BLISSFUL IGNORANCE

… can we not appeal to the SFA to have Carlos’ BRUTAL PUNCHING OF AN INNOCENT, PASSING FOOTBALL escalated from unsporting to violent conduct??? Then he would miss St Johnstone rather then Sellik! It was a sickening flesh-on-leather assault when ye think about it - and is a football not entitled to the same rights as a human in this supposedly democratic land of ours? I mean, why did our forefathers fight two World Wars if we’re just gonnae sit back and do nothing while these Spaniards come over here and smack seven shades of shite out our poor footballs and then claim the sanctuary, the political asylum of “unsporting” conduct!! It’s a disgrace!! God help those poor Mitres in Greaves on Sauchiehall street … heaven protect those unknowing Adidas Tangos in JJB’s Argyle Street shop …

The one good thing about us finally having a bad result is I can start a whole new routine of superstition. All the things I’ve been afraid to change for the last 27 domestic matches I can now both rent AND cast asunder. Just as Chris Burke will now be able to cut his ginger mane, so too can I make some much-needed adjustments to a life-style which has become the physical equivelant of a 22-stone, six foot one inch rabbit’s foot. A hair-cut, a shave and a Saturday morning at the nail bar are only the beginnings of this oversized Rumple Stiltskin’s makeover and reveal:

I’m telling ye, I’ve noh had a fresh change of clothes since we last lost a league game and that was at Tannadice - in OCTOBER! I won’t go into details but suffice to say the Top Shop jeans and Geore At Asda tank top I wore to Fir Park for our CIS Cup quarter final win on 31st October 2007 were able to make their own way to the bonfire last night once I’d removed them. Why I chose to wear flip-flops to Motherwell that night I cannot remember (Oh - that’s right - it was Halloween and I was dressing up as a hippy christian!) but it was a really embarrassing Christmas dance with the work and the other guests at those two weddings I went to in February were really staring!

Anyway, thank goodness I can now slip into something more comfortable. Well, just as soon as I’ve finsihed blow-torching my skants off. Trust me to be caught in a leather Anne Summers posing pouch when Rangers started another winning run! Needless to say those exotic briefs now resemble something more akin to a bag of babybel …

Yeuuch! Apologies for that, troops. Mingin! I know. Sorry to be clatty - but it’s still more pleasant than what happened to us all last night. Old Firm games are furtive, horrible affairs at the best of times. The things yer made to feel, the bile ye shout and sing, the stuff ye even think to yerself during the course of one of these encounters can leave a mental scar like some self-induced indecent footballing assault. Even when ye win them there’s little merit in having been involved in such a disgusting atmosphere because, frankly, when ye just can’t BEAR losing them the enjoyment which comes from winning them is far too animal to be nice.

When ye lose them, ye just feel dirty. It’s all about trying to retain some dignity and class. What happened to Barry? “show me a good loser and I’ll show ye a loser?” Nah. No fucking way. Forget that retarded sound-bitey shite. That’s just an excuse for grown men to behave like spoiled weans. Nah. More like, Show me someone who can’t control himself and I’ll show ye someone who didn’t give his all during the game. I’ll show ye someone embarrassed and desperately trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator in his team’s support. We’re all human, yes. I can’t be TOO hard on Bazz. God knows I would have succumbed to any provocation on the parkhead pitch. But I wouldn’t have made the Parkhead pitch - I’d have been sent off in the tunnel BEFORE kick-off. Coz I’m not a professional footballer. I’m certanly not captain of Rangers.

The fact I’m being so hard on Bazz is in itself testimony to the guy’s greatness. We need him more than any other player in our team. I’m convinced everything revolves around him. We have other great players and a smashing spirit right now but if Bazza doesn’t play we don’t quite make it, ala last night. What I’ve always doubted about Barry is his long-term thinking on Rangers. Sometimes it just don’t think there is any - sometimes I think he gets it all wrong in his head. His love for and commitment to our club is undoubted, almost unparalleled, but what I want from him now is evidence that that love is being properly utilised, appropriately expressed, effectively chanelled.

If Barry is Mr Rangers then he should know the ethos of the Nine In A Row team, the preferred sound-bitey ethos of Gough, Brown, McCoist, Hateley, McCall and Goram: IT’S NOT THE DEFEAT - IT’S THE REACTION TO THE DEFEAT.

That’s a little moronic mnemonic of attitude which better sums up what we expect of Rangers teams, of Rangers players in defeat. Either that or, “if yer gonnae have a square-go and get suspended make sure ye knock the fucker’s cunt in - that’s a RANGERS JERSEY yer wearing!”

So. Let’s make fucking sure we win the next Old Firm game, or at least take the point which would all but tie up the title. And, ever since the final whistle last night, we’ve been in varying degrees of ignorance as to what personnel will be available to Walter Smith for that game on 27th April.

I spent all last night’s post-match rant working under the assumption Weir AND Cuellar would miss the following derby. But this was sheer ignorance of the rules on my part. Apologies, troops. That piece of info was almost as accurate as my assesment of Steven Whittaker’s game - he did well on McGeadie in second half and was out of position in the build up to their winner. Still criminal but hardly worth a jail sentence. Anyway - Violent conduct, like Davie Weir’s, gets ye suspended from the next domestic game - that’s St Johnstone on Sunday. Unsporting conduct, like BIg King Carlos’, gets ye suspended fae the next LEAGUE game - that’s the return to Parkhead.

(Does this mean Carlos would have been as well decking Barry Robson on the way off the pitch?… nah - he’d just have been suspended for the next TWO Sundays then, wouldn’t he? Yeah. But. No. But. Yeah. But. No - Wait a minute - can we not appeal to the SFA to have Carlos’ BRUTAL PUNCHING OF AN INNOCENT, PASSING FOOTBALL escalated from unsporting to violent conduct??? It was a sickening assault when ye think about it - and is a football not entitled to the same rights as a human in this supposedly democratic land of ours? I mean, why did our forefathers fight two World Wars if we’re just gonnae sit back and do nothing while these Spaniards come over here and smack seven shades of shite out our poor footballs and then claim the sanctuary, the political asylum of “unsporting” conduct!! It’s a disgrace!! God help those poor Mitres in Greaves on Sauchiehall street … heaven protect those unknwing Adidas Tangos in JJB’s Argyle Street shop …)

So, as it stands, we THINK Weir will play against Celtic next week but we KNOW Cuellar will not. That’s half as bad as I initially feared but still plenty bad enough. Like I said last night, let’s attack at Parkhead next time coz, thank gawd, Gary Caldwell’s suspension, also for violent conduct, will also be used up THIS weekend. With Caldwell BACK in their team we have a major chance of ripping them to pieces.

For some reason I’m convinced we’re gonnae score three times next Sunday. The only question, for me, is how many we allow Celtic to score in reply. It coudl range from zero to FIVE. Because, the other lack of knowledge on the line-up front stems from the fact that (a) the referee’s report and the fourth official’s report from last night have still to be studied which could yet result in something good or bad and (b) Lee McCulloch and Allan McGregor could be injured for two weeks or more.

McCulloch’s injury was sustained at the studs of Paul Hartley but big Lee was also trying to nail the greasy wee bastard in hoops. It was a 50-50 ball and they both went in hard in their respective styles. Our man came off worse. No complaints. But, as quiet as he was last night, McCulloch is one of the guys I would have expected to react positively by giving it big licks against Celtic next time - and he’s physical and I like that. He may be out for the rest of the season.

McGregor has been having the season of his life - that’s the ONLY reason we don’t want Alexander in goals. But, hopefully, the Rangers team will have read Alan’s tattoo and get into Nietzschean sound-bites … aphorisms: THAT WHICH DOESN’T KILL ME MAKES ME STRONGER!

