EWE-SED AND ABUSED (Sheep … 1 GERS … 1, PART 2)

It wasn’t a nazi salute. Honest. It wasn’t a Sieg Heil - you must believe me. I was simply maintaining a stiff-armed point at the far side linesman, Mr Billy Baxter. As soon as I see a Rangers player in such space, with such a clear chance to score what would be a goal of such massively enjoyable proportions - before I finally drop my veneer of responsible middle-aged manhood behaving itself impreccably amid the immature tauntings and gesticulations in the stand at a professional football match and throw myself into the arms of stewards and police as I wantonly goad rival fans to within an inch of their patience, I like to ensure, beyond all reasonable doubt, that I’m on a sound factual footing. Best ensure it really IS a goal before ye go mental.

I knew it was late enough in the game for any Rangers goal at this stage to be a match-winner. I knew there’d be a mass exodus of the loud-mouthed Aberdonian twats a soon as the ball hit their net and I knew, being at the very end seat of row P in section T, being on the very border of the police demarcation between home fans and visiting huns, and being six foot two and twenty one stone - I knew the sheep would be unable to depart their side of the pen without my oleagenous glee being first shoved in their faces. I knew I’d be unable to contain my viciously cruel joy if we won this one with the last kick of the game.

With everything that’d happened over the last twenty five years and ninety minutes of trips to this pseudo-Highland, faux-metropolitan, pastiche-beach resort shitehole, I KNEW I’d be up at that fence for smug gloating of even more annoying proportions than Tony Blair at the Olympic cycling events. The peerless Jonathan Meades brought us his most recent docu-tainment a few months back, on BBC4 - it was a couple of brilliant programmes enitled Magnetic North, all about the joys of Northern Europe. He focussed on Sturm und Drang, the Hanseatic League, the enlightement and he dispelled all the myths about Southern superiority in terms of climate, architecture and general beauty. Meades went to Northern France, to Holland, Belgium, Lubeck in Germany, Finland, and even the Baltic states. He proved through these visits that The North was a great place, a superior place - and I agreed with him. He didn’t at any point, mention Aberdeen. And I agreed with him.

I like my beaches to offer a view of an island or offer the hope of Ireland and America beyond the horizon. At Aberdeen the beach shows you the end of the world - you know you will drop off that horizon, long before Iceland becomes a reality. You park you car on the first circle of hell., you can drop down onto a landscaped second circle of hell with its organic concrete shelters rising ominously out the grass banking to consume your hope whole and force you down more concrete steps onto the segmented patches of joy-shorn sand where your face will be relieved of its flesh by what locals term “a refreshing breeze”. Fit. Fucking. Like.

I like my grassy seaside expanses dotted with surfing emporiums and amusement arcades to offer hiding places from the 9-5 grind - not hiding places for scores of artificial teuchters who will then dash across said seaside stretches to kick fuck oot strays from the Ibrox herd in some cowardly revenge attack for a punch landed on their fisherman grandpa by a Govan riveter in 1964.

So. I hate Aberdeen. So. I wanted to shove any Rangers winner down the throats of those locals I had consciously refused to even LOOK at for the preceeding 90 minutes (INCLUDING half-time - all will be explained), even when we scored in the first half. I roared Davie Weir’s goal as animatedly as possible but I deliberately mainatined eye contact with the pitch and the concrete below my feet and the Bears to my right throughout. I knew this was far from the decisive moment in the game. I wasn’t gonnae play my hand early. I wouldn’t offer them anything until the point of no return (every year that 5-goal Pittodrie win by Advocaat’s Rangers gets sweeter and sweeter. Why did we HAVE to wear an away strip that day and why did I not have a ticket right next to the locals that day??!!). I live to taunt Aberdeen fans close up. When ye want to do something so bad, so badly, you put all the checks in place first. Like handing the car keys to the barman to put in the safe before ye’ve even said “four pints of Stella, two triple Black Labels and whatever my lawyer’s having”, when you know you’re on the cusp of such reason-shredding celebration or utterly explosive indulgence, your last grain of sense and experience tells you to make one last recce of all the likely pitfalls and trap doors.

So, as soon as Pedro found DaMarcus in such space, in such proximity to the net, my eyes instinctively flicked over to the linesman.

