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You Can't See Mark Walters. There was a period of nearly four years in Scottish football, whereby some of the most interested parties viewing, found it exceedingly difficult to see Mark Walters. His debut came at Celtic Park on the second of January'88. Rangers deservedly lost 2-0 and Celtic went on to win a League and Cup double. Walters arrived at Rangers in a £500,000 move from Aston Villa on Hogmanay'87. It would be fair to say most Scottish football fans knew little or nothing of the Birmingham born winger. The self proclaimed Greatest Fans in the World(GFITW) knew he was black. The Englishman emerged from the tunnel to booing and a continuous cascade of thrown bananas. In those days, the most vibrant part of the ground was, the Jungle. An area of terracing, running the length of the north side of the pitch. That day in the Jungle, a dozen of TGFITW replete in Gorilla suits toted entire bunches of bananas. The cinder track and the first ten yards of playing surface in front of the Jungle was carpeted with the elongated yellow fruit. The kick-off was postponed for six minutes, it took that long for the ground staff to remove the herbaceous fruit from the park. Sportscene began with a shot of half-a-dozen bananas in a track side puddle, Archie Macpherson voiced over another delay to the second half. Again it took the ground staff six minutes to clear the playing area. The next morning, the Sun's front page screamed, "Yes, we have no Bananas". It told of Asian shopkeepers all over the city selling out. The rest of the Scottish press seemed pretty reticent, the overwhelming emphasis was on a resurgent Celtic putting Souness back in his box. A week later, Rangers had played two home games against Dundee and Morton, it was reported a single Rangers season ticket holder was reported for racist chanting. The following Saturday, Rangers visited Tynecastle and the Jambos greeted Walters in similar fashion to the GFITW. Suddenly, the Scottish fourth estate found moral courage. The epitome was Jim Craig of Lisbon Lion fame. He utilised his Guardian column to batter Hearts and Hearts supporters, but fail failed to condemn the behaviour of his fellow Celtic supporters of a fortnight before. Hardly surprising, at the culmination of his playing career, Jim took off to Apartheid South Africa for five years to provide a specific Dental service. It took two weeks to see Mark Walters, a fortnight before the vile abuse suffered was not awkward and inconvenient. Let's move this on three and a half years, FIFA were discussing players being resident for five years in a country they were playing in, could turn out for said country, if selected. The Daily Record reported Walters as an example, in a year he could be wearing the cobalt blue. The then Glasgow Herald had a most popular Diarist, Tom Shields. he was mostly referred to as, 'Tim Shields' because of his obvious leanings. In fact, when he left the Herald he went on to host a column in the Celtic View for several years titled, 'the Tim Shields Diary'. Tom had difficulty with his eyes. Tom reported Mark Walters could legitimately play for Scotland because of his Scottish blood. We did not have to wait another year. You see as Tom explained; Scots explorer, David Livingstone had his arm bitten off and consumed by a lion. Mark Walters great-grandfather had hunted, killed and, eaten said lion. Thus, Mark had Scots blood in his veins. Laugh, I nearly did. Rangers supporters complained, it was reported as, "an organised complaint" and Tom was told to apologise. Well he did and he didn't. It took nearly three years, but eventually Tom penned a vague column that neither apologised, nor mentioned Mark Walters. The Herald Editorial team accepted it and Tom moved on to join Matt McGlone at ra Sellik View. Approaching a decade after Walters debut, it was a boil needing lanced. Scotland's premier Sunday had a supplement called, 'Seven Days'. It specialised in politics and current affairs and was Edited by Charleen Sweeney. She found an ambitious useful idiot, Sanjeev Kohli. A First Class Honours Grad' in Mathematics, Sanjeev's family had experienced recent bad press on being slum Landlords in Glasgow's West End and knew the benefits of experiencing a Rite of Passage. He agreed to sink the boot into Rangers and Rangers supporters for the reward of working at BBC Scotland. He was given the blank canvas of two and a half pages of the Sunday broadsheet to tell the tale. A considerable feat considering his failing sight? He told of his Seek upbringing, his attendance along with two brothers(the sex pest, Hardeep and senior Met' Police officer, Randeep) at St Aloysius College and, his life long support for Rangers. He told of crowding into the Rangers end of Celtic Park on the 2nd of January'88 and witnessing scenes that ended his support of the Ibrox club. Sanjeev was surrounded by Bears in monkey suits, screaming racist abuse and, throwing bananas the distances between 40 and 120 yards to land in front of the Jungle. Didn't the Jesuits say, "give us the boy aged seven and we will give you the man"? Again, an organised complaint. Seven Days acknowledge a high correspondence. Charleen published three letters, two from Sanjeev's brothers backing his story and a one paragraph block from a Rangers supporter accusing Sanjeev of false memory syndrome. Sanjeev survived and these days he is in with the PQ bricks. In all the discussions reference racism in Scottish football, Mark Walters debut remains unseen. Just before New Year, former Sellik View cub reporter, Allison McConnell began a piece in the Herald with the following line : "so thirty years ago, Mark Walters had a banana thrown at him". Careful Allison!

