bmck

i think the enthymemes that underly all of this summary (99% of which i completely agree with) is that a) there was a golden age of rangers support, b) everything is in decline, and that these assumptions are used, half-rightly half-wrongly, to assess any given thing that happens.

but for now, i'm heading off to meet my mrs as we've a half-day (yay!), but i'll get back to this on monday!

Frankie (GersnetOnline.co.uk)

Stewart Franklin (GersnetOnline.co.uk)

that frankie's an excellent writer, it's a toss up between him in and cammyf. but how did that stewart franklin get in there? from what i've read i'd say he's clearly a bigot hell bent on destroying our club from the inside and will getting no votes from me!

thanks shroomz (seems so funny to say that when you're not tripping and talking to fungi!); they're excellent!

I'm just glad he didn't say 'knob-end' or I'd fast be running out of moderators...

hehe, if i go down gersnet comes down with me :box:

seriously though, i tend not to agree with you on much maineflyer - well, probably more than i'd like to think - but i do think your fundamental intuition that something is rotten in the state of denmark, and that rot starts from the top, is undeniably true. i dont think sdm is a super-villain, i'm grateful for the good times he's given us, but i just think he cant be arsed anymore, and his ego is keeping him from seeing that these are the toughest times our club's had in a long time, and that its a symptom of genuinly laudable loyalty that rangers supporters (better ones than myself) are persevering through it and continue to spend while never getting any good press at all.

a davie cooper video was how my maw introduced me to rangers. i tried to convince myself i was left footed so i could be like him. the only thing i can really remember about primary school is him dying. RIP coops.

the idea that smith should've been sacked after kaunas after getting us to our first european final in 20 years is just awful. and that's not to downplay how hurtful it is. walter smith either gets credit for triumphs and criticism for failure, or neither. as a younger supporter, being alive while we got to a european final is something i never thought i'd see, and am grateful to walter smith that i got to experience that. i like that we got there pissing off europe in its entirety, though obviously the final was extremely disappointing.

that said, i dont think walter smith will take us forward, but i'm grateful he left scotland on a tangent to come to us when sdm came calling. he's definitely not who i would've picked, but he is who he is. there's no point in lamenting him until we have genuine alternatives in place. i think in this time of shiteyness he has the temparement to win us the SPL which is currently, sadly, the best we can hope for. i will not enjoy the football he sets us out to play, i accept i wont be excited about rangers until someone else comes along, but what are the alternatives? that's the question. whatever they are, they're not in my power to bring about.

Best laugh i've had in a while.

aye, the idea that someone had actually read it through and lived to tell the tale without dying of boredom is really wonderfully humorous.

Bugger im late for work after reading all that!

i have never managed to be concise - i think its genetic, my dad is the same (as anyone who has read his posts on here knows). i need to give myself a few extra days before i submit an essay for uni to squeeze the thing into the word limit

manchester really has sat really poorly with me as well. i seen so much on tv and all that, that i really didnt like, but when i thought about everyone i knew who had busted a gut to be there just to come under the indiscriminate fire of everyone and anyone who got themselves up on a little box to shout. when i saw all the youtube videos posted by celtic supporters clearly loving that it had happened without any genuine concern for anyones safety or anything like it, all the moral rantings just went straight over my head. i understand people who riot - they are clearly trouble makers, but in a way you can understand - but people delighting in rioting, willing bad things to happen so that they can wander about telling people how bad we are, and how good they are, i found incomprehensible. lower than low. barely human. why sdm joined in is anyones guess. he had to take some responsibility, but with some qualifcations. didnt it get his stomach going a little bit that all these people had travelled? i dont think there has ever been a wider societal/finanical etc gap between fans and players/staff, and unlike celtic, rangers are making no attempt to address that gap by constantly talking the support up.

Even Spiers is at it in his latest pile of spew - Old Firm managers fight it out in sack race

i think spiers and his ilk just realise how superfluous they are becoming. why would i pay to read his pish when i can read the less flowery writings of someone who actually loves rangers? the papers are nervous because they arent as necessary as they once were i think. he is clearly just bitter and its good to read because of that!

