ACH, WE NEEDED AN EARLY NIGHT ANYWAY … (Sheep … 2 GERS … 0)

Fucker.

Fuck.

Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck fuck it. Fuck.

Bastard, bugger, cunt, wank, knob, fuck shit, piss, whore and bollocks.

Nah. That’s not gonnae do it, is it. A bit of swearing just isn’t gonnae do it. In fact, to be honest, I did more swearing and fretting tonight when both games were poised at 0-0 than I did before the goals started going into all the wrong nets. It is indeed the hope which kills you. I felt kinda sure that this is how it would end. Didn’t think we’d win at Pittodrie and actually thought Celtic would win by more at Tannadice. Was pretty sure that this was how it would all end. And that little bit of imagined fore-knowledge doesn’t make it a blind bit easier to take. Not one iota. And a bit of foul language will not exorcise a pain which, for True Blues, will last for decades.

Come on. Be honest. If we’re going to enjoy the many glory moments of this season for the rest of our lives then we have to stomach the downsides for just as long. One goes with the other. And I’d rather have the ying of taking the defeats on the chin if that’s the only way I’m allowed the yang of TOTAL, PURE and HONEST enjoyment of Athens, Bremen, two Old Firm derby wins, Lisboa, the CIS Cup final mania and the shoot-out heaven of Firenze. I’ll have none of this “Who cares about the SPL - it’s all about us getting to a European final”. Nah. No way. If ye love The Teds enough to have been greetin and howlin’ like a big wean when we did Fiorentina on penalties and pumped Sporting on their own patch then tonight, I’m afraid, ye’ll be on a serious downer that we came so close to the League title but just couldn’t prodce that little bit more to win it.

Only once before in our history have Rangers reached a European final AND won the league. When we won the Cup Winners Cup in 72 it was on the back of a horrendous domestic season. When we won the treble in 1993 we missed out on the Champions League final very narrowly but we DID miss out. And even in 1961, with the CWC final against Fiorentina and the League title and League Cup in the bag, Motherwell cuffed us 5-2 at home in a Scottish Cup 3rd round replay. This is the only time in Rangers history where we’ve been involved in EVERY cometition until the very last. This is the most extended, most intense, most sensational season in our history, troops. Every comeptition has fed into each other in augmenting the excitement felt. So when we lose out on one competition, we feel it more keenly than ever.

No worries though. We know there are always more good times than bad when Follow-Following. This season has been a rip-roaring success for us, no matter how much silver we’ve collected come this Saturday night. And we know there’s a Kuwaiti oil field-worth of pride in our club to sustain us through one night of not-quite, as oppossed to a season of fuck-all. We’ll be fine. And even if the team wins nothing for the next twenty years, we’ll still be Rangers.

Congratulations to Celtic.The league table never lies and when ye’ve been top of it for three seasons on the trot there’s even less chance of it being by accident. They’re Champions League last-sixteeners so while no-one in blue is enjoying it, there’s no disgrace in finishing behind a team of their current talents and managerial nous. Also, coming just a week after the tragic early passing of Tommy Burns and during the season in which Phil O’Donnell was so cruelly taken, no-one can grudge their club their moment.

For us, it’s never acceptable to finish second but this season has taken it about as close as we probably can to experiencing satisfaction despite winning no truly major trophy. But it’s not close enough. To lift the UEFA Cup would have been seen, incorrectly, as bonus territory; the CIS League and Scottish Cups are regarded as bare minumums. It’s the league by which most folk will judge Walter, Sir Dave and the lads. We didn’t win it. End of. There’s much work to be done at Ibrox. But we’re certainly moving in the right direction - spectacularly so - and we must all ensure that, unlike Wee Nacho disgracing himself so stupidly tonight, we don’t get too lost in misery over this SPL deneoument and lose sight of the long-term aim: To continue to be the very best, the long-term best. Celtic win 3-in-a-row? We come back at them with FOUR-in-a-row - and we WIN our next European final while doing so.

But that’s for 6pm on Saturday. That’s “The future”. The “now” is about properly managing the misery-pride balance. Tonight is about getting the pain felt and processed to an extent which allows both fans and players to win that Scottish Cup on Saturday. Losing to a First Division team in the Scottish Cup final would, in future years, reek of ineptness to those too knee-jerk or myopic to remember the exact context in which we played Queen of the South at Hampden. We must win the cup on Saturday to put the final seal of corusctaing competence on this 2007/2008 season. In short, it would TRULY break my fucking heart if we lost to a non-SPL team in the Cup final. Defeat to SFL mid-tablers would always be a humiliating defeat for Rangers but to end this amazing campaign with an insult rather than a set-back would be truly devestating.

