First Cut is Deep - balls deep. (GERS … 3 Sellik … 0)

Football has to move with the times. The game’s administrators are always telling us they’re modernisers. This is obviously a lie. We’ve got the all-seater stadiums now - fine. We’ve got the big screens, the roofs over our head and the wide range of snacks and drinks - cushty. Hooliganism is harder to find - fair dues. The blaring tannoy music drowning out the preternatural sound of the crowd after every goal and the pair wee lassies doing their cheerleader routine in front of drunk, oggling middle-aged blokes is very, very sad and pathetic but - hey - there’s bound to be mistakes as we try to move the game into the 21st century. However, there’s a more obvious, more culpable lack of vision among the Gordon Smiths, Sepp Blatters, George Peats and Michel Platinis of the world:

Why can’t I supersize my football match?

Why can’t I go large on my ninety minutes?

Why can’t I get fries with that game??!!

WHY, OH WHY DID IT HAVE TO END???!!!

You go to McDonalds, Burger King or KFC (and I’ve been known to do all three in one day) and you ALWAYS have the option of making your fries and your drink larger. You can get a bigger bucket of chicken. You can have a larger burger-type if you so desire. You can get coleslaw, salad (GAY!!!), beans, nuggets, ice-cream, chocolate-chip sprinkles and fucking SMARTIES added to your meal if yer that way inclined. You’re an adult, you’ll pay for the privelege - you want the product and the producers of that product want more of your money: It’s a matter of democratic free choice which suits everyone.

Football’s got to move with the times. It’s not up against a fish supper after a cinema matinee anymore. If I go to the cinema, it’s a multiplex. I can enjoy one film - a thriller perhaps - walk out at the end, pay more money and walk right back into another screening of another film - perhaps a gentle rom-com (I just LOVE Aston Kutcher, don’t you!) - without ever leaving the building. I can do that all day and night: I got to a pub - I drink whatever I want til closing time then I can go to a club for another few hours, drink some more of whatever I fancy and then I can return home with a bevvy of beauties on each arm (coz the Laideeze just lu-lu-lu-lOOOVE a man who drinks for ten hours solid with a Big Mac Meal a Monterey Melt and an extra-large bucket of chicken wings inside him) to a fridge filled with any of the millions of types of beer ye can buy for next to nothing in the supermarket during any of the seven days of the week they sell it in dem big ole alkey aisles.

I could go on. But I wont. And neither did today’s game. All I’m saying is, why the hell not?.

Football’s gonnae lose its paying customers if it keeps limiting us to this measley ninety minutes for league games. Throwing in the occassional bonus “extra time” period in cup matches and the “supersize me” penalty shoot-out once in a blue moon just won’t suffice any more. Football has to give fans the right to GO LARGE. There’s some days when I JUST DON’T WANT IT TO STOP, when I’m so READY FOR MORE, when I’m JUST GETTING A TASTE FOR IT … and then it stops.

Oh yes, you KNOW I’m talking about today, troops. You crazily clever bastards have worked out what ah’m ranting on about, haven’t you! Yes, my little Sherlocks - I DIDN’T WANT TODAY’S GAME TO STOP. And, by the way, it shouldn’t have when it did. There were so many bookings, substitutions and minutes spent wondering if Stephen McManus was breathing or not (All the best to him - gen up - he was brilliant for Scotland and head injuries are always scary) that here HAD to be more time added on at the end. But no - we had to be satisifed with 3 goals and ninety-odd minutes. And I am. But I hate being rationed. I’m greedy.

For once it wasn’t even the final goals tally which threatened to line my silver with cloud - it was just the fact the ref had the time-honoured ability to call a halt to the UNRELENTING BRILLIANCE of this Rangers performance. As Barry Ferguson put in possibly his most spectacular display ever in a Rangers jersey and a grounded Nacho Novo was told by his captain to stop wasting time, put his ribs back in place and GO FOR MORE GOALS COZ THESE CUNTS ARE ON THE WRACK, I rued the medieval nature of the Football Club’s relationship with its paying customer.