Before Beasley even hit the thing I saw that flag go up and I knew what was about to happen both on the pitch and off. I pointed for all I was worth. My eyes went to the daeglo prat on the Main Stand side, his arm went bolt upright with a vertical flag on top - my arm went straight out, horizontal with a warning on the end. I was letting as many of my less-observant, less-pessimistic Bluenoses know that we shouldn’t be cheering as DaMarcus slapped the red-and-white-shite ball low under Jamie Langfield and into the Paddock End net. I didn’t want any Rangers fan being under the misapprehension for a second longer than he/she should be, that this “goal” would be allowed. Not just to protect their emotions from the sick surge of false hope but also to protect their flesh-burning schadenfreude from being redoubled and poured straight back all over them with added sheepdip. I didn’t want any ewe-shagging bastard on the other side of that fence to my immediate left, to enjoy one second of gloating at the expense of an over-eager Bear.

Didn’t happen. My arm went mostly unnoticed. Most Bears went off their tits with joy, most of the ones in a vertical line with me went straight over to that fence, and - as has consistently happened since 1985 - the Aberdonian numbskulls took more cheer from a Rangers dissapointment than an Aberdeen victory. They have to - the former phenomenon has been slighltly more prevalent than the latter for the last 23 years. The fact that our dissapointments come in the form of occassionaly finishing second in competitions rather than first and their “victories” are in avoiding relegation and being knocked out of cup competitions by someone in the same division, has done much to shape the malignant core of a day in the granite shitty.

We should have blown them away in the first half on Saturday. We had such posession and movement that Davie Weir’s headed opener should have been just that - an opener. For us. You weren’t worrying about where the supply was coming from, you were simply wondering how it would end, not when it would. It was all-out attack against permanent defence. Mendes was quarter-back, Steve Davis was tight end and both Papac and Broadfoot were making great yardage as running backs. Kenny Miller - scorer for both Rangers and Celtic at Pittodrie this century - was moved to wide receiver with minimal effect and Nacho and Boydy couldn’t get themselves in the end zone often enough but - fuck me - The Bears mounted drive after drive in the first two quarters. Kevin Thomson was Lawrence Taylor-esque in the number of sacks he imparted on nascent Aberdeen counters. We just couldn’t get that touchdown against them oilers.

And, with so many new players, each with a bigger game on their mind, facing an Aberdeen team playing their only cup final of the season, the fragility of the scoreline was soon exacerbated by the fragility common to any new line-up. Aberdeen scored with their only real attack of the first half, perhaps one third of their entire threat in the game as a whole. This is embarrassing for Rangers. We couldn’t see out our 1-0 lead against Kaunus ’til half-time and it ended in disaster. Here, further north, we again lost a stupid equaliser on the brink of the break - the two points dropped were nowhere near a calamity but every bit as silly as our failings in Lithuania. For the second half Aberdeen did little more than run about being a bit aggressive. We should SOOOO be able to deal with that, to play round it or, preferably, GO RIGHT FUCKING THROUGH IT. True - the goal that never was would have helped on the points front but ye should never have to rely on an official getting it right to give ye a win at Aberdeen, or ANYWHERE in the SPL. For Rangers, the message about Parkhead is clear: We need to find a greater degree of on-field cohesion.

And we have eight days in which to do it.

No need for panic though. Pittodrie is tough as warm-ups go. We didn’t lose and we had much to be optimistic about. We must simply hope that Walter and Ally can help the new boys digest what went wrong and why and didactically turn next Sunday into a positive reaction. Boyd looks as slow as a week in Union Street, Kenny Miller remains as much a conundrum on the field as he is off it (His substitution: “aye - get aff ya dirty Celtic bastard” versus “well done The Rangers player” - lot of internal arguments on Saturday. Saw a few fall-outs among the Bears) but Kirk Broadfoot and Sash Papac seem to get better all the time, and Allan McGregor is back to a best I never thought he’d recapture. I felt in my gut last season was a one-off for our new Number One. But my guts are reliable for just one thing - expanding. My “instinct” on McGregor shows how much I know.

Talking of which - now click on PART 3, to the left on the home page: