amms 0 Posted July 2, 2012 Share Posted July 2, 2012 (edited) “We are Rangers Super Rangers, No-one likes us, And it appears we may have failed to anticipate some of the long-term ramifications of this” the Scottish novelist, Christopher Brookmyre, tweeted that last week. You only get 140 characters on Twitter, he managed to make a pretty good point with 3 to spare. I’m a fan of Brookmyre, he’s a fan of St Mirren, someone has to be I suppose. I saw him at the 2009 Aye Write festival on the day St Mirren knocked Celtic out of the Scottish Cup, he was the only person in the room who seemed happier than me. If we’ve learned nothing else since mid February we’ve learned that an awful lot of people in Scottish football really don’t like Rangers. I’ve been taken aback by just how many and how much though. I obviously knew that a section of the Celtic support spend more time thinking about us than we do, and you don’t need the power of second sight to realise some of the Aberdeen support sport a rather large chip on their shoulders where we are concerned. Beyond that I’d assumed it to be your normal, healthy, run of the mill dislike of a bigger more successful club, same as you get in every other league. It seems that’s not the case and I’m more naïve than Snow White in an apple shop. I’ve been stunned as a succession of supporter’s trusts, club directors and associated talking-heads vent their ire at Rangers. Somehow they seem unable to distinguish between the various strands that go into making up a football club, this surprises me considering they have identical strands at their clubs. Yet I can’t remember hearing one other club in Scotland express any concern or empathy for the Rangers support who have been largely blameless in all this and indeed are surely the main victims, in a football sense at least. So this antipathy towards Rangers goes deeper and further back than last February. The excellent Rangers Standard ran an article recently by an academic who is also a Hearts fan. In it he tries to explain his dislike of Rangers. It was an interesting piece but having read it I did find myself thinking ‘is that it, is that all you’ve got against us?’. I had expected more, not paying for Lee Wallace and luring Andy Webster away seemed unsatisfactory reasons for a lot of the venom that has come our way from some quarters. I’ve seen the ‘Protestants only’ signing policy mentioned a lot recently. It’s well over a quarter of a century since that was in place, is it really still an issue for other clubs supporters? Some of our songbook has also been mentioned. Believe me the ‘Loyalist’ songs are a source of disagreement between Rangers supporters, they aren’t universally popular, at the same time they aren’t universally offensive either. Every summer Rangers messageboards contain long threads debating the merits of certain songs and their modern connotations. Are people really appalled by the dying vestiges of aspects of West of Scotland working class culture? I’m not convinced. The Orange Order are irrelevant to the lives of all but those involved in them. They have no political clout or public voice, the majority of the Rangers support have no connection with them whatsoever. I’m constantly drawn back to football reasons. David Murray was clearly a hugely unpopular figure with other clubs. He was arrogant, bullish and successful. He was a Tory, although I’d venture most of the boardrooms around the SPL have a few of them lurking. He is seen as being the driving force in pushing inequality in Scottish football. Being behind proposed breakaway leagues, mooted moves to England, Atlantic Leagues and so on. That seems to have annoyed a lot of people. I can see why now. It was arrogant, it was selfish and it was clearly all bluster. The SPL voting rights are another source of anger. Again I can see why. In our defence other clubs must have agreed to them. I find myself asking the question, why? Whatever the reasons, we could do with some friends just now. We could do with stepping back and trying to understand why we are so unpopular. There is a lot of anger in the Rangers support currently too. We’ve become increasingly marginalised and disenfranchised during the last 5 months. The kicks from others have been felt and will be remembered. That doesn’t help anyone. Someone has to stand up and say enough is enough. Football is supposed to be our escape from reality, it’s supposed to be fun and it isn’t just now, it feels like it won’t ever be again. At that stage you ask yourself what’s the point? We've rarely gone out of our way to make friends in the past, we're not ones for 'special relationships' unlike others. But we should have better relationships with our neighbours and competitors. Somewhere along the way we've lost touch with the other clubs in the league. For Rangers to prosper in the future we'll need to build bridges at every level, from boardroom to terrace. That seems unlikely currently but moving forward it'll be essential. So listening to St Mirren fans and the like is something we'll need to do. The upside of that is some of them are actually quite entertaining. Edited July 8, 2012 by Zappa 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 Now on the main site and NewsNow amms - http://t.co/misHQ3x1 http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Sport/Football/SPL/Rangers 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplythebest 0 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 No club is perfect, you could find reasons to dislike any club if you try hard enough. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CumbernauldGers 0 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 We have let a small amount of people ruin our club's name over the years. Rangers are a football club, if you want religion go to a church. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
amms 0 Posted July 8, 2012 Author Share Posted July 8, 2012 Who do you think ruined our name and how CG? Equally how do you think we should go about reclaiming it? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted July 8, 2012 Share Posted July 8, 2012 No club is perfect, you could find reasons to dislike any club if you try hard enough. Yes but we seemed to enjoy the fact nobody liked us as in the we don't care bit. We really should probably have a good look in the mirror. We should care! Great article by the way. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 (edited) Yes but we seemed to enjoy the fact nobody liked us as in the we don't care bit. We really should probably have a good look in the mirror. We should care! Great article by the way. I agree, sure it's a great article but should we need to look in the mirror? I like the 'No One Likes Us We Don't Care' and as in case is fact! What has happened in the last months will only cement that song for future generations. We are.....after all Super Rangers and WE don't care. Edited July 9, 2012 by 54andcounting 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 As in this..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTOa8xF3UOc WATP! 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
54andcounting 0 Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 ....I'd like to add btw if 'they' can sing ****** then so can we.... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplythebest 0 Posted July 9, 2012 Share Posted July 9, 2012 Yes but we seemed to enjoy the fact nobody liked us as in the we don't care bit. We really should probably have a good look in the mirror. We should care! Great article by the way. We probably do care somewhat now, hence boycott plans. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.