Sour grapes spoil Hibee sensation (GERS … 0 Hibees …3)

Last time I saw The Gers stuffed 3-0 at The Brox it was Celtic doing the stuffing at the end of a trophyless Rangers season. So you’ll forgive me if I wasn’t overly bothered to see the original Hibernians doing the damage this weekend. Ivan Sproule is a name which deserves to be remembered anyway - even if he never kicked a football in his life. “IVAN SPROULE”!! Sooperb monicker and a superb speed-merchant who actually brought a squad of 20 Rangers-supporting mates from Northern Ireland to the game with him.

Don’t know if those were the guys wee Ivan was looking for when he celebrated his third by bee-lining for the West Enclosure. His team-mates didn’t seem to know this either as they decided to get it right up a few of the remaining Bears sprinkled around the front of our Main Stand. But the abuse these young visiting players take, when they sail up the left wing, from a bunch of punters who sprint even faster for the exit the moment their team looks like losing, makes their display of schadenfreude both understandable and deserved.

When O’Neill’s mob came to Mecca at the tail-nend of 200/2001 season, having already won the SPL title, Rangers all but lay down to them. We had Albertz, Amo, Numan and many, many more of our Bankruptcy-tempting megastar squad on parade. It was an unforgivably gutless second-half surrender. It was one of the lowest moments in my time as a Bluenose.

On Saturday there, against Hibs, Rangers were just pish. They were trying, they made an arse of it - end of. This, I suppose, should be more worrying than a defeat inflicted simply because we couldn’t be arsed: A lot of fans would instantly swap talentless tryers for gutless talent. But the talent currently at Ibrox has taken us into The Champions League, has made us the reigning Scottish Champions, has Ibrahim Hemdani ready to come back and a mystery man waiting to sign, and simply made a few key mistakes at the end of a draining, profitable week. As long as we learn from it, the season being as young as it is, then no great harm done.

We beat Celtic 3-1 last week and I’m raging - we lose 3-0 to Hibs and I’m almost revelling in it. I know. It looks a bit suspect. This website might reach a point where even counter-intuition becomes formulaic but my emotions are genuinely reflected here. What I will say is that it’s perhaps not always the football istelf which shapes those emotions. My key reaction to this game was dissapointment but not of the gutting kind. As Sproule walked in his hat-trick I was left laughing at the inebvitability of both his third goal and the sea of empty seas around me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m raging. I’m angry. Oh yes - I’m very upset, Ralph. But not with the players. Certain of our supporters, you see, had me unbelievably upset - one particular moron had me ashamed. And our manager did not, I think, handle his post-match interviews too brilliantly. And this after perhaps setting out his team rather unwisely.

Dado Prso, after the game of his life on Wednesday night playing through the central forward slot, is pushed out to the left. Okay - fair enough - we’re trying something new. But when it got to half-time and this move patently wasn’t working, McLeish would usually would have no hesitation in changing things. At 0-0, there was no great harm done, so just alter the front line.

But we persisted with Stephen Thompson through the middle and it was Buffel - again playing a different role from that which brought us so much success in the second half against Celtic and the whole game against Famagusta - who was sacrificed for the increasingly inaccurate Peter Lovenkrands.

We went with what amonted to four up front - even if Buffel was intended to be slightly withdrawn. When you don’t score any, never mind four or five goals in the first hour with a formation like this you begin to wonder if the opposition will get wise to us and start catching us on the break through our thinner-than-usual midfield and defence. Gary O’Connor goes off, Iavn Sproule comes on. By the end of the game we’ve been caught three times and our formation is to blame.

Of course tactics can only work or fail so far. It’s the players who execute those tactics who can decide how well the 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 5-2-3 performs. Steven Thompson is a smashing substitute. He almost always does well coming off the bench for The Gers. We know that he’ll take time to adjust to starting a game - entering the fray at exactly the same fitness level as everyone else on the pitch - but maybe the League Cup game with Clyde would be a better time to let Stephen begin a match. He had a few clean shots on goal which contained absolutely no fizz. Playing him through the middle at Dado’s expense was shown at its most mistaken when he failed to connect with a ball rolled slowly across the six yard box, early in the second half. Any striker worth his salt would have pounced ona chance like that - Stephen’s confidence had become so dented by this point that even his basic instincts were crushed.

He’s a proud man, Stephen - he’s a Scotland international who has hit the net for his country. But so is Gary O’Connor and Tony Mowbray had absolutely no qualms about removing him from the action after little more than an hour. The big fellah, who is much more influential in the Hibernian set-up than Thompson is in ours, wasn’t giving the visitors the forward encampment they needed. He was leaving Hibernian’s determined but often shaky defence with too much work on their hands. The Easter Road men were keeping it busy in midfield but their keeper was the star of the show so far.

Novo was still full of running but to even less effect than previous games this season. Had Dado, however, been allowed to get into the very centre of that Hibs defence in the opening exchanges which saw them stretched to breaking point then, well, we would have broke them. I know Dado’s more able to play out wide than Stephen - christ, Dado could probably play in goals if we needed him to - but even shoving both our big men through the middle would have given us more chance of racking up a half-time lead while also allowing Thompson his start.

Good counter-attacking speed and intelligence from Scott Brown and David Murphy set Sproule up to, basically, score the same goal three times. The finishes were different. A lob for the first, walking round the goalie and slotting into an empty net for the second and a curling shot into the far corner for the third. But the break point of all these goals was our midfield’s complete
collapse and our defence’s inability to deal with simple speed. We attacked with a blunt tip and, by the time we were attacked ourselves, both the shaft and the flight of the Rangers arrow had completely dissolved.

