MAKING A POINT AND A HALF (Arabs … 3 GERS … 3 )

There wisnae anybody booing at Tannadice at full-time today. Oh, sweet irony! The neutrals - both of them - are talking about the “entertainment” factor in this “six goal thriller” and myself and the rest of the travelling Bears on Tayside this afternoon were all, by the end of the game, genuinely delighted after witnessing what was actually our second-worst defensive performance of the season. If The Teds replicate this score-line on Thursday night we’ll be in our first official European semi-final for 36 years. I’ll make a point of having my funeral the day before the UEFA Cup showdown with PSV or Fiorentina, as a pre-match party. If we draw 3-3 again this Thursday there will be no-one on this planet happier than me … or deader. Like a few other things in life, I love that it ended well it but my fat heart just can’t take all that jumping up and down.

Fuck.

Me.

Gently.

If Celtic continue to play as they currently are we’ll only need to draw a couple more games to regain the SPL title. But I remember us being in a similair-ish position at the end of 2004/2005 season. After losing the last Old Firm game of the campaign we went five points behind with five games to go. A banner in the Broomloan Road stand, after that derby defeat, proclaimed “Celtic, SPL champions 2004/2005″. How we chortled when it didnae quite work out like that. And yet how we applauded in the West, Fair Play and Jerry Kerr stands today because Celtic’s loss yesterday made us feel this was a great point gained.

And it was. Dundee United are a vastly improved and improving side under Craig Levein’s canny tutelage. We were all worried about this game long before today. We lost by 2-1 on our previous two visits to the tangerine end of Tannadice Street and for the third time on the trot we saw Rangers lose the first goal away to United, equalise and then go 2-1 down. It looked like three in a row for United and no-one in Red, White and Blue would have been THAT surprised. As it transpired, the cruel repetitions of history were actually attacking the Arabs this afternoon: Eventually the more noticeable emerging pattern became the fact that Rangers, for the second time in three weeks, had come back from behind three times in one match against Eddie Thompson’s play thing. Thrice at Hampden - once in normal time, once in extra time and during the penalty shoot-out - United had us on the League Cup Final ropes. But we eneded up with the ribbons. Today, again, I watched Rangers refuse to surrender to either our own short-term inadequacies or Dundee United’s fervent challenge.

A team which wins the league or wins trebles always faces moments when they look down and out, games wher they’re continually defying their own performance to grind out a result. That’s as it should be. If it wasn’t difficult it wouldn’t be historic. And teams which win European trophies or get to European finals will overcome even more poor starts, defiant opponents or blips of varying duration. What gets me is that the arseholes who booed on Thursday night, at the end of the Sporting Lisbon first leg, didn’t seem to know this. If they wanted the result so badly that they felt compelled to insult the team they claim to love then ye’d think they must have a deep knowledge of the game. Wouldn’t ye? Eh! If ye care enough to be horrible then I’d assume ye must have taken the time to find out what it takes to win a European trophy, to still be in with a shout for four trophies come April?? Wouldn’t you assume that these people would do that, would know their facts before being so outraged? No. Neither do I. The vast majority of Bears know what Rangers have given this season and the greater part of Beardom has watched enough European sides coming to Ibrox down the decades and leaving with a win to be perfectly able to identify what it takes to make a mark on the continent.

The REAL Teddy Bears know that a 0-0 at home to ANYONE in the first leg of a European quarter-final is a RESULT. In the eight matches played in UEFA competition last week - four Champions League quarters and four in the UEFA Cup - Rangers were the ONLY HOME SIDE to keep a clean sheet. Only Fenerbahce achieved a better home result - and they only did Chelsea by 2-1. Okay, as the final whistle sounded on Thursday evening at Ibrox, few inside The Palace would have realised this. Few would have known Zenit St Petersburg had won 4-1 IN Leverkusen. Getafe hadn’t actually yet equalised at the Allianz Arena against Bayern and the Fiorentina-PSV one-all draw was still news to most of us. But that doesn’t excuse the booing. What we DID know was what our team has achieved this season so far - irrespective of how many tin pots we lift in May. What we DID know was that, yet again, we’d kept a clean sheet at home after DECADES of being unable to do so. What we DID know was that no team - NO TEAM, not even Real Madrid, Barca or Milan - has ever won a European trophy by winning every match along the way.

