Bombs, Bevvy, Bulls, Bazza bites boss and BBC bullsh*t

Okay, so - to break down that headline: Bombs, Bevvy and Bulls represent the three images most likely to front the plethora of connotations induced by the names Tel Aviv, Bordeaux and Pamplona.

Or maybe that’s just me.

It’s UNBELIEVABLY bad karma to be talking about who we’d get IF we won our next UEFA Cup tie. It’s as fate-tempting as opening any of your 2007 calendars within the next twelve days (My Cliff Ricard and Daniel O’Donnel 12-pagers will NOT be un-cellophaned til Jackie Bird tells me it’s New Year). So I won’t name the teams - I’ll just say that, should (touch wood), Should (cross my fingers), SHOULD (stroke dat bunny’s paw!) we beat Hapoel Tel Aviv in the last 32, we’d be going to one of two lovely LOCATIONS for the last 16 away leg.

One is most famous for wine and the other - oh my Goram! - the other is a place I’ve LIVED for many a year in its between-the-wars state as it’s the main location of my favourite-ever novel. Read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises/Fiesta and find out why I love this place so without ever having actually been there. There’s a famous festa and it involves bevvy and bulls - being chased by bulls, fighting bulls, talking bull and acting like a Hemingway wannabe - and I’d be there to watch The Gers in a fekin Instant. We’d be true afficianados, Robert Cohn could deck me all he wanted and Brett could shag all the toreadors she liked … I’d be watching teh Teds in the Basque Region … or in a region of France which makes lots of claret-red alcohol…

But I wont mention the teams, except to say one featured in Davie Cooper’s testimonial and the other played at Ibrox in the first European match of their history - and I was there - and one Craig Paterson, BBC Pundit for our last UEFA Cup match, scored the winner on the night. But we Kopped a Cornada over the two legs.

But we wont make no last-16 if the players get as whimsically concerned with who we COULD get in the next round as I’ve just done. Hapoel Tel Aviv got a smashing write-up in the guid auld Current Bun today. The Sun’s back-page was taken up mostly by a picture of a hand grenade, like what was thrown onto the pitch by some punters in some match featuring Hapoel. Their ground’s called the Bloomfield but it sounds nearly as bad as auld Broomfield.

This, I’m afraid, has made me even more keen to go. Don’t know if my loyalty credit rating is high enough with the Travel Club tae get a ticket coz we won’t get many in such a small venue but the more Bears scared away by the Middle Eastern aspect and the mentalness of the home punters AND the price and length of the trip the better. Coz I think I mighht break the credit card for this one. What better way to pay my first visit to Israel - one of the most fascinating countries on the planet - and my first vist to the Middle East (or anywhere which isnae North America or Europe!) than by following the Teds intae, erm, Europe. Must find out how much and how long - hopefully I’ll be spending Valentines WEEK on a seriously saucy trip with my one true love.

Israeli football is strong just now. Okay, we did Maccabi Haifa in the group stage. But we had to work for it and it WAS a home game AND, despite being reigning champs, Maccabi were struggling domestically when we played them. Hapoel Tel Aviv (NOT Maccabi Tel Aviv, who’re the only team to have won the title more often than their local rivals) finished second to the Haifa boys last season but did win the Israeli Cup final (Beat Bnei Yehouda 1-0 - like you didnae know that already!) . If we win we’ll get no credit but if we lose this tie - and it’s VERY loseable - we’ll be muppets, simply because most football journos only know about the history of the game when it suits them and the state of current foreign footballing affairs when, ye know, it suits them. PSG were done 4-2 at home by Hapoel Tel Aviv this season. Nuff said.

And, if I don’t get a grenade chucked at me by the Bloomfield Section Beth, I’ll just nip down to the Gaza strip and walk into a Hamas area with my Fatah scarf on. “With a packet of sweets and a cheeky smile, Isamial Haniya is a fuckin Zionist”. Or maybe I should side wi Hamas - gottae like embdy preaching a policy of “getting Fatah”.

“Bazza Bites Boss and BBC Bullshit” are kinda connected because it was only as I wallowed in a post-Five-a-sides bath last night, the portable radio sat far enough away for me to be unable to plonk it in amongst the suds and end it all before I have to witness another Broomloan Road full of witty celtic fans, that I realised there was some legs to the Bazza-PLG stories doing the rounds on Sunday Morning.

There’s some awful programme on after the nightly Sportsound/Ninety Minutes magazine on Radio Scotland which features Jim Traynor as host (enough said) and a panel of journos discussing the tepid topics of the day. I was too fucked from my efforts to drag the auld lardy ass roon the atsroturf in an ever-tightening 1FCNuremberg shirt to reach for that “off” button. And so I had to listen as Bill Leckie (people’s champion, telling it like it is), Roddy Forsyth (bemoaning the ignorance of the masses) and Michael Grant (OpenFootie regular and totally wellied-up sheep-shagger) informed me that there really was a bit of friction twixt le Gaffer and El Capitano.

