I’m
not sure if you can hear me over the yelps of delight at the melt-down
of Glasgow Rangers Football Club,
but I’m sorry to see it happen. I SAID I'M SORRY TO SEE IT HAPPEN....Not because I’m very good at singing “The Billy Boys”
or that it'll feel kind of pointless to spew sectarian venom or worse
towards Neil Lennon. I’m sorry because it takes two to tango.
When
I was a youngster the big Derry boxer was Billy Spider Kelly. Spider didn’t really pack much of a
punch but he was a tremendous defensive fighter. His opponents kept trying to
nail him but Spider would duck and weave and bob, making them punch air again and
again. I remember reading an
article at the time which explained that, besides not scoring points by missing
him, his opponents were doing something very tiring: they were swinging and missing, swinging and missing. Do that for long enough and
you become exhausted.
Which
brings us to Rangers FC. If
they drop out of the Scottish league or stop being the other half of the
stupidly-named Old Firm, then
Celtic FC have a problem - they'll be punching football air. What
game is going to pack the ground if Rangers aren’t there. St Mirren? Hibs?
Celtic could find themselves with no one to test their mettle against, and that
inevitably will lead to a weakened club and lowered standards.
A
while back there was talk of Celtic and maybe Rangers playing in the Championship south of the border. If the talk had become reality, it
would have been good news for Celtic and Rangers and bad news for Scottish
football. The teams left north of the border would have been without the two
teams guaranteed to test their mettle.
So the implosion of Rangers leaves Celtic in something of a quandary. If
Celtic stay in Scottish football, they’ll inevitably become a less attractive
team to follow, without the shadow of Rangers to add edge and bite to their game. If Celtic do link up with a
league south of the border, it might be good for Celtic but Scottish football games, without either Celtic or Rangers, will become about as attractive as IFA or FAI games. And we all know how
capacity-crowd pleasurable they are.
Some good points, Jude. But I don't agree with all of that. See this in The Guardian also:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/14/rangers-administration-scottish-football?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Ffootball%2Frss+%28Football%29
A common myth Jude supported by the laptop loyal, that Celtic, or by that matter any of the other teams in Scotland need Rangers.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1980s when Rangers were a poor team with poor attendances, Dundee united were playing in the UEFA cup final and Aberdeen were winning the European cup winners cup.
Oh no, not you Jude? I thought you of all would see through the ever growing clammer to ensure the establishment team 'Rangers' survive.
ReplyDeleteI have been a Celtic fan for over forty years and yes I love to beat 'them' but I don't need them, I don't need to hear them singing racist and sectarian bile and using child abuse as 'banter' Celtic is not defined by Rangers, we stand on our own two feet.
Why are you so sure that scottish football would be diminished without that club? would it? How do we know?, we don't.
We do know that in times gone by when Rangers were not so strong that other teams, as mentioned previously, prospered.
Rangers cheated their way to winning trophies by avoiding paying millions in taxes, there should be no difference made in the treatment of them or any other business that deliberately defraud the public purse. I'll shed no tears if they are liquidated, hell mend them.
Jude, do me a favour and read the reactions to the article linked here and I think you'll get ma drift.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/council-and-government-ready-to-aid-rangers-as-ex-mp-demands-probe-so-how-can-we-help-1.1148189