Bo Peep Knew (GERS … 3 Sheep … 0)

Li’l Bo Peep Knew, Li’l Bo Peep Knew.

Li’l Bo Peep Kneeew, Li’l Bo Peep Knew.

Li’l Bo Peep Kneeee-ew, Li’l Bo Peep Knew

Li’l Bo Peep Kneeew,

Li’l Bo Peep Knew.

(EVERYBODY!! C’MON, ALTOGETHER …)

Li’l Bo Peep Knew, Li’l Bo Peep Knew …

For years now, Abedeen FC have been portrayed by the gutless Scottish media as a progressive, enlightened, put-upon but struggling-on club who deserve to be lauded and lionised at every turn of every sycophantic column inch for their perceived eternal fight against the “evil” Old Firm duopoly. But no more. Now it’s time for the TRUTH to be told.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievements at Pittodrie in the eighties were undoubtedly heroic. Three league titles in five years, four Scottish Cups, two League Cups, a European Cup-Winners’ Cup and a UEFA Super Cup. To attain this level of success in a “city” inhabited entirely by farmers and 16th century peasants and constructed entirely of the greyest, most depressing-looking building material in Christendom and which still stinks of fish, is quite an achievement. No-one’s arguing with Aberdeen’s on-field honours … if they can remember them.

HOWEVER, there has long been a cover-up in effect as regards their off-field behaviour. And when we say “off-FIELD” we mean “off MEADOW”. To be precise, we mean, “just off the meadow and up behind that oak tree with the conveniently wide trunk and profusion of handily low, overhanging branches”.

Yes, the unspeakable truth about Aberdeen FC has to be, erm, spoken: I think it’s time we blew the Pittodrie cover-up wide open and say what everyone knows to be true but no-one with a press pass will dare to admit for fear of being declared a heretic, for fear of receiving an Alex Ferguson Hair Dryer-style rollicking from the spineless and naive who run the Caledonian media, and from the millions who blythely sing along to the lyrics provided on the received wisom hymn sheet:

YES, I’m talking about the RAMPANT SEXUAL ABUSE OF SHEEP - sometimes even lambs - by the followers and the players of Aberdeen FC.

It’s sickening. It’s criminal. It’s disgusting. Some say it doesn’t happen but, nevertheless, it HAS TO STOP! And it has to stop now. I’m no Woodward and Bernstein, although I do weigh more than both of them put together. I have no Deep Throat contact, even if I have watched the film. However, despite these short-comings, please help me break open “SHEEP PEN-GATE”.

Some of the little lambies have escaped their life of pain and suffering at the depraved hands of Pittdorie season-ticket holders and they’ve spoken to me about their trauma. It was a gambol on their part but someone had to start the muttony. Their wool tousled, their black faces almost dark grey, they could only relax enough to bleat it all out when they were escaped from Gruesome Grampian and were safe in my caring West Coast arms. So, just before I cut their throats, skinned them, gutted them, put them in the oven and ate them with some lovely Ayrshire potatoes and a nice mint sauce (fff-fff-fff-fff-fff-fff!), they described their horrendous treatment at the wobbling knees of both the fans and employess of Abeedeen FC. And, worst of all, one very famous, much-loved name kept cropping up: Someone in whom the sheep trusted completely - someone, in fact, in whom the whole country trusted.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, don’t kill the messenger - I’m only telling you what the sheep told me: Little Bo Beep Knew.

Sing it loud. Sing it proud. For it’s not just a sleazy, scummy taunt which actually insults Rangers more than it insults Aberdeen F.C. or Little Bo Peep - it’s the TRUTH. It’s been proven. There’s no need for context - it happened in a vacuum - and we’re doing our DUTY by SPREADING THE WORD about the much-lauded Bo Peep’s nefarious tacit involvement by dint of her inaction just coz it wisnae her job which I’ve set up a web-site to PROVE and if ye disagree yer noh a real Rangers fan. LilBoPeepKnew.com … etc, etc, etc

Ahhhhh, yes. Remove the continued singing of THAT song, and this was a PERFECT SUNDAY!!

In fact, I’m pretty sure the scarves and t-shirts with that embarrassing three-syllable phrase have been removed from the stalls I previously saw selling them. I’m also sure that if it wisnae for the otherwise BRILLIANT Broomloan Road Stand-band starting up with the tune - which, By The Way I originally thought had everyone singing “Red, White and Blue - Red, White and Blue …”, then this song would have died out altogether. It’s now sung by half the crowd at most and, around me, it’s only the arseholes - the guys who usually like to slate the manager, various Rangers players and/or the chairman, at the top of their voice, DURING a game. People who just need to hate EVERYTHING tend to be the only ones still trying to sing this ditty - and they’re geting less and less back-up.

And Aberdeen fans - especially the ones who come to Ibrox - are the kind of people who just love to hate Rangers. They annoy me - they sometimes enrage me - but I would never award them my “hate”. In fact, ye really have to admire their perseverance. Most of them in the little junction twixt Govan and Broomloan today must have been four years old at the most the last time Aberdeen won at The Big Blue Palace. But, then again, this is probably why they’re so poisinous in their little ditties - even singing “Hullo! Hullo!” today in an effort to get us black-balled by the SPL, SFA, UEFA … whoever. Well, I have a wee message for those Ayburdeeeeen supporters this evening:

Sixteen Years of hurt. Get it RIGHT up yer fat, mutton chops ya ugly sheep-shagging bastards! … meaning both that Aberdeen fans are ugly and the sheep they shag are ugly - the good-looking ones come down to Ayrshire for a proper seeing to, by REAL men!.

And, talking of man-love, can I just ask a question out loud: LEE McCULLOCH: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE??

For those of you watching today’s game in black and white, Rangers were the team with the ball. But we needed someone to put it in the back of the net, especially given the half-time announcement that Hibs had beaten Celtic (not Rangers, as the stadium announcer gave it, much to everyone’s amusement. Oh, how we did chortle). And when ye need something basic doing in a game, Lee McCulloch tends to do it. The man who didn’t play against Hearts last week or Stuttgart mid-week started off by identifying the main problem to completing our usual first-half display of 2007/2008.

For the third game on the trot we didn’t score in the first half. But that’s USUALLY okay as we will score at least two in the second half. So the opening 45 is all about Rangers establishing a dour grip on proceedings. We’re not as interested in putting the finisihing touches on our win as we are intent in ensuring the opposition are tamed, that the way is clear for our deluge of goals to begin. Scott Severin is Aberdeen captain and their midfield engine-house and their biggest, toughest hard-man. Lee McCulloch always kops a booking but he always does so for a reason. Today he decided Scott Severin needed sorting out. Scott Severin was sorted out. It was always gonnae be a yellow so, as usual, Lee got his money’s worth. Insubordination duly quelled.

McCulloch is pragmatism personified, he is practicality incarnate, he is the kind of tactical strong-armer, intellectual enforcer and strategic genius we’ve needed on the pitch since, as far as I can recall, Walter Smith left Rangers in 1998. No-one messes with Lee McCulloch and he with messes with everyone he has to. I’d put one hundred Great British Pounds Sterling on him kopping a booking for a foul on Scott Brown within twenty mintes of our first derby of the season - if he isn’t already suspended by that time.

But Lee gets little credit and little adualtion - he’s that kind of player (and, let’s be honest, Eck - you don’t want him to get the credit so you can seem dead clever by singling him out for praise all the time!). So today it was great that he scored a goal which even the smallest of football brains could appreciate. The timing - three minutes of play on from the confirmation of Celtic’s loss at Easter Road - was brilliant. The execution was spectacular. A vicious dipping volley from well outside the box which went over Langfield and down below the bar but still rippled the underside of the net’s roof as it put Rangers top of the league. Everyone was out their seat with venomous joy. Another team in all-red were gonnae get a Rangers roasting. We’re joint-top of our Champions League group - we’re clear top of the Scottish Premier League. We dunno how long it’s gonnae last so ENJOY!

