Sectarianism at Ibrox: Time for the talkers to start walking

“Hullo, Hullo - we are the Billy Boys”

Never really liked the fact that we call ourselves “Boys” when singing this one. The “h” in BHOYS is silent, as far as my understanding of Gaelic goes (!), so why would we, RA PEEPELLE, want to christen ourselves with such a phonetically insulting noun? We should also remember that there are quite a few non-males following The Rangers these days, so being in any way gender-specific is just plain silly.

And then, of course, there’s the whole “up to our knees in frenian blood” thing. Basically, it’s a bit of a lie:

The only things I’ve ever been up to my knees in are water, mud and debt. The most blood I’ve ever stood “in” has sat obediently under the sole of my shoe. I’m sure it’s the same for most of us who sing this song. Oh, and as for the “fenian” bit - damned unpleasant and the whole phrase doesn’t even rhyme. I’ve long advocated a change to “Hullo, Hullo We are the Teddy Bears - Hulo, Hullo you’ll know us by our wares - we’re up to our knees in toast and cheese - Surrender because statistically (if this is a domestic match) your team’s probably gonnae get beat anyway - we are the Dairy product people.”

Okay - I’m sure someone could come up with a better version but the points I’m making are these, in reverse order:

The love of this song amongst the vast majority of Rangers fans comes not from the “fenian blood” lyric so hated by the saintly sellik hordes - it’s a line we mostly scramble to get out as the pace at which the tune is hastened along by the ravenous Ibrox choir increases frantivcaly to get to the truly best bit: It’s the “Hullo! Hullo!” leitmotif which turns The Brox into a den of real passion. The repetition of this Hard, hollaring, hoary “h” sound follwed by a lolloping opening of the larynx around the end vowel, is suited brilliantly to the Scottish accent: makes us all sound quite fierce: This is something football fans - mostly domestic animals who spend the vast majority of their lives skulking around trying to get some peace and quiet - enjoy doing: Pretending to be scary.

Unfortunately, most English accents are not suited to making “hello! helo!” sound anything more than it really is - a repeated polite greeting. So the Man U fans - who may actually have invented the whole tune back in the 70s - sound absolutely pathetic when attempting the same ditty. As witnessed in Glasgow in October 2003, the Old Trafford giants are followed by some of the most head-thiumpingly nut-jobbish thugs in Christendom, but their vocal birth right illustrates perfectly the inately bland content of the most meaningful part of Ibrox’s favourite song.

The second point about this and all the other Govan tunes which feature openly sectarian lyrics is - their isn’t actually that many of them. Well, certainly not that many which couldn’t be proven to be folk songs of a particular racial or ethnic group or which pedants like myself couldn’t argue, as I have above, were so blatantly untrue as to be just plain silly. My father never wore a sash but - hey - since when has celebrating 17th century battles been anything other than the stuff of pretentious woolies in bohemianly “rural” bars. And, god (whatever way you like to believe in him) help us if it’s ever decided that insults are sectarian if they’re received as such: The entire Rangers support would be barred from Ibrox just for liking Rangers - this is in itself a sectarian act in tht eyes of at least half the Celtic support.

But the third and most important point - and the reason for all this talk of accusations of sectariansim, being barred from grounds and such like - is that FIFA today announced a fine of