HEART-MASSAGE PARLOUR (GERS … 1 Well …0)

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Sorry, lads - I’ll turn down the volume on the heart monitor for a second or two. Nurse says I’m to get as much rest as possible or else I won’t be allowed to watch the 2008 UEFA Cup Final on the telly, never mind actually go to Manchester. But I have just enough time to tell you that tonight’s result was FUCKING MASSIVE. Okay, the getting of it nearly killed me but I don’t care if we win our next four league games with deflected last-minute winners and spending the other 89 minutes clearing the ball off our own goal-line. Neither do I mind much if we win both our cup finals 21-20 on penalties. It will kill me - it IS killing me - but I’ll die fucking ECSTATIC.

At the very least, we will now go to Manchester knowing the SPL title is still within our grasp. At the very most, if we can overcome United on Saturday - which’ll be even fucking trickier than tonight gven the Arabs’ record against us this century - we’ll be one point behind the smellies with a game in hand when they take to the pitch against Hibs on Sunday. That’ll hopefully put the shitters up those desperate bastards just enough to crack the cunts.

Did I mention I don’t like Celtic?

Ach, it’s nothing serious - probably just familiarity breeding contempt. ie whenever Rangers look like winning something the whinging weans fae Parkhead willnae get oot wur fucking faces.

And neither would Motherwell tonight. Fair play to them - McGhee has them well drilled and fit as fuck. Big Bob “Francis Tobias Partridge” Malcolm could have played with a dinner jaiket on. He was outstanding - and his team-mates looked like one street-wise bunch of hungry, experienced pros ready to pounce on our smallest mistake. I’m NOT looking forward to Fir Park on Saturday week.

We spent the entire opening 70+minutes attacking as we did at Easter Road on Sunday - lots of possession and camped outside their box, but with extremely blunt finishing. I couldn’t see a goal coming.

Then, when that goal duly came, and I did see it, we spent the remaining ten minutes - plus four hours stoppage time (Peter Lawell made a phonecall:-)) - defending so deeply that I felt sure we’d see one of those dramatic last-minute equalisers which handed our scumbag rivals the league.

Shows ye what I know.

Not been as tense at a league game for a while. Not been as joyously consumed with passion at the sight of a goal or a final whistle in quite some time either.

I don’t know if the team can go on much longer. We look absolutely fucked. If they lost the next six games by a barrel-load I’d still sell my house to buy them a big enough “Thank You” card. They’ve been absolutely fucking magnificent and even Big Kirk’s continuing dialectic on the semantics of a throw-in will not prevent me murdering anyone who criticises this team, this season.

But I want all the trophies. I want all four. And, now, after all that’s gone on, let’s be sure of this - I want Celtic to win fuck-all. Contrary to popular belief it is one thing to love your own team and quite another to despise a rival. But I’m regretably getting towards the latter scenario, and running it parallel with my love of the Teds. It’s a completely seperate issue from Rangers’ success this season and it’s not a desire I am proud of but it cannot be denied. That club must be crushed. Football must be allowed to flourish and Celtic are NOTHING to do with football. And we’re the only club who can stop them.

Oh no - wait a minute - Lawell’s got me again, hasn’t he! That’s the IDEA isn’t it??!! When Rangers fans start going on like I just have - because who in their right mind cannot be upset by his disgusting ways - then he simply turns to the Celtic support, which contains a hell of a lot of very nice people, and he says “look - it’s the potato famine all over again. They want to persecute us, It’s a Proddie pogrom”. Suddenly even the nice Celtic fans but into his pish and the season ticket sales are guaranteed irrespective of on-field success. It’s not a club because it’s a CAUSE - that’s right, Peter, isn’t it?! Simple enjoyment of truly sporting contests isn’t a “Cause”, Peter is it? Naw - that’s just a basic, fundamental human right and why the fuck would Celtic be interested in any of that irreligious shite. No wonder our “We Are The People” chant gets up their nose - arrogance can’t stand its own relection. He’s a hate-monger, Lawell, in an arena where we should be doing all we can to remove such disfigured thinking. Basically, he’s a businessman - ie, a cunt. As usual, Celtic’s board and management have absolutely no respect for the game or any social responsibility. Biscuit tins don’t fill up on objectivity or fairness.

