Top of the league, clean sheet - but no flags raised (GERS … 3 Livvi … 0)

Goram, I’m getting old! Used to be that when wanting to flaunt a flag at the fitbaw you’d blythely throw the thing over people’s heids and sod the consequences: If they didnae like it they obviously wurnae truely True Blues and should be made to suffer anyway. And if the stewards or polis intervened to take yer banner down then you’d make a massive plaintive scene, go on a very visible and audible strop, have every Teddy Bear in the place booing and shouting the odds, crying “If ye hate the Glesgae Polis/Rock Steady…” . You’d spout a few expletives and do a bit of wrestling and you’d maybe be bundled away as readily as yer flag, yer arm up yer back and yer game over.

Now, though, I’m all lah-de-dah, polite and pathetic, actually WORRYING about causing offence: I’m furtively finding a place to fly my flag which won’t impede anyone’s view of the game and I’m even asking the stewards’ permission BEFORE I get the colours out. What kind of “citizen” have I become?

So, anyway, I’ve got this big fu**-off-sized German national flag with a word or two for Stefan Klos spray-painted on. I bought it and inscribed it on the eve of the 2003 Scottish Cup final, V Dundee. Klos was particularly pivotal that season, and on the day we were due to lift the Treble I wanted him to know someone was being graeteful to him in Particular. Numan was leaving - he got the t-shirt and the shoulder carriage. Amo was leaving - he got the winning goal and half an hour of sprinkling vinegar in his eyes trying to make himself greet. Bazza got to lift the cup as captain. So it would be quite fitting if Stef had his own wee flag of adulation.

Can’t remember exactly what size it is - maybe 6 x 3 feet. Anyway, it looks massive when it’s unfurled on the living room floor but it’s pretty paltry when yer half-way up the North Stand at Hampden and you’re surrounded by the only half dozen Bluenoses in the whole ground who aren’t at the game to enjoy themselves. It got a flash or two but, that sunny day almost two years ago, the flag went back home without having realy made it’s mark.

So when Stef suffered what he thought was a very minor twinge at training last week and the news broke on Black Friday that, amazingly, this non-painful injury was season-ending, it seemed only right that the big flag should have it’s day again. In his hour of need - even if he was back in Germany recuperating - Stefan needed to know how much we all cared. My season ticket’s for the Govan Rear, along at the Copland end. I’d fix the cloth with some tie-ups, knot them round the blue-steel safety stanchions which stop people walking up the stairs and off the edge off the stand, and drape it over the “balcony” wall.

Maybe someone would take a picture - the tabloids would love a “Gers fans show their thoughts are with Klos” shot, to be used as an incidental piccie among the main centre-page “action” shots. Maybe one of the players would notice and let Stef know. Maybe Marvin would mention it at his next prayer meeting. The Bears and Bearettes in the Copland would certainly all get a good view and we could all feel someone had at least expressed how we all felt about Der Goalie.

But then, in the car enroute to Ibrox, Chick Young’s almost incoherent Radio Scotland voice was talking about Allan McGregor. The Rangers reserve goalie would be under enormous scutiny in this game. Damn right, he would - no-one’s expecting him to be half as good as Stefan but he probably feels he’s got to fill the gloves of a demi-god and already there’s talk of us taking Shaka Hislop on loan from Portsmouth. 99 times out of a hundred Ragers shoot towards the Broomloan in the first half. What if young Allan, nervous and emotionaly fragile, turns to take the applause from the home end as he takes up his position at kick-off and sees a big German flag with the words “Stefan …”? Maybe he’d take it as an insult. Maybe it’d make him think he was a poor second choice. Maybe it’d put him under more pressure than he could cope with … he’d crack … he’d start throwing the ball into his own net, ala Roy Carroll … we’d lose four goals and three points … all because of ME AND MY STUPID FLAG!!

“I’ll wait til half-time”, I thought, “put the flag up when Allan’s down the other end”. So Andy Cameron gave Stef a mention and we all clapped. Except Marvin, back in the dressing room, who spoke in tongues then sat on a woman from Methil with mild asthma.

Allan didn’t go near the nets, before or even straight after kick-off. As the teams waited for the ref to get things underway, he spent ages outside his box doing the high-fives and good luck hugs with his outfield team-mates. We all wanted him to make that final run up to the goal-mouth which most keepers do - to chuck a wee bag or that big towel into the rigging and take the warm encouragement we were all so keen to give him. But he had nothing with him.

He barely turned round and for the first five minutes he barely got closer to his goal-line than the penalty spot. He wore white socks. He looked so young and skinny that the name “Bambi” kept drifting in and out my over-concerned mind. I’ve seen Allan playing for the first team a few times before but never with an SPL title at stake.

Kyrgiakos, on the other hand, looked the part straight away. Don’t know how good his English is but he’s obviously a talker. Not shy and v determined to communicate with his new colleagues. He had a vey solid first-half, looked mobile, fit, tactically astute and was excellent in his anticipation and reading of the game - however little of it came his way. Good in the air and competent on the deck, he would have had a perfect debut if it hadn’t been for a couple of , frankly, suicidal passes in the dying moments of the second half. We were 3-0 up by that point, mind you - and it stayed 3-0 til the final whistle - so we’ll put it down to emotional tiredness: Well, it can’t be easy coming over to a foreign land to set up a new life when you’ve got to find a babysitter for sixteen agents and advisors every weekend.

The match was deathly boring. Livi rarely threatened. Gough, bestriding the away technical area in a sharp dark suit looked like he could still play. When his side lost 4-1 at home to Inverness Caley Thistle last week he may well have been considering doing just that at his old stomping ground. Can’t remeber much about the build up to our opening goal - I only remember Prso lashing it into the bottom corner - but perhaps Goughie would have got a foot to it.

