German Gers say “GerrrritRIGHTupye - we’re January champs!”

Noticed those Kronenbourg 1664 adverts they show on the Ibrox Jumbotrons at half-time? “If Britain hadn’t won the battle of Waterloo” is the theme and we’re treated to hilarious clashes of Gallic chic and Anglo crudeness. A lobster supper, haute couture check-out girls, poodle racing at Walthamstow etc. Strange though how Holsten Pills or Becks haven’t thought to launch an “if the Allies had lost World War II” marketing campaign! Well, if we WERE all speaking German in Bonnie Scotland today then you can be assured that, after this win over Eintracht Dundee, BV Glasgow Rangers 1872 e.V. would now be crowned “Herbstmeister” for season 2002/2003.

Yup, we’re the “Autumn champs”. Well, why the hell not?! If we’re gonnae have a month-long break in SPL action, just like wot they does in the guid auld Bundesliga, then we might as well hang onto the coat-tails of a quality league a bit more firmly and copy their habit of naming unofficial mid-season champions.

When the Deutscher dudes stop for their winter break there’s a certain kudos gained by the side sitting atop the table. This season it’s a certain Bayern Munchen (never heard of them!) and, no doubt, Bild am Sonntag, SudDeutsche Zeitung, kicker, etc are all currently lecturing their readers on the percentage of Bundesliga titles won by the team who were first at the half-way point of all previous seasons.

It ain’t always the Herbstmeister who eventually go on to become the Deutschermeister but enough of them do to make “Autumn Champions” a title worth noting. In Scotland, I’ll wager there are historically even fewer changes in title leadership between the mid-way point of the season and the awarding of the Championship trophy the following May.

Why? Well, apart from the fact we had a national championship in Scotland some 73 years before the Deutscher Fussball-Bund organised one for Germany (Tis true!), we also have an infinitely more predictable league. In fact, I think it’s fair to say, Schottland’s top-tier league championship (Whether it’s known as SPL, Premier Division, First Division, Division One, Division “A” or … WHATEVER) is probably the most easy to predict in the world.

Rivalled only by Uruguay’s Montivideo duopoly, Penarol and Nacional, Rangers and the smelly hooped ones have a traditional stranglehold of their domestic championship which makes the SPL the laughing-stock of the world. In Germany, Bayern Munich have come to dominate the Budesliga in the way Man U dominate the English scene but there’s always a realistic chance that someone else, and someone different from the last “someone else”, can become Deutschermeister in any given season. In Scotland, if it’s not Rangers winning the league - and if it’s not the early eighties - then it’s gonnae be Sellik.

So nine times out of ten, with The Gers top of the table in January, it’d be a case of “just give us the championship trophy the noo, thanks”. Especially bearing in mind that, while the German season stops at EXACTLY half-way - Dortmund, Bremen, Schalke, Bayern etc all played seventeen games before the shut-down and they’ll all have seventeen left to play when they come back, the Scottish season is much more than half-ways finished. When the SPL resumes, each team will have “only” 14 matches of a 38-game season left to play.

BUT - and this is a very big “but”, maybe even a Hans-Jorg BUTT - what the rest of the world will fail to notice about this season’s SPL is that Sellik are a mere three points behind Rangers. All it takes is one slip by the Royal Blues and our Herbstmeister crown will be rendered meaningless … an embarrassing bauble … made of tin foil … which isn’t even that shiny because it’s the dull side of the foil which is showing … and it’s peeling off from the cardboard underneath it … aherm …you get the idea!

So why all this ranting and raving about some foreign word, then? Why such a hullabaloo about table-topping when it’s only January. Well, because we all remember the state our club was in this time last year … and at the same time the year before that. There wasn’t time for a winter break in 2002’s packed footie calendar but The Rangers weren’t even close to the SPL Herbstmeister title in either of the last two seasons.

O’Neill’s numpties maintained the amazingly uniform pattern of Old Firm slip-ups when they went to Aberdeen on 2nd January and only managed a draw. The hooped horrors have lost the same amount of points at exactly the same venues as ourselves. The only difference is the three points we took off celtic when they came to Ibrox. That’s the victory which currently has us winning the championship.

Were we reigning champions then this proximity to the second placed team would be depressing. However, we’re currently emerging from a two-year championship slumber which makes us Bears unnaturally grateful to be top of the table by even the smallest of margins.

The real killer about Advocaat’s last 18 months in charge was the way in which Rangers totaly capitulated to O’Kneel’s new charges. We couldn’t even put together something worthy of the word “challenge” as Sellik headed for the championship in 2001 and 2002. In short, it was all over by Christmas. When this league campaign gets going again, at the end of this month, we’ll be the team to catch. For that much we have the manager to thank and, as the beauty of our current situation will all be forgotten, for better or worse, come the end of the season, we should take this time to breathe it in and enjoy it … just like them Germans do.

Did you know “Eck ” is the German word for “corner”? Well, The Gers were backed into one when Wee Dick moved upstairs just over a year ago - Becoming Herbstmeister for 2002/2003 shows that “Corner” McLeish has helped us turn a significant “Eck” on the road back to our rightful place: The Top.

Wunderbar!