NOW we’re fucking talking!

Nothing died last night, except perhaps the manic passion of the Celtic team and crowd. They had something to prove to themselves last night. We always knew the three straight Ibrox wins put a strange skew on Old Firm fortunes of late and we knew the two home derby wins this season were nothing more than insurance against two defeats at Parkhead. But Celtic will be top of the league next time we play them and knowing that they now do have something very REAL to lose. They can take their self-image, their attempt at pride, and stick it up their fudge shutes. But that seems to be all they wanted last night. (A word for the much despised Gordon Strachan. His managerial ability went beyond reproach the minute he won the league for the first time but, as a bloke, he’s a little cunt. However, last night he was very, VERY gracious about Rangers. Easy to do in victory, admittedly, but it’s a start, and worth a mench. Fair’s fair.) They’re giving themselves the big patricks on the back today. Superb. They’ll be more nervous than rampant next time - we’ll be grouchy, and ravenous.

Naw. Nothing died last night and we certainly can get stronger from the experience - the new boys will no longer be new boys next time at the piggery. But, THIS SUNDAY, something very much CAN die. Even if we lose both games at Parkhead, we’re still in the driving seat for the SPL title. Lose to St Johnstone on Sunday, however, and there’s no going back - there’ll be no Scottish Cup, there’ll be no treble, no quadrouple and there WILL BE a sudden sense of things collpasing around us.

Everyone, every Bluenose, right now is inevitably playing the utterly pointless game of “if ye could guarantee us the UEFA cup I’d give up the SPL” … “I’d take the treble if it meant losing the UEFA cup final” etc, etc. Fitbaw doesn’t work like that - ye take it ALL and ye take it all NOW. But ye can also LOSE it ALL now! Obviously I’m not above this kind of non-thinking bargaining myself - look at my superstition routine detailed at the start of this rant - and I’ll tell ye now; If we could win any one of our three domestic games at Parkhead-Hampden-Parkhead, I’d take Hapmden EVERY TIME! I want to beat the Saints more than the Celts at this juncture. Win on Sunday and we can forget all about the Scottish Cup - we won’t have another game in that competition until we’ve finished in every other comp. The Scottsih Cup final, even if we lose it, will effect NO OTHER RANGERS GAME THIS SEASON. Even if we made the UEFA Cup final, the Scottish Cup final takes place ten days afterwards. But if we lose this semi - the doubt and dissapointement it will create can permeate into the two most important comps we have left in 2007/2008.

Fiorentina at Ibrox is bigger than it all, but keeping the home front sorted takes all the pressure off. Beware St Johnstone. I was stood next to Derek McInnes and Peter McDonald on the top tier of the Nou Camp this season - they were on the same flights as me for the Champs League biggie - they KNOW Rangers inside out because they LOVE Rangers inside out and, after losing both domestic semis very narrowly last season, ye can be sure they think it’ll be third time lucky on Sunday.

EVERY BEAR WHO CAN GET A TICKET FOR HAMPDEN THIS SUNDAY, GET A TICKET NOW!!! If ye don’t go to this one ye don’t deserve to go to Manchester if we get there! THIS is a day where the bears can help more than ever. If it’s a half-full Hampden - and ye just fucking know it will be for a cup semi live on the telly - then it takes the edge right off the intimidation factor for the Saintees, as they look at their biggest support of the season and get all inspired. But if we get 40,000 Bluenoses in the place, singing and shouting for the season from heaven to continue, we’ll be sorted.

It’ll be half-full if YOU don’t go. Go and cheer on The Gers this Sunday. Because, as a True Blue, hurting after last night’s reverse, you will know it’s not the defeat - it’s the REACTION! And, if you like yer NIAR sound-bites, ye’ll also know we have to get every spare ticket for Sunday bought up because a SUPPORT WHICH WINS TOGETHER, DRINKS TOGETHER!

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Published:
04.17.08 / 6pm
Category:
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