Thirteen minutes gone, our goal rarely threatened and we’re in the lead. This was the Dunfermline game of a fortnight previous all over again. The opener may have been later in coming but we weren’t about to lose. As early as that first quarter hour, I began focussing my tension on the maintenance of a clean sheet. Livvy are one of the least potent teams I’ve seen in a long time, even if they do have the biggest, Alan Gilzean impersonator of a number 34 I’ve ever seen, playing up front: Colossal bloke, classic seventies half-bald pate - all he did was kick someone then get subbed in the second half. If we could avoid gifting this mob a goal then McGergor and Kyrgiakos’s confidence would soar.

The sun finally sank below the Main Stand roof on 31 minutes and I could stop putting my hand over my brow to see the action. But what I was seeing didn’t change. Rangers, despite three changes to the defence which played at Pittoidrie six days ago, were dominating. It was just a matter of when we’d get a second. The half-time whistle came without it having arrived.

So, during the seemingly very long first half, I’d sussed exactly where the Stef flag should go. Pre-match research, involving me hanging over the edge of the stand, letting the tassles of my scarf hang free in the wind, told me there was a good chance the banner could blow back up the way. If I fixed it just at the vomitory into the Govan rear this would block the view of some parts of the pitch for people in the front two rows. Can’t have that - especially as they’d probably hang about to see me take it down at the end of the game and give me a swift kicking.

Sooo, I spied the wee balcony area which hangs undeneath the Jumbotron screen and is back behind the goals, with the newish corner section of seats below. Even if it blew back up, the flag would block no-one’s view from here yet would be very visible itself. Maybe it’d hang over a Carling adertising hoarding but it’d only block it partailly and maybe even bring more attention to the English lager brand name … WHAT THE??!!! … just SHUT-UP AND HANG THE FU**ING THING UP!!!

A member of the Rock Steady crew was stood right behind me so, just as I recruited the help of another Bluenose to unfurl the thing and tie it in place, I STUPIDLY said “Alright to hang a flag over here, mate?”. For some reason, I’d scoured the rest of The Brox and realised there wasn’t one single flag being hung over the edge of a stand.

“I don’t know - I’ll go ‘n check with my boss”

He comes back in about two seconds - “naw, sorry”.

“Okay, well Can I just drape it over and hold it by hand til the start of the second half?”

“No - sorry”.

He was big for a 12 year old. Some of that acne looked as if it would pop any second. I didn’t want to mess. And, sadly, I didn’t want to get him into bother with his boss either. I shouldn’t have asked, as my gemme companion was quick to agree, I should just have done it but, well, part of me was thinking a 35-year-old bloke shouldn’t really be putting so much time and effort into waving flags at a football match. I do have other responsibilities in life which are perhaps a bit more pressing than the adoration of a professional, milionaire footballer with a Champions League medal and a luxury house in Germany … in which he’s currently residing and so won’t even see my sad wee flag.

It goes wider than that. When the Sunni militats are threatening to kill all their own and the Shias and Kurds who vote in Iraq’s first free elections for half a century, me not getting a flag up is .. is … actually it’s even more DISGUSTING - this is what these people are risking their lives for … DEMOCRACY. They want to forget about flags of death and concentrate on football flags, flags of celebration, of joy - they want freedom to enjoy the glorious irrelevance of football - to sing songs, wave banners … it’s FREEDOM … I HAD MY HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATED AT IBROX YESTERDAY …

…or maybe there it was just a Health and Safety thing … I mean, if it came loose and landed on someone who was carrying a hot Bovril …

Sometimes the atmosphere of a football match makes us much more animated and excitable than we ever think we would be when sat out our work contemplating the game. But other times, when you’re sat at your work thinking how much you love The Rangers and how much you want to show it, you don’t realise that actually being in the stadium can take the edge off your enthusiasm. Funny old game right enough.

Ricksen, who I thought was gimme for the captaincy in Stef’s absence, compensated for the fact Alex Rae got the armband by scoring a blistering free-kick. Superb, it was - rifled into the net at a thunderous pace … keeper had no chance … etc, etc. In fact, that Livvi keeper had a bit of a blinder and he was the main reason it ended only 3-0.

Our two new attacking midfielders had an unfortunate game for different reasons. Djordic seemed to have learned from the Aberdeen game that the SPL is all about “looking after yourself” - the tannoy may play “(he)’s a Maniac!” when Ricksen scores but Bojan was the one bordering on the psychotic against Livvi. Unfortunately, his other Pittodrie legacy, being stretchered off, also brought his game to a premature end yesterday - Namouchi came on in his place midway through teh first half. Gonnae take some shooting lessons, Hamed!

Buffel was very quiet. Ater a solid first full game against Dunfermline, the Pittodrie blood-bath seems to have got to him. Small players ain’t necessarily lightweight, as Nasty Nach demonstrates every week, but Buffel has been hard to find in his last two outings.

The imperious and peerless wee Nach snatched a third in Gerdy Muller style, touching in a Buffel shot which probably wasn’t net-bound. Ricksen was stood at the back post just to make sure. For the entire second half we played through and round Livvi and should maybe have had more than two goals but we still got ourselves back atop the league - not bad considering we were six points off it this time last week, and we’ve augmented that healthy goal-difference.

Allan got a hand to a rare Livvi shot and parried spectacularly - it looked like a good save. He kept that clean sheet. I kept my flag to myself. I’ll keep it for Stef’s first game back.