THE FORGOTTEN THUGS

Living near Edinburgh, and once living in Edinburgh, there were times when it was best to avoid a lot of the pubs, especially in the New Town. Rose Street especially would be full of football fans causing absolute mayhem. Bottles would be thrown, people would be jostled about, tripped up or have beer thrown over them. The pubs were filled to bursting and the excess customers spilled out onto the street, bringing their pints with them and often throwing the empty glasses wherever they liked. Inside the pub wasn't much better, with glasses being chucked about, men vomiting where they stood and other customers would be hassled relentlessly, especially young women, who were quite frequently sexually molested. The bar staff weren't interested and if you dared complain, then you were the one that was the troublemaker. The police were nowhere to be seen, even though, as the evening progressed, fights would break out. These fans, you see, weren't your common-or-garden football fans; these were rugby football fans!

It's a thing that everybody pretends doesn't happen. They all go to Murrayfield peaceably enough, though you get the odd bit of hooliganism from them on the way in and on the way out. It's in and around the pubs that the 'hijinks' start. Some of the things I've seen and heard about are shocking; homeless people being beaten up and pissed on, restaurants being trashed and the odd gang rape. It's all just 'letting off steam' and 'boys being boys', though; even a normally staunch feminist told me that when a woman in Leith was raped by ten of these 'boys' that it must have been her own fault, she was a willing participant and then cried 'rape' afterwards. As I say, the police are never around and, essentially, these gangs of thugs are allowed to do whatever they like.

There's no denying that there's a hooligan and thuggish element attached to association football but there's always an army of policemen around to make sure no real trouble kicks off. If it does, the crushers are ready to get stuck in with the various weapons they carry as a matter of course. Make no mistake, this is a class thing. Those rugger buggers that cause all the bother in Edinburgh probably have nothing to worry about even in the unlikely event that they were to be arrested. There's every chance when they go to court that Daddy will be sitting on the bench, or maybe the judge was nominated for the New Club or the local golf club by the accused's father. These rugby hooligans are the ones that will probably be running the country in a few years' time, so everybody treads warily. Your average football supporter, however, is normally working-class, no matter how good a job he has, so he'll find that the book is thrown at him.

Yes, you get scandalous decisions, like the guy that attacked Neil Lennon being acquitted or the lenient sentences handed down to the ones that tried to kill Lennon with home-made bombs. As I've said before on here, this is to keep The Peeppul onside, making them think that they are actually a part of the Establishment, instead of being used by it. When push comes to shove, a working-class Hun will be far more likely to be banged up in the chokey than some toffee-nosed, rugby-supporting, ex public schoolboy, no matter what his religion might be. This is class war, pure and simple, and another reason to fight for independence so that we can elect the people that we want to govern us.

And now we're hearing noises about this 'face-recognition' technology. Somehow I doubt it will happen as there are already plenty of ways to identify troublemakers, which, scandalously, aren't used, especially when The Peeppul are involved. Even raising the prospect of using this technology, though, shows that the assumption is that football supporters are guilty until proven innocent. Besides, no matter how foolproof this technology is meant to be, we all know that it'll break down if it's ever employed at Ibrox!

Meanwhile, some of our agnivores aren't overly happy about Celtic lending Anthony Stokes to Hibs. I mean...how dare they! If Hibs actually win the league we'll never hear the end of it. It's as if they consider this to be cheating, somehow, denying Sevco an easy run. Strangely, though, nobody's cheating Hibs and Falkirk when 'Warbs' is getting loans from Spurs etc  There's less than a week left of the transfer window; isn't there anybody we can loan out to Falkirk as well?

Keith Jackson was in the DR yesterday, gently trying to cajole Honest Dave into coming up with the readies to sign O'Halloran. He uses a quote from Oscar Wilde in some vain attempt to convince us that he's got a brain of his own but, really, we get the same, old Jabba spin. Apparently, Leeds 'swooped in' to 'steal' Diagouraga from under Warbs's nose. In reality, Sevco got nowhere near signing Diagouraga and Leeds was the only club to approach Brentford with a genuine offer. Jabba, sorry, I mean Jackson, doesn't want to have to back-pedal on his nonsensical 'exclusive' in claiming that Sevco had got their man; much easier to make up a story about Sevco being 'gazumped'. There's also the embarrassment of the claim that both Diagouraga and O'Halloran were on their way.

There's a bit of chiding for King as Jackson reminds us of how Honest Dave promised a £30m warchest and banged on about 'front-loading' most of this to ensure that Sevco won the Championship this season. Just in case Level 5 accuse him of not being with the plan, however, Jackson also tells us how King has turned everything round at Ibrox, faced down Ashley and ploughed £7m of his own money into Sevco. Er...wait, back up a minute there. King's put £7m into Sevco? How come we haven't heard that one before? Of course, this is all to do with Jackson's previous claims on King's behalf. Remember the shite about how signing these two players would 'prove' that King and Co. really had gazillions to plough into the club? He's obviously realised, or, rather, Level 5 has realised, as I did, that not signing these players all but proves that King and his cronies are skint. Hence the story about Honest Dave already having thrown a fortune of his own cash into Sevco. Jackson and his puppet masters are so easy to read. Perhaps that's what King meant when he promised to bring transparency to Sevco!

Meanwhile, Rangers (sic) blogger, Jonathan McFarlane, goes down exactly the same route, throwing in a few, Jabba-esque insults at the non-believers for good measure. This sounds as if it came straight from Traynor's poison pen:

"Propelled forward by a climate of suspicion that has been shaped by the demented ramblings of a few discredited basement dwellers, the general atmosphere in Scotland towards King has created a PR landscape that is proving to be incredibly difficult to navigate."

Doesn't this clown actually read the paper he supposedly writes for? There's barely a word said against King in the Record; in fact, there's barely a word said against him in any of our media, which all follow the Level 5 spin. It's only us 'basement dwellers' that find it difficult to believe that The Peeppul and their cheerleaders in the media trust completely a convicted criminal. As for us 'lionising' Ashley, I'd hardly call cheering from the sidelines, as he takes on King in an ongoing, internecine war, lionising the man. Perhaps Mr. Traynor...er...Mr. McFarlane should try to remember that it wasn't that long ago that The Peeppul were 'lionising' Ashley and telling us all how they could 'smell the fear' when the five duds arrived from NUFC!

The best bit from the 'Rangers (sic) blogger', however, is this:

"You simply cannot however say that these players should have been signed whatever the cost simply because the manager wants them. That’s the mentality that got us in trouble in previous eras.
Spending what we can afford, and buying players for prices that suit the club, adding value, is what it’s all about. It’s incredible to hear people who were happy to criticise the profligacy of previous regimes and then throw grenades at this one for living within its means."

Living within its means? The club's running at a loss and yet has the second-highest wage bill in Scottish football. It's limping from month to month on loans and, if it hadn't already been removed, it would be booted off the Stock Exchange for trading while insolvent. That's the thing about this desperate Level 5 stuff; for spin to be effective it should at least be believable. Then again, it's aimed at The Peeppul...

I haven't received any kind of reply from the DR web editor but I did notice that there was a toning-down of the posts in the comments section; for a day. There hasn't been so much of the child abuse stuff but some of the posts are absolutely disgusting nonetheless. I threatened to contact the police in my e-mail but I imagine that would be a waste of time. Instead, I'm building up a small collection of some of the worst posts to send to my MSP, Colin Beattie. I'll be contacting him by the end of this week so I'll let you know how I get on.

Sevco accounts, as accepted by Sheriff Ian Miller.