Another concern for most people is when there are secret investors in a company. Usually the reason for this secrecy is that the investors are mixed up with organised crime or other undesirables. A football team is unlike other companies; not only do you hand over your money but, in most cases, you are handing over your heart as well. All the more reason, then, why you would want to know who is actually running the show.
Which is the case just now at Bisto FC. Many want to know who the shady figures are behind Blue Pitch and Margarita Holdings. They could be gangsters (ahem!), crooks from the Far East, terrorists or even, God forbid, the Vatican Bank or Dermot Desmond! Bill McMurdo, however, feels that nobody has any right to know and should just doff their caps and hand over their season-book money no questions asked. It's quite a strange stance to take; then again, maybe not.
No matter what you think of Presbyterians and some of the bigotry they've been involved in in the past, not just in Scotland but, most notably, in South Africa, the fact is that they have had a major effect on democracy. They might have excluded others but the rank-and-file members of these churches had a major say, and especially a vote, in how their churches were run at a time when the vast majority of them had no voice in local and national politics. No matter how you feel about the doctrine of these churches it would be churlish to deny the impact they have had on our democratic system. It is no accident that Scotland was a major player in the foundation of the Co-operative Society and the Labour Party. The likes of the Covenanters ensured that radicalism could take root easily in Scotland.
The Orange Order, on the other hand, was always a major force for preserving the status-quo. Throughout the Nineteenth Century Orangemen fought against any extension of the franchise, even when they themselves would get the vote. So there is a double influence in Scottish Protestantism: the radicalism and democracy of the Church of Scotland and the forelock-tugging, non-questioning respect for authority of the Orange Order. It seems that McMurdo and his disciples fit rigidly into the latter camp. Freedom to demand answers to major questions appears not to exist in McMurdo's vocabulary.
Conversely, he then castigates Glasgow City Council in his next blog for not allowing Celtic and Rangers (sic) tops to be worn when pupils are allowed to wear football tops for Sport Relief Day. What a disgrace, he says. He is, of course, being completely disingenuous. I worked at schools in Glasgow, both RC and ND and have seen first-hand the problems that can be caused when free rein is given. At one particular ND school there was a sort of culture of bigotry, which even extended to some of the staff. Kids paraded around in Rangers tops, Rangers earrings and anything else with Rangers on it. Of course one boy turned up with a Celtic jacket and received a severe beating for his trouble. The headteacher just gave the ones that did the beating a severe telling-off and it was business as usual. I have to say I never saw this at any other school; mainly because the wearing of football-related items was banned.
I have worked in schools in three different authorities and the rules are the same in them all: no football tops. To McMurdo's disciples, however, it is proof of how much Glasgow City Council hates Rangers (sic) and Celtic tops were only banned to try to make it look as if they were being fair! One of these psychos even tells about how he demanded that his child be allowed to wear a Rangers top at a 'Protestant' school. I'm a believer in doing away with denominational schools but not at the moment; not when there are folk like that ready to claim that only 'Protestant' schools are left!
Amazingly, McMurdo says the following:
"This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War 1 where many lost their lives that we could be free. We look to maintain freedoms won by those who gave their lives in our nation’s past.
How sad that for wee kids in 2014 Glasgow, wearing your favourite team’s strip is not one of them…"
I think I've mentioned before that more than half of the men in the armed services in WWI were not eligible to vote; so what 'freedoms' were they fighting for? And it's a bit rich McMurdo banging on about freedom when he and his chums are all members of an organisation that has fought against freedom for centuries! If these folk are, indeed, Protestants, as they claim, perhaps they should start paying attention to what their church says instead of a gang of bigots in bowler hats!
The Daily Record had a story yesterday saying how 'disappointed' Neil Lennon is about how no clubs in England have been trying to tempt him south. He does not, in fact, say this but that doesn't stop the Bisto Kids infesting the page with their usual bile. The main reason, I would suspect, why Lennon hasn't been approached by any clubs in England is that they're too scared of what might turn up in the post were they to employ him. The postmen's union has probably made its feeling known on this matter as well!
Way off topic here, but there was a story in the DR about a couple caught having sex in a lift on CCTV. It brings to mind the brother and sister in Motherwell; remember them? Sorry for bringing back that horror! After seeing the picture of the latest couple, what occurred to me was: why is it always the ugly ones?
And finally, BOOKS! I'll say no more.
The latest shareholders meeting of Margarita Holdings
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