andy steel

Best thing I've read in a long long time.

As is sadly usual with your replies to my posts, you're completely miles out. Although I may dislike some songs, the problem lies not with me but with football and civic authorities. What punishment do you think I'm going to give Rangers, moan some more at the next home game? What am I doing? Ignoring others' rights and imposing my views on them. Yes, that's about it. By sitting watching the game and only singing football songs, I'm oppressing the poor wee lambs, who are only being passionate when treating me to their political/religious and so on views. However, the main thrust of the OP was that given our repertoire, we can scarcely hope to be portrayed as the bringers of Presbyterian, Unionist, Monarchical and Loyalist values. Maybe if you read what my posts say rather than looking for phantasmagorical traces of what you clearly perceive to be my arrogance/control freakery/handwringyness and so on, you might have spotted that. Absolute drivel of a post.

While most would agree that your overall point is totally correct, I'm not sure I agree that political correctnes is such a new thing, Barca. It just to be called good manners and while I vividly remember a Moderator of the GA/CoS at Ibrox in your actual reformation clothes, I also remember my BB captain absolutely ripping the more extreme elements of our identity, and how it was expressed, to shreds. There's been disapproval of such things for many decades but it took actual punishment from the authorities to actually force us fans to do anything about it. Btw I certainly didn't engage the intellect when repeatedly buying tickets for what I knew would be dross last year!

But I'm cross that I have let myself by sucked into a political debate when I know it annoys many posters. Sorry about that, me out.

I'll accept your premise, but I think I can present a case which deals with it. In my working life I've worked in big and small environments. The bigger the environment, the harder it is to get anything done properly and sometimes get done at all. It is also amazingly easy to get away with pulling a fast one when there are countless layers between you and being caught out. Scotland would be tiny, compared to the UK system, and any corruption etc far easier to spot and therefore deter. It's like living in a town where everyone knows everyone else - it deters really bad behaviour because of the knowledge that you will most likely be caught. The eg of Glasgow City council shows how easily corruption can happen; my case is not that we would be a paradise. My case is that, compared to what is blatantly an dysfunctional festering den of iniquity, we really can only be better. Maybe not much - but that would be a start. Basically I'd rather try something else and risk failure than carry on failing with the present.

Aha! I can answer that one. It's because Westminster seems to act like a death eater in Harry Potter, sucking the good out of people and turning them into Party Machine Zombies (many of these people, let it be noted, are Scots). It's because instead of using the resources of this country to maybe improve things as much as possible, successive governments at Westminster (many led, let it be noted, by Scots) piss away the wealth of Britain, having first converted it into the blood of young men and women, to be drained into the sands of central Asia. It's because instead of representing their constituents, as Parliamentary democracy is supposed to do (but for the majority of Westminster's existence most certainly has not), the interests of the Party come first. It's because far from acting in the interests of the population, Westminster government acts in the interests of lobbyists (many of whom, let it be noted, are Scots) and avaricious individuals (many of whom etc). It's because its entirely possible to run modern democracies without continual and repeated corruption scandals, none of which are adequately investigated and the people therein brought to book. I could go on.

I remember Jim Duffy lying on the pitch at Ibrox in agony, having suffered one of his many knee injuries. When we sang 'to die a ****** bastard' at him I can't believe there was one person singing it who wasn't digging his celtc/Catholic identity. I'm happy to hold my hands up to the indiscretions of the past and see no point in pretending it was anything other than what it was.

That's slightly misleading - it wasn't the average worker who got those bonuses. Iirc they had to say in situ for a four year period, opt into a share scheme and not relinquish those shares in the meantime. Anyone who has shopped in SD will know that remaining in there for 4 minutes is quite the ordeal; I would imagine the numbers of staff who lucked into this bonus (jammy bassas!) will be small.

Plenty of connections with USA, Canada etc & for the same reason: economic migration. I can't see why having these connections would mean you absolutely have to take your political decisions from these countries, though. That there are maybe more Scots in England (and lets face it, we mean London here) is both an indicator as to how the UK is governed - all effort into the London city-state and hope against hope the wealth dissipates outward - and a geographical accident. If Ireland (titter) were to become an economic powerhouse on the scale of London, I doubt there would be many calling for us to be governed from Dublin, no matter how many links we created between the countries.

The 21 in '83 seems ok compared, as you say, to their present 0 or 1; but when you compare it back the way, you find they had a third more in the 1950's. I doubt it seemed reasonable to the Tory chiefs to see their MPs drop by a third.

