Time for spine and conscience to collapse King's house of cards

I am not going to start by sympathising with outgoing Scottish Football Association director, Gary Hughes, even though I don't believe that he did anything wrong by calling Rangers fans "the great unwashed" in 2006 - long before he was employed by the SFA.

What he said in that interview, so conveniently uncovered by The Rangers, (the original Rangers having been put into liquidation six years after the quote), was a silly joke. It was no more or less offensive than being called a "soap-dodging Weegie" by a fan one of the Edinburgh clubs but that's beside the point.

Hughes has gone, even though there was nothing illegal or motivated by religious bigotry or any other kind of hate speech.

But I won't weep for him.

Nor do I feel the need to rally to the side of Murdoch McLennan after the most contrived and absurd attacks on him having connections to companies involving Dermot Desmond and Denis O'Brien.

Both men will survive this and are presumably comfortably off. They have also been part of an institution noted for its incompetence on its better days and corruption on its worst.

You might argue that men of their business pedigree are needed to reform the SFA but I disagree. It is beyond redemption and only disbandment and a new organisation would have any hope of seeing the Scottish game being properly governed.

But what we should all be concerned about is the increasingly malign influence over the Scottish game of the convicted criminal, Dave King.

King has a grasp on truth, integrity and basic morality befitting a bona fide psychopath.

It is now so well known that a South African judge described him in court as a "glib and shameless liar" as to seem a tired cliché when repeated.

It is old news that he was a director of Rangers as the club ran a scheme of industrial-scale cheating and tax evasion, despite which he was considered a "fit and proper person" to be a director of a new club for which the SFA broke its own rules as well as the fundamental principles of good governance by allowing it to take a place in the Scottish Football League, for which it did not meet the basic criteria.

He sabotaged his own new club in order to pressure Mike Ashley into dumping it in the ditch, despite Ashley (no angel, by any means) being far better qualified to create a south Glasgow powerhouse.

He spun another intricate web of lies in order to take control of The Rangers acting in concert with two other parties to try to duck below company law.

And, of course, the takeover panel laughed him out of court when he claimed that nobody would sell their shares to him at the price dictated but, nevertheless, he would not make any offer as he lacked the funds to do so but, if so ordered, would buy the shares with the money that he claimed not to have.

As someone reluctant to make light of mental health issues, I would normally hesitate to make crude remarks about the psychological state of someone based purely on evidence prevented in the media but King's behaviour appears to be consistent with a serious personality disorder (which is not typically considered to be a mental health issue in the same way as the afflictions that many people suffer from through no fault of their own).

He self-evidently feels no embarrassment about telling the most absurd lies, which, at times it is difficult to believe that anyone - even the most rabid of the great unwashed - could possibly believe.

And he is not simply self-interested but more than willing to destroy anything that gets in his way, including the club that he is using for his own gain, or the game that sustains it.

Increasingly, he comes across as a man who would dynamite his own house rather than have the bank repossess it, regardless of the risks to the neighbours and any random passersby.

And yet he gets support in the media of the kind that goes beyond footballing bias or cultural affinity.

Over the last week, we have seen this from both ends of the Scottish journalistic spectrum.

At the bottom-feeder level is that international class buffoon, Keith Jackson.

Like King, Jackson apparently experiences neither embarrassment nor shame when shown to be glaringly wrong and, like King, he regularly trades in obvious falsehoods without discomfort.

In his latest piece on the supposed conflict of interest over McLennan, Jackson declares himself a dab hand at writing about company law.

This is from a man who once, despite having the benefit of the Internet, failed to correctly spell the word, "chateaubriand", on three consecutive occasions, as he attempted to boast to Twitter about how he was living the high life.

Graham Spiers is notionally a superior type of writer to Jackson, though he has rarely broken a story.

Spiers is of above average intelligence for a Scottish football writer, which is a compliment of a similar level to saying that Kris Boyd is of above average fitness for a man in his mid-thirties.

But Spiers is not as clever as he would like to think and he shares the same failing as Jackson in that he clearly believes that the public are too stupid to know when he is spinning them a line, even when he knows it very well, himself.

Spiers decided to tire us all by giving credence to King's most risible assertions that there is an appearance of something untoward in the McLennan situation, swatting aside every question about people who were clearly conflicted in their work with the SFA.

In doing so, these two have created a false sense in the media that legitimate questions are being asked, which has given some semblance of media credence to King's latest attempt to slip the noose of the Notice of Complaint raised in relation to Rangers securing a licence to play in European competitions through submitting false information.

The Hughes case is just one that points to ample evidence that the current modus operandi of The Rangers is to set the dogs on anyone with the slightest potential influence over events pertaining to that aberration of a club.

This follows on from a tradition once boasted of by their former PR grime-lord, Jack Irvine, whose emails - exposed by Charlotte Fakes (almost certainly Dave King) boasted of being able to coerce journalists because he knew "all their dirty little secrets".

I would not expect Spiers to have the kind of dark secrets that many Scottish football writers accrue on every second trip abroad, though an uncharacteristic moment of weakness is always possible.

In the case of Jackson, I would expect that his bar is set so low as to be difficult to embarrass by any heterosexual indiscretion.

King may well have dug some dirt on these two as he has clearly had people rooting into the backgrounds of others or he may be offering them different ways to get back into the fold (though despite his Ibrox bans, it's not clear that Jackson was ever really out of it).

But, whether through carrot or stick, King is clearly able to persuade high-profile members of the Scottish football media to write whatever he wants.

In doing so, he is further undermining the already crumbling foundations of a game that is thoroughly rotten.

Far from humouring his destructive bent, the media should be honouring their pledge to report the truth without fear or favour, and exposing King for the cynical charlatan that he is.

We await some decent members of the Scottish media developing both the spine and conscience to do what they surely know they should and bring down the  King house of cards.

The Great Steven Gerrard Swindle? Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Reality

I have been wrong before but this move just doesn't add up

I do not like The Rangers Football Club. I don't dislike them with the same intensity that I did Rangers and I got a great sense of closure when Rangers were liquidated.

But any club emulating what I have always believed to have been a uniquely objectionable sporting institution is worthy of similar derision, though the stakes are less high for me, simply because we won.

Nonetheless, the new neighbours who moved in are noisy and do their best to be vexatious and even (especially) offensive. So, while, on a competitive level, I am much more concerned with Motherwell (for obvious reasons), Hibs, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and, next season, St Mirren, the happenings at Ibrox are still worthy of comment.

I am not objective, as my first statement acknowledged. I'm biased, and speaking from a position of ill will towards The Rangers.

But, thus-declared, I have my own observations to make about the appointment of Steven Gerrard as the six-year-old Ibrox club's seventh manager.

The Player

Firstly, due respect: I liked him as a player and acknowledge that he was the best English midfielder of his generation and an all-time great English footballer.

But I have never believed that he would make a great manager because he always seemed to have a working-class sense of humility that, while endearing, was born of self-doubt whereas Frank Lampard exuded such confidence, displayed as smug arrogance, as to be guaranteed to rub me up the wrong way.

Don't get me wrong - I have always respected Lampard. In fact, I have always believed that he could make an excellent manager, which I have never believed of Gerrard.

Time will vindicate or condemn my superficial assessments but, amongst the undesired outcomes at The Rangers, Steven Gerrard taking over as boss has never registered.

Age-old Theme

For film buffs and those of a certain vintage, the last six years have been reminiscent of the Hollywood classic, Sunset Boulevard, in which an ageing "once-was" refuses to accept the realities of time and progress, surrendering any last vestiges of dignity in the process.

How Do I Look? Have I still got it?

Her increasingly desperate attempts make for compelling, if sometimes uncomfortable, viewing.

The Rangers demonstrate similar delusions, though the constantly-changing, increasingly-ridiculous storylines could have been churned out by the scriptwriters of River City.

McCoist, McCall, Warburton, Murty, Caixhinha, Murty, Nicholl, Gerrard. Between them, they have won League Two, League One, the Scottish Championship (at the second attempt) and the Petrofac and Dry Blackthorn cups.

Candidates

At the turