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Showing content with the highest reputation on 02/06/21 in all areas
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Yep, been a Boca fan since I think 2001. A few of the old school regulars will know about this. It started with me working night shifts back in the day and I couldn't sleep when I got home and discovered channel 5(is that still going?) showed a full match from the Argentinean league and highlights from all the other games. I was drawn to Boca because it was Maradonas team and the atmosphere of the crowd. I got chatting to a guy online who was a big fan and we were like pen pals for years exchanging Boca and Rangers stuff like ticket stubs, photos, scarves and the like. Eventually went there, three times including living there for 3 months and went to many games including a Boca-River game which was amazing. So cool to immerse myself in a different fan culture. My friend and I have been like brothers for years now and the goal now is to someday get him to an Old firm game. Attached a wee pic of us at the super classic. Amazing day! It was also the day we won the league at Killie in 12 mins so we watched that in the morning before going to Boca for the derby. One of the best days of my life.5 points
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Wouldn’t fancy trying that with some of the bamsticks at matches, dB. Maybe it’s different with disciplined Germans. Over here you would want to make sure your dental insurance was adequate.2 points
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Im hoping the McBurnie rumours is nonsense. Oh my gosh he is awful.2 points
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Take an interest in the following ; West Brom as my Uncle played for them for many a year. Chelsea - starting taking an interest in them after we played them in the Bradford Disaster Appeal games. Bo'ness United - my local junior team who are now senior2 points
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Imagine the big 6 got demoted from the Premier League for a season? Who would win? Compo and Scott might actually get a score prediction right..but we wont tell them that ?2 points
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The odds for the two top scorers for Scotland are Che Adams and Lyndon Dykes never heard of them first one's name sounds like a porn actor the other like a clothes shop for big Jessie's1 point
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Steady on Compo. Then the clubs may as well break away and do something different for 3 years and it may prove more successful than UEFA1 point
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Weren`t they dismissed during the last Heart & Hand podcast?1 point
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I think if he is being remanded in custody, before sentencing, there might be more to any criminal record he may have.1 point
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The Romans used to rule the known world but, like Everton, you wouldn’t describe them as a big deal now. Any claim to fame at Everton is a distant and largely irrelevant memory. Today it’s no more a “big club” than Wolves or Newcastle or Leicester.1 point
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I remember going to see Rangers at Goodison in the late 90s and it's the most bother I've ever seen outside a ground.1 point
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Talk about a get out of jail card. He was never right for Everton anyway.. But to land the Madrid job instantly - bizarre one.1 point
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Cannae beat a bit of The Undertones but only with Fergal fronting them. Saw them a few times back in the day and have their 1st 4 albums - a terrific band.1 point
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I believe you are 100% correct.1 point
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Many thanks as always @Rick Roberts An early walk to the stadium with a friend was met with fair weather and pockets of fans and flags drawn to the occasion. Crowds had already formed along Edmiston Drive. The party had started long before and was already in full swing for many by late morning. The police were present in numbers and their policy was stand-off and fair. There’s something surreal about standing outside a football ground with thousands of people whilst a game unfolds relatively unwatched inside. If anything this quirk added to the occasion. Not that it needed any more, there was enough energy and emotion for several title parties – brought by each and every person, all wanting to be part of history. Cheers would erupt as the goals went in. Beaming smiles obligatory. The movement of limbs on the horizon would indicate that another chant would radiate in this direction and wash over the crowd in the very near future. And then that uncontainable emotion and joy would erupt again. The imagery provided by the coloured plumes rushing out from the smoke bombs – a billowing outpouring of fascinating red and blue magic that demands to be watched, that heightens the experience and accents the crowd as our crowd. Fireworks crackle and boom from all directions. Hats, scarves and hands form the skyline that the photographs will capture and preserve. Half-bottles of Buckfast distinguish the young team (and some of the old team). The lamp posts silently challenge the young men to climb them. The metal barriers around the new site of Edmiston house challenge young men to move aside and the site site is soon filled with overflow from a crowd that has been steadily growing for many hours now. I make a point of trying to absorb every spectacle and savour every available moment. The last time I was at Ibrox in similar circumstances was 11 years before and I’ll never take that occasion for granted again. A decade of absence gives a sharp appreciation of what can be lost in the blink of an eye. News filters through that the trophy has now been delivered and lifted. It is ours. We are the Champions. Glasgow Rangers are Champions. This team, this title, this manager are special. The crowd are on the move and the city centre beckons. Football is nothing without a crowd and the best crowds are the ones where the energy sits on the edge between euphoria and danger. Everybody’s world view, circumstances, standards are valid and they are entitled to that. We’ve has a season of positivity and praise; I want that to last forever. And so, we need to talk about what is allowed under a Rangers banner. Some stuff goes without saying. Physical violence or lawlessness is inexcusable. If you’re rolling about fighting or smashing bottles in the middle of the city then you are on your own. Learn your lesson in your own time, not behind a Rangers crest. This was a very small number out of tens of thousands and, in such numbers, was perhaps inevitable, as much as it's also wrong. The next part should be obvious by now too and I don’t think we can ignore it. Songs or chants that damage Rangers or show Rangers in a poor light are on the way out and have to stop. We are here because of Steven Gerrard and his players and the club. Gerrard talks about standards. His team has devoted themselves to those standards. They’ve applied an almost unthinkable level of dedication. Every single Rangers great has talked about standards, about representing the club and doing the best for the club. That is the over-arching message that leads to our shared success. F-T-P isn’t that. Religion should be challenged and ridiculed, often, but it’s not Rangers' place to do that. I know that for most of it is banter or defiance, it doesn’t matter. Whether it was valid or was before is beside the point, because it’s not now. Let’s face facts, the enemy has changed clothes since those days and any chants are now against their empty shirts. Worse than that, these chants are now against many in our own squad and support. This is several own goals at once. Make no mistake, our enemies want this to continue. Everyone has the right to support and follow the club in whatever way they choose but there’s an equation that needs balanced at some point. If your way of supporting the club damages the very entity you follow then you’re doing it wrong. One thing I hear a lot is traditions and an immobility surrounding those. Let me tell you where short-sighted, stubbornness gets you. Look at the empty or repurposed church buildings in every town and city. Here’s the symbol for institutions that refused to change or that didn’t want to heed that the world had changed. Empty buildings and diminishing influence, to the point of insignificance and oblivion. Take that lesson hard, my friends, because I won’t see that happen to Rangers for some pig-headed adherence to any arbitrary, ill-informed, self-defeating value or tradition. Rangers' tradition is winning. Our job is to assist and enable that tradition. Forever. Do not fail the club. On a personal level, I couldn’t care less if people choose to express their dislike of our historic enemies in their own free time. Our enemies are actively engaged in a war against us, they deserve contempt. The actions of some in the press, specifically, the BBC, STV, writers at the Scotsman, Clyde FM, the SFA, and more worryingly Police Scotland and in the position of Justice Secretary, are down to our enemies taking up positions and opening fire. Sometimes with fabricated nonsense and sometimes with ammunition that we’ve provided. To retaliate we need get our message clear and get smarter. Roaring at old ladies queuing up outside a café isn’t smarter. It achieves less than nothing. It damages Rangers. A big, mindless, negative number. But what I’m really concerned about is what happens next. UEFA and the Scottish press will be all over us at our next European game. Domestically I expect the goalposts may change too. And as a support we have to concede that nothing has changed enough in the 15 years since The Billy Boys started getting us in trouble. A strategy to replace or displace across the board was required. We’ve collectively failed as we have many in a new generation that have picked up that bad habit, along with other bad habits. Here’s the nightmare scenario. First game of the Champions' League we get Ibrox closed because some clown can’t handle his drink, doesn’t know where he is and opens his stupid, unthinking mouth. I don’t think anyone would find that acceptable, and yet at this moment in time it’s more likely than not at some stage soon. That aspect of the culture within the support has to change to the extent that this cannot be allowed to happen. The new 'Every Saturday We Follow' song is excellent. The pyro on banks of the Clyde on Friday night is one of the most impressive football spectacles I’ve ever seen. We are at an exciting and historic place as a club. The environment should be fertile for new songs and positivity – unstoppable positivity. Only Rangers. Collectively we have to learn and find a way to filter that through to every section of the support. This situation has partly arose through disengagement and a lack of leadership and communication to our wider communities and society. The solution surely lies in addressing that? I made a point to myself on Saturday of not singing anything that I wouldn’t sing in the stadium. I noticed plenty others did too. I have no firm answers on how to bring everyone up to speed with what has to happen and the club cannot be accountable for behaviour well outside its stadium footprint. Can we put the 15th of May down as an inevitable and necessary release? An exception? Perhaps. But it’ll need introspective and leadership to move on from that place. Some stuff needs left behind quickly.1 point