JABBA THE AGNIVORE

A NEW HEAD FOR TRIGGER'S BRUSH

Desperate times at Ibrox. And desperate times call for desperate measures. Big clearouts were expected: Green back in, Murray out or some equally dramatic news. So what is the big answer to all Trigger's Brush FC's trouble and in-fighting? They're going to appoint Walter Smith, Auld Mr Dignity himself, as chairman! Well, that's everything sorted, then, eh?

Smith is a man that never proved himself as a manager and that found it hard to respond to criticism without going into a rage. The Trigger's Brush FC supporters are fond of telling us all that Neil Lennon has achieved nothing of note since the competition isn't really there. Smith was manager at Rangers when Celtic almost slipped into liquidation and disappeared. Where was the competition then? He also spent a fortune on players that all the other teams in Scotland found it hard to cope with; Paul Gascoigne etc. So, even when Celtic was at its lowest ebb, Smith found it difficult to win the Premier League without splashing out big bucks. Finally, McCann got Celtic back on track and Smith's team lost out to them in 1998. After that he went to Everton, where, not having money to spend and facing serious competition from other teams, he was an abject failure. When he returned to Rangers he again did what he does best: spend money.

In Scotland, criticism of Smith was rare. The media built up a myth of a great tactician, who acted with dignity at all times. This was, however, a load of Craig Whyte. His 'tactics' were derided throughout Europe, while dignity means more than wearing a tie and receiving sycophantic plaudits from the likes of Traynor. When decisions did not go his way in a match he would shout in the fourth official's face; often spraying the man with flecks of spittle in the process. Like Alex Ferguson, he seemed to think that extra time meant that the match should be played until his team got a chance to win, or, at least, equalise. He lost his temper on the few occasions when everything wasn't going his way; trying to attack Mixu Paatelainen and ending up in court for assault on another individual. Anyone that dared to venture any criticism faced the same wrath: have a look on YouTube to see how he reacted to Chic Young. Our media, of course, put all this down to 'passion' but, in reality, the man is a thug, who thinks he can act any way he likes with impunity. Just like a lot of Trigger's Brush FC supporters, then!

This is the man they all think is going to lead them to the New Jerusalem! It looks like there are more laughs on the way when Smith discovers that the age of Agnivore Journalism is over! So who is going to be the public face of TBFC? They've got Smith and Traynor: both men that cannot abide anyone disagreeing with them and that fly into temper tantrums at the drop of a hat! Green will seem like the Dalai Lama compared to those two!

The main concern of the support of Trigger's Brush FC at the moment is the projected SPL 2. If they are invited, should they join or not? The consensus seems to be that they should not. In their paranoid minds they honestly believe that Peter Lawwell is running the SPL, as well as the SFA. If that were the case then their new team would have been welcomed into the SPL last year with open arms. Lawwell is a money man and he would have been adding up the money to be lost when the Glasgow Derby disappeared, despite what he might say in public. TBFC was voted out so that our footballing authorities would not be a laughing stock, changing the rules to suit one team. That's what the Brushers don't seem to get.

The Brushers want to 'work their way back up through the leagues.' They might be in for a bit of a shock there. SPL 2 is going to consist of breakaway teams from the SFL; and where will that leave the SFL? I can see them being cast adrift so that the SPL can concentrate on its own two leagues divisions. That being the case, there will be no leagues for TBFC to work their way up through! Instead they will find themselves sitting at the top, in perpetuity, of a league that nobody cares about. And how long would that league last without the money from the SPL to prop it up?

Meanwhile, the 'independent' inquiry has cleared all those at Ibrox of being connected to Whyte and has concluded that Whyte has no claim on any of the assets. No surprises there, then! This inquiry reminds me of research that gets carried out by, and on behalf of, two bodies, CIAR (Center for Indoor Air Research) in the USA and FOREST (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) in the UK.  CIAR has come up with studies showing that second-hand smoke is not the danger that it has been made out to be, while FOREST has facts and figures to show how the livelihoods of publicans and small shop-keepers are seriously at risk because of the smoking ban. Both organisations, incidentally, are funded by the tobacco industry! The Trigger's Brush 'independent' inquiry falls under the same category: he who pays the piper calls the tune!

Loony Leggat ignores all this; he has bigger fish to fry. Today he has a go at the Herald; yesterday it was the Daily Record. Apparently the Record ran an interview with Pierre Van Hooijdonk where the headline didn't match what was in the story. Gasp! Shock! Horror! The Record made out that Big Pierre said that Rangers had cheated when, in fact, he said no such thing. To Leggat's fevered imagination this is proof positive of the Daily Record being in cahoots with Celtic. Did this clown really used to work in the newspaper industry?

Headlines are always used in the tabloids to grab attention; to make people shout hurray or get angry, anything, so long as they buy the paper. How many times have you seen a headline that leaves you baffled when you read the story? A case in point was in The Sun yesterday. The headline screamed that a young man had died from drinking three litres of Coca-Cola a day. On reading the story, however, you discover that the man had serious psychological problems and drank obsessively; water, milk, juice, anything he could lay his hands on, in the mistaken belief that he had a raging thirst. So it wasn't the Coca-Cola that killed him at all! The headline would pull in two kinds of people: those worried that their own fizzy-drink habit might be fatal and the smug, self-satisfied type that love to point out what's wrong with everybody else's life. A sigh of relief from one and an annoyed feeling of being duped by the other!

The Van Hooijdonk story is exactly the same. Some would grab the paper to see Big Pierre confirm what they suspected all along, while others would shout, 'Bastard!' and prepare to call him every name under the sun. Both sets of readers would be sadly disappointed!

Leggat's reaction to the headline is symptomatic, not just of his own demons, but of the attitude of the Brushers in general. They simply cannot get their heads around the fact that their club died while they stood and watched; it must be somebody else to blame! And, by God, do they know how to blame!

I don't know if this will have any effect on his blog, or his sanity, but I hear Leggat has taken the Pledge. He has also taken the Mr Sheen, the Harpic, the Shake 'N' Vac and the Mr Muscle for good measure!