Every time Ibrox Noise opens up discussion about the Old Firm ticketing fiasco, the most frequent and noisiest responses are always from those who wish to sustain the situation, who wish the away fans to ‘rot’ and ‘it’s fine the way it is’.
Indeed, the rage in these fans is palpable, so Ibrox Noise opted to put it to a formal vote and ask Rangers supporters if they indeed wanted to sustain the current situation of no away fans at Ibrox and no ticketing at Parkhead.
The answer was absolutely, unequivocally and deeply overwhelming.
Of 3900 votes so far, just 238 wanted the current situation to continue.
We don’t need to break down the maths any further.
Yes, 93% want the absolutely appalling situation resolved, where an away goal at Ibrox or Parkhead is greeted by an eerie and unfitting absence, where home chanting goes completely unopposed and the visiting team, in our case Rangers of course, gets no support from the stands at all.
Indeed, the noisy angry ones who swarm into these discussions are absolutely the minority, which is usually the case in any issue – the noisy loud ones are the minority but feel like the majority due to their being so vocal.
Indeed, we wonder how much difference it has made to Old Firms in the past 24+ months where Rangers players get absolutely zero support at Parkhead – even Michael Beale was able to get a draw and a win at home with no away fans.
It gives the home side an utterly appalling advantage they should not have, but more to the point, it devalues completely the Scottish Premiership’s crowning jewel.
Forget the players, the quality and revere of the Old Firm is the crowd – by Dave King originally killing the visiting allocation to about 800, he set off a diabolical chain of events and now we have no fans at all.
It kills the match – it’s simply not the same and lacks the atmosphere it used to have.
Without the visiting fans in a healthy number, all we’re getting is home chants and nothing else.
And clearly 93% of Rangers fans asked want to restore the old order. We imagine numbers on the other side are much the same.
So if both boards could get over themselves and fix this issue, it would be much appreciated.