COWDENPIX
Well-known member
apart from the attempt at a leveler by generalising via the GB
this is a good read from his column this morning..
ooaaffftttt take that .
12 days before the new league season, Rangers Football Club launched a campaign inviting all faiths, colours, nationalities and sexual orientations to come and support their club.
Fifteen minutes and 23 seconds into the opening game, thousands of travelling fans told the board exactly where they could stick their diversity.
That’s how long it took them to wipe their backsides on the Everyone Anyone initiative and tell the watching world that they were Up Tae Our Knees In Fenian Blood.
And that wasn’t them angry, either. They were celebrating a goal.
Which begs the question: If this is how inclusive they are when things are going well, what chance of Everyone Anyone feeling comfortable among them if it all turns pear shaped? Sadly, everyone and anyone who’s ever been up close and personal with it all knows the answer only too well.
These people, the ones who crow that they ARE The People, are a law unto themselves. They don’t care how much they embarrass their club, their players, their colours, their fellow diehards. Like their separated-at-birth twins in the Green Brigade, anyone who stands up to them is treated like an enemy.
So, sure, all power to Rangers as a club with this campaign. It comes from the right place and I’ll happily support them — or any other club who want to make stadiums a friendlier place for anyone and everyone to be in — whatever they try to achieve.
I respect managing director Stewart Robertson when he says they ‘want to create an environment where everyone feels valued, safe, welcome, and wanted’ and that ‘supporting Rangers should break down barriers and Ibrox should be a place where diversity, unity and inclusion are strengthened through the friendships football can create’.
I applaud Steven Gerrard when he says that ‘supporting Rangers means we are all part of the same family . . . we stand together proudly in support of our club and our diversity’.
But the truth is that no matter how fervently they might mean every word, it’s all just mouth-music, all no more than an abstract concept, while they tap-dance around the crux of the issue.
Because that isn’t one of how they attract fans of all faiths, colours, nationalities and sexual orientations, but why they aren’t there already.
For me, you only have to listen to the bile during any game, anywhere to know the answer for sure. One afternoon or evening up close and personal with this angry, obsessed army leaves you grubby from the unpleasantness that comes off so many of them in waves.
Welcome everyone and anyone? No matter their background or birthplace or beliefs?
Sure, they say. As long as they’re also hard-bitten Protestants obsessed with Ulster’s history and who celebrate victories by singing about killing anyone who’s the wrong religion.
It’s not even like that chorus of The Billy Boys, with its violently anti-Catholic sentiments, was a momentary lapse yesterday.
From the first kick, just about every song was about fighting the IRA, answering Ulster’s call and guff that has hee-haw to do with Rangers, with football or with basic sociability.
Tell me, how was anyone who doesn’t buy into all that same guff meant to tune in live on telly and think: “Yeah, that’s a bunch I’d feel happy to be part of, even though I’m black/gay/Catholic/Muslim”?
That’s the dilemma Rangers as a club are left to deal with every time the reality of matchday comes around.
They can put out all the impressive statements they like, make all the tannoy promises of zero tolerance they like, react with as much dismay as they like every time an opposing manager or player is branded a Fenian Bastard — yet until they actively, tangibly, constructively address the issue of the songs so many of their supporters spew as second nature, they’ll forever be on a loser.
Everyone Anyone is a campaign that is as overdue as it is welcome.
But until they crack down hard on the root cause of the curse on their club, No One Nowhere will take it the least bit seriously.
this is a good read from his column this morning..
ooaaffftttt take that .
12 days before the new league season, Rangers Football Club launched a campaign inviting all faiths, colours, nationalities and sexual orientations to come and support their club.
Fifteen minutes and 23 seconds into the opening game, thousands of travelling fans told the board exactly where they could stick their diversity.
That’s how long it took them to wipe their backsides on the Everyone Anyone initiative and tell the watching world that they were Up Tae Our Knees In Fenian Blood.
And that wasn’t them angry, either. They were celebrating a goal.
Which begs the question: If this is how inclusive they are when things are going well, what chance of Everyone Anyone feeling comfortable among them if it all turns pear shaped? Sadly, everyone and anyone who’s ever been up close and personal with it all knows the answer only too well.
These people, the ones who crow that they ARE The People, are a law unto themselves. They don’t care how much they embarrass their club, their players, their colours, their fellow diehards. Like their separated-at-birth twins in the Green Brigade, anyone who stands up to them is treated like an enemy.
So, sure, all power to Rangers as a club with this campaign. It comes from the right place and I’ll happily support them — or any other club who want to make stadiums a friendlier place for anyone and everyone to be in — whatever they try to achieve.
I respect managing director Stewart Robertson when he says they ‘want to create an environment where everyone feels valued, safe, welcome, and wanted’ and that ‘supporting Rangers should break down barriers and Ibrox should be a place where diversity, unity and inclusion are strengthened through the friendships football can create’.
I applaud Steven Gerrard when he says that ‘supporting Rangers means we are all part of the same family . . . we stand together proudly in support of our club and our diversity’.
But the truth is that no matter how fervently they might mean every word, it’s all just mouth-music, all no more than an abstract concept, while they tap-dance around the crux of the issue.
Because that isn’t one of how they attract fans of all faiths, colours, nationalities and sexual orientations, but why they aren’t there already.
For me, you only have to listen to the bile during any game, anywhere to know the answer for sure. One afternoon or evening up close and personal with this angry, obsessed army leaves you grubby from the unpleasantness that comes off so many of them in waves.
Welcome everyone and anyone? No matter their background or birthplace or beliefs?
Sure, they say. As long as they’re also hard-bitten Protestants obsessed with Ulster’s history and who celebrate victories by singing about killing anyone who’s the wrong religion.
It’s not even like that chorus of The Billy Boys, with its violently anti-Catholic sentiments, was a momentary lapse yesterday.
From the first kick, just about every song was about fighting the IRA, answering Ulster’s call and guff that has hee-haw to do with Rangers, with football or with basic sociability.
Tell me, how was anyone who doesn’t buy into all that same guff meant to tune in live on telly and think: “Yeah, that’s a bunch I’d feel happy to be part of, even though I’m black/gay/Catholic/Muslim”?
That’s the dilemma Rangers as a club are left to deal with every time the reality of matchday comes around.
They can put out all the impressive statements they like, make all the tannoy promises of zero tolerance they like, react with as much dismay as they like every time an opposing manager or player is branded a Fenian Bastard — yet until they actively, tangibly, constructively address the issue of the songs so many of their supporters spew as second nature, they’ll forever be on a loser.
Everyone Anyone is a campaign that is as overdue as it is welcome.
But until they crack down hard on the root cause of the curse on their club, No One Nowhere will take it the least bit seriously.
I'll give that c*nt credit for 'telling it like it is' the day he starts to do it without using us as a shield to strategically cover his fat cowardly arse from the mob. If he's not got the balls to criticise the Ibrox outfit and their horde without dragging our name into it to lessen the fallout from them then what he's saying isn't worth shit!