Yes - sad to say - all this was involved in my celebrations and relief tonight. Must get it off my chest lest I become like Celtic, living in constant fear of the success of others. I just want to love my team - but some folk won’t let us.

All this bitterness is making me tired. So was the fact I wore my parka and scarf to the game tonight (well it sometimes gets cold when yer up the back of the Govan, out of the sun …) Nurse says I need to go back to sleep.

I’m off work tomorrow, troops - so watch this space and I’ll flesh this rant out with more twisted musings from my hospital bed.

But we got the result.

We got the win.

Beep

Beep

Beep

Beep…

And now it’s Thursday morning. And I’ve rested. A slow recuperation begins. They’ve taken me off the drip and there’s a dissapointed hush descended over the 389 people stood in the corridor outside my room, all volunteering to sign the consent form for switching off my life-support.

Don’t fret, though, folks. Don’t put the parker ball-points away just yet. My untimely end is still imminent. A relapse a certainty. All bears know only too well the state of body and mind to which I’m referring. It’s all on a knife-edge these days, isn’t it. Even on a non-game day - and, let’s face it, those are rare in the current Rangers’ world - my cardiac minefield is infested with booby traps. For example: I’m having my breakfast of tea and toast (We’ll skip the hospital metaphor, or abandon it as the case may be. We all know I’m in the hoose today) this oppresively sunny morn and the door bell goes. I know what it is. The auld ticker flutters like a Laura Ashley dress in a breezey sun-stroked lawn.

I scrape the boiled egg and Weetabix crumbs from my Harry Potter bib (a souvenier of the little-known Danish film, Harry Potter And The Goblling of Bone), trip over a few unwashed plates and bowls and open the door to a t-shirted postie with a silver-wrapped package atop the usual enveloped detritus. Mmmmm, yeahhhh! I print and sign, I say an overly-grateful thank you and goodbye. I remember NOT to kiss him. I chuck the bills and magazines to one side. I sit on the sofa and I rip, I tear, I unstick, I open, I hold my breath and … there it is. There it is, amidst the “Follow With Pride” leaflet and the appendix of legal minutiae relating to this humungous event. There it is. I HAVE MY 2008 UEFA CUP FINAL TICKET IN MY HAND!!!!!

Fuck, it’s a bit dissapointing isn’t it??!! I mean, not the fact we’re in the UEFA Cup final or that I’m now officially going - obviously - but the ticket itself. The actual brief is a tiddly wee amateurish affair. I’m assuming the state-of-the-art City of Manchester stadium is all smart-card entry only and this ticket will simply be pressed up against a pad or flashed at a thousand security blokes. But at first I thought the Rangers Ticket Office (A legendary institution) had sent me a fake or even half a ticket. My heart sank to my scrotum with the thought of the kind of administrative fuck-up which cost me my place at the 2003 CIS Cup final win over Sellick, and then it leaped out of my rib-cage as I began to imagine the anger levels to which such a mistake would be condusive. There’s no rip-off stub and it’s noh even quarter the size of a flyer for a lap-dancing club. Apparently.

I should know - I have a few in the hoose. Tickets for European finals that is. I’ve framed my de-stubbed briefs for the 1999 European Cup Winners Cup final, the 2002 Champions League Final and the 2007 UEFA Cup final. And they’re all SO MUCH GRANDER than this little effort myself and a few thousand other Bears have paid an extra fiver to have specially delivered into our waiting arms this disgustingly hot day.

And yet, this is the real deal. This is the genuine article. I know that now. I’ve calmed down again. It’s not the tiddly ticket’s fault - it’s just my now habitual rollercoaster reaction to every significant moment in this overly-significant season of significance …s. I’m just so stressed I can’t take anything camly. This is THE Ticket. North Stand, level 2. Upper tier behind the goals, Orange section as displayed on the rear of the brief. We’ll surely be shooting that way second half. We’ll be where the most noise comes from. We’ll be Seville at Eindhoven in 2006. We’ll be the phenomenon unwrapping itself to a listening, watching continent. This is the most beautiful ticket I have ever possessed. This is the most precious item of carboardy-paper with a silvery hall-mark of authenticity I have ever had the pleasure of shoving in the back of my wallet and saying “I’ll be using you long before that condom next to you … and you will give me soooo much more satisfaction”. Oh what a glorious fucking day. Oh what a glorious fucking season.

