THE FILTH AND THE FURY

Yesterday I had the misfortune to read the most disgusting, insidious piece of so-called sports journalism ever in the Daily Record. Even Jabba at his most bigoted never wrote anything as bad as this. I'm referring, of course, to Gary Ralston's article on Celtic offering to share the 1914/15 league title with Hearts. It would be the height of condescension and patronisation for Celtic to do such a thing and would be an insult to all the football players that gave their lives in WWI. It implies that morally Hearts should have won that league; but the implications go much deeper than that.

First of all, Ralston is implying that the only reason Celtic won that season was because Hearts players joined up to fight in the Great War. Players from all teams did the same thing; Hearts was not the only team in Britain to lose players and it's a complete fabrication and injustice to make out that it was. I get the impression, though, that this is a dig at Celtic, rather than any kind of sympathy for Hearts. It's to give The Peeppul another excuse to shout 'tainted titles' and to deflect from their dead team's cheating.

Of course, one or two contributors to the forum brought up something that I've seen before: if Celtic can include titles won during WWI, then surely Rangers should have been allowed to count titles won during WWII? This is no doubt another bone of contention that Ralston wanted to stir up. It's entirely probable that Celtic will go on to surpass Rangers' record of 54 titles and this has got the agnivores worried. What better way to offset this than by adding another few to Rangers' tally? After all, Ralston makes it clear that Celtic only won during WWI by default so it's churlish, surely, to deny these war-time titles to the dead club!

The situation during WWII, however, was entirely different. Unlike in the First World War, the league system was abandoned and the teams got together to form temporary leagues. These are the ones that Rangers won and can hardly be counted as proper league titles. If anything, Rangers should have been ashamed that they took advantage of the war to actually build a team that could dominate the post-war years. It's common knowledge that Struth got most of his first team jobs in the shipyards so that they could still play; this is hardly something to brag about and it shows what a damned cheek Ralston has for implying anything untoward about Celtic's championship win in 1915.

A not so well-known fact about football during the Second World War is that Rangers actually fielded TWO teams in two separate leagues. Bob Crampsey described this as being "to their eternal credit" (Herald, 4-12-01) since "this alone made the North Eastern League possible and provided a platform for such as Aberdeen, Dundee United, Raith Rovers, East Fife, and Dunfermline for the rest of the war." On the contrary, I think it is to their eternal shame that, while other clubs struggled to put one team together, Struth was able to run two. It meant that Rangers was able to enjoy two league titles in one season, 1941/42, winning the Southern League and the North Eastern League! Scottish teams like Celtic, Hearts and Aberdeen were running at a loss during this period; I wonder if the same can be said about Rangers!

If Ralston was actually serious about his proposal then he should have contacted Celtic privately, instead of broadcasting it in a newspaper. As it is the author of 'The Gallant Pioneers' has just come across as a petty-minded agnivore, desperate to besmirch the name of Celtic because his zombie team looks like it might be heading back to the grave where it belongs.

I had to laugh at McMurdo, comparing the signing of Boyd and Miller, which sounds like an old music-hall act, to the return of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock in the Star Trek movies! No, really! This is honestly what he's saying. He says that Kirk and Spock were older in the movies but still able to vanquish aliens that challenged the Federation.

To be honest I'd have thought The Peeppul wouldn't have been too enamoured with Star Trek, which promoted tolerance and respect among different peoples; it had the first ever interracial kiss on US television. Surely that's not in the mindset of The Peeppul at all? I'd have thought they'd be more at home rooting for the Klingons: war-mongering, imperialist thugs with a superiority complex. Come to think of it, I wonder if Gene Roddenberry ever attended a Rangers match? He must have got the idea for the Klingons somewhere! As for Spock ever playing for Rangers, somehow I don't think so. The first time he got hit in the face with the ball and everybody caught sight of his green blood he'd have been out the door before you could say 'Illogical'. Still, Dr McCoy could put in an appearance, take a quick look at what passes for Rangers and say, "It's worse than that - they're dead, Jim!"

Boyd himself is vowing to score as many goals as he used to for the old club. It's entirely possible that he might well do. Bisto FC have been the recipients of the same sort of favours that Rangers used to get, so there should be plenty of penalties available for Boyd to build up the myth again of him being a 'goal-scoring machine'. And many a goalkeeper had to face two sets of studs sliding towards him, with the full weight of Boyd's bulk behind them, leaving him with the choice of either conceding a goal or having to have reconstructive facial surgery. The survival instinct kicked in every time and Boyd would waddle off to celebrate instead of being sent off for dangerous play. I fully expect more of the same.

The sheer desperation of the Bettertogetherers is evident in the Armed Forces Day being held at Stirling. Anybody that believes this has nothing to do with trying to overshadow the Bannockburn anniversary commemorations needs their head examined. What, precisely, does Stirling have to do with the British armed forces? I don't know of any barracks anywhere near and the castle, as far as I know, has never served as an army base. If you take Edinburgh, with the castle and the various barracks, past and present, in and around the city as well as the docks at Leith and the old airforce base at Turnhouse, the links with the armed forces is glaringly obvious. To my mind it's an absolute disgrace that this jingo-fest was allowed to even take place in Scotland on the same weekend as the Bannockburn commemorations, never mind a couple of miles along the road in Stirling.

A group of intrepid campaigners climbed the Finnieston Crane in Glasgow to display a banner saying, 'Resist Militarism.' This is reported in the Daily Record and, of course, brings the usual eat-the-breids out with the expected comments. "Don't they realize they can only protest without fear of being shot because of the freedom Soldiers have faught and died for?" (The atrocious spelling is his, by the way.) Right, so let's get this straight: all those men died so we can have the freedom to protest but we're not supposed to protest because those men died. So, really, they died for bugger all! I despair, I really do. I'd blame the schools if it wasn't for the fact that I worked in quite a few of them!

Meanwhile asbestos cement has been found near the Athlete's Village for the Commonwealth Games. It looks like it's been flytipped there. There's no danger, apparently, for the athletes but surely it would be better not to take any chances. As a precaution, the whole of the Games should be moved away from the East End of Glasgow, just in case there's any risk of asbestos fibres floating around. Celtic Park must now be considered a hazardous area and another venue will need to be found. Might I suggest Ibrox? Oh, wait...

Lastly, the Suarez incident shows how far football has fallen in these modern times. You'd never have got the Lisbon Lions carrying on like that - especially since all their teeth were in Ronnie Simpson's bunnet!

An opinion on Ralston's article:

"Wot a fucking liberty!"

"Ah, go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on go on...

 

 

...buy the history!"

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