Maybe I do take it too seriously. But when I see teams half our size sponsored by global brands such as Toyota or Pepsi, and the OF get some cider, it suggests that we have something wrong with us, or at least our image, which sends marketing men for real companies - the ones our size as a club ought to be attracting - running a mile. And the prevention of Rangers growth into what it could be, with the fanbase it has, frustrates me enormously. Afraid we'll have to disagree on the songbook. I can't see how we can sing eg 'Rule Brittania' & not be aware of its political ramifications. While 'No Surrender' has, imo, transcended its origins and become a song of rock solid support for the team when losing, some of the other songs most certainly have not, esp. in the current political climate of Scotland.

That's a fairly wide definition of 'reasonable'. 83 - 21 87 - 10 92 - 11 97 - 0 01 - 1 05 - 1 10 - 1

That raises a few questions. Firstly, am I and every other Bear who does not share the views you and the 1000's of others hold so unworthy of respect that their opinions are just shrugged off? Is it really the case that at Ibrox if you don't fit the stereotype you can either like it or lump it? Are we only to draw our future fanbase from one and one constituency only, those people who tick all the boxes? It's just a manners thing in the end imo - from where I'm sitting it seems a wee corner of the ground think they have the right to foist their views on non-footballing subjects on everyone else and if they don't like it, they can sod off. Again, not very Presbyterian or even very traditionally British, and spectacularly unfraternal. Numbers aren't really what I mean - even if it could be proven to me that in a crowd of 43,000, 42,998 agreed on one thing and only me & my son differed, I'd still think that as fellow Bears we'd be worthy of consideration. I would stand shoulder to shoulder with even the most Orange of Bears if he was up against a crowd - I think sometimes the reverse would not be true, because I somehow don't belong quite as much. You ask where else you could sing such songs. Well, the Conservative Party is quite good at organising such song fests. You could join your local BB and not only help develop a new generation with the values some hold dear, you could have as much singing as you like at parades, services and so on. Monarchists have been blessed with multiple occasions to get the bunting up in recent years, only the blind or deaf could have missed the wedding/birth/jubilee celebrations and without wishing to be morbid, they're going to have the passing of Phillip soon and a coronation shortly afterwards to look forward to, if that's the right expression. Lack of somewhere else is not a very strong reason, in all honesty. Maybe this is an age thing because I certainly didn't worry about this when I was a teenager/early 20's. The threat of punishment to the club was enough to get me thinking we were on the wrong lines and the experience of taking my boy to the ground and coming away unsure whether I wanted him to go back was very chastening. Football used to be fun for me too, but then again I used to be 17.

You'd like to think that even the apparently low skill workers in SD could be offered something a little better than that. No wonder they are all so miserable looking.

At the risk of being offensive, if this is true they must have been looking the other way the last couple of years.

Ahmad appears to be willing to work quite hard to hit back at those who have set themselves against him.

Hope you ain't studying politics, they were put into power by a coalition agreement rather than a popular democratic vote. Be that as it may, I shall resist the temptation to moan about the Tories in order to spare your finer feelings from here on out. I don't remember actually doing so, but even so.

An interesting question indeed. I have to say, I haven't heard a 'thriving, pulsating crowd' at Ibrox, with the exception of the Motherwell game last year, for a long long time. The reason, I would guess, is the repetitive nature of the opposition and the lousy quality of the game, reasons which could be applied across the whole of the game in Scotland, rather than any identity issues on the terraces. We saw midweek a decent crowd for St Johnstone & an excellent crowd for Hibs' European games - different teams, players you don't know, something different. The game in Scotland is stuck in a rut of 'familiarity breeding contempt' nature and in all honesty I can't see even the adoption of a P/U/L or equivalent songbook raising the morale of the perenially pessimistic Scots football fan.

Well, that's democracy for you.

It's brutal trying to reconcile all the various bits and pieces you pick up down the years, in your personal life and your life as a Bluenose. All we can do is what is best for the club, i.e. avoid dong anything which will incur penalties. FWIW I'll be voting yes in 2014 but rooting for a 5-0 Ashes triumph this summer to make up for the years of misery I endured as an England cricket fan in the 90's & 00's. We're all a bit mixed up, I guess, but being proudly Scots certainly doesn't mean being anti-English, just as being proudly British doesn't mean being anti-Scots. I hope you work it out someday, mate. Let me know the secret if you do.

derBerliner wrote: I suppose it is a very difficult line to tread between not drawing down trouble on the club/plain old loutish behaviour and giving up everything just because someone else is bothered. But I think if we cut out the behaviour which causes real concern amongst society, rather than amongst the permenently offended, we'd still retain the likes of eg No Surrender. Your point about anthems is also valid, but I'd go back to the point about Empire - just because others do it doesn't mean its either (a) all right or (b) worth hanging on to. Anthems seem to be mince the world over.