It was the kind of TV-friendly moment in which Lee McCulloch doesn’t usually specialise. Yet, like everything else he does, it was only because this was the thing which HAD to be done. For all our first-half posession, clear-cut chances were thin on the lush Ibrox ground up til that point. Cousin and Naismith, making his full debut, weren’t really linking up too effectively. Stevie was having trouble turning his big muckle marker. McCulloch, who plays too deep and wide to be a regular marksman, only battered the ball into the back of the net from so far out because that was the only way we were gonnae get the scoring started. Once again, it was pragmatism of the highest order. I fucking LOVE Lee McCulloch. So I do.

And I fucking love stuffing Aberdeen. I want to get to twenty years. It’s too close now - one more Ibrox win this season, providing we don’t get them in any cups, then three more seasons of avoiding defeat to the Red Menace at The Brox. That would round it up to a nice even TWO DECADES. As a youth I hated Pittodrie. Not because of the Aberdeen fans - they were even more pathetically indolent during the era of their greatest success than they are now, when the depths of ineptitude seems to match their pernicious mind-set - no, I hated Shittodrie because The Gers won there only once in twelve bloody years. But at least it WAS once (thank you, Derek Johnstone and Robert Prytz) - and it least it was only TWELVE years …

Twisted i know. Our lack of success at Pitifultodrie back in the late seventies and early eighties was RANGERS fault. But, fuck it, when they sing songs about the Ibrox disaster and have pubs where you can piss on images of Gazza, I hope we extend this Ibrox unbeaten run to one HUNDRED and sixteen years.

Lee made it 1-0 and wee Naisy soon found more room than he’d ever had in the first half. He skilled down the left of the box and, from a tight angle, curled-whacked a fucking beauty of a shot into the far inside of the net. I was sat right behid the line of the ball - it was glorious. We went mental. “We shall not be moved” resounded loud and proud. We’ll see about that - I hope so but we’ve still to travel away from home to hellish difficult Champions League opposition and come back to tough away games in Scotland. What happened at Easter Road was great because it evened up what happened to us at Tynecastle last week - but that was BEFORE we got involved with Stuttgart, Barca and Lyon. The Sellick slipping up today is also more a case of “one in the bank”, one for a rainy day - this SPL race has a long way to go and we’ll also feel the effects of a bruising Champions League schedule but, by Goram, this last five days has given us immense belief.

This was a day of colour and sunshine. More BRILLIANT flags appearing up in the club deck warmed my heart. A wonderful half-time display by the Blue Order was equally easy on the eye - Red, White and Blue is SO MUCH NICER than “big Jock Knew”. Primarily because it’s about US! I also noticed a wee game of “Keep the sheep” being played in the Broomloan front - as an inflatable Larry The Lamb was chucked back and forth among the Blue Order punters: This was the easiest of all metaphors for the on-field action: The Rangers had their visitors by the throat and we began to shake the final vestiges of life out their increasingly limp carcass.

Big Darche came on to batter lumps out Zander Diamond after he’d battered a lump out of wee Stevie Naismith. Darche was ridiculously exciting to watch - he’s as effective as McCulloch but in a brutally obvious way! The Darche was extravegantly fast and skilful, threatening to out-do Alan Hutton’s mid-week run but with less of Hut’s slaloming style than his own downhill speedster 200mph style. JCD’s dinked, curved, weighted-to-perfection pass to fellow sub Kris Boyd even allowed us to top-up our record goalscoring bid from Krissy. He just scores whenEVER he’s given the chance in Scotland … and for Scotland. I totally agree with him being dropped for France away and Stuttgart at home but - man! - yer Lithuanias and Aberdonians of the world will SUFFER for years at the head and feet of Kris Boyd Goal Machine.

The only really competitive game today took place at half-time. As we all kept one eye on the punters around us with the wires coming out their ears to see them confirm the full-time whistle at Easter Road, our under-12s and under-11s played two bounce games amongst themselves at the interval. Some absolutely smashing wee players there, by the way. But when the wee team in the Rangers away strip drew first blood, they were all so busy mobbing the tiny scorer that the other wee team in the home strip had a clear run at goal for an equaliser. Kinda summed up what it’s going to be like for most of the rest of this SPL season - only Rangers can beat Rangers.

Aberdeen certainly fucking cannae.