Speirs looking for UEFA to throw the book at us

[McBoyd 355]

I warn you now, you will be annoyed after reading it. Absolute tit.

If you are one of the legions of decent, fair-minded Rangers supporters then maybe you shouldn’t read on: you will only find the subject wearying, aggravating, a further embarrassment for your club.

In fact, your only conclusion might be this: the humiliations that sections of Rangers supporters continue to heap upon their club appear to be limitless.

Villarreal, Pamplona, Manchester, now Bucharest. Why is it that, when Rangers FC and their spineless supporters’ spokesmen start groping around for excuses, the common themes of “heavy-handed policing” or “these are not real Rangers fans” are forever trotted out? Can’t any club official, or any supporters’ representative, ever come clean on this? Will someone at Rangers finally find the guts to say: “We have a major problem with our support and it is ruining this club”?

The scenes in Bucharest last Wednesday night at Rangers’ Champions League tie against Unirea were tediously familiar. But almost as bad, in the context of accountability, was Rangers’ feeble response to it. It was Manchester and the Uefa Cup final riots of 2008 all over again.

Do you remember what happened there? The big TV screens in town went blank so the Rangers fans started rioting. The very next morning, amid some of the quickest gathering of intelligence I have ever come across, Martin Bain and Rangers hosted a press conference at which it was established that this was just “a small minority” of fans who had been involved, and that the miscreants were people who “don’t normally attach themselves to our support”.

This was about 30 minutes before Sky TV began to broadcast gruesome footage of hundreds of “not real Rangers fans” drunkenly setting about anything in sight in Manchester. And it was about 10 months before “not real Rangers fans” were humiliatingly strung up like felons on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme, as the quest to track them down went on.

After the Manchester riots, just like after Bucharest four nights ago, Mr Bain and Rangers revealed an uncanny habit of placing more emphasis on defending, rather than condemning. Literally within half an hour of the aggro in Bucharest, Bain was issuing a 78-word statement, the first 21 of which said this: “Obviously, the behaviour of some of our fans in the stadium tonight is not acceptable — no one likes to see that.”

And the rest of it? Well, wasn’t it simply dreadful the way the Rangers fans were treated. I mean, come on, four turnstiles should have been operating, but instead there were only two. And all that CS gas being used on our poor fans.

Note the different tone in Bain’s statement. The fact that Rangers fans rioted “was unacceptable” and “no-one likes to see that”. But the fact the Romanian police used CS gas to subdue them? Why, this was “totally unacceptable”.

The response of Andy Kerr, of the Rangers Supporters Assembly, was even worse. Kerr actually had the temerity to state: “I wouldn’t say the Rangers fans did anything wrong. The organisation was very poor.” And on the very same night we had the official Rangers website stating that “our fans suffered heavyhanded treatment by the police.” Ah, yes, the old “heavy-handed” policing line. This is an old Rangers favourite.

There is almost an indecent haste, as there was in Bucharest, to soft-soap some of this Rangers loutishness with anodyne utterances about policing, stewarding, whatever. I do not doubt for a moment that the situation in that Steaua stadium was unsatisfactory. One supporter I spoke to who was there testified to crumbling terraces and a bottleneck at the turnstiles, where Rangers fans were attempting to gain access to the ground. But is this a licence for thuggishness? Do decent human beings, in finding themselves in such a situation, start fist-fights, throw seats around, and brawl with stewards, as Rangers fans did the other night?

Denial, denial, denial. It does Rangers FC no good. And it assumes that the rest of us are too dim-witted to recognise the cold, hard evidence that is staring us — and the governing body of European football — in the face.

In the expansive canon of excuse-making for Rangers and their fans’ antics, one of the great farragoes that is used is this “heavy-handed policing” line. In Villarreal in 2006, when the bigoted chanting by Rangers fans and the attack on the Spanish club’s team bus occurred, there was, if you were prepared to believe certain Rangers supporters groups, “heavy-handed policing” which only served to worsen the situation.

Then we moved on to Pamplona a year later where — how unusual — some Rangers fans chanted bigoted anthems and fought with stewards. The Rangers supporters bodies’ reponse? “Really, we cannot condone some of the heavy-handed policing that we saw ... “

Then we got to Manchester in May 2008. Now, before I go any further here, can I just confirm one thing? The Greater Manchester Police — have they a reputation for aggression or heavy-handedness? No, I thought not. So we had these garish TV images of hundreds of Rangers supporters fighting, rioting, overturning cars. And what was the supporters clubs’ response? “While we cannot condone some of the antics of our supporters, we really believe that heavy-handed policing ...” Yes, yes. I think we’ve heard enough.

Rangers are the sick man of British football. They cannot gouge out the bigots and the undesirables from their support. There is something of the white underclass about a section of this club’s support which only guarantees intermittent but perennial embarrassment for Ibrox.

It is as if a previously arrogant attitude around Rangers FC, now being overwhelmed by a more modern, multi-ethnic, ecumenical society around it, cannot cope with these changes and feels threatened by them.

On Thursday Uefa quite rightly stepped in, cut through all the obfuscation around the events in Bucharest, and opened yet another prosecution case against Rangers. For the long-term good of Rangers, I hope Uefa throw the book at them, and I believe they will.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle6908047.ece?

[TexasGers 96]

I have never seen a journalist who has such an obvious bias and hatred towards something than this dude

[ShootSpeedKillLight 0]

It's almost as if he's trying to make the club and our fans look bad

[ofb1988 61]

fuking hate this clown

id read hartsons bile 100 times over if it ment he didnt get a place in a paper

[Ryan_1 1,136]

If you are one of the legions of decent, fair-minded Rangers supporters then maybe you shouldn’t read on

I stopped reading.

[marinho1982 0]

It's almost as if he's trying to make the club and our fans look bad

NEVER

[campbeltownbear 16]

spiers is a fucking spute stain, what ever he wants to write he will, regardless of the truth or circumstances.

[Dietspam 733]

I agree with some of the points made by Speirs in this article.

[TheBedlam 0]

, I hope Uefa throw the book at them, and I believe they will.

You'll be up there making sure of it, won't you, Spiers. The kid everyone kept clear of, just incase the little snake stuck them in.

Fukc you, no mates. You have the cheeck to speak like you are one above given your sordid little private (not so) life.

[Chookes 21]

I agree with some of the points made by Speirs in this article.

Which ones?

[Thermopylae 15,287]

Britney will be moist at the thought of big bad Rangers getting a kicking from those nice guys at UEFA

[Emerson 2]

I stopped reading but Im guessing he did not offer a solution to the 'problem'?

[McBoyd 355]

One thing, i've read before in the book "Is it Rangers for me?" an article by him where he says he grew up a Rangers fan i swear... am i remembering right?

[DougieJ 0]

I agree with some of the points made by Speirs in this article.

Me too. Although, with the recent incidents involving West Ham and Millwall, and the Man U riot at Barnsley, to single Rangers out as the 'sick man of British football' is pushing it, to say the least.

But tonight on here I've read comments like 'Boyd should kick Naismith's arse for slagging off our support' and much criticism of Coisty for the same reason. Utter, self-defeating pish. The 'no-one like us, we don't care' attitude (borrowed from those lovely Millwall fans) is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That said, I do believe that there is an element creeping into our support who are not 'Rangers' fans so much as members of the ICF or similar dodgy groups.

[Thermopylae 15,287]

He trotted this out to try and sell his PLG book. I'm guessing someone must have pissed down his leg at a game one day when he was a kid and he's held a grudge all these years ... either that or he has issues with his father

[bluenose48 953]

I have never seen a journalist who has such an obvious bias and hatred towards something than this dude

Exactly so why do we expect anything else from this little gutter rat.

[DougieJ 0]

One thing, i've read before in the book "Is it Rangers for me?" an article by him where he says he grew up a Rangers fan i swear... am i remembering right?

I've no doubt that is the case. He's not a catholic, that's for sure. His mindset is that Rangers have a problem with bigotry, and as much as I think he overplays this on many occasions and downplays the problems of others, it's hard to argue with his general stance.

[BlueIsTheColour 35]

One thing, i've read before in the book "Is it Rangers for me?" an article by him where he says he grew up a Rangers fan i swear... am i remembering right?

I've no doubt that is the case. He's not a catholic, that's for sure. His mindset is that Rangers have a problem with bigotry, and as much as I think he overplays this on many occasions and downplays the problems of others, it's hard to argue with his general stance.

So Rangers have a problem with bigotry? Please enlighten me.

[Thermopylae 15,287]

Surely if he was completely unbiased and anti-bigotry he should be railing against the chairman of septic teaching the scottish labour party the ira song book?

[rossk 15]

He's just a prick, he obviously has a problem with Rangers and our support, why does he never criticize Celtic on their IRA chants? How he's won the Scottish Sports Journalist off the year 4 times is beyond me, his book was also about Rangers in a negative way, anyone know anymore about him? Where his allegiance lies?

[minstral 5,375]

Would love to bump into this wanker some day, i really do hate this shitbag.

[rossk 15]

Would love to bump into this wanker some day, i really do hate this shitbag.

Where'd you're avatar and sig go minstral?

[cooper1989 0]

I'll repeat what I posted on another thread. The whole concept is wrong... RANGERS do not have any problems. Some alleged supporters have problems and should be locked up.

The Rangers are not a police force for chrissakes. Throwing the 'book' at us - or other clubs is a joke of epic proportions -- because some arseholes decide to go act in a wholly inappropriate manner.

Just like the tim that raced onto the pitch in that Uefa Cup match at IBROX and tried to handcuff himself to the goalpost. Who gets fined? Us. Where is the logic in that?

Do Rangers openly invite 'thugs' to matches in order to cause trouble? It's time someone took on UEFA/FIFA for this garbage tbh. 'We' just accept that this is a Rangers problem. It is not.

[theweebluenose 4,335]

One thing, i've read before in the book "Is it Rangers for me?" an article by him where he says he grew up a Rangers fan i swear... am i remembering right?

I've no doubt that is the case. He's not a catholic, that's for sure. His mindset is that Rangers have a problem with bigotry, and as much as I think he overplays this on many occasions and downplays the problems of others, it's hard to argue with his general stance.

If you read the VB article in Number One Fanzine you would see how rabid this man about Rangers and why. I will try and find it because it was online at one point however im a wee bit tipsy atm.

[Overanout 0]

I hope Uefa throw the book at them

I hope you die