And last night, when that final whistle went, about three minutes later than it should have, the lofted-arms animation of our captain showed he is more aware of this than anyone. I didn’t see Bazz doing it at the time - not that I can recall anyway. I was too busy wishing my fellow season-ticket holder an emotional farewell for the season, a farewell by way of a clutch of the most soul-sapping relief imaginable for a Rangers-Motherwell game. Oh how I fucking roared when Ferguson scored last night. Oh how I howled when they produced the four minutes on the board. Oh how I cheered like a berzerker when Richmond finally blew that latest of many small things to be pursed between his lips. For me, perhaps, as I clapped and yelled and gret wee Nacho doon the tunnel, there was greater significance because, as you know, I wont be there for The Gers’ last home game of the season - I won’t be at the game in which we bid them Good Luck for Manchester because I’m at my Sister-in-law’s wedding. I wish it was my own sister’s - she would have let me go to the game. In fact, she would have postponed the wedding. SPL she aint.

Only today, this morning, on the venerable Setanta’s horrific sports news channel did I see Barry’s reaction. His tattooed neck creased as his arms went above his head and, if nothing else, there can be no doubt that the players want this title as much as we do. The UEFA Cup final is distracting us all but the players who fight to the end despite no inkling of a goal and the manager who almost exploded as Motherwell benefitted from their own time-wasting and the coaching staff who almost fucked things up because Super Ally wouldn’t let the ball go out of play before kicking it back in, ALL WANT THE SPL TITLE SO MUCH IT HURTS.

And it does hurt. It’s a desire so brutal it’s frightening. And it’s only this desire which will enable us to defy a near-70-game schedule to eek out the one moment of cutting-edge finishing per game which will be enough to win everything for a team who so very often don’t concede goals. We’re running on fumes at times. Big Carlos Cuellar looked so tired last night. But nothing eluded the graceful big god. Davie Weir looked how I felt - except a lot thinner - yet kept it sealed again. Once again. And it brings a tear tae yer eye to see them play through that exhaustion, to find energy from desire alone. Cruzeiro scored a goal exactly the same as Barry’s last night - they scored theirs in a Libertadores Cup match against Boca Juniors. That’s still nowhere near as important as a UEFA Cup final and, when ye add all three domestic trophies into the mix, the mix necessary to make this officially our greatest ever season, Ferguson’s goal was as achingly beautiful as it was archingly accurate.

What a finish. Lightning quick reactions yet it seemed to take an absolute age to loop into that top corner. And it seemed only right that the players were all suddenly below me, celebrating with a reflected passion which shook The Brox. It seemed only appropriate that Scot Nisbett was on at half-time, having scored a goal of equal import and drama himself - with an even longer, looping route into the same Copland Road End net. It seemed only appropriate that, for the first time since they came about, the previosuly tacky Rangers “Girls Get Active” cheerleaders looked utterly beautiful last night. Not because I could see them close up - I don’t want to think about that - but because of that big “R” then and “F” then a “C” they formed in teh centre of the pitch for the benefit of the whole stadium. I always love The Rangers. I’m always In love with The Gers. But, right now, I’m so passionately in love with them, in this honeymoon balm, that anything of Rangers hue looks like a vision of perfection. Yes - even Kirk Broadfoot’s throw-ins.

Wee Nacho got pulled up for one too - his was even more blatant. Its the tiredness troops. It’s the tiredness. THIS is the price of our success.

Can’t beleive I won’t be there on Saturday. I’m not even giving away my season ticket - on the off-chance there’s a sudden change of heart among the bridal party this Friday night … or a lucky car crash. But, please troops, give The Teds a cheer for me. Dundee United will be a horrendously difficult match but, should we raise enough to win it, I feel the pressure on Celtic could crack them on Sunday. The hooped horrors will treat both their remaining league games like cup finals. But we have two actual Cup Finals to play - as well as four more league matches. If we could relieve the pressure from the final three of those league matches it will relieve the distractons on our players before the next game I will attend, the next all-blue stadium in which I will watch my glorious Gers:

Our first SPL win since we defeated Celtic at Ibrox has refilled my heart with hope of a quadrouple. It’s up to us to keep topping up the energy in our players’ legs - by filling their ears with our songs and love. No Surrender on Saturday, troops - NO SURRENDER and nothing but love. Massage that big Rangers heart.

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Published:
05.07.08 / 9pm
Category:
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