gersnet article (image) The Great, the Good and the Unacceptable

[Frankie 8,562]

 

[Frankie 8,562]

Many thanks as always @Rick Roberts

 

Quote

Saturday saw the best of a football support and when it is good, it’s very, very good.

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.

[Devil's advocaat 1,541]

Great read, well penned, much appreciated.

[Bluedell 5,627]

51 minutes ago, Frankie said:

 

 

 

55 minutes ago, Frankie said:

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 believe that the lesson has been largely learned from most sections in the support. You can never get 100% buy-in. That's just not possible, but by-and-large, there's been progress made. However I'm presuming that a majority of those causing the trouble weren't regulars at Ibrox. They were the ones that turn up once a season for a European night, half-cut and coked up, that the club has virtually no direct interaction with. They don't visit the club's website. They don't read the club's statements. I don't see what the club can do to reach these people. It's just not possible.

[Rick Roberts 246]

2 minutes ago, Bluedell said:

 

 

I believe that the lesson has been largely learned from most sections in the support. You can never get 100% buy-in. That's just not possible, but by-and-large, there's been progress made. However I'm presuming that a majority of those causing the trouble weren't regulars at Ibrox. They were the ones that turn up once a season for a European night, half-cut and coked up, that the club has virtually no direct interaction with. They don't visit the club's website. They don't read the club's statements. I don't see what the club can do to reach these people. It's just not possible.

I agree with most of that and I wouldn't put it on the club to deal with. However, I would say I saw enough to be concerned about it. A lack of imagination in a fair chunk of the singing. That might have been bravado and being outside the stadium or on the streets or whatever. I might be glass half empty here but it's going to lead to problems down the line. 

[Scott7 6,008]

I hope the Club would endorse that article, send it to the SG and ask them if they think the author represents the majority of Rangers supporters. He speaks for me on this.

[Blue Moon 1,289]

Tremendous article.  No matter how difficult the challenge we need to get the message across to those who still don't get it or care that Rangers is a changed institution.  Don't wear the shirt if you don't agree.  We also need to get across the positive message about all the club has done to effect change and all the good it does in the wider community.  It is sad that none of the good is recognised.

[Rick Roberts 246]

21 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

I hope the Club would endorse that article, send it to the SG and ask them if they think the author represents the majority of Rangers supporters. He speaks for me on this.

Thanks Scott. 

[Gonzo79 15,294]

Good article.

 

I do get the impression that those of us who travel to matches in large groups (usually RSCs) have a more realistic understanding of the percentage game, when it comes to bad behaviour/miscreants.

 

On a bus with 20-30 Bears, you'll always get a handful who just can't behave themselves.

[Scott7 6,008]

40 - 50 kids (some of them in their twenties, thirties) trashed a beach a fortnight ago. Abolish kids, Yousaf?

 

Educating them might be better.