Point Unproved (Well … 1 GERS … 1)

Last time I watched Rangers at Fir Park I was right down the front of the tiny Davie Cooper Stand. Kris Boyd scored our only goal of the game from the penalty spot, up the other end of the ground. We won but I felt very alone in celebrating that fact. A few days later we let our manager go, the man who’d guided Olympique Lyonnaise to three successive Ligue 1 titles, and I was disgusted.

Today I was in row ZZ at the very back of the top deck of the huge South Stand. Kris Boyd scored our only goal of the game from the penalty spot, up the other end of the ground. We drew and I felt far from alone in ruing that fact. In a few days we’ll be playing Olympique Lyonnaise on their home patch in the Champions League and I’ll be buzzing.

Back in January I took the train home after the game, from Airbles station. All the talk amongst the commuting Bears was of Le Guen’s post-match interview on Setanta - which was being fed to our mobile phones by friends and family watching the telly at home. Everyone wanted to know what our manager had to say for himself re the dropping of Barry Ferguson. The SPL title race was long over, although we were still in Europe. Everyone wanted reprisals.

Today I took the car and after the game, as I drove past Airbles station, Radio Scotland was interviewing a laughing Lee McCulloch and an impassive Kris Boyd. All the talk was of whether Boyd could play as a lone striker against Lyon. No-one asked why we’d failed to win at Fir Park - the title race was still on AND there was a possibility of a good result in Europe, apparently. Everyone expects us to draw in Lyon. Apparently.

As I hit the M74 Celtic went 1-0 up against Dundee United - an ex-Motherwell player getting the first goal of his ensuing hat-trick. Celtic are top of the SPL again, on goal-difference only but the point for me is that we’ve thrown away leadership of the SPL twice in two weeks.

After the defeat at Tynecastle I asked for us all to reserve judgement. Ultimately there can only be a true assesment when the SPL trophy is awared to the 2007/2008 Champions, but there would be a temptation, in seeing us lose four goals and three points to a totally shite Hearts team (witness their next result, at bottom-of-the-table Inverness), to think that we’d gone completely off the rails. I was keen to stress that the Gorgie gubbing could only be put in true perspective the following week. As Stuart McCall always said, it’s not the defeat - it’s how you REACT to the defeat which is the true mark of a side’s long-term capabilities. We were brilliant in a 2-1 victory over Stuttgart in our next outing. We flipantly destroyed Aberdeen, 3-0, in our next league match. As I stood freezing my balls off in an empty Norrie McCathie stand on Wednesday night, while our reserves strolled to a CIS Cup mauling of East Fife, It seemed the Tynecasyle implosion was indeed nothing more than a one-off.

But, fourteen days on from that serious Hearts attack, we go to the home of another of those old irregular clubs who love to have their day in the sun and again we give them it. Motherwell will always be tricky - especially now they have the ultra-canny Mark McGhee in control - but they’re the kind of side any potential league champions should be blowing away. There were a few occassions at lunch-time this Saturday when the Steelmen looked “Well capable” of blowing us away. Suddenly we’re looking at one win in our last three SPL matches. Suddenly it’s me who is almost reserving judgement, my judgement that Waldo would bring back the title first time.

Sure, we’re still a new team. Paul Le Guen was in charge in JANUARY - that’s all the explanation you need of just how little time Walter Smith’s had to get us challenging for that SPL title and in with the big boys in Europe. The Supreme Architect’s had less than 10 months. With so many new players to be blended in by a new coaching team, we cannot complain at being joint top of our SPL and Champions League tables.

But “we” complained long and loud the last time we played Motherwell here - and we fucking WON that day, WITHOUT Barry Ferguson, unquestionably our best player. Ferguson also failed to be fit enough for the first trip to Fir Park last season - Le Guen’s first SPL match. We won that too.