I’m afraid I’m gonnae continue … because I’m FUCKING RAGING about this issue: What we DID know at full-time on Thursday night was the state our club was in 16 months previously, how Walter Smith was welcomed back like a messiah. Not because of what we thought he could do in Europe - fuck me, but he was hounded out last time, BY THE SAME BOOING ARSEHOLES, because he coudlnae sustain a challenge in Europe. Naw, Wattie was welcomed back for the fact he always beats Celtic and always wins the league. I thought that was short-sighted as fuck but the man has now done what even the knee-jerk Loyal asked him to do AND MORE! In terms of the de facto remit he was given at Fir Park on 2nd January 2007, Walter Smith is over-achieving more spectacularly than someone whose been rejected by Simon Cowell’s from the open trials on X Factor and then goes on to sell out the New York Met, La Fenice, La Scala, Bayreuth and Glyndebourne. Walter has stunned even me with how much he’s given us in the ridiculously short period of tme he’s been back here. He actually IS the messiah.

And we KNOW this. We knew this on Thursday night last.

I’ve actually become so used to the hypocritical, short-termist, pathetic shite that goes on amongst certain sections of our support that I sometimes don’t even notice it. On Thursday I got a lot of things wrong on this blog. More than usual.

I failed to understand that Sporting Lisbon’s Ultras have always called themselves Torcida (The Torcida Verde - crikey it was in that Rough Guide to European Football I read all the time on the bog! DOH!!), that it’s a Portugese term and it had nowt to do with The Croatian mentalists who follow Hadjuk Split. I also failed to cover my ass when I said I thought Rangers looked a bit tired. I didn’t point out at great length that I would in no way EVER offer this as an “excuse” for any failings to come. I’m a Rangers fan - we don’t do excuses - but some folk need to be told this.

If you’re a tired team, it means you’re not fit enough - it means the manager has bought players who are too old or not of a disciplined or hungry-enough demeanour . Whatever. Aaying Rangers looked tired is the same as saying they looked dodgy at the back - it’s me pointing out a FAILING. It might not be a failing I BLAME them for but it’s a part of the game and if we’re not good enough at it we’re not good enough - end of. The Good Bears and Timalloys on the threads of this blog put me right on the “Torcida” thing. Quite right, troops and glad to have my education enhanced. But some inverted fucker decided to cut and paste two seperate sections of Ally McCoist’s post-match interview to ITV 4 and post it on the same thread so it read as if Ally was making excuses. Super Ally said the team looked tired on Thursday - he said it as a worry and a criticism, just as he’d said we didn’t pass well or create enough. He then ended his interview by saying “ye have to cut the lads some slack”. He said this in reference to how far they’ve taken our club in such a short space of time - and he was saying it to the ARSEHOLES AT IBROX who BBOED THEM OFF THE FUCKING PARK after keeping a clean sheet in Europe for the SIXTH time this season.

The other thing I got wrong was that, unlike the post-match reaction after Lyon did us at home, I actually failed to pay much heed to the booing on Thursday night. But, when I heard Walter mentioning it at Friday’s press confernence I was fucking affronted. Especially after I got an e-mail from him that same day. We’ll all have got it - the one which read

Dear Eck

As a fan who attended last night’s UEFA Cup Quarter Final match against Sporting Clube de Portugal, I would like to personally thank you for your support at yet another European night at Ibrox. It did not go unnoticed by myself and the team, and as always, is appreciated by everyone here at the Club.

It was a tight game last night and I think the away game will be along similar lines. It will be close but we’ve shown we can go away and score goals. We have already scored in Athens, Stuttgart and Lyon this term and would therefore hope we can go to Portugal and do it again. I believe it’s possible for us to get that away goal, which will take us into the last 4 of the UEFA Cup.

Thank you again for your continued support.

Walter Smith

Man! I read it on Saturday. Knowing what I did about the press conference and being SCARED TO MY BONES that Walter mnight think we didnae appreciate him, I felt compelled to reply. Walter will probably never see my e-mail. His wasnt the type which expects a response. But this is what I said anyway:

Walter - cheers for that, Sir.

You don’t EVER have to worry about my support wavering. You are responsible for our greatest ever run in the Champions League and now you’re responsible for our greatest ever run in the UEFA Cup. Throw our domestic form into the mix and this could end up being an even greater season than 1992/93, the happiest of my life so far.

Yet, if it was all to go wrong in the next few weeks - if the CIS cup was “all” we took from this season in terms of silver - my love of The Rangers wouldn’t falter. It would strengthen. And, if we we’re playing Third Division football every season from now til the next century, I would never, ever boo The Rangers off the pitch.

When you’re a massive club ye will automatically attract a massive number of idiots. Don’t let those morons on Thursday night put you off. Those of us who know Rangers, know how to be grateful.

Thanks, Walter.

Eck

All this pish about “consumer rights!” from those who boo the club whose colours they wear round their neck. Shut up! I hate fundamentalism in life but football isn’t real life. And my only fundamental about Rangers is that ye should SUPPORT them. Yeah, democracy and the right to complain is essential to a decent society - I have stood up for that and I always will - but whether ye pay £35.00, £40.00, £50.00 or a hundred quid to attend a football match, yer NOT applying everyday retail expectations to the vendor-client relationship ye get at the fitbaw. It’s tribal, it’s worship, it’s loyalty, it’s often a substitute for warfare or sex for chrissakes! It’s NOT going to the shops for a pint of milk. If anyone wants to complain about value for money at Ibrox (a) they should never be at the football in the first place and (b) they should simply walk round to the front door on Edmiston Drive and demand to see the manager, about yer refund.

Do NOT spoil my cunsumer experience by negligently risking my possibilty of future enjoyment of the “Rangers experience”. If the players are going into 40-60 tackles in the Jose Alvalade this Thursday, what they heard from the arsehole punters seven days previously may just be the difference between them committing to that tackle and pulling out to save their career for a support that appreciates it.

I want to win the UEFA cup with every fibre in my body but if we don’t I NEED to know Rangers understand how much I valued their efforts in trying to do so, in taking us to within touching distance of a European final. That way, apart from spreading the love and just being ordinarily decent behaviour, there’s a chance our players may then actually try to do it again!

It was ironic that I stood in the Fair Play stand today - the section of Tannadice paid for by a reward for the goodwill of the Dundee United fans to the Gothenburg fans who stood in that very spot as their team held off United in the second leg of the 1987 UEFA Cup final:

Us in The UEFA Cup final? Yes please!

Applauding opposition fans and teams after they’ve broken our hearts at home? Maybe not - but I’ll try.

Appreciating our own team and what they’ve achieved so far, irrepsective of trophies? ABSOLUTELY.

Paul le Guen left because he knew he wasn’t wanted. I said at the time I was worried by the power this gave to the short-sighted element of our support. Perhaps if Walter Smith is hounded out a second time - here we were today at the scene of NIne-In-A-Row’s clinching - then perhaps that would finally get the fucking message across that if COMMON SENSE can’t win then basic loyalty should be factored in more prominently. After we lost the first goal today, a couple of guys shouted back and forth to each other that they’d leave on seventy minutes for a pint because, hey, this game was clearly lost already. Turns out they would have seen all the goals even if they’d kept to their plan but the fact no-one fucking lamped them for gress disrespect while I could get lamped for trying to applaud Rangers on Thursday night really does IRK!

Last time I saw an epic against Dundee United on a Sunday I was sat, as I was today, on the end of the row. I was right on an aisle. Three weeks ago I was on the second-back row of the Rangers End at Hampden - there was an entire sea of Beardom in front of me. When Kris Boyd hit his first equaliser I travelled down twenty or thirty steps and was still nowhere near half-way down the stand. When kris Boyd equalised today I ran forward two steps and got a foot on the pitch-side track before a Steward got in the way of an invasion I was never gonnae carry through (PITCH invasion! She wisnae THAT nice!). Yet I swear there were more obstructions to my view today than ever there was at Hampden, despite the crowd being a fifth of the size and there being two rows in front of me isntead of fifty. Stewards, polis and photographers made their way onto the pitch via the wee gate in front of me, yes. And the fucking mobile camera man for Setanta who runs alongside the play as it happens, stopped me seeing what the fuck he was filming on a few occassions too. But the main problem was a continual stream of bears who were going to the bog, going for a pie, going for a pie in the bog. Getting in late, getting straight back up to have a pish. Getting back into their seat. Then going back out for food. Then getting back into their seat…

Why do these folk go to the fucking game if they’re not gonnae WATCH IT??!! In terms of a view of the action I would have been better listening to it on the radio.

I went down to see Auchinleck Talbot against Irvine Meadow XI yesterday. Beechwood Park Auchineck offered far better views than Tannadice but I wouldn’t have missed being AT Tannadice for the world. Coz I could SING and Rangers could HEAR ME SING. I could clap, I could encourage and I could shout down any cunt who didn’t do likewise. Luckily for my health, however, there was little need for me to drown out dissenting voices - although a fucking huge Samaritans banner advert, in green and white, at the back of the front tier of this mickey mouse stand did provide me with an alternative if anyone in Beardom was gonane boo us again today.

The JFK assassination was less earth-shatteringly memorable than Carlos Cuellar putting into his own net but it was cancelled out by Davie Weir, the other half of that brilliant duo, providing something akin to a sighting of Haley’s Comet in scoring his first league goal for The Gers. It was a thing of extraordinary beauty - it was as classic a Rangers header as Colin Stein or Derek Johnstone or even a man who played for both clubs, Jimmy Millar, could have executed. Great ball - BANG! - great goal. United were fantastic and from my disadvantage point I was sure their first goal had gone in a full five minutes before it was finally rattled over the line. The opposite scenario played out in my heid with Boydy’s equaliser into the same end - did it even hit the back of the net? I just saw it hit the post and then all the United players crumpled in heaps as Kris went mental … and then that steward was holidng me back again.

Guy in front of me was thrown out - quite rightly - for handling a wee female steward and telling her to fuck off as she tried to keep us back from posturing towards Noel Hunt as he baited us after his easy-peasy goal. Ach, we dish it out to players, we should take it when they give it back. In fairness he gets right up against us when he takes the throw ins and he delays as long as poss when he has some bear in his ear giving him dogs. He’s a brave guy. Can’t fucking stand him, mind, but, as this is Eck’s “slag yer own” day, I’ll tell ye what I hate more: When a middle-aged Rangers fan calls a wee steward lassy an “aids-ridden whore” just because she’s trying to do her job. Fucking tough guy. The kinda guy who slags Rangers rotten for under-performing and then he himself goes and damages our club more than any player trying his honest best ever could. In reality I probably hate more the fact that I didn’t chastise him because I’m scared of trouble … or that no-one else has a go at him.

This is NOT Rangers behaviour and we should stamp on it. I will if you will. But you’ll need to do it first coz I’m a coward..

But the vast majority of Teds were giving it large licks on the sing-song front because we knew that a point here would be a result. It would be a stretch, even if the most minimal one, away from Celtic after their disaster yesterday. We all seemed to have an education about this trip to Tannadice which just wasn’t there on Thursday night about our reception of Sporting Lisbon. Perhaps taht’s what happens when the tourists come to Ibrox - the part-time bears with a cliched idea of fandom: Today everyone present knew the score. And three-three was so hard-earned that we didn’t ponder too much on the fact we’d have all but tied up the title with a win from this classic.

Yet, when I say “classic” I mean in terms of the palpitations, the emotional roller-coaster. I mean the nervous excitement was classic rather then the quality of our play. A genuinely Five Star Bear said the other night, in the process of praising the hell out of a club he loves as much as I ever could (this is no boo boy), that no-one would call Rangers entertaining to watch this season. And he was only repeating what some seriously seasoned pro football pundits have been opining for months. I’m sorry but, while I was very interested to know Walter had gone 4-4-2 today I cannot say I thought we were good to watch. And this is one of the few times I’ve had that feeling this season. There’s nothng I love more than a team you almost KNOW will not lose goals, will not do anything daft. For me, the most entertaining and exciting thing a football team can provide is consistency. Sport is so fluctuating in its fortunes that the removal of the chaos theory from your half of the equation is about as thrilling an achievement I can think of in football. I think Rangers are as entertaining to watch this season as I’ve ever seen them.

Yet, in one fell swoop, perhaps Walter has got even the boo-boys back on board while gaining a valuable point while also illustrating perfectly why he normally plays 4-5-1. Unlike Dundee United, other teams can’t always be relied upon to give Kris Boyd a shot on goal. Walter has also understood the pacing of results - how to spread them out over a long, hard season: We’ve lost to Bremen but gone through on aggregate. We’ve drawn with Dundee United but beat them on penalties to win a Cup. We’ve drawn with Dundee United but at Tannadice and the day after Celtic lost at home to Motherwell. We drew with Aberdeen - but did it with ten men. We drew with Partick Thistle but that was in the Scottish Cup, between some majorly massive games so no-one REALLY noticed, and we get another go at the Jags anyway coz it was the cup. Rangers win this season when it’s a must-win game. Today was not even a must-draw game. But we got one anyway.

The vast majority of us realised last Thursday that 0-0 at home can similairly be a great result if it comes in the first leg of a European quarter final. If we take one point from six in two league games Walter would usually be hung, drawn and quartered. But if it’s one point from the two games at Parkhead, we’ll be champions.

Boo that and I’ll fucking invade ye.