JohnMc

This subject genuinely seems to have tipped some people over the edge, it's remarkable. Sharing medical information with stewards? Do you think they're going to memorise what they saw and sell it to big pharma or maybe just nod and let you past? I mean the club already has your name, address and bank or credit card information, plus it's probably following you all round the internet with the cookie you accepted to visit the Rangers website and that already tracks your phone use so they know already your deep, dark web secrets. But aye, a bored steward on zero hours contract and minimum wage glancing at your covid form is what we should all be focussing on, that's the deep state made incarnate. I look forward to some roaster doing his Laurence Fox wannabe act and shouting angrily about freedom and Orwell at some poor student in a hi-vis jacket nursing a hangover on Sundany when he's stopped and asked for his Covid form. Nothing surer than he's planning it right now.

Great stuff 26th, looking forward to reading this during the season ahead.

Apologies, Blue Moon. You're right about it being a shambles, which is why I think they'll withdraw it before it needs enforced. Whether it'll encourage anyone unvaccinated to get the vaccine is the bit I remain unsure about. A version of this was unpopular but fairly successful in France over the summer. The fact they've had to withdraw their main vaccine encouragement advertisement recently too won't help either. It's a mess.

None Christine, that's not what this is about. It's about 'encouraging' those still unvaccinated, particularly young people, to get vaccinated. I suspect the hope is there's a surge in the coming weeks of people getting vaccinated and they can then drop this entirely. It will be unpopular and difficult to enforce but then it was never actually about that anyway.

Sacrifice your privacy? Most of the population walk about with tracking devices in their pockets and freely share the most intimate information about themselves, willingly, with colossal American tech companies and advertisers everyday. But yeah, I can see why after 18 months of limitations on our movement and 1000's of deaths letting Rangers know if you've had the vaccine aimed at pulling us out of this hell is your biggest concern right now. They already have your address, your credit history and your bank details, if they wanted to destroy you they can do it already. I don't need to ask myself anything. The NHS was close to being overwhelmed every winter before Covid, if even 0.5% of those not vaccinated end up needing hospitalisation the NHS would be unable to cope. There are literally thousands of people waiting for NHS treatment for non-Covid related issues currently, some of those people will die before they get it. That's before we even attempt to calculate the financial and social cost of the last 18 months. Everyone of us should be doing what we can to reduce the incidence and severity of Covid. Currently, the vast majority of professionals in the field of medicine say getting vaccinated is the best way out of this. You may disagree with them, fair enough. I'm not sure what your bacterial and immunology qualifications are, but until you're recognised for the expertise in this field you seem to think you have then the rest of us can continue to ignore you and instead listen to those who have spent their entire lives preparing for this. I'm old enough to remember when some people were furious that the government were insisting that motor-cyclists wear helmets. This was an invasion of their privacy, the Government had no right to tell some what they can and can't wear was the argument then. Likewise similar arguments were aired by enraged civil-libertarians when seat belt wearing was made compulsory in cars too. The government has no right to involve themselves in people's lives like that, apparently. Bull shit. We don't live in a bubble, our actions have consequences and ripples that might be unintentional but they are real and long lasting all the same. If you are involved in a motorcycle accident while not wearing a helmet you are, on average, 42% more likely to die and 69% more likely to suffer a serious brain injury. Aside from the immediate trauma of the people who first arrive at the scene of the accident, there's the police and ambulance crew who'll spend hours of their time attending to you, the many, many specialist hospital staff who'll try and save your life and then slowly try and rebuild it, perhaps months of physio and rehabilitation and maybe ongoing costs if you're unable to return to work or even live it at home again. Plus there's your immediate family, friends, neighbours and colleagues who will have to deal with the fall out of your actions. Catching Covid is not without consequences. It's not just you it affects. Get over yourself, you're not actually that important in the grand scheme of things. The sooner we are able to emerge from this and return to life as we knew it the better. If that means showing Pizza Express a slip of paper when I make booking or having to deal with possibly the worst ticket office in the Scottish football then so be it. It's a small price to pay.

We're winning while not playing particularly well, that's a big positive. That's why Tav is our number 1 right back, he'll deliver a goal scoring opportunity or even a goal in almost every match he plays. Stunning technique for that goal. St Johnstone are horrible to watch, remind me of Motherwell under Tommy McLean.

Attending football matches, gigs or clubs is not compulsory, no one is making you attend or give over private medical information if you don't want too. Likewise you don't have to get the vaccine, that's still personal choice. Scotland has a baseline of 184 ICU beds, this can be escalated up to 738 in times of crisis. The number of people 18 years old or over is around 4,313,400, so 9% of that is 388,206. I'll let you work out whether there's a danger of the NHS being overwhelmed as the poorer weather comes in. Vaccine passports are already being used in a number of countries in various formats, Scottish government didn't come up with this idea in a vacuum. We're almost certainly following what was introduced in France earlier in the summer. It was unpopular with many people there too, but it has been successful in encouraging people to get vaccinated. You are still entitled to vote for whoever you want at the next election, as is everyone else in Scotland and the UK.