But - hey - I’m not gonnae get into that now. Hopefully I won’t have to get into it at all, at any point this season, or ever again. I promised not to unless we took a skelping in Europe or failed to get past Christmas in UEFA competition. Even in that eventuality, I’ll let circumstances decide. And it was probably just this weekend’s geographical circumstances which had the bitterness Motherwelling up inside me. I just found it a bit difficult today - being back at the scene of the self-hate crime and all. The last time I was at Fir Park with Rangers, it was in the very midst of one of the most traumatic episodes in the club’s history - and probably THE most difficult political and footballing experience of my life-long love affair with The Teds of Bear. Too many coincidences between January’s game and tday’s helped clear my mental runway for the landing of the Le Guen bitterness flight . The stark contrasts between January’s game and today’s made touchdown as smooth and timeous as any David Murray charter to France.

But, if I’m being honest with myself - which is difficult amidst the lingering scent of hypocrisy surrounding Le Geun’s treatment - I’m just totally pissed off because we didnae win today. A rout of the Claret and Amber hosts would have felt like catharsis. Being stalled at a ground where Le Guen never failed just felt like some perverse, twisted vindication. The type I want absolutely nothing to do with.

SNAP OUT OF IT, ECK!!

Hey - who knows?! - maybe this is the start of a Black Magic trend: We fuck up on the Saturday but do the business in the European game mid-week?! Yeah. Could be. Think about it: We took a humping off Hearts in the 12:30 Setanta Saturday game - then beat VfB in our next match. Everyone expects us to “only” get a point mid-week against Lyon so the logical sacrifice to the black demons of football fate today was to drop just the two points. Makes sense, eh?

Of fucking course it doesn’t - I’m clutching at the straws of optimism from amidst the brain-muddying torpor of a shite result. I do “BELIEVE”, however. I really believe in Rangers ALWAYS and I believe in the amazing feats a new, spirited, nothing-to-prove and nothing-to-lose side can achieve against technically superior opposition from a domestic set-up with a huge reputation, especially with Walter and Ally injecting the battle fever. Remember the “Esprit de 93“! I also know for a fact that this Rangers side has a level of nous and ability beyond its 10 months age. But let’s just say “I wouldn’t be surprised” if we failed to win as much as another solitary point from our remaining five Champions League Group matches.

It’s just that, during SPL matches, you’re looking for the little signs of magic which can augment your blind faith with cold, hard evidence of warm, soft promise.

While everyone on the radio seemed to think there was a more-than-likely chance of us taking that solitary point away to Lyon, I find myself asking if they’re confusing the Stade Gerland with Fir Park. It was TODAY we got a solitary away point - one which should have us more WORRIED about Tuesday than confident.

And when I start worrying, I start getting bitter. And, these days, when I start getting bitter, I begin thinking about the witch-hunting of Paul Le Guen. And, when you’re at Fir Park again, it’s difficult to think of anything else - the scenes inside and outside this smashing ground on the 2nd of January will hanut me for a years, I reckon.

But I did try to focus on other Fir Park memories. For, in fact, the LAST time I attended ANY game at Fir Park, a certain Steven Naimsith scored a hat-trick in what was probably the game of his life to date. I’d nipped along to the Falkirk-Killie League Cup semi last season - almost as part of that desire for closure on my previous horrible Fir Park memories. It was a great night for a Rangers fan to see what it’s like for “provincial” sides to battle it out at a provincial ground for a chance to win a very un-provincial honour.

I’ll conveniently ignore the fact that a certain Alan Gow was on the heavily-losing side that evening. Enroute to Fir Park for that semi-final I heard on the radio that we’d captured Kevin Thomson from Hibs. Thomson and Naismith both started for The Rangers yesterday - and remained firmly stuck, like our league challenge this season, in their “could be good” bracket. The all-prevalent “potential” was still there in shed-loads but league-winning sides don’t have time to parade potential - they need to unload it, full-tilt in a delivery of immediate excellence. And that just wasn’t there from Kev or Steve.

I’m not singling these young lads out as scapegoats - far from it - it’s just their performances seemed to best exemplify the “glass half empty” vibe which resulted from this game. Naismith’s positioning and runs were excellent - but he could never quite get that killer touch on the ball, or any touch for that matter. Thomson, on the other hand, had plenty touches - too many, in fact, for a holding midfielder playing for Rangers at Motherwell. Even so, half of these touches weren’t down to Motherwell’s improved performance but Kev’s desire to exact revenge for the buffeting he was receiving, by dribbling round the whole Motherwell team. He just couldn’t do it, nach’, and, more often than not ended up running himself and us into trouble. He chased people down and made plenty of great tackles - all ensuring the home side would never improve on their one goal, but what he then did with the ball was often wasteful, sometimes selfish and almost always far too late to be of any real effect.

