2006 - get tae f**k! (GERS … 1 Buddies … 1)

When a loved one is ill, is in trouble, you hurt.

When you can’t be with them in their time of need, you hurt even more. It becomes a personal stain.

Saturday 30th December provided an appropriate backdrop to the end of Rangers’ 2006. For all Gers fans, waking up to images of Saddam Hussein being hung, there may have been JUST A TINY TINGE of dark fatalism in the air before we even considered the football. No sympathy for the murdering old bastard himself but knowing that Britain and the USA had engineered a situation where they could legally murder someone and, in Margaret Beckett’s case, still make little noises about not approving of the Death Sentence, gave teh day an air of depression before I’d even milked my sugar-splattered bowl of Asda’s own-brand branflakes.

Considering that football, the ennui deepened: We were absolutely shite on Wednesday night, against Inverness. On Friday, having managed to temporarily drag yourself out of the depression injected by that Highland flop, like me, many of you will have departed your workplace after an easy three-day week to the breaking internet news that Steven Pressley had signed for Celtic. I didn’t want him back at Ibrox anyway - had said so a few weeks back - but another ex-Ranger signing for the club I like the least certainly diluted any de-mob euophoria at the onset of the extended weekend.

Not of an age now where I’d want to be stood in George Square or Princess Street, waiting to snog a blind girl after midnight as the beer wore off, cold set in and the Rugby crowd in kilts gave yet another group of Japanese tourists a stereotyped Biscuit-Tin-Jock image of Scotland photo-opportunity involving their bare hairy arses and dangling middle-class gonads. BUT, the end-of-the-year parties were reported as being in peril because of ensuing end-of-the-world-type weather. Never mind ME - even the chances of anyone else enjoying themselves were being sabotaged. Depression was enshrouding the world on teh last Saturday morning of 2006. The life was being squeezed out of happiness as surely as it was wrung from the neck of an Iraqi dictator for his crimes against humanity - thanks to the help of those Western governments who’d backed him while committing those crimes in the eighties and then killed thousands of women and children during the entirely humane invasion of 2003.

David Murray is now Sir David Murray - for his contribution to the business World. I’ve much respect for Sir Dave but none for knighthoods. They’re calculated and often patronising methods of political gain and obtaining public sympathy by Buck house and Westminster. In short, Honours Lists often give an air of universal affection to people who’ve been complete bastards in order to get where they are today - rich and comfortable. Sir Alex Ferguson has done what he had to do to achieve his success. He started life as a working class boy from Govan and has committed far less evil than the “cuddly” establishment which conferred his gong upon him so good luck to him. But we know the Whisky-Nosed one, like genial old Sir Matt Busby before him, is vindictive and petty in the extreme. Ferguson is still continually adding to his list of those who crossed him since the day he left Ibrox as an unwanted player.

David Murray is also about to cease being a player in Ibrox history. As a money-as-success-driven individual, owning Rangers was his substitute Knighthood. Now he actually has the real thing his Govan exit strategy is probably complete. Yesterday’s publicity of his �650 Million fortune may have hammered home the contempt many Bluenoses now feel for the man who now runs us on a shoestring. Regular readers of this site will know how I feel about that assesment of a man who funded the greatest days of my Rangers-supporting existence and some of the greatest achievements in Ibrox history. When we wanted him to spend big he did. When we told him he had us in too much debt he stopped spending and paid off the debt. When I saw he’d been knighted I cheered. A Knight at Ibrox is so appropriate. We’re the British Royalists after all. It’s a disgrace - and absolute disgrace that Jock Stein was never knighted. “Big Kock knew”? Aye - maybe so - but that’s not the parameters within which he was being judged for a Sir-ship. The guy brought the European Cup to Britain for the first time - end of (AND he was a Bluenose). Murray’s Knighthood is for his business achievements but the reaction of certain elements of the celtic support shoudl be good for a laugh.

But - don’t worry. Those of you in Blue who think Murray is bad for Rangers back need not fret about this Murray lap dog’s emotional well-being having an unfair advantage as we approached our final match of this most horrible calendar year. As depressing as Saturday morning already was, I managed to take the whole sorry fucking scenario to even greater depths:

We dropped points to yet another bottom-of-the-table club. The team offer our fans the double-insult of being unable to react properly to a humiliating defeat and incompetent performance in our previous match. It’s a shit day to end a shit year - but me - me? - I had to make it worse - I had to find a way to make it even more painful for Yours Bluely. Ye know, just to prove I’m more of a martyr and how I take it worse than embdy and I’m a REAL Rangers fan an’ aw that other post-Hornby, Post-SkyTV pish …

Best way to sum it up - I found out that we’d drawn 1-1 with St Mirren from a Celtic fan. I had to ask a Celtic fan - albeit the kindliest, friendliest next door neighbour ye could ask for - the score in the Rangers game and I did so, from the front path of my house, in the dark and rain, an hour after full-time, with my home in the darkness of a self-inflicted power-cut behind me and, stood in front of me, my father, who’d come to help, about to be deposited on a lonely train ride back to Ayrshire when he could have been doing so many more interesting things on a Saturday night, my incompetence not withstanding.

