A curious oddity occurred
yesterday. A Scottish club showed Rangers and our fans compassion, friendship,
respect, and courtesy, not to mention downright common decency.
Airdrie United confirmed via
their club’s official Twitter that they were honouring 1971’s horrendous Ibrox
Disaster on its 40th anniversary, by holding a minute’s silence before today’s
match against Rangers at the Excelsior for those who passed away on that
catastrophic day.
The sad aspect to highlight is
that for doing the right and decent thing, and giving respect to the dead,
Airdrie are being applauded and commended by Rangers and our supporters.
Has Western Scottish society
really become so morally bankrupt that an act of standard decency is now to be
praised?
Regrettably the hate towards
their Ibrox visitors from most of the rest of Scotland suggests that even the
most basic act of human goodwill, the act of giving remembrance to the dead, is
gratefully received.
Truth is few other grounds in Scotland would
have done so, because their fans just despise Rangers too much.
And on that subject of hate, a
curious amusement took place during Rangers’ visit to Dunfermline;
Pars supporters spent pretty much the 90 minutes singing two catchy titles:
“You’re not Rangers any
more” and “Same Old Rangers, Always Cheating”
Let us start at the beginning
with the very obvious flaw here. If we are not Rangers any more, how are we the
‘same old Rangers’? Dunfermline supporters not
exactly covering themselves in intellectual glory there.
However, the more poignant
curiosity took place when I dared to make a throwaway innocuous tweet that Pars
fans were being a tad brazen-headed by singing about Rangers not being
themselves any longer, when Dunfermline
supporters have also suffered the ignominy of administration and loss of league
status too.
My point was clear; if any club
would know the pain of being in administration, it would be Dunfermline
– therefore their lack of empathy towards Rangers was stark. We accept abuse will come in from
many clubs, we do not much care. But it is a little sad that someone who has
experienced pain then makes fun of someone else experiencing similar pain. Is
that the psychology of the Scottish football fan now?
The reason I suggest this was all
a curiosity is my tweet led to the gates of hell opening. My mentions filled up
with ‘h*n’ ‘tool’ ‘thick’ ‘sevco’ ‘sevconian’ and the most common one
‘LIQUIDATION’. SPL supporters seemed to want to force down my throat that Dunfermline did not get liquidated, while Rangers did.
Actually I am well aware the Pars’ company survived while Rangers’ one did not.
But my point was related to human compassion – the fact both clubs suffered
admin, regardless of the eventual outcome. I could almost visualise angry SPL
fans foaming at their iPhones just gleefully gesturing to me that ‘Rangers are
Dead’. This led to a further 3 curious oddities which I will list now:
1: If I am a ‘thick h*n’, then
this implies ‘h*ns’ still exist. So presumably this forces the similar
conclusion Rangers still exist too?
2: My mentions after this tweet
were filled by Celtic and Aberdeen
fans in particular. Some ICT fans too. And of course one or two Dunfermline followers. Even after all this time, many SPL
supporters seem to hate Rangers more than they support their own clubs.
3: Dunfermline
continued to sing “You’re not Rangers any more” despite losing 0-4.
It seemed Pars fans cared more about singing anti-Rangers songs than they did
about their own club losing miserably. Personally if I was down 0-4 I would
sing in favour of my own club, not anti-opposition songs.
Now I am not tarring all SPL fans
with this same brush. There are a lot of good fans out there. I know many of
them. And without naming any of them I chat to a good number of them on Twitter
without any malice on either side. But what is clear is the brewing hate
against Rangers from the majority is only going to grow.
As the club improves on and off
the pitch the resentment in Scottish football that Rangers still exist will
just escalate and I genuinely fear for the safety of all Scottish football fans
when the Govan men return to the top flight.
And that is not worth singing about.