But, as I say, these were just the stand-out cases in an altogether below-par performance. Credit must go to Motherwell for playing such an aggressive, energetic game. The wonderfully worked goal they scored was even more telling in its timing. Coming at the mid-way point of the first half and, more importantly, coming before any Rangers goal, Chris Porter’s strike gave the Steelmen the confidence and faith in McGhee’s game-plan to fuel their stamina levels for the rest of the match. By the time we managed our equaliser - mainly attributable to the pace and skill of DaMarcus Beasley - it was too late to compromise the belief Motherwell gained from their first hour in this game, their result at Easter Rad on Wednesday and the general malaise-breaking positivity effected by the wily McGhee’s succesion of the clueless Malpas.

Motherwell were dug in - and, somehow, we didn’t have enough to overrun them.

I hate to see Rangers players haranguing the referee so desperately and irately. There was too much of that yesterday. It wasn’t about a “Word to the wise, ref” - it was a blatant kopping out. Instead of matching Motherwell’s dig and dirt, we went bitching to the man in black. It was grassing yer brother to yer mum rather than just punching him back. The Motherwell players got under our skins, simply by playing decent, honest, up-and-at-’em Scottish Football. If anything, that should suit a team with Rangers’ pretensions of sophistication. The horrifically pathetic cameo by Darcheville - he did more in two minutes than the rest our attack managed in the rest of the game but then injured himself irreprably for the rest of this match AND the Lyon trip, where he’d be far more valuable - ony served to highlight the one-dimensionality of our attack. We ened up lumping high balls into the box. For fuck’s sake. Pathetic.

But there are far, far worse things in life - even in a Rangers fan’s life:

I used my place on the vey back row of that South Stand, closest to the roof, allowed for the second away game on the trot to stand on my feet while watching Rangers, to sing my encouragement more loudly than usual. The acoustics were perfect for a clasically-trained bass like myself. Once again, I find the complete dissapearance of the Billy Boys from our song-sheet an amazing act of comprehensive self-censorship. The same also with the hilarious “shhhhhh” now pinned onto the end of The Sash. Our complicity in murdering the songs attacking Catholicism reverberated loud around the vast people warehouse at the bottom end of Fir Park, once sponsored by Motorola. However, following the letter of the law so sheepishly has led to that hate becoming less vaudevillian and more directly aimed, more twisted, more venal, more symptomatic of the kind of modern day Witch-hunting mania so brilliantly lampooned by Chris Morris on Channel 4 a few years ago.

I can’t believe how stupid we make ourselves look with our response to the hypocrisy and victimhood-romancing eminating from the James McMillans of the world. I know how we are currently regarded is far from totally our own fault but - be honest - who is it singing “BJK”??!!

We’re now clinically staying outside the parameters of bigotry - we’re working studiously to remain within the PC labels and what has happened as a result? Instead of cartoon hate-mongers, We’ve become TRULY disgusting. Paedophilia (Spell it right - or professionals who HELP children can find themselves facing lynch-mobs!) is the armour of the modern day Puritanical hysteric. That’s us now. That’s us.

I baulked again yesterday at the disgusting, suicidal stupidity of the “Big Jock Knew” disgrace but tried to maintain a clean repetoire of encouragement from my place at the core of the South Stand amplifier. To no avail. I waited for the last-minute winner in a difficult away trip - the sure sign of league champions - but it wasn’t forthcoming. And as Rangers failed in a minor fashion ON the field, I looked to the exposed steel girder-work supporting the huge roof above me and saw it as a mass metaphoric gallows, from which the Gers support was now hanging itself by thousands of Red, White and Blue scarves - scarves which were surely bought through LOVE OF A CLUB, not hatred of an individiual.

The same people who’re so sure Big Jock Knew are the very ones who weer so sure Paul Le Guen didn’t. Empty vessels, make the most noise but it’s the empty vessels who now seem to steer our club and they’re playing right into the hands of our hate-filled enemies … by becoming just like them.