THE RANGERS ARE AYE READY (GERS … 3 Arabs …1)

I hate weddings. I fucking loathe them. I’ve attended many. I’ve enjoyed two. Yesterday wasn’t one of them. It’s me - not the weddings. I’m socially retarded, I’m emotionally backward. The couple in question are lovely - missing a flipping Rangers game was the least I could do for them. But it’s what goes on around the edges of weddings which kills me. And I prefer funerals. Yesterday I would rather have been at my own wake. Alone.

Weddings are full of people who either apologise for only pouring you a glass of wine a whole two seconds after you’ve finished yer last gulp and are such good company and so generally nice that you want to kill anyone who doesn’t respect them OR people who are utterly repugnant, seek to cause offence at every turn, see someone else’s special day as an excuse to be the centre of attention themselves and wake up the next morning proud for having done so.

I hate weddings. But it’s me, not the weddings.

I love meeting people. I love being surrounded by friends. I love drink, I love dancing, I love romancing, I love family gatherings, I love meeting people, talking to people, getting off with people, I love people. But I fucking hate weddings. Because matrimonials formalise it all, and within that loosest of formality emerges the vermin of society - the scum who realise everyone else is bound by social convention NOT TO ASSAULT fellow wedding guests. So they push it. They annoy. They attention-seek. They offend. And the moment you bite, you - YOU, not the wankers - ruin it for the nice folk. And you realise that , Eck, you don’t love people, family, dancing, etc but rather you only love meeting YOUR type of people, you only enjoy the company of CERTAIN members of your family and you’re actually a total nazi about behaviour and etiquette and downright common fucking decency.

I hate weddings because they often make me feel like a misanthrope - or even a wee bitty of a sociopath. I hate weddings because - hey, let’s face it - I’m not really happy with myself.

So, as it transpired, missing the last home game of the season - the first such game, including friendlies, I’ve missed since the depths of 2006 - was NOT the worst thing about being away from Ibrox at 12:30 yesterday. It’s where I was instead of Govan which chaffed so. One of the people on this planet I do love, a certain Mr White, kindly relayed me the half-time scores and the essential details. By the time the whole ball-and-chain ceremony kicked off, he’d telephonically informed me that the points were in the bag. Thereafter I gradually passed this on to every other male and not a few of the females present at the do. Everyone, even in the borders, wants to know how The Rangers are doing.

In travelling to the location, with dear people who had more interest in their daughter’s marriage than the football results, manners dictated I only switched on the radio for the briefest burst of commentary. Billy Dodds and Paul Mictchell were clearly excited - but had no intention of telling me the score. Lucky I know the Ibrox crowd well enough to gauge by the background noise that The Teds were winning, ie; The Palace sounded quiet!

Everyone wants to talk about Manchester more than they want to talk about Rangers. The real fitbaw folk at the do were, however, equally keen to discuss the SPL result. How strange to be talking about a majorly significant Gers win, without even a semi-accurate mental image of any of the goals. Mr White’s texts said Nacho’s second was a candidate for goal of the season. All the newspapers seem to agree. Yet it’s ten past 4 on Sunday now and I still haven’t seen anything of this game except a few still photos in the papers - and most of them involve Craig Levein in Mike McCurry’s face as the former does his usual sleight of hand with the blame for a United defeat:

“Noh, it’s not My fault. Don’t look in the obvious place, kids. Alakazaam! - LOOK AT THAT! - it’s behind the referee’s ear!”

When Kalvenes was sent off at Rugby Park last year Levein demanded the ref and his linesman pay the entrance fee and travel expenses of everyone in the stadium because the officiating mistake had, of course, “spoiled the whole spectacle.” At least he’s not prone to hyperbolic hystericals then!

You wonder if Craig ever dipped into his own pocket for either of the games United lost to Gretna this season. And he makes a damn sight more dough than any of the men in black he’s so professionaly slated. If he can take points off Rangers inbetween times then he’s OBVIOUSLY short-changing the United faithful by losing home and away to the SPL’s worst-ever bottom-feeders.

Yeah - I fucking hate weddings. There’s a total lack of objectivity or sense of the wider occassion for a set amount of people present - and they ruin it for everyone else. Craig Levein is entitled to be pi**ed off with what, by all accounts, sound like two really bad decisions. But when ye attack as much as Rangers do in most SPL games you’ll find far more of these decisions go against you and we make far less noise about them, as a club if not a support. It just gets more publicity coz we’re who we are. Walter Smith rages at the Fourth Official for the amount of time he added on against Motherwell last Wednesday. No conspiracy theories - no after-match diatribes. Just a spout of tension-riddled disgust at the moment. Basic manners make for a nice wedding. When they’re missing, things go awry.

But it just wouldn’t be a proper wedding if there wisnae a fight. I read Kirk Broadfoot punched Noel Hunt and Big Daniel went skull-to-skull with Lee Wilkie. Both our men will be sniped at for “spoiling the occassion” and yet we all know the only real complaint is they didn’t carry out their task with enough vim and vigour. Day after a wedding, you’re left thinking “I really should have clocked that cunt. Maybe I could have got him in the bog, instead of the dance floor where everyone could see. But nah - then there’d be no-one about to pull him off me when he starts knocking seven shades of shite out me …”

There’s always regrets. Particularly if it’s Rangers and it’s season 2007/2008. There’s always stuff which could be seen as deflecting from the positivity of the result but which I prefer to regard as the stuff which keeps our feet on the ground. Anti-football, bent refs or a limping Kevin Thomson having his leg humped by an ice-pack. Whatever it is, it keeps all talk of “glory” at arm’s-length. It keeps us all focussed on the fitbaw. It keeps us thinking of the process rather than the result. Good.

Gutted that I wasn’t there to see the players off. Gutted I didn’t fulfill my ambition of 100% Ibrox attendance this season. But I posted off the renewal form last week, all boxes ticked - I’ll get another go at it next season.

Novo was the man, again, and Darche sealed it late-on after a United fight back. We came out the blocks fast and hard, we went back to our early season ways of scoring early but, with this being Dundee United, there was no cruising to victory. Good. Good. Good. This Rangers team wants nothing for nothing (”oooh but the Reverend Mike McCurry …bleat, bleat, bleat”.Fuck off and grow up). This Rangers tream doesn’t want praise, doesn’t want favours, doesn’t want friends. It just wants to play football matches - and win them. And it wants some manners shown.

We have only three rivals for silver now, all from different leagues. Zenit St Petersburg, Queen of the South and Glasgow Celtic. The last of these won today - ye’ve got to expect them to do likewise at Tannadice because, as Noel Hunt says, nothing is allowed to stop Rangers or Celtic winning important games in Scotland. So one of our rivals for a trophy is keeping up their side of the “all the way” bargain. In so doing they’ve ensured we can only afford to draw one of our three remaining league matches if we win the other two by four or five goals each. Ye can’t see that happening somehow.

Three 1-0 victories in the SPL will do me fine. Two penalty shoot-out wins in the two cup finals would do me even finer. As long as Barry is allowed to walk down the aisle with three more fancy bits of silver this season, I don’t care how we do it because we’ll NEVER do it in a way anyone else respects, trusts or even believes.

I fucking hate weddings because, well, the rank ignorance of others brings out the dark side of your own personality.

But the ignorance of others will never have to be experienced for more than a few hours per year, because their proximity to nice people having a celebration brings out the hysterical side of these permanently envious fools with too much to prove. If Rangers continue their current rate of improvement into next season, no-one will be close enough to us to be annoyed by our celebrating. We’ll be miles ahead.

Now, in practise for such exalted isolation, we’re all off to Manchester. The next game in which Rangers will play - the next time you set eyes on your team - will be the 2008 UEFA Cup Final. We won’t be home, we won’t be away, we won’t be in Scotland. We’ll be playing in a European final.

The SPL campaign is back on serious track. We’re winning again, over ninety minutes. We can put all that to one side, knowing it’s been safely packed. The way is clear. It’s now all about Manchester. Here come The Teds - and we don’t intend to be no bridesmaids!