Gers make yet another team’s day (Livvy … 2 GERS … 2)

Once again The Gers have given Scottish Football a much-needed kick up the backside. For the second time in living memory, it’s Ra Teddy Bers who’re saving this country’s top flight!

We did it when Souness arrived in 1986 - we dragged Calcio Caledonia up by the scruff of the neck as everyone was forced to try and compete with the array of Anglo talent wearing Rangers Blue. The vast majority of Scotish fitbaw punters were sick of Aberdeen and Dundee United’s seemingly interminable two minute stranglehold on the game. Crowds were dwindling. But then Butcher, Woods, Roberts and co came north. Suddenly the Tayside-Grampian monopoly was over - the Premier Division was competitive once again.

Two decades on and it’s the same shit, different colours. The paying public were growing sick of the same two clubs winning everything. But, have no fears - as always, Rangers are here! The SPL is being revitalised right before our eyes and almost every other team in the land has the Ibrox side to thank.

How many historic matches are we gonnae have to watch this season? Seems like those clubs whose confidence we omitted to boost in the first round of league fixtures will get their moment in the second edition of 2005/2006 season. We hammered Livvy on opening day but we made up for that at the first possible opportunity, tonight.

We played and won our first ever match at Inverness, second SPL match of the season - pretty historic stuff but mostly enjoyable only for the Bears and Bearettes.From then on, however, it’s been all about giving the fans of Scotland’s provincials and ne’er-do-wells a memorable day or night out:

We’ve allowed Aberdeen their first win over Ra Peepelle since God was a boy; we’ve treated Hibs’ fans to a superb 3-0 win AT Ibrox - that’ll keep them young Hibees coming back through the turnstyles; Falkirk were gifted a share of the points as a house-warming pressie on Rangers’ first ever match at the Bairn’s new home; Hearts gave all their new season ticket holders a reason to believe when enjoying their first home win over you-know-who for goodness-only-knows how long; Struggling Dundee United found themselves re-born as they held the champions to a 0-0 at Tannadice, and tonight …

Well, tonight Rangers were at their most charitable yet. It was the kind of heart-warming generosity, to the benefit of the most obviously needy, which brings a tear to one’s eye. I swear I saw a few thousand Rangers fans moved to extremes of emotion tonight, such was the benevolent, altruistic SWEETNESS of our team’s actions:

We’re the reigning champions, we’re the biggest club in Scotland, we’ve got a squad better than anything else in the land. But just coz yer at the top of your profession doesn’t mean ye can’t have a heart. Not only did we visit the home of poor wee Livingston - only three goals and three points to their name all season - not only did we allow them their best point of the season so far, not only did we give them their first game this season , in ANY competition, in which they’ve scored more than once … but we made the whole affair into a big surprise party:

Those cheeky Rangers pranksters went two goals up - just so the poor Livvy players wouldn’t expect what was coming. Yup, we went two goals up - scoring the second after 54 minutes just so it wasn’t in any way obvious what we were up to. Livingston players watch TV too, ye see. They KNOW Rangers have been dishing out the points to the less fortunate all season. The West Lothian Lions would have been EXPECTING a bit of charity from The Gers tonight. The Rangers were determined to give them something too but - hey - you know what it’s like; the best presents are the ones you aren’t expecting. So,for the entire first half, those scamps in blue played along with the “scrouge” routine. We pretended we were actually gonnae beat Livvy. (as IF!)

We went a goal up through Bazza. Our captain stroked in a Chris Burke pull-back after a good run by the ginger winger. Any Bluenose watching from the yellow plastic stands knew EXACTLY what was going on. We’ve seen it enough times this season to recognise Rangers in charity mode. We saw Dado make a lot of runs out wide and Burke failing to get past his man or put many more decent crosses in. We saw a lot of huffing and puffing but mostly balls being played up in the air from Waterreus to no-one or, even worse, to Burke. Yup - we KNEW Rangers were DYING to surrender points to a more deserving cause … but it was nice to see our players sweeten the cherry.

Nine minutes into the second half, as I became so bored that I’d realised I was sitting more exactly in line with the corer of the pitch than at any other ground in my life (Dead-on the corner flag, looking towards the big office block in the opposite corner - only the incredibly fat, Rick Waller look-a-like steward was spoiling my line of vision from flag to flag), Olivier Bernard swept towards me and swept a ball to the back post. Wee Burkey swept in to sweep the ball into the back of the net … too late to win anyone the bus sweep though.

At this point you could see the Livvy players and their player-manager were beginning to take us seriously. They actually thought we were gonnae beat them! It was cruel. We’d taken it too far. So, softies that we are, we put the teasing to an immediate end. We gifted them the ball from nothing, actually laying it on a plate from a defensive midfield position - too many stewards and folk STILL trying to find their seat (does the crowd ever actually ARRIVE at Almondvale? Are all those “reserved” stickers on all the seats causing the confusion? Why are those stickers there when we get three-quarters of their ground - Did I miss a season where Livvy had 10,000 season-ticket holders?) for me to know EXACTLY who did what - and stood back as Snodgrass tried to cope with posession near our box.

The frightened wee soul ran far too wide and had a rather pathetic trundling shot at goal. Ronald had to actually stand completely still and let it run past him to make sure it went in the net. Even then a freak gust of wind on what was a horible night could have kept our goal intact.

Still, Livvy had their quick reply. Just in case we made it too obvious what we were up to, Rangers decided to make the next gift-goal a bit more believable. It was Snodgrass again, heading home from a free-kick cross. Sounds genuine enough but when you saw guys the size of Pierre-Fanfan and Marvin Andrews miss that cross as it came into the box, you knew Rangers were sharing out the love.

The rest of the game was a travesty of pretence. Some Livvy player - more confused than ungrateful - broke free towards our goal in injury time but Ronald had to save this one. Had it gone in then we’d have lost a two-goal lead to the side propping up the table AND lost the game. That’d be tooo bvious and ALex McLeish would probably have had to resign in the morning.

As it is we’re throwing a thin veil of authenticity over our results by spreading them evenly throughout the season. We beat livvy 3-0 in the first round of SPL fixtures, so they got their points this time round.

There is a substantial injury list at Ibrox right now. We are missing our two first-choice central defenders and at least tonight might have some people suddenly realising why Sotirios and J-Rod are our first choice stoppers, but when you’re playing a side which hasn’t looked like anything other than a First Division team for the last three months and you surrender a 2-0 lead to them, it’s pretty obvious you’re simply GIVING THE POINTS AWAY.

Inverness will be a tricky way to see out October and then November will, once again, either save or end Alex McLeish’s job. He’d be daft to pack it in when he can be a Champions League and Old Firm hero in five weeks’ time. If he isn’t, he’d perhaps be daft not to resign and I’m looking like I’ve been daft not to make a start on The McLeish Years (it could have been on the shelves for Christmas!).

My thanks to the good folk of The Arthur Numan Loyal for the transport tonight - and I particulalrly thank them for playing the DVD “101 Great Rangers Goals” all along the M8: It was good to be reminded what Rangers play like when they’re feeling a bit meaner, a bit more professional - a bit more organised and a bit more like they actually know how to win a league.

I said yesterday that you can’t realistically ask for a manager to be sacked when he hasn’t yet been knocked out any of the competitions we’re in: Maybe that was one competition gone tonight. The worst thing, though, is that we’ve just invented another one - making sure we catch Celtic … and it’s almost becoming as hard as catching Hearts! I don’t even want to start talking about Hibs - four points is nothing compared to how far we are off second and first place!

I also made a big point yesterday of the big points we’re dropping on the road and how we can’t score the goals away from home. Tonight we managed to get ourselves up to an average of exactly one goal per away game in this season’s SPL. I wanted a 3-goal margin of victory - we couldn’t even manage a 3-3 draw! Murray won’t sack McLeish and McLeish won’t resign - neither he should at this point - but this awful “start” to the domestic campaign is now DEMANDING European success by way of compensation. I used to think just being in Europe after Christmas would save Eck - after this debacle, that continuation of our European sojourn has to be in the Champions League.

Justification - that’s the name of the game. Everyone else in the SPL is having a rare old time at our expense - now we want some compen’.