Oh yes. It was all my fault. I wasn’t at Ibrox - I wasn’t there when I most like to be there - in times of Rangers need - and it was all my own fault. There was a potential leak in my hoose which I knew about but never investigated - because I’m PHOBIC about anything practical and, well, I probably had a rant about Rangers I needed to pour onto a blog instead of poking my head under the kitchen sink to look at how securely the washing machine was plumbed in - and it resulted in an electrical fault and, like all things which come back to bite ye in the bum, it couldnae happen at any time other than half an hour before I was due to leave for the fitbaw. A drip, a drip as constant as Celtic picking up no less points than we do even when they’re playing shite, had worked it’s way into a socket I’d forgotten was even there and, with the help of the most errant and unfortunate SLUG in the history of slugs (Saddam wasn’t the only slime-ball to be executed yesterday), had short-circuited the socket and blown a fuse which couldn’t be rewired until the socket had dried out and - well, I didn’t inherit a single one of my Dad’s handyman genes.

A piece of paternal phone advice ascertained I was, to put it mildly, fucked. Even more so when it transpired me mam had the parental limousine and I would have to drive down to Ayrshire to pick up my dad and his electrician’s gear. Another imminent arrival at my house that evening, ensured I HAD to have that place sorted as soon as. Only because other loved ones were involved did I abandon The Rangers. In fact I only phoned my dad because I thought he could magically sort it out over the phone and I could catch the game. Talking to a logical human being - a lapsed Kilmarnock fan to boot - has that unsettling effect of reflecting your own psychosis right back at ye, up close. I stalled on the phone as my Dad offered his help. I said “Aye but I’ve got the game tae go tae”. He didn’t say anything other than “oh. right.”, but I knew he was thinking “So son, yer hoose is without electricity, heating and light - more family will will arrive at that hoose this evening - I can come up and sort it noo if ye pick me up and YET you’re actually wandering if ye can go tae see Rangers instead???!!!”

Some folk just don’t understand.

I had to drive through the Ibrox-bound traffic - just to make my “common sense” (yeuch!) decision all the more brutal. Listening to the first twenty minutes of commentary on the car radio offered little comfort to my guilty conscience. Had The Gers “sounded” good I wouldn’t have worried about abandoning them. But we sounded as shite as we’ve ever been. We were a goal down to a guy called Richard Britain - a right Royal name on a Monarchy-affected day - and although The Boydster duly did what he does best, scored straight away, there was little evidence of a rollocking Rangers backlash to be heard on 810 Medium Wave.

On the way back from North Ayrshire to Glasow I preferred my Dad’s conversation. Well, him saying “Oh aye” as I ranted continually on what was going wrong at Rangers and why Gordon Strachan was a cock. He only got a break when we stopped to pick up some 30 amp fuse wire.

The electrical problem had gone beyond even Eck Snr’s mercurial wiring skills. I’d fucked up royally. Scottish power were called out. Candles were lit - for the death of my last vestige of self-respect. I had to be there for whenever they arrived so faither was happy to get the train back to Gods’ Own County - this made me feel even more guilty, and useless, and lucky. The best I could manage was to drop him off at the nearest branch-line station. As we made for my car, neighbour was getting out of hers, saying “och, Alex - looks like my mob and yours couldnae make a good team between them”. Bless her for being so self-deprecating about her beloved Celts (she’s like that - nice) but having to discover Rangers’ fortunes - even if we’ve won 4-0 - via a live TV screening of the game is too impersonal for me. When a Celtic fan is the one to tell you 1-1 was as good as it got at home to the side second-bottom of the table … well, it’s the perfect end to the year that 2006 was.

The self-humiliation continued as I gave a completely unecessary explanation as to why she was the one telling me the result. I couldn’t have someone thinking I’d missed the Rangers game for anything other than a personal emergency. Heaven forfend she should actually think I hadn’t gone to Ibrox because we’re shite just now.

The irony continued as Scottish Power arrived just in time to allow me to see the Setanta highlights and, not knowing any scores other than the Old Firm’s, I finished the year of football cheering on Dundee fucking United to beat Aberdeen so RANGERS HADN’T DRIFTED TOO FAR BEHIND IN THIRD PLACE!!!

The highlights of our game showed the sizeable, noisy St Mirren support I’d looked forward to experiencing first hand. I love it when ye play the promoted team at home for the first time - it’s a newish face and their travelling support haven’t had the shit beaten out them so consistently in the SPL over the previous few years that they can’t be arsed comin to Ibrox. I remember Dunfermline and Killie coming to Govan after a few years in the wilderness and bringing 3,000 with them. Unfortunately St Mirren didnae bring their traditional home strips with them - I like to see them in the Juve stripes.

From what Setanta’s home-movie-camera-in-the-home-dugout could ascertain on my behalf, the finish for the Buddies’ goal was brill but the build up was all about our erstwhile defence, once again. Thereafter it was about Nacho choosing the wrong options and Boyd being unsurprisingly rusty after a few weeks out injured. Svensson gifted the Paisley folk another clear sight of our goal which could have made it all the more harrowing. But, frankly, it’s been harrowing enough - change usually is.