Think it was his agent who recently said that Tavernier would live in Glasgow no matter where his career finishes - which would suggest that he would be happy to stay at Rangers as long as Rangers want him. Still surprised he hasnt been looked at by England - he is having a far superior season to Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Racist Encounters in Scottish Football(Part 1). I cannot imagine my upbringing in deepest, darkest Lanarkshire in the 60s and early 70s differed much from anyone else in Scotland in those times. We are all products of our conditioning. I attended a village primary school, and only three of the school roll did not share the pigmentation of my skin. A pair of Hindu twins, who also attended Cubs with me, were present for a couple of years before being whisked off to private school. The third lad was a couple of years below, he was of African origin and adopted by white parents through the auspices of the church. Mostly, we called him "Davy". I have recounted my Amateur footballing experiences back in the day, and Davy's participation was a law of diminishing returns. He was a more than decent footballer but every time he stepped on to the pitch, the racism was overwhelming. At Fir Park Boys' Club, a Coach inquired, "where's Davy"? A couple of hands were raised, the Coach looked and said, "naw, Davy the Darkie"! I became aware that unmeant casual racism was just as hurtful. Davy was a big Rangers supporter and a regular attendee at Ibrox with both his old man and our grouping. Davy loved Dave Smith Celtic had an effective winger at the time, Paul Wilson a player of mixed parentage. I don't want to stray into Meghan Markle territory, but Wilson had a sallow complexion We Rangers fans sung a song of homage, "I'd rather be a Darkie than a Tim". It was a cause of great hilarity on the terrace steps, when our grouping, including Davy belted out the ditty. Davy sang it liked he meant it; there must have been comfort in the acceptance. Black players of the time, were Pele and Eusabio. Nearer home, the only black guy regular turning out was West Ham's Clyde Best. Davy received the comparisons, but he had a good line, "I prefer George". I am not excusing the racism existing at that time, I am recounting the times. Education is the thing, tertiary education focused my mind. The music I adored was Southern Soul, my heroes were Otis Redding, Al Green, Ann Peebles, .... etc. Davy's fave rave was the Average White Band and we attended a few of the Mighty Whities gigs together. The last time I socialised with Davy was at Ibrox for the final of the Tennent Caledonian Cup against West Bromwich Albion. It concluded with a deserving 0-2 for the Baggies and the majority of the 65,000 crowd applauded them from the pitch. Ron Atkinson had assemble a hell of a team, Batson, Cunningham, and, Regis were the epitome of speed and balance. Throw in Robson, Wullie Johnston and, Ally Robertson and you had Britain's first genuine multi-racial talented team. At that time, our preferred place at Ibrox was the far end of the West Enclosure. It was a tad higher and provided a most decent view down the ground. A dozen of us, late teens to early twenties were in early and had a great view of dozens of our fellow Bears racially abusing West Brom's black players. It was all verbal, but appalling. I would like to say we confronted some of those screaming abuse, but we didn't. A few of us apologised to Davy, he shrugged his shoulders and offered, "average white guy behaviour". I felt small and decided to be a better man. Early in my Army career, I received a letter from my Mother, it was a few weeks in arriving as I was attending the Army Jungle School in Borneo. It told of Davy's suicide. Initially, my concern was my own discomfort. A few months later, I was participating for several weeks in one of those huge mobilisation exercises in West Germany. Those exercises ran on their own timings, usually a couple of hours ahead of local time, called, 'Zulu Time'. I was asked the time by a black Sergeant and I replied, "Zulu time"? I spent a few minutes profusely apologising and explained about Davy. He laughed and told me to calm down and explained the phonetic alphabet. I returned home on leave and met Davy's old man walking the family dog. There were tears and I was told the member of the family/community that missed Davy most, was the family dog because she could not see colour. Part 2 will begin on another period of leave, New Years 1988 and Rangers announced the signing from Aston Villa of Mark Walters.

That's good news. Young Patterson is not quite ready for prime time yet. You can see he has good instincts but some things are still lacking - like good crosses to our men. Too often , especially against Cove Rangers, his crosses were easily cleared by their defence. That's not to say that he couldn't come good in two years watching Tav.

Please enter me,thanks.

If everyone else at the game is vaccinated then what does it matter?

Do I get an extra entry for posting in here as well as following the Twitter instructions?

Add me too as i need those for my newly opened man cave.

Not far from me so will try out, also good spot to drop off for those travelling along the m8 east.

That gets done after every match v’s Separate Entity FC

Great piece 26th.