Even I, with my bias, can see that both sides have been guilty of this. The level of debate has been fucking awful.

I imagine most of us will have seen the move 'Jurassic Park' at some point, either when it came out or later, when we had kids of our own, maybe for the second time. Sam Neill doing his usual dependable type, Jeff Goldblum in leathers and shades being as cool as he ever got, even Samuel L Jackson in a small role as a computer genius. My own favourite was the great Lord Dickie Attenborough as Scottish scientist John Hammond; I doubt there has been a better actor in the last 50 years at pulling off convincing accents than Attenborough. I picture him, head in hands, softly repeating 'Ah hate tha' man...ah really hate tha' man' as Jeff Goldblum tweaks his tail. Anyway, as you'll recall the plot centred around attempts to bring back dinosaurs from the ancient past. Not wishing to spoil the film for younger readers who might have missed it, I shall only say all does not go according to plan. You'll probably have noticed a certain age bias in this post already, which is deliberate. Formidable Gersnet and elsewhere writer D'Artagnan last week claimed that the latent 'dinosaur' virtues of Rangers - the 'Protestant, Unionist, Loyalist & Monarchist' identity - had risen, Jurassic Park-like, from the past and made itself known in Sheffield, to the all round delight of many. I'd like to offer a criticism of D'Artganan's article, and present an alternative interpretation of those virtues, how they are expressed and the implications they have for Rangers. D'Artagnan speaks in his opening paragraph of 'the new breed' of Rangers supporters. This refers to those who, like me, have no interest in the virtues listed above, at least so far as following The Rangers goes. I get itchy even at that title - are we to infer that of the hundreds of thousands of Rangers fans who have gone into Ibrox since (random date) 1920, none until recently ('the new breed') demurred from the stereotype? Surely not. You see how the defining of the club's heritage by one group is not, evidently, straightforward. 'Times change', the article notes, but Rangers must stay the same, 'no matter how society moves on to other things'. This is a bit of a contradiction. Heritage is important, but why are certain bits of heritage more important than others? Why must we hold on to those bits of heritage from a certain period (which we happen to agree with) but ignore all the other points in the clubs heritage in which these credos hardly featured at all? D'Artagnan goes on to describe how the ethos of the 4 virtues evolved at Rangers over time, rather than being instilled from conception. This can scarce be argued with, although one could certainly point to periods of ebb and flow in their popularity or importance. I just think it odd that the periods in which these virtues were strongly held at Ibrox are seen as somehow exclusively belonging to Rangers. it seems logical enough to assume that the staff of Arbroath, Elgin, St Mirren or whoever also have contained staunch Unionists or Presbyterians down the years. No doubt loads will have been BB Captains, activists in the Conservative Party, or flag waving Monarchists. Just because they do it in a context outwith their football club, it doesn't mean they don't do it! And in truth, I'd say that their separating such activities from their football shows a bit more common sense than we have - a place for everything and everything in its place. They want as many people to follow their teams as possible, not just people who agree with a certain set of values. And anyway, are football grounds the best place to express their ideals? There's no point beating around the bush - the expression of Britishness that comes out of Ibrox is not one which many people outwith Bluenoses finds attractive, and I include in that group people who entirely fit the virtues menu. One cannot sing of fucking the SPL, of getting Regan to fuck, of thanking fuck terrorists died some decades ago, nor lapse into expressions of fucking popes (no matter how awful) , nor howling religious slurs at referees who have displeased us, nor, especially, of importing great slabs of Northern Irish culture and expect to be taken seriously as a messenger of traditional, dinsoaur like British or Scottish Presbyterian, Unionist virtue. D'Artganan is at great pains to point out that Rangers is a broad church, but how inclusive can a place be in which some people (and it ought to be noted, not all that many) sing bi-weekly about King Billy on the Wall? This, a recent and most unwelcome import from Ulster, cannot be anything but divisive. I certainly won't make any friends over this, but to bring in aspects of a culture (I mean both sides) which expressed itself so much through aggression doesn't fit in with my idea of Britishness. From verbal abuse to fists to bricks to petrol bombs and beyond, the conflict represented by King Billy on his wall is anathema to traditional British ideas of religion or statehood. The 'Troubles' period in Northern Ireland must have been horrible for anyone to live through but I think it seems as though some kind of settlement seems to have been reached where at least bombs do not go off daily. That's an improvement. Seems as though democracy is in place and as long as the majority want to be British, they will be so. I don't think we do anyone any favours by leeching on to aspects of that often unhappy place, just as our rivals in the East assuredly do not. There are many avenues