 2009 "Smith sent to stand after a furious bust up with Paatelainen”

Apr 2009 Smith - “The SFA have started a new trend in criminality - if you leave the scene of a crime early, you are not guilty."

Sep 2009 ” SFA spokesman said Smith was adopting a threatning and aggressive attitude after mendes was red carded at Kilmarnock ”

August 2009 Walter - "No it wasn't a sending off it was an opportunity for the referee to send him [Thomson] off"

May 2009 "Smith blasts 'incredible' Bougherra sending off"

Mar 2009 "Smith rages at Thomson sending off in Co-op Cup final"

November 2008 "That linesman Murphy was quick to allow a Celtic goal against us and quick to disallow that one tonight"

August 2008 “It's an incredible decision for a linesman who is in line with the play. We got a bad one at Tannadice earlier this season, which has been forgotten about, maybe because we don't make that much of a fuss about it" [????!!!]

May 2008 "They made it perfectly clear there is no willingness on anybody’s part to give us anything. There has been no willingness at all to help Rangers so they’re not going to help us now are they”

December 2007 "The Aberdeen crown wound Lee McCulloch up and if the linesman ran 70 yards to get involved, if he wants to be a referee he should be one and not a linesman"

So you can see why Celtic fans are a tiny wee bit sceptical of this "Sir Walter the most dignified manager to walk the face of the earth" that fans of all other Scottish clubs read in our biased media and gullibly sap up.

If Neil Lennon has anything to learn from The Man With Nosurname then it is merely how to complain MORE, how to be MORE paranoid and how to be MORE laughably hypocritical.

New Daily Record Celtic Smear Campaign Game - Spot the Lenny

2010-10-29T23:31:00.004+01:00

I was really taken with this new game they've come up with as a nice spin-off from their latest anti-Celtic smear campaign. It's a variation on spot the ball.... The Daily Record propaganda version. Spot where Kenny Clarke uses the words "Neil" ,"Lennon" or "Lenny", as according to the Daily Ranger this is all directed at the Celtic manager:

REF BACKLASH IS YOUR FAULT Ex-whistler Clark has pop at Lenny Daily Record by Gordon Parks 29/10/10

Kenny Clark last night told Neil Lennon he IS whipping the nutters into a frenzy with his war on whistlers.

On Tuesday Record Sport told how the Celtic boss flatly denied his rage against refs led to Willie Collum receiving death threats after his decision to award Rangers a penalty in Sunday's Old Firm showdown.

But former top whistler Clark has taken apart Lennon's defence - and blasted Celtic's insistence on demanding explanations over refereeing decisions.

Clark said: "There is no question that what the clubs do stoke the fires of the fanatics. And they don't need to be wound up any more. It's a sorry state of affairs when clubs are wanting explanations about individual decisions.

"It would be a strange world if a referee was to ask a club why their star striker missed a penalty.

"Could he talk us through it? The striker wouldn't be able to explain how he did it.
"Referees are never going to get agreement on everything, with both teams happy about every decision after a highly charged game."

Collum is the latest referee to come under fire for his display in Sunday's Old Firm clash which followed the Dougie McDonald U-turn saga at Tannadice two weeks ago which led to his assistant Steven Craven tendering his resignation. Now Clark fears there could be a mass exodus of officials.

He said: "You feel as if the morale is dropping a little and they feel they are in a siege situation. "It's more like Japanese water torture. The longer it goes on the more difficult it becomes for the officials in the front line.

"I'd like to think everyone will take a step back and show a bit of restraint in the comments they make about match officials.
"If any young man was contemplating taking up refereeing, then I'm sure after this week their family are trying to dissuade them. Retaining referees is also a problem."

Clark also pointed the finger at bosses who use the display of officials to blur their own deficiencies and team failings.
He said: "From time to time, there is no doubt in my mind managers throw up criticism of referees as a smokescreen."

Nope. I guess I must just be shit at this game.

Getting away from how shit I am at gullibly sapping in their doublespeak propaganda lies, let's have a closer look at how Neil Lennon whipped the "nutters" into a "frenzy" with his "war on whistlers":

After the Dundee Utd game Neil Lennon has this to say -

“It’s another strange decision that has gone against us in the last six to eight months. It’s very rare you see that happen. I thought Dougie had a far better position than the linesman.

He’s given the penalty and, for me, he can’t change his mind. From where I was, he got a really good look at it.
“Looking at the replay, Pernis got a touch of the ball, but he has taken Gary as well.

“It was a very strange decision, and we could have had a couple of other penalties as well. But I suppose you have to put that down to another honest mistake from the referee.”

Phew, strong stuff. Give that man a chill pill! Still, isn't quite up to Jim Jeffries "he spoke to me like a wee boy after I bawled Collum out for mistakes he didn't actually make" or the Man with Nosurname "that sending off is an incredible decision" standard.

But he really ramped up the "war on whistlers" after the Rangers game -

"But goals change the psychology of games and the penalty looked soft to me. I don't think he saw the incident properly so why did he give it?

I feel let down by that decision and I think the referee has an obligation to explain that decision. He doesn't necessarily have to make that explanation in public but I'd like to know why he gave it.

Kirk Broadfoot went over easily and a penalty was awarded at a time when we were trying to regroup after going behind for the first time. When you go 3-1 down it's a very difficult road back from that deficit."

Jeez-o. This is paranoid mental deranged stuff. You wouldn't hear any sane person say that the Rangers penalty was dodgy or that Clubfoot went down "easily".

This guy is aff his head and must be stopped by an avalanche of media hyperbole which feeds off itself letting fuckwits like Tam Cowan and his tweedledee chum Cosgrove rant about "Neil Lennon filling the back page of the Daily Record" on radio shortbread. I think ye'll find its yer chum Union Jackson who's responsible for filling up the back page with the smear campaign.

Can't wait for Lenny's next outburst in the "war on whistlers". Maybe something along the lines of "I thought we should've had a corner there" to really cause the Hun FA's heads to burst in an aneurysm of Timmy refusing to shut up and slink back into the corner hatred. Similar effects can be achieved with pepperami bars or green straws at Park Gardens I hear.