Could we not all just have turned to a wee chip and pin thingy on the wall of the Govan, Copland and BROOMLOAN TOO!!! - slipped the credit card in after the smart card season ticket, pay a tenner, twenty or, in today’s case, as much as they fucking wanted, and demanded the game go on for whatever number of half hour time portions we desired??!! Okay, we’d pay the physical price later. Like a day on the bog or the heart-monitor after a Big Mac with extra large fries, we’d need the players to sleep for two days straight before playing Barcelona. But, like I say, we’re all adults - we know what we want.

And I wanted more of today’s fare, thankyouverymuchforaskingSirDavidMurray.

I’ve rarely seen a celtic defence so stretched, their midfield so ripe for the picking, their attack so generally ineffectual and unthreatening. Their few efforts on goal only seemed predestined to allow Alan McGregor to have his Goram and Klos moments on derby day. Rarely have I heard so may Bears turn to each other and say “It’s a CORNER??!! Ye mean he got a HAND to that?” - We thought the visitors were simply missing sitters - Al’s saves defied even our experienced eyesight. I wanted the game to go on and on and on because Rangers weren’t just winning, we were CRUISING. We were knocking the ball about with imperiuous contempt by the end. Ole’s rang loud from the three proud sides of The Palace. We were threatening to rip through the tactical jugular of the Celtic being at almost every break out of our own box. Al was making the saves, Sash was clearing the channels. Hutton was too busy setting up Nacho’s goal to bother defending. Davie Weir was smoking a cigar and Carlos began the day by simply winning everything in the air with his big heid - he ended it by winning everything in the air, bringing it down, slaloming past a few hooped midfielders and playing it to Barry or Charlie’s mesmeric feet. At all times today, from the second we won possession everything was possible. This was a cruise, a sail, a walk in the park, a shag in the dark a piece of your loveliest cake. Please Sir (Dave), can I have some more.

And I didn’t want it to stop because, at the end of the day, it’s only the first Old Firm game of the season.

There’s one more game to play, away to an impressive and improving Dundee United, before even the first quarter of the season has been played out. Even if we win at Tannadice next Sunday we probably still wont be top of the SPL. All today proves is that we can win the SPL - it doesn’t prove we will. All today proves is that no-one in Scotland has the voodooo sign over us or has any reason to expect we will lie down or lose to them (and, let’s be honest, one team who HAS had a voodoo sign over us in recent years has been Dundee United!). It’s only the first Old Firm game of the season and, more often than not, it’s the two middle League derbies of any campaign which do the real damage.

Strachan lost his first Old Firm match by 3-1, going on 8-1, in a game much like today’s - and he ended up cruising to the SPL title in his first season at Parkhead. Celtic had injuries before the game today, during the game today and, as always seems to happen now when they lose to Rangers, at least one Celtic employee made a bit of a fool of themselves as people. Celtic have great players and a very able manager. They will be hurting and they will be regrouped with something to prove the next time we meet them, which will be on their patch.

Had we lost today it would have been a massive dent to our domestic hopes. Celtic losing is not so disastrous. It often isn’t particularly significant for champions to lose the first derby of the season. It often boots them up the arse just when they need it most. We were the ones with something to prove today. Walter’s won three derbies on the trot since his return and every one is increasing in significance but, ultimately, they’ll only REALLY count if we’re top of the table next May. When you’re coming from behind it’s always harder.

There is a very, very, VERY long way to go in this campaign. We must take all the positives from this afternoon, suck in all the confidence and dispell any notions of having won anything significant. We rest up for Tuesday - a much sterner test - and we get our feet back on the ground, with enthusiasm coursing through them. We pull up those Red and Black socks once more, we focus, we move on with, in many ways, more pressure on our shoulders because we’ve proved we have the team to regain our domestic title.