Maybe. I think it's about increasing the number of people who are vaccinated, not reducing overall infection rates, only a lockdown of some kind will do that. There's little doubt in my mind we're running a herd immunity policy just now. Gambling that enough people who are vaccinated come into contact with the virus, have mild symptoms and so build up a natural immunity to it while the weather is good and the vaccine remains potent in their system. Problem is un-vaccinated people are catching it and some are being hospitalised, for me this is all about 'encouraging' those people to get vaccinated.

I know it can be hard to remove the politics from this, but surely this is a public health message rather than a political one? I know opposition MSPs largely voted against it but covid passports have already been legislated in England and will almost certainly be required for similar events as in Scotland. COP26 is a UN event, being hosted the UK government, not the Scottish government. The cynic in me suspects they chose Glasgow in November to host it so the inevitable climate change and various anarchist type groups who protest these events might be put off by the almost perpetual darkness and shit weather. I suspect every politician will attempt to make capital from it, Sturgeon included. I'm not sure you can conflate it with the Covid passport.

Yeah, I can see that. To be fair the state isn't saying you have to get vaccinated, it's saying someone is perfectly entitled not to get vaccinated, but they can't attend large social or sporting events then. I suspect you'll see limits on foreign travel for un-vaccinated and various other restrictions in an attempt to 'force' vaccination without actual legislation. Insurance companies and risk managers are already advising big employers on 'no-vaccine no-job' policies, viewing the risk of a civil liberties law suit being less costly than law suit from someone who has caught covid at work.

Why is everyone so against this? If it's a choice between this and another lockdown then I choose this every time. Scotland currently has infection numbers of over 6,000, this time last year that number was a couple of hundred. Thankfully most people are vaccinated so the chance of serious illness and death are greatly reduced, but let's not pretend the danger has gone away completely. Glasgow has enjoyed a surprisingly warm start to the autumn, but that won't last and as the colder weather arrives those infection numbers will increase again. 84% of Scots are double jagged, 91% have had one, so in reality this isn't going to affect that many of us. there's a month until this comes into force so time for the rest to start getting their vaccines, which is surely what the purpose of this is. I understand the nervousness many of us have regarding Rangers ticket office's ability to deal with this, but that's surely preferable to not seeing Rangers at all, despite what politicians are currently saying, that must be a real possibility if these infection numbers continue to rise.

This is fairly niche and perhaps not of interest to everyone. It's also fairly long. I stumbled across it online and found aspects of it quite interesting. I'd always wondered about Callander FC, our first recorded opponents, I'd no idea the strong connection between the town and football. I know a couple of Airdrie fans who might be surprised at the origins of their club! https://scottishfootballorigins.org/2021/08/26/glasgow-before-the-explosion-the-role-of-migration-and-immigration-in-the-development-of-football-cultures-in-the-city-prior-to-1873/comment-page-1/?unapproved=129&moderation-hash=2b5d585235928cae397edb2cf6fe4e96#comment-129

I don't think anyone is disputing this is being used for political and mischief reasons, I certainly wasn't.

While agreeing with everything else you've said I think you can be both Irish and Scottish, or indeed Indian and Scottish or Italian and Scottish or wherever and Scottish, I don't think it's a binary choice. Nationality and identity is a funny thing and differs from person to person. While legally someone might be 'British', been born here, live here, have a UK passport and identify with all the cultural aspects associated with that, they can still have an attachment, however emotional, to another country that a parent or grandparent is from. Personally, you have to go far back in my lineage to find an ancestor from another country, so my identity isn't a question for me. But my wife wasn't born in the UK, doesn't have a British passport and certainly doesn't see herself as British, or Scottish, no matter what affection and emotional attachment she now has for it. My children are being raised in Glasgow, they're Scottish, but they have an attachment to their mother's home, they have cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents there, I suspect they'll always have an affection for it. They might even pass this on to their children too, who knows. When I lived in Australia I found it interesting to speak with people who had literally fled persecution in their 'home country' before arriving in Australia. These people considered themselves Australian but retained an affection and cultural attachment to where they were born, despite the sometimes awful treatment they'd encountered there. That attachment was passed to their children. When I lived in Australia I didn't stop being Scottish either. As I said at the start I think you're correct about this being blown out of proportion and being taken a lot more seriously than it's intended, no one is seriously calling for 3rd generation Irish to be repatriated after all. But, someone born in Scotland, to parents born in Scotland, can still have an emotional tie and affection to another country and feel targeted, I think.

Why are you asking me? Maybe they think you're stupid.

This is known in political circles as 'nudge'. It's about trying to get people to do something you want them to do without legislation. This is an attempt to get those who haven't been vaccinated to either get the jags or face potentially missing out on social activities. It's mainly aimed at younger people who have been slower to take up the vaccines and who might be more likely to want to go to nightclubs and gigs. When faced with the possibility of missing out on social events they might decide to get vaccinated, which is what this is all about.

While I largely agree with you that the club can't be held responsible for what happens in the town an hour before a match when MSP's are publicly calling for a response from Rangers it's difficult for the club to remain silent. Even if the MSP in question is someone with questionable motives and undoubtedly doing it for political reasons, it's hard for the club to simply ignore him, unfortunately.

