Hate, Rangers and Scottish football – some perspective please

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Hate, Rangers and Scottish football – some perspective please

There is little denying Scottish football has been an ugly place in the past four years. Ever since Rangers’ re-entry into the game by way of the lower leagues, the relatively mild central Scotland anti-Rangers sentiment has grown into something approaching a foaming mouth hatred, with everyone trying to take a kick at the Govan giants.

Indeed, the vitriolic sputum aimed at Ibrox has gone beyond anything we could ever have anticipated, making this site sincerely question the mental health of those inspiring such bile, wondering just what would drive people to personally hate an organisation so much they create fake Twitter accounts in its honour.

Yet, last Saturday we saw something borderline unprecedented. And just like the passing of Slim Jim approaching two decades ago, it took a dreadful tragedy to achieve it.

As everyone in this land will know, Rangers Supporters’ Club Nithsdale Loyal was involved in a horrific incident in East Ayrshire last weekend, on the A76 on their way to Glasgow’s south side for the visit of Partick.

One Bear, Ryan Baird, 39, lost his life, as another 18 were carted to hospital following their club’s bus crash, leaving dozens traumatised over what should have been a routine trip to Ibrox to watch The Famous.

Instead, it truly put Rangers’ dismal form into some perspective. Ryan’s sister took to Twitter to express her grief and thank the well-wishers among Scottish football for their sentiments, and it was at this moment we began to realise this hatred for Rangers that has swilled around north of the border really is quite a nonsense.

Sure, ‘no one likes us we don’t care’ remains accurate, but when the chips are down, and something truly awful happens, it is truly welcome to see everyone from every walk of life pay tribute.

Celtic, Hibs, Dundee Utd, Hearts and Aberdeen (to name just five) all took to social media to express their condolences, teams more traditionally associated with spiteful hatred of all things Rangers, and the contrast was welcome, and appreciated.

All too often it seems fans in Scotland have truly lost perspective, with obsessive focus on all things Rangers, laced in intolerance and hatred. And yet, here we see, faced with a real tragedy, a few poisonous idiots aside, the overwhelming response has been positive and sympathetic.

It is beyond sad it has taken a real tragedy and the loss of a young man to achieve this, but it shows football in Scotland is not entirely beyond redemption.

Going back to circa 2001 when Jim lost his life, that banner by Celtic fans at Ibrox showed him real respect with their ‘Simply the Best’ logo and his image.

Too little of this kind of respect has been evident in Scotland in recent times.

It is a welcome return of some perspective. Just a damned shame what it took to achieve it.

It goes without saying everyone at IbroxNoise expresses their utmost sympathy to Ryan’s family and friends, with our sincerest condolences sent to you all at this dreadful time. These wishes also apply to everyone affected by the crash, and we all hope everyone involved manages a swift recovery.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. I was impressed with the reaction of Scottish football with regards to the the ninth valley tragedy on Saturday. I think that in the grand scheme of things when something life related happens across the auld firm – most if not all fans demonstrate a level of humanity.

    Recent personal problems with petrov and hartson seen a huge outpouring of sympathy from the rangers ranks and quite rightly so because after all its only a game.

    We need a good level of competitive banter across our clubs but the sectarian rhetoric and xenophobic traits really have no place in a 21st century (educated) Scotland.

    RIP Ryan Baird – the life of the dead remain in the memorys of the living.

    Neil Kelly

  2. As in everything in life,there are ill-educated fucking morons who from time to time crawl out from underneath their stones to come out with absolute bile. There is no help for these lowlifes whether it was a rangers man or not, a human being tragically lost his life.The prick who went on twitter at least must have realised what a fuck-up he made as he deleted his account, but not fast enough before everyone got his name.

  3. Sadly I think you might be proved wrong, when that young lad died of cancer ( the one that was fund raising) last year all the clubs put out statements saying how sad it was he died. But yet Aberdeen and Dundee Utd fans still sang about "at least that's one less Hun"(which the sfa said wasn't sectarian and wouldbt have upset anyone there so did nothin, and neither did the clubs, its sad that things are so bitter that people have to die for any sort of respect to be shown to another human 😢

  4. RIP Ryan thoughts are with your family and the rangers community, donation to fund has been passed on from a very sad celtic fan God bless

  5. It is crazy. If anyone on the religious divide took one of the ancestry tracking tests now readily available, the results would likely come out almost identical.
    Just shows you that hatred is the result of social conditioning rather than genetics.

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