By the time the third went in, into inury time, I was quietly thanking the stars Sproule hadn’t stated the game coz we could have been 6 or 7 down. But this was just nonsense. If Sproule had started the game Pierre-Fanfan and Rodriguez would have had time to adjust to his pace as they cleaned up the first few scraps of chances he was allowed. The rest of Th Gers side wouldn’t have been as spread out and Hibs wouldn’t have supported Sproule as effectively as they did when we were throwing everything desperately up front to augment our failing attack. As the Ibrox punters howled more and more with every missed Rangers chance, we lost all shape and Hib - credit to them - followed the blood scent mercilessly. Defence starts with attack and our inability to properly attack eventually let the whole team down.

As I walked back along Shieldhall Road a family of Hibees nervously corssed over from Broomloan Road. A middle-aged father and, it has to be said, an overweight wife and some overweight teenage kids. They sported the green-and white favours of their team and, yes, i know this was a naive un-street-wise move on their part but who really cared? We were pissed of with our own team - not angry at theirs. When they headed in my direction I was actually on the verge of saying “well done - that wee guy Sproule is one of the fastest I’ve ever seen.” Not even a conscious effort to be all “Tartan Army ” and super sporting but more just an instinct to reassure the panicked look on their faces …

The visitors had taken up the full corner twixt Broomloan and Govan and there’d been the usual choral abuse between both sets of fans: Most of it centred around Ian Murray. They thought he was a wanker - for leaving them in the summer - and we thought there was only one Ian Murray - for what he’s contributed since the summer. At the end of the game Murray either gave them a quick flash of the viccies or a friendly wave which was jeeringly received - I couldn’t quite make it out (too many tears blurring my vision
:-)). But he then made a point of shaking the hand of every single Hibs player - even those who’d run past him to be lauded by the away support. That kind of summed it up: Yes, there’s banter and abuse but, at the end of the day, they’re just enjoying the fact they’ve won at Ibrox for the first time in a decade. They were going so mental because Rangers are traditionally so much better. IT’S A COMPLIMENT!!

Most of The Rangers crowd had left by this point. I never leave early but neither do I sit in my seat trying to look like the bottom’s fallen out of my world like some of the cretins who were determined to be seen crying into their Red,White and Blue scarves by the Setanta highlights crew. Professional bloody mourners. There’s only five games gone and everyone else in the Scottish Premier League is as bad or worse than us - who died??!

Fuck, when you watch Rangers as often as these clowns would think they do, beating everyone under the sun except Smelltick becomes almost routine. If we’d slaughtered Hibs on Saturday it would have been the expected. As it was, at least we got to see something sensational. The “You are a Weegie” is hilarious and Hibernian, for me, are a great club to play against - tradition, history and a damn smart strip which reflects this. When they go mental at Ibrox you know it’s a crowd of genuine football people going mental - unlike the gits around me who shot up from their seats on 86 minutes when Sproule made it two-nil and suddenly decided McLeish should go and fuck himself and that Rangers were a fucking disgrace.

So I had no problem with a family of Hibees trying to make their way back to a very badly-chosen parking spot. But some clown on the other side of the road decided he’d let them know a few things … like the fact they were “fenian bastards” … that they were “green and white shite” … that they were “ugly cunts” … that the girl (lucky if she was 15) looked “more like a whale than a human”.

This wasn’t “banter”. This wasn’t reciprocal in any way. This was one cowardly arsehole singling out singularly unthreatening people in a no-win situation - one-on-one the father would probably have leathered this twat - and making us all depressingly aware of why wearing your colours just isn’t allowed in certain areas, with certain “people” about.

It was fucking horrible. I felt disgusted and ashamed. The father of the visiting family just kept his eye on his increasingly upset kids and told them to keep walking and not look but my heart broke for these people. If I’d spoken to them then, wearing my Gers scarf, it could have got even more out of hand. If I’d spoken to the scumbag doing the shouting then it would definitely have got me a kicking from him and his mates - but you still go home feeling like a low-life coward for not doing or saying anything.

No-one else was joining in the abuse but no-one else was attempting to stop it either. THAT was the aspect of Saturday’s defeat which left me devestated and wanting to cry into MY scarf.

I get into the car and switch on the radio. Alex McLeish, the man who, as I drove to the game, had me thinking he was about to start a new dynasty of Rangers dominance in the blue-chip style of Struth, Symon or Walter Smith, was sounding like a petulant brat: He was sounding like Martin O’Neill.

Yes, there’s no doubt Hibs wouldn’t have expected to win 3-0 and yes, there’s no doubt we created more chances in the game, had all the possession and were denied at times by some brilliant goalkeeping. But, is that not what it’s all about? Is putting the ball in the back of the net not what wins football matches? Is the ability to see what’s going wrong with your opponents - even while that opponent is running all over you - not the mark of an intelligent, brave football side?

Eck isn’t superhuman. You can’t demand perfect media from him as wll as perfect results. He was plainly upset and I’d be disgusted if he was anything else but to say playing Prso out wide and Thompson from the start was “absolutely the right thing to do and nothing today convinced me otherwise” when you’ve just LOST THREE-NIL (!!!), was a bit sad.

When Ian Murray forced the ball over the Hibs line at 3-0 he turned away to celebrate like a daft yin before learning he was offside. Enthusiasm is essential but, at Rangers, we don’t celebrate scoring a consolation goal. At Rangers we don’t bemoan our “bad luck” - we just get on with the job of regrouping and recovering and winning again. It’s all about taking it on the chin and learning from your defeats. When you resort to walking away, sniping at easy targets and trying to deny it even happened, then we all lose … 3-0.