Didn't he leave under something of a cloud last season? We should get a development fee for him now. I remember when Dylan McGeoch left us for them, he was going to be the next big thing. We got £100,000 for him apparently, still the highest transfer fee anyone has ever paid for him. More recently Liam Burt joined them, also a player a lot was expected of at one time. I hear he's a regular in the League Of Ireland now, so that's pleasing. If he's willing to join them then I'm happy he's away.

There was a match against Partick Thistle at Firhill many moons ago where something similar happened. We gave them the ball back but Ian Ferguson then chased them down forcing them into playing it quickly instead of allowing them to retain possession. He was booed by the Thistle support and criticised by some in the media, but everyone at the game knew Thistle were time wasting and indulging in gamesmanship. I'm with Tannochside on this, no giving the ball back in those circumstances.

Kent's tracking back with McGregor and generally being around him and preventing him getting on the ball was hugely important for us yesterday. Tactically Callum McGregor is their link between defence and attack and Kent had a job to do today in helping prevent that, he did it well in my opinion. We really should step back for a moment and consider our side yesterday. I think it's now clear we've had Covid problems at the club for a while and it's affecting a number of players and senior staff in different ways. Barasic is not fit, I don't know why, but he's not and that's been clear every time he's played this season. He was rightly replaced by Bassey a few weeks ago. Yet he was called upon to perform yesterday and he did. Their young winger is a decent enough player and they were overlapping a lot on that side, Barasic had a lot to do yesterday. It also seems like Helander is a player who struggles to play two matches a week. There seem to be fitness issues with him, he may have historical injuries that need managed, he might simply not yet be over his summer exertions. Yesterday was his second game in 4 days, with nearly 7,000 miles flying too. Balogun is no right back. He might have played there before but compared to Tav or Paterson he's defensively sound but offers a lot less going forward. So much of our attacking play is dependent on our full backs linking with midfielders and forwards and delivering crosses. An unfit Barasic and a centre half at right back makes a big difference to our style of play. Add in a rookie keeper making his league debut for us rather than a commanding seasoned international and you have to say to go through that match without conceding a goal is remarkable. As has been said Kent and Roofe aren't fully fit. Both did important jobs yesterday. Kamara, Davis, Morelos and Aribo played in the heat of Thursday too. Morelos ability to draw a foul is a thing of beauty, he should have a wing dedicated to him in Kelvingrove Art Gallery where future generations can marvel at his dedication to getting his body between their centre halves and the ball before taking the inevitable dunt from behind. He helped break up the play, slow the game down at times and allow us to regroup. Plus we realised they were suspect from set-pieces as indeed it turned out. We'd no defenders on our bench yesterday. No manager in the dug out, no captain on the park. That was an important win yesterday, that was a show character above all else. Loved it.

Like almost everyone else I thought Rangers were awful last night, a turgid game with only a few positives. Yet, some 12 hours later not only was ours Scotland's best result in Europe last night on reflection we were rarely troubled despite being away from home and playing in oppressive heat. We created some brilliant chances and on another night could have won 4 or 5 nil. Perception is everything in football. Most of us could see that Alashkert were as poor a side as we've faced at this stage in Europe and after our good runs in recent seasons there's an expectation we'll reach the group stages comfortably and with some style. The disappointment of losing to Malmo still hangs heavy in the air. It's worth noting that Scotland will have no representatives in the Europa Conference League this season, unlike Gibraltar, Cyprus and Kazakstan. Aberdeen and St Johnstone failing to qualify, following Hibs who were already out. The reality is we play in a poor league, that's getting poorer every season. We've probably over-achieved in Europe recently. I think the Europa League is one we can expect to compete in. The Champion's League, despite its riches and glamour, is a step beyond us currently. We'll see where we are in 12 months, but for now I'm looking forward to the draw and to some big European nights at Ibrox once again. It's great we're there.

Wahey, you used emojis. Bless.

You're right, I just made that up, it's a fair cop. This guy probably made this up too, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2021/aug/23/anti-vaxx-athletes-stance-show-myths-cut-across-boundaries-privilege-covid Steve Bruce is a shit manager, so this is probably a load of rubbish too, https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/aug/20/steve-bruce-admits-a-lot-of-newcastle-players-have-not-been-vaccinated-covid

There's a bewilderingly high number of professional sports people who won't take the vaccine. It seems to be a mix of 'I'm young and supremely fit so it won't affect me' and exposure to 'positive mindset gurus' from who they've entirely bought into 'I can overcome everything by staying positive and focussed' which of course is great if you're trying to knock 0.5 of a second off your personal best or coming up against the best midfielder in the league but is dangerous if you're facing a highly infectious virus. Anyway, I've no idea who many, if any, Rangers players fall into those categories, but it wouldn't be a huge surprise if some of them did. Aside from the likely disruption to our team for two important matches this also has potential ramifications as the transfer window nears closing. I assume a player with Covid would fail a medical at another club if they were even allowed to travel for one. Likewise a Covid outbreak at Auchenhowie might make bringing in a player a challenge too.