All we did today was send out a message. And I feel it was more of a return-to-sender message than a missive which will devestate Hibs or Celtic’s title challenge. It let us know we can beat anyone - it dodn’t tell Aberdeen, Gretna and Hearts they should just lie back and take it whenever they meet Rangers. As soon as Walter came back to Ibrox we knew Old Firm games would be generally safe once more and that we’d never be far away from winning our league. Now we just happen to know for sure the current squad is good enough. The idiots who cursed Walter upside down because we lost at home to Hibs will probably be the very ones to declare us Champions elect this evening. Winning Old Firm games is one thing - winning league titles is another. And even then there’s one thing knowing it’s possible and another thing making it count. Between ability and achievement, between ambition and reality, between one-off brilliance and long-term competence there is a hell of a long, hard road to be travelled.

Troops, we’ve barely left the house. Today’s game should swell our hearts rather than our heads.

But didn’t it though! Swell our Red, White and Blue hearts. By fuck, didn’t it do just that!

This wasn’t just a win, this was a massacre. This wasn’t just a case of “the first cut is the deepest” - this, Rod, was “the first cut is an amputation”. This was one of the best Old Firm performances by Rangers in many a year. 50 years and one day after the 7-1 League Cup Final, we saw before us a real possibility of exceeding that scoreline in a way even Celtic fans would be forced to acknowledge.

A big “thank you and well done” to the Bears at the front of the Copland who correctly predicted what our friends in green and white would be highlighting on their banners today and countered with a reminder of our superior one-off victory in 1943. The 1957 routing may have been a Cup Final but, as Ertha Kitt says, an Old Firm game is an Old Firm game is an Old Firm game and 8-1 would have hurt them even more. One goal more in fact. There may be little credence to the long-held claims that our six successive Southern League titles during the Second World War counted towards a “real” Nine In A Row some thirty years before Celtic’s, but from 1939 to 1945 all of our regional league campaigns featured Celtic - and we stuffed them 8-1 one season. End of. The trouble is, Rangers fans know how to MOVE ONE - we’re always more concerned with keeping the present more exciting than the past and today there were times when we played like a team capable of taking nine and ten off our oldest foes.

We had tired players out there too. We had returning internationals. We also had an ambition and desire which went beyond inspiration - it was a veritable BLOODLUST. We were first to every tackle, first to every high-ball, first to every rammy and first, second and last to put the ball in the back of the net. We had the energy, we had the ability, we had the fangs showing, we had the three points in the bag by half-time. Rarely have I been so confident of victory whan Rangers were only one-goal in front.

It should have been 4-0 but there’s always a “should have” or eight in every Old Firm game. The fact that we weren’t allowed the goal which would put us top of the table - for that’s how close it is - should keep things in perspective for anyone who doesn’t realise how little has been achieved in real trerms.

But what was achieved in short-terms was utterly joyful. I haven’t bounceyed like that for a while. I haven’t seen my desire from the stands replicated so perfectly on the pitch for quiet a while and, as per the last meeting with Celtic last season, the entertainment value in Rangers play was already super-sized. I didn’t need to pay extra.

Walter’s first Old Firm game back at the Ibrox helm? We won 1-0 at The Pig-ger-eeee.

Waldo’s second Old Firm game back at the helm? We won 2-0 at the beautiful Govan palace.

Waldo’s third? We win 3-0.

There’s a predicatble pattern here and it’s one that I like. Getting ourselves in front of Celtic and top of the Scottish pile was always gonnae be Walter’s remit and it should always be Rangers minimum objective. But it should always be just the start. As Boruc’s self-destructive, Celtic-humiliating antics at the end of each of his last two visits to Ibrox demonstrate, we’re not always best at Old Firm games but we’re always better than Old Firm games.

Tuesday night is much more important. On Tuesday night the entire planet will be paying attention. Silly little internecine Scottish feuds really are beneath us - that’s why I’m so glad that, today at least, we squashed the moaning minnies as if they weren’t even there. We’re back in our Scottish place - temporarily. Let’s see if we can do something on Tuesday which will last forever in our collective Rangers memory, but which will get us on the road to reaching a place truly worthy of our size and ambition.

And always with our self-respect intact.

Please, Gers - super-size me. Give me the Champions League deluxe burger.

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Published:
10.20.07 / 7pm
Category:
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