Well I for one am convinced. The point is that unlike us, they can't say it in so many words, but for anyone who would like to pay attention once in a while, it's patently clear that the everyone isn't who they say they are on the internet and for every devoted Rangers fan, you've got sh!t stirring 'h^n' hating vermin gnawing away at our foundations.The internet is prime territory for guerrilla warfare and you'd better wake up and realise that's what we're up against - that's what I believe they mean when they refer to the faceless minority.

im not sure what you mean, its probably just me though. sdm and ws have been calling people like those who took the banner, and those who have criticised them online, faceless wonders who would cower in their presence. they arent talking about people pretending to be rangers fans and spewing bile, they are accusing actual rangers fans of spewing bile. they may very well be, but everyone i talk to online - whether they are as rabidly (though charmingly) critical like maineflyer or emminently sensible and balanced like craig - seem like fundamentally decent people who are just talking about rangers in the way thats natural to them. i dont think they have the villanous motives that sdm and ws ascribe to them. maybe they are talking about something else - but i get the impression they are using the fact that there are nutters on the internet (who wouldve knew?) to deflect criticism. or have i missed your point?

Emm ..... and you point is? While I'm delighted you've cleared up that posts are about words, I haven't a clue what you're trying to say. Perhaps it's just noise, eh?

im not convinced there is much more than noise at all! :cheers:

Just to throw a firework into the bonfire, anyone else feel that fan pressure had a bit to do in Uncle Smith's decision to bring Fleck into the team....

i think it has, aye - showing that good come from fan pressure.

Is there any evidence that adopting a thoroughly balanced standpoint, acknowledging in equal measure the pro's and cons of every individual or circumstance, produces one iota of advantage? Personally, I've never seen it, although I suppose it may make the critic feel more politically secure. Neither have I ever seen anything achieved by the passivity endorsed by some in this thread.

mate, your response is equally as passive is anyone else's on this thread - it amounts to nothing more than words. different words, but still just words. the reason people look at both sides is because there are two sides to look at. do you think you are somehow alleviated from the philosophical round of forum discussion? yours is the token most-negative-assessment every philosophical discussion needs. i'm glad we have it, but lets not pretend your playing a more serious game than the rest of us.

i honestly cant believe people like glasvegas.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRfcxxmwgAc]YouTube - Glasvegas - stay another day[/ame]

my position's the same as its always been. managers like walter smith grow out of times of decline like daffodils out of the late-winter sun. he's doing a decent job in that period. he can obviously be called to answer for a lot of his decision making, but moaning that we're in a period of decline is just pointless if there's nothing that can be done to turn it around. we've just got to dig in, i think - win as much as we can in this period of general shiteyness until we get someone with a bit of vision that can turn things around.

You not been around here at Xmas ? Seems to be an annual occurrence for us.....

we prefer the term 'valued tradition'.

i think some of the criticism really has been OTT. walter smith isn't the cause of our general decline, he's a symptom. he's doing his job faithfully and to the best of his ability. i dont doubt he has rangers first. similarly, all the negativity isn't the cause of our general decline, its a symptom. when the chairman says he basically can't be arsed, and the football on display seems half-arsed, whiney supporting naturally follows. some people just enjoy whining, and so they wait for the times of decline to come to the fore.

walter smith deserves criticism, but he also deserves respect. he's took the reigns in our most unglorious years and steadied the ship. however, he knows he's not the future, and there's a feeling in the gut that any good that occurs will be temporary because we're on a general downwards spiral, which is why i think many find it hard to get excited.

walter smith gave us a european final though, so he'll always be a legend for me. i dont think we'll progress under him, and i am firmly against the line he's toing about the fans, but i think the problem's much bigger than him.

he has no respect for adjectives at all. his abuse of our lovely language is just unending. i do honestly think you can spiersize any piece of writing by clearly saying what actually happened, and then right clicking and choosing the most obscure near-synonym. stick in a provocative title, convey your bitterness towards religion at least once and have a dig at rangers with nods and winks to an imaginatively receptive readership and thats you. sorted.

I was emailed a copy of it, and have had so little interest in it that I've never even bothered looking at it.

likewise. subjecting yourself to his prose is mild s&m.

i dont like boyd's attitude really, but he's our best striker.

i could handle spiers if he was a better writer. i used to get all worked up and even write articles in response to him, but it's probably best to let him just slip further into the bitter winters of irrelevancy with every petty outpouring.

cant afford it mate, but i'm sure it'll be an awesome night. gordon smith is an excellent speaker, and the ewan and roughie punch and judy'll be good too i'm sure.

If you want to see spooks you can but more often than not it is a reflection of your own biases.

i'm going to steal this and use it somewhere.

There is NOT ONE line in "Flower of Scotland" that is anti-English. NOT ONE. And any intelligent Scot with a command of the English language should know that.

There isn't one intelligent Scot with a command of the English language that could read something racist into the famine song, which is sort of the point I think.

eta: i have, and will continue to have, my reservations about vb, but i 100% appluad this. well done indeed.

^ yup. agreed.