‘Parrently the press commnets of our Bazz were incontrovertibly meant as a swipe at Le Guen’s disrespecting the captain’s armband, if not necessarily the man inside it. The point being that whenever PLG had a chance to point out that he had nothing against Bazza, just the way Scots overrate the job of captain, he singularly and pointedly refused to do so.

Bazz, who regards it as a singular honour to be on-field boss of The Gers and to shoulder all the grief that job brings, had obviously had enough of what seems to be Paul’s deliberate demeaning of the role - then the player. Captain of Rangers means more than captain of any other club, probably in the world. It’s not just a Scottish thing - there’s virtually nothing ever made of the Celtic captaincy - it’s a Rangers thing. We’re classically a club representing authority, even dour prebyterian obedience. There’s no “Rebeliousness” about Rangers - not in the stereotype image we all adore anyway - and so Chairman, Manager, Captain and Goalie (last bastion of defence) are positions which mean more here than at almost every other club on the go. Bazz is right to be proud of that armband - we’re proud to have him wear it.

That Bazz would speak out, in unsubtle hints, and that PLG would seek to be equally undiplomatic is seriously bl**dy interesting. If this techiness between them has blown up over the last few days then it can only be a good thing, seeing how our best two domestic performances of the season have come in the last ten days.

But the Fourth Estate agents sat round tubby Traynor’s table were correct in highlighting the fact Le Guen also makes a point of downsizing the significance of any Kris Boyd goals. He always focusses on the fact Kris could do more outside the box. This is okay by me if PLG is applying very parrticular man-management skills to men he thinks would slack off if he lavished any verbal lauerls on their furrowed nappers. But, with the assembled pundits also telling us in very convincing terms that there is most certainly a split within the Ibrox dressing room, I’m a bit mair worried.

A team which drinks together wins together? Okay, that’s maybe moved on - it could even be a team which bitches together wins together - continual off-field rammying is often good for the on-field results. But a team which goes in the huff with itself really doesnae win together.

Word is it’s not a clean French-v-The Rest split. That’s too simplistic. But some of zee French guys are fighting with each other too, taking “Le Revolution” too literally. I see Allan MacGregor giving Svennson pelters. I see Hutton Giving Svensson pelters - so that’s a bit of Ecosse v Sverige abuse but does it necessarily mean these guys have actually fallen out for good or for the long term? An on-field bust-up and certainly one player bollocking one of his team-mates, is just an everyday part of the game - particularly if your playing alongside Svensson! - there’s more likely to be a visible lack of cohesive spirit in a team with lasting personality clashes within. The way we played against Hibs and Celtic suggests that there’s plenty spirit about - maybe it’s just that a few rungs of the new Ibrox dressing room pecking order are being established inbetween games. That’s okay by me.

Le Guen doesnae give the press much and that can be quiet amusing and quite dissapointing by turn. I hate to see a Rangers manager look huffy - but I love to see him take reporters to the cleaners with a straight one-liner as he did to Chick on Sunday morning. With the Bazza incident, I hope it’s just part of a plan to make the press dance to his tune - or to keep everyone in a state of constant flux, arguably the best way to get suitable performances from players, fans and press, each feeding into the other for maximum advantage on-field. A fall-out and cliques, however, are NOT in ANY WAY okay by me. I hate huffiness. It’s a killer for fitbaw teams. So I hope the Beeb’s reportage on this subject was as reliable as Roddy Forsyth’s angle on the Artur Boruc affair. His infuriated, weary tone slated the Rangers fans who’d spoke out to the press about Boruc making the sign of the cross when he ran doon tae The Copland on Sunday for the start of the second half.

If ye read my rant on the game’s goings on you’ll know I too am pretty upset that any Rangers fan would do anything other than laugh at Boruc. But I say this because, Roddy, I was tehere and - unlike the guys you were slagging for themsleves slagging boruc on second-hand evidence - I SAW everything he did and exactly HOW Boruc blessed himself. The idea, peddled by Mr Forsyth, that this was a deeply religious player simply expressing his private belief is, I’m afraid, total shite.

Boruc ran up to the six yard box. Stopped dead and paused for dramatic effect, proceeded to exaggerate a steadying motion of fixing both his feet into a position square with the Copland Rd Stand, paused again, made a deliberatley zippy and tiny sign of the cross and then turned, smiling, to do the traditional “look up my shiter” “Warm-up”, first used by Richard Gough in the rear direction of Aberdeen’s slanderous followers. The “common sense PLEASE” tone Roddy used on the tranny last night was the same old “they’re all mindless bigots” tone which has itself now become a bigotry among the celtic support.

Rangers fans complaining about Boruc when all he did was make a sign which means nothing to anyone with half a brain? AYE - that’s a bit embarassing. But more infuriating is when people refuse to acknowledge he’s using it in an inflamatory manner and that the biggest insultee of all this is the Roman Catholic church and faith. Boruc uses Catholicism as a cheap jibe - that’s how deeply he believes. Please, Roddy - don’t slag others for not seeing the incident when you seem to have seen it yet refused to understand it.

Sorry - just needed saying. Some stuff ye just have to chase down.

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Published:
12.19.06 / 9pm
Category:
News