open to someone wishing to express Loyalist tendencies, both in Ulster and in Scotland, such as print articles or marches; there's nothing I can see to be gained by doing it at a football match. By being linked to us, it will only increase hostility toward the people you are trying to support since we are not (this may surprise you) not universally loved. What about songs like 'Rule Brittainia'? Apart from being historically at least 100 years out of date in terms of accuracy, it requires a degree of willful ignorance to keep us singing this hymn to Imperialism. Yes, we gave India the trains and yes, others were worse but as recently as 6th June of this year, our government admitted to hideous amounts of torture during our rule in Kenya ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22801457 ) featuring 'rapes, beatings & castrations'. It's too easy to find similar examples: the bottom line is one nation doesn't have any right to wander into another nation and start ordering about the people it finds there. Belting out the Hymn of Empire is getting more and more indefensible with every revelation: it just makes us look silly, not loyal. The Empire may have had good aspects but a 21st century perspective can only conclude our Empire, like anyone else's, was about improving our own lot at the expense of others: it's really only amongst right wing denialistas like Niall Ferguson that you can find support, intellectually weak at that, for the concept. More broadly, Scotland as a society has increasingly frowned upon our expressions of these 'virtues' in the last decade; online, many have put this down to a cabal of log rolling professional Catholics, all ST holders at Parkhead and out to ensure our destruction. Events of the last year have certainly revealed quite a few people with that aim in mind, but they are of the level of Jim Spence or the internet commenter (!), buffoons who have used the social media revolution to put the frighteners on simpletons and easily influenced chairmen. It may be comforting to imagine an organised enemy intent on your destruction, but the reality is more boring. The loutish expressions of the football crowd are just no longer being put up with, the frankly pseudo-religious stuff, the homophobia, or the big tough swearing all over the shop in front of kids or females (I appreciate my views on this topic are very old fashioned). Civic society always had a class based distaste for the excesses of the mob; look at the split between how football and rugby are viewed. Britishness, Presybyterian? I'd argue that for long, long periods exemplars of these constituencies held Rangers and its fans in greater contempt than any Solicitor General with a foreign sounding name. One respondent to D'Artagnan's piece even went so far as to suggest these traditional virtues are Rangers 'USP' and we ought to promote them positively. One might as well argue for a positive promotion of the workhouse, so out of date is this attitude. 'Times change', but Rangers stays the same 'no matter how society moves on'. Well, I'm happy to say that society does move on - it would be pretty boring otherwise - and I don't believe any amount of effort at resurrecting the extinct will be successful. Like John Hammond, we will find out eventually that the past is the past and trying to manacle it to the present is just counter productive. We can find that out for ourselves, and takes steps to integrate what some see as our heritage into our present and future - and that would not be easy, not because these virtues are somehow repellent in themselves, but largely because of our historical means of expressing them - or we can have it skelped into us by the rest of Scotland, in which case we will end up doing someone else's bidding. I'm not sufficently modest to resist the 'I told you so' over internet controls: I spent years and years urging a voluntary clampdown on excessive posting, we did nothing and ended up with the current law which no-one seems happy with. The same will happen with these outdated visible and audible symbols and especially with the way in which we utilise them. Fond of the Royal Family? You're probably in the majority. Mixing 'GSTQ' with King Billy on his wall? I can't see Her Maj going for that one. Stoutly British? Again, probably the majority. I think the SNP will lose the vote, narrowly (I expect about a 61-39% split). Mixing your Britishness with Rule Brittania & flag fests? Not very British, really. Quiet patriotism is the British way. Of a religious bent? Well, here you may not be the majority, but by gum we have many laws which protect religious expression in Scotland, many of which I'd happily bin tomorrow, since they allow discrimination for which non-religious people would be locked up. Mixing religion with the football, though? It's all a bit 20th century. If you're all of these things, and a big Bluenose, I can only imagine your bewilderment as the country changes and what was allowed is outlawed. I felt similar last week, probably, as first a royal baby was born (horrible expression - implant elitism from birth, shall we?) then a new Archbishop of St Andrews was appointed. Big news all round of no interest to me at all. I didn't feel much of a part of that society...I guess it happens to us all. The dinosaurs are gone. We can leave them to history, or we can join them.

Yay, politics & football! Ban the advertising from the grounds and ban talking about the referendum from Rangers Chat!

Not at the volume I'd be shouting, I wouldn't!