ONLY FOR THE HARDCORE UK RAVER

I don’t know if it’s the Presbyterian or Catholic side of my gene pool, I dunno if it’s just being Scottish, I dunno if it’s because my dad used to take his belt to me every friday night and my maw would stub her fags oot on my face while she supped her Smirnoff, but all I do know is CONFIDENCE is an alien concept to me when it comes to watching the fitbaw.

I’ve come to regard it almost as a thought crime - I’m scared of it. It’s okay when it’s ME, when I’m playing fives, writing a book, trying to finish a kebab before the polis arrive or whatever - I can often be confident about ME and things I do - but when it comes to be confident about something i have little or no control over I just cannae do it. ESPECIALLY when my pre-match predictions are 100% wrong (Will go to the bookies today to cash in my Pars for the first division bet - surely Dunfermline coasted the First Division this season … that Stephen Kenny is a great manager …yeah?).

I ain’t ever confident about my team in the days and hours BEFORE a game - I think I all too quickly equate it with cockiness, with arrogance and ignorance - concepts Rangers or their fans should never be about UNTIL KICK-OFF! But I do believe. In fact I KNOW our team can achieve anything we put our minds, rather than our mouths to. And I do notice patterns and I do recognise things happening at teams which have happened before.

The parallels with 2003 are amazing - and I think it’s significant that we’re playing an old Firm game BEFORE we play our “Boavista away”. Normally I’d think If we avoid defeat on Sunday we have a chance in Florence and normally I’d think if we lose on Sunday we’ll lose in Florence. But, because of a creeping OVER-CONFIDENCE in our ability to win UEFA Cup ties after a 0-0 at Ibrox, I almost think a wee defeat - as long as it’s not a doing - at Parkhead might get us mean and moody and focussed enough to pull off a coup in Italy.

But I’ll take my chances and see Rangers win both, if that’s okay.

The bad news for Rangers and the good news for Smellies is that I’m CONVINCED Rangers will score three goals on Sunday.

I don’t know how many Celtic will score - it could be zero, it could be five - so I’m still totally traumatised with nerves - but I think we’ll score three. Probably because I’m convinced this Rangers team are as determined to get ripped right into the jugular of these bastards as I am.

Steanta coverage starts at 3am and, by the time it’s finished, we’ll all be Daily Record headlines waiting to happen. But I’ll be up the rear of the Lisbon Lions - just like the Celtic View has been for the last 41 years. I’ll be refusing to buy a pie and bovril at the only ground in Scotland in which I do this. I’ll be keenly reading all those newspaper clippings they frame in their lovely Men’s Loo style “foyer”, and I’ll be letting all my stoppered belief and sureity out of it’s 22-stone bottle for a 90-minute long explosion of fundamentalist conviction that RANGERS FC are the greatest team on the fucking planet.

This isn’t just an ordinary travelling support - this is a Mark’s and Spencer’s travelling support.


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