In truth, a lot of us started processing the pain of not winning the SPL a long time ago. We knew Celtic, as reignig champions, could never be written off until it was actually all over. It was never over … until Aberdeen scored their second tonight. Most of us knew that the second of our Ibrox Old Firm victories was no more than insurance against two losses at Parkhead. We lost both games at Parkhead - perhaps BECAUSE a draw in either would have been enough for us to see out the title - and then failed to properly cash in that policy. The return of Neil Lennon to Celtic’s ranks was always a great move for them and when we failed to win at Motherwell on Saturday thd writing was on the wall. You keep believing - of course you do - but it’s impossible to follow Rangers, or any kind of football for over thirty years and not develop some sort of internal anti-delusion software. You can’t help protecting yourself and, as long as it doesn’t stop you giving it everything from the stands when you’re AT the games, there’s nothing wrong with being prepared for the worst.

Except, so often, it doesn’t really help soften the eventual loss - it just stops ye making a cunt of yerself when it happens. Knowing that gut-wrenching loss is a possibility perhaps stops ye throwing a buckie bottle at a big screen or stamping on a grounded opponent and then kissing yer badge as if ye’ve done something less than shameful. Being prepared just channles the pain more healthily - it doesn’t REMOVE it. It’s preparation rather than amelioration.

Because, as always, however much you might expect a certain painful footballing scenario, the actual watching and enduring of that scenario’s deneoument kicks all the smugness right out of you. There’s always something which goes on, a detail or two in the nonetheless inevitable realisation of your prediction, which just sticks in yer craw. Something drags you into the moment and you forget you’re seeing what you expected to see. The mere sight of Rangers, on a pitch, facing an opponent, is what usually blows me out of my contextual thinking. And the sight of Rangers pounding a goal with absolutely no hope of inserting the ball into it soon has yer blood pressure popping the wax oot yer ears. The sight of us in FUCKING WHITE SOCKS is always enough to throw me off guard to begin with. The pictures of two of those players wearing those socks becoming the epitome of uselessness and laziness, respectively, is never going to go do anything other than enduce a heart-attack of rage. But THIS is how ye don’t win leagues. THIS, Eck, is what you thought you expected.

Darcheviile and Cousin have been heroes for us at various times this season. We could have achieved nothing we have without them. And Darche, I think, is just so knackered that he starts to look really slow and down on himself far too early in games now. He hadn’t played a full ninety minutes for us until the bloody UEFA CUP FINAL (!!!) so ye can’t be too hard on him for feeling shattered as soon as he loses his first through ball. But Big Daniel’s previous heroics have been 100% balanced out by the number of times in which he’s been a villain. Tonight’s complete lack of interest or effort - as per his previous appearance at Pittodrie - was inexcusable. He’s not tired but he is most assuredly unfit and bone fucking idle. These days.

We wondered why Walter wouldn’t take them off but then, as son as he did, Aberdeen scored so that’s all ye need to know. Walter knows. Walter knows what he has at his disposal. He knows what will work for all areas of the pitch, no matter what nominal position the fielded personnel may be given. Boyd and Novo came on and were even more of a disaster than Cousin and Darcheville. The game might have been lost and the league lost but, even if we had no Scottish Cup final on Saturday, even if it was the tenth minute of injury time, what Nacho did was inexcusabe, horrific, disgusting. The positives he’s worked for us this season, and so many others, means he has an overpowering level of credit in our affection bank. I forgive him instantly. I didn’t think he should remove his shirt when he walked down that trackside towards the tunnel. But I certainly didn’t think he should have been KISSING THE BLOODY BADGE or applauding the Gers fans in 100% shit-stirring animation. He lost it and he lost it badly. Dignity is all in these situations. None of this “show me a good loser…” SHITE at Rangers, thanks very much. Stuart Duff could have had his leg broken - that would have made Nacho as bad as Neil Simpson.

Never again, Nach - never again Wee Man. We love ye - I love ye - and we owe ye plenty so you are forgiven. But I won’t forget that in a hurry. There were ten minutes remaining AND we have a Cup Final on Saturday.

Carlos Cuellar was caught out for both Aberdeen’s goals? Yeah. But so what? He’s allowed an entire season of goalmouth howlers - in fact, he can score an OG per game next season and he’ll still be in credit with us. We were chasing a goal and then chasing the game. The defence wasn’t playing under normal circumstances tonight. We were chasing the SPL title in a 45-minute period. We had to slacken up at the back to help up front. Aberdeen always get steamed in and we knew what to expect - we couldn’t deal with it and that’s that.

Ferguson did, at least, decide to show up again tonight. I think he’s been shocking over the last few games but, even if it was a bit late, he was our star man this evening - with Kevin Thompson a close second. However even Barry was poor in front of goal and still insistant on showing us just how far he can throw the ball into the keeper’s hands from a shy. But - nah - sorry - this is no time to be flippant. It’s just the hurt coming out wrong. Without Barry’s drive, skill and influence for at least the first half of the season we’d have made as poor a challenge on the title as we did last season - and we’d never have got to the latter stages of the UEFA Cup.