It’s traditional to have a window open at the Bells, to allow the old year out and let the new one in. With the high winds that caused the cancellation of the George Square New Year party currently rattling the double Glazing at Casa Fat Eck (I had to replace the old windows because Jack McConnell’s new anti-sectarian window tax allow any Rangers fan to have “sliding Sash” fenestration) I can only hope a dirty great typhoon will rip open the Murray Park casements and give us room to excavate all the bad shit of 2006 and deluge us with the performances and results and trophies we all expect of Rangers in 2007.

Another man honoured by HM The Queen yesterday was a retired milkman George Bell. He’s from Gullane.

Gullane - where the sands are still wet from the sweat Jock Wallace extracted from Greig, Jardine, MacDonald and others. David Murray should take the sign from that - we must have CHARACTER and maybe we must buy characters. Otherwise Rangers won’t win the SPL next season either.

Even if we don’t - fuck it - who else ye gonnae support? There ISN’T anyone else.

One thing that’s always transitory at Ibrox is failure. We always get there in the end, and the next title is never far away. So 2006 has been a year to savour for those wishing to be TRUE Blues. Not winning a game against Celtic, not lifting a trophy, failing to finish in the Champions League qualifying slots and watching our new manager stumble as he adjusts to Scottish Football has all been painful but hardly likely to last. History teaches us it WILL change and that ye can only stand up and be counted in such times.

Now PLG has had time to study the SPL at close hand, he must venture into the January transfer window and use his new-found knowledge to prove he can adapt to solve our domestic problem - now clearly diagnosed as “thinking we’re too good for the wee diddy teams and gettin shafted by them”. For, in the games against Livorno, Hibs and Aberdeen, we have seen the undeniable evidence that the new Rangers have what it takes to destroy anyone on their day. The depths plummeted against the Invernesses of the world are balanced out by the best news of the year now almost past - that we leave 2006 still in Europe.

Long-term, and off the field, maybe the best news of 2006 is that the club has its first ever catholic manager - or rather that no-one in the stands even gives a shit. If that isn’t enough for the dedicated enemies of Rangers, I can’t even find anyone to join in with “Hullo Hullo” anymore. And this leads into more 2006 memories…

The two matches with Villarreal were the single most exciting experiences of my Rangers life. The sense of occasion itself was all-consuming. The way Rangers reacted to it on-field and the sheer latin glamour of the utterly street-wise, quality Spanish side provided two matches which swallowed us all whole.

More than that, being in that queue in the back-streets outside El Madrigal as the Spanish riot police charged us on horseback and assaulted us for no reason, while the Rangers support defended the elderly and frail amongst our number, was my proudest experience of being a Bluenose. That we mixed amazinlgy well with the Villarreal fans all round their ground during a phenomenally exciting and seminal game for both clubs made it all the more apposite that we came back to headlines of bus windows being smashed and bigoted songs potentially kicking us out of Europe. Twas ever thus supporting The Gers - that we are Scotland’s easiest target and an undeclared persecuted ethnic group is a secret we don’t ever want anyone to cotton on to and we’d kill ourselves before using it as an excuse . Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon go on at length about being denied penalties after a game at Ibrox - the following week Lennon dives and gets a penalty at Parkhead and yet the conspiracy is still against Celtic. This is what makes us amazing, even in defeat - we blame ourselves first and only. It’s called pride.

Personally, being at the opening match of the 2006 World Cup - seeing Germany IN Germany and watching Philip Lahm and Torsten Frings score belters and watching Paolo Wanchope make it a true inter-continental experience and seeing Miroslav Klose start his journey towards a Golden boot, right before my eyes, was sensational. As was seeing Accrington Stanley beat Morecombe in the conference, Everton and Chelsea drawing in the FA Cup at Goodison and attending Birmingham-Wolves and West Brom-Burnley in the same day - as well as being charged by Birmingham’s infamous Zulu firm as I got caught up with Wolves’ Subway Army.

But that all mattered less than seeing Alex McLeish get the standing ovation send-off he deserved from The Rangers support as our decency and intelligence as a fan group shone through.

And, most pertinently, I have to say that, no matter how up or down The Rangers results, it’s been an absolute fucking privelege to have you folks reading my half-arsed, verbose rants on all things Ibrox and , in the summer, my World Cup Diary. The feedback - even when negative, even when death threats - is a compliment and a help - and some of it’s been as hilarious as it has been instructive. It IS a wee community and I’d just like to say thanks to EVERYONE (Rangers/Celtic/Banik Ostrava - friend/enemy) who delves into the Gers@OpenFootie pages. It’s been a long year. It’s been a hard year. It’s been an interesting year.

It’s been a Football year.

I’ll spend Rangers’ first game of the New Year in the Davie Cooper stand - behind the goal in which Libor Sionko scored the first competitive goal of the Paul Le Guen era, in a game where we seriously hinted at the genius within the present regime. The omens are good for 2007.