Smith Must Go! (GERS … 7 Bairns … 2)

We lost 2 goals at home, I had a tenner on 8-2 and I got absolutely soaked both getting to the ground AND back to the car at full-time. It’s an absolute fu**ing disgrace - I want my money back. Walter SMith must be held repsonsible - he should be sacked immediately and his employer, David Murray can take his knighthood and get out of Govan too! WHAT A SHAMBLES!

Shouldn’t joke actually - there no doubt will be some numpties actually complaining about this game in some respect. In fact, Barry Ferguson is clearly becoming a polarising figure for The Teds. Rangers fans on the phone-ins so beloved of Gordon Strachan and the decreasingly muffled protests around me at every new Gers game, indicate a stirring of discontent vying with, and probably a result of, a voluble worship for the man who wants to be buried wearing the armband.

Some Bears love Barry F’s every touch and others are just waiting to seize on any mistake he makes or any moment he berates a team-mate. I might have a major prob with the fact Bazz was ALLOWED to overrule the manager last January but there’s no way I’m ever gonane dis ANY Rangers player while he’s on that pitch, giving it large. Especially not a player with the level of sheer committment and passion Ferguson clearly feels for the Rangers cause. He’s a sublime footballer to boot and, much as I think he gets things wrong from time to time, he only does so in an attempting what he thinks is best for the club. Some punters around me are screaming at him every time he lambasts a colleague or moans in animated fashion as a move breaks down. Who the hell wants a captain who apologises and shies away from trouble?! It ain’t no tea-party on that pitch - it ain’t no democracy!

And when you’e captaining a team which wins a league game by five clear goals, when you’re in the verye eye of the malestrom of coruscating, visceral, near-theatrical football which sees your side score SEVEN goals, I don’t think he’s doing too much wrong. Thank those leaky heavens for the rain today: We needed something to douse down the Rangers - coz The Gers WERE ON FIRE! Bomber Harris himself couldn’t have created a firestorm more devestating than the … nah - that’s taking it too far…

…but 7-2!!??!! SEVEN - bloody two!!!! Bleedin Norah! I’ve had a quick flick through the anal annals of my anorak brain and an even quicker flick through Ferrier and McCelroy’s Complete Record and it’s almost official - I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been there, in the ground, in the ample flesh, breathing the same air as the players when (a) there’s been nine goals in a competitive Rangers match and (b) Rangers scored seven in a league match.

I wasn’t at the 10-0 European thumping of Maltese side Valetta at Ibrox in 1983/84 - it was the following season before I was allowed to go to my first European game. Similarly, I wasn’t at the 6-3 league win over St Johnstone in the same season (in the same WEEK in fact! Imagine that - ten goals on the Wednesday and then nine on the Saturday. Makes ye wonder why the stands were so empty in the early eighties!) - but I didn’t miss a Rangers league game for either of the following two campaigns. As per that Valetta “Grannying”, I listened excitedly on the radio but wasn’t actually AT the 7-2 win over Alania Vladikavkaz of Russia in the 1996/97 Champions League qualifiers - was at the was at the home leg, though, which finished in a miserly 3-1 win. I was doing my skint, mature student bit when we put seven past Hibs without reply in the mid-nineties so I heard it on the radio only. Specifically remember washing dishes as Sportsound gave me every detail of Jim Leighton’s domestic undoing. And I wasn’t at Pittodrie when Brian Laudrup helped us beat Keith 10-1 in the Scottish Cup.

I DID attend the 8-0 doing of Stranraer in the 88/89 Scottish Cup and Kevin Drinkell scored two that day. And he later went to Falkirk. And Drinks was an appropriate pre-match and half-time on-field guest today as the two goals scored by The Bairns helped me, and I dare say a few others in the crowd, witness their highest-ever goals tally at a competitive Gers game.