My only real, lingering sore one in all the details about tonight is the thought that we blinked first - we conceded the first goal in the night’s two crucial games -and that this might have taken the pressure off Celtic and eventually enabled them to get their goal. It’s been a season where neither team has blinked first and that it didn’t happen until 27 minutes before the last kick of the league campaign still doesn’t make it any less galling that it was us.

We’ve been fading in the latter part of games for a while now. We have to score early, as against St Mirren or Dundee United, to have any chance of winning a match. When we got no reward for our barrage between the tenth and twentieth minutes tonight I kinda felt that was it. We’re losing a lot of second half goals nowadays and it was just a matter of time til Aberdeen netted. We’ve played about fifteen games since Aberdeen last kicked a ball in anger so we would certainly be sharper in the frst half and they would display greater stamina and freshness in the second. We therefore had to do the damage early and give ourselves something to defend. When we didn’t convert any of our first-half pressure we were always going to slacken off as we tried to pursue a goal in the second period.

Until I talk to Celtic friends tomorrow, I won’t know for sure if news of our goal sending the smellies mental at Tannadice was the deciding factor in Celtic then winning their game. Doesn’t matter if it was - it means we weren’t good enough and that’s that - but it’s something which will annoy for a few years more. Just a half-decade or so. Nothing major.

Fuck it - at least we didn’t finish 0-0. Imagine if Celtic had won the league with a 0-0 at Tannadice coz we couldn’t rustle up a goal at Pittodrie. That would have been even more galling.

No it wouldn’t.

It’s not galling at all, however it happens - it’s just a fact of football life. We lost the league - Celtic won it. That’s not galling - it’s gutting.

After Saturday there will be time and energy for in-depth reviews of the season but for now it just remains to say it was a rip-roaring roller-coaster of an SPL campaign and it’s been an honour to share it with The Teds of Bear, The RFC, The Mighty Gers. I’ve been thoroughly spellbound by this SPL campaign. Everything that happened inbetween it and certain shit which happened around it means no sane inhabitant of Beardom is anything other than 100% PROUD AS PUNCH with our team’s efforts in this competition this season. No complaints, no pity, no surrender. Just a team who didn’t quite have enough after giving so much.

We won nothing last season, finished twelve points off the pace and didn’t even make a semi, far less a cup final. One actual and one eventual First Division team put us out both domestic cup comps. This season we’ve finished three points off the pace, reached both domestic cup finals and had our greatest ever run in European competition. Even when we gubbed Chelsea in that pre-season friendly last July, as Ibrox rocked and we felt something special had begun, we didn’t imagine the improvement would be this vast, this fast. Chelsea were a penalty kick away from becoming Champions of Europe last night. Rangers are even closer to being the dominant force in Scotland once more.

It’s a work in progress troops and it’s working amazingly so far. Just imagine what it’ll be like when it’s complete.

We’ve taken every comeptition til the very last round. We’ve played 67 games this season and for most of them the notion of four trophies or excelling in four competitions has been prevalent. East Fife at Dunfermline and East Stirling at home have been the only games in which we have been able to rest up or coast. In game number 68 I want The Teddy Bears to feel the onset of the summer and the inevitable weeks of rest and relaxation - I want them to take out a wee advance on their summer hols and let it feed their legs and their spirits this Saturday. We haven’t had the major silverware but winning the last of our 35 cup finals of 2007/2008 will avoid even the tiniest microscopic hint of failure. That’s what I want for me and, most of all, for those players - because this is one of the greatest Rangers teams I’ve ever seen. Spare parts, odds’n ends and a few shiny jewells - all of them combining to be one of the most efficient, spirited and determined sides ever to wear that blue jersey.

You don’t win League titles by only “making progress” - but you can still be a fucking hero for doing so. And we can still be damn proud of our Rangers heroes. We are.

This is another slow-burner of a moment. It’s easy to be flippant, phlegmatic - even slightly upbeat about it now because we know we’ll have the rest of our lives to suffer from thinking of it. It will get more painful with every rememberance and we will remember it for EONS. But the first thing tonight makes ye want to do is get back on the bike and pedal harder. I’m gonnae make a point now of filling out my Continuous Credit Card Payment Scheme application form tonight. Want as many European, Cup and SPL home and away tickets as possible again next season. We might have a wee relapse and I want be there to help the Teds as much as they’ve helped me.

Anyway, it’s only Thursday - we must have a big match at the weekend … night night, troops. Night night on a bad night.

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Published:
05.22.08 / 10pm
Category:
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