[EDITOR buts-in: Hawd that result! Fat Eck’s a knob - after reading the Sunday papers, he’s been reminded he was at the 7-1 SPL thumping of St Mirren at Ibrox in 2000. Maybe he’s just blocked that one out of the auld anal annals because he feels so emotionally RAVAGED by the knowledge the 5-goal hero that day, one Kenneth Miller, went on to play for Celtic. Or maybe Eck’s just a bit slow. Either way - yesterday was not (b) the first time he’d been there when Rangers scored seven in a league game but he still thinks it’s (a) the only time he’s been there when there’s been 9 goals in a competitive Rangers match. Fascinating, huh? Well, at least we can admit our mistakes on Gers@OpenFootie, not like BBC’s Football Focus, which Eck yesterday texted to inform them they’d got the TEAM’s mixed up in showing the highlights of last week’s Aberdeen-Hearts game: “Barry Nicholson opened the scoring for Hearts but Michael Stewart equalised brilliantly for Aberdeen” - even the fact “Hearts” were wearing all-red didn’t make them realise which club was which. No wonder Sir Alex is in the huff with them. Anyway, back to the case in point…]

When ye bang one in in the first minute, the last minute and another in injury time, there’s always a fair chance you’ll take the three points. But the other four we managed to squeeze past the ironically-named Tim Krul ensured this was a sensationally entertaining and profoundly heartening day out. We wanted the players to set a points pace which Celtic couldn’t catch for yet another weekend - turns out they also they set a goals pace no-one else in the country can catch. Hibs and Motherwell were joint top of the SPL with us before the game. At 3pm today we led the league only on goal difference. By 4:50pm we knew we’d still be ahead on goal-difference - the fact Hibs drew and Motherwell lost just let us sail even further clear.

Just when some Bears were worrying if we play too deep, if the desire to keep clean sheets was dulling our edge up-front, we finally concede two at the back but GO BLOODY GOALS-CRAZY at the other end!! Waldo and Ally, at this moment, can do no wrong - but still some Bears aren’t interested:

There’s a wee bloke sitting next to me who turned up 7 minutes after kick-off today and left ten minutes early. He missed a total of four Rangers goals. WHAT THE FUUUUUU…???!! Walter and his team currently seem to be on a mission to punish the Subway Loyal. Leave in the 87th minute today or Tuesday night - you’ll miss goals. Leave in the NINETIETH minute today - you’ll miss goals. Leave in the second-last minute of INJURY TIME and, before ye’ve even joined the back of the queue to the auld Copland Road subway station - guess what?! - YOU’VE MISSED ANOTHER RANGERS GOAL WHICH YOU PAID FOR THE PRIVELEGE OF SEEING!!!

Me? - I have a ritual, an anorakish compulsion of being in my seat before kick-off and not attempting to leave the ground until the last of the players and oifficials have dissapeared down that tunnel. Maybe it’s all those high-scoring games I missed as a school-kid in the early eighties or a stooooodent in the nineties - maybe I’m gorgiong on every game I attend as a result of childhood deprivation. Maybe - but I think it’s more just a case of pure noseyness and star-struck fascination: Ye never know what ye could miss! There might be a rammy at the tunnel’s edge. There might be a player who gives his shirt to someone in a touching gesture. I love to reciprocate any applause the players give the stands. Hell, I just want to make sure I don’t miss a fekin thing - and today there was AMPLE reason for staying til the ref’s last whistle.

I spent all night Thursday saying Falkirk were the kind of club we should, by dint of our respective financial resources, be stuffing. Yest actually seeing it happen as it should, made ye realise how rarely when going to the football ye get SUCH entertainment AND exactly what you want.

After the Red Star Belgrade game I touched on the Calvinist spirit of metaphysical reciprocity which colours all my ambitions for The Teds. I’m a fucking MENTALIST, I know, but there’s no arguing that I have an inate, superstitious belief that there’s a price to pay for anything good: For example, I believe Rangers will win the league this season but only because I’m convinced we’ll be shit in Europe as a result - and I hate us being shit in Europe. So good thing is evened out by bad thing. And today I got soaked. And last Saturday I got soaked leaving the ground. And the previous week it was sunny in Inverness but we got dragged through the tabloids becuase of an add-on to the Sash. Celtic dropped points the next day in their first home league game of the season but , as it was fucking TORRENTIAL outside, I was forced to stay in and watch it. Price paid - suffering endured - gain made in every instance.

For the third weekend on the trot the skies opened up and, having taken TWO soakings today, I got TWICE the gain. Not only were the goals raining in but they were being scored by all the players who most needed to score them for the long-term harmony and confidence of the team:

Big Cousin rattled in two - that’s one after 12 minutes on his debut last week, and one after A MINUTE of his first start, and three in three appearances of any kind in Blue. Nacho took all the plaudits on Tuesday night and Barry Ferguson scored three in the first two league games so, while the two of them were central to everything today, they stepped aside in the goal-scoring stakes. Steven Whittaker got one on his debut, to put us 2-0 up with the aid of a slight deflection - but his confidence will soar after that; Who needs a goal more than Kris Boyd??!! Just as his star was looking like it MIGHT wane, he comes off the bench to pounce, pirouette and ping home the goal which sealed the victory and allowed le deluge to be Apres him. And, talking of aggressive French folk…

Jean-Claude Darcheville has all the running and all the enthusiasm but strikers need goals and his presence helped us score against FK Zeta but the goal wasn’t his. So he goes and bangs in a brace today - again, coming off th bench! And final sub, Big Kirk Broadfoot, must have known a few of the more rabid Bears were eyeing him up as their comfort-blanket figure of derision. [Why do so many Rangers fans NEED a player, a RANGERS player, to “hate”??!! Will NEVER understand that to be anything other than total insecurity] So Big Kirk sorted that out by overlapping from his midfield berth and completng the rout.

He also completed the most remarkable testimony yet to Walter Smith’s signing policy and tactical astuteness since The Divine Cardigan arrived back at Rangers in January. Only one of the goals scored today - Kris Boyd’s - was not scored by a new Walter signing. And four of the goals were shared among his three substitutions.

Okay, Falkirk crumbled. Okay, Falkirk probably aren’t gonnae qualify for Europe this season. Some folk might even criticise us for losing two goals but - fucking hell - scoring SEVEN GOALS against Falkirk! The Bairns are NOT gonnae go down - they may well even challenge for a top-six spot. Falkirk beat us at their patch last season and the season before THAT, the last time they scored twice at Ibrox, they left with a point. It was compliment to them that they played their part in a MAGNIFICENT GAME OF FOOTBALL. It was just unre-fucking-lenting. Both Falkirk goals were absolutely smashing and put the shitters through every Bear in the ground. The long-range peach just before half-time was a goal worthy of ending our five-game clean sheet record and it was greeted with a smattering of sporting appluase from within the Bluenosed stands. I waited for that applause to die down and in the ensuing silence tried to get a fresh round of applause, an OVATION going for our defence, in retrospective appreciation of how IMMENSE they’ve been at the start of this season. But no-one got it. No-one cared or everyone was just too worried that we were now only one goal in front of our immediate opponents. Or maybe a five-and-a-half game streak without conceding isn’t considered worthy enough of undue note at Ibrox. Whatever - My applause never took off. I shut up. I sat down. I remembered why I write a blog.

We lost another goal to make it 3-2 - another smashing move by the Bairns and more genuine concern that we could chuck away the three points. People will soon forget that, even after Boydy’s clinical, heroic intervention to make it 4-2, this game was far from over. Barry was shut down regularly. He made some bad passes. Whittaker too had some poor choices of ball cut out by the all-red, all-action Bairns. But no-one panicked and no-one relented. We just kept tearing trhough Falkirk and missing them knowing we would eventually score them. Falkirk lost 4-1 at home to some other mob last week, after playing well for the first hour then collapsing. Today they played well for the first 87 minutes - then collapsed.

But Rangers looked thirsty. We look powerful and convincing and silky and determined and athletic and purposeful and energetic and deadly and … nice. We looked very, very NICE.

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Published:
08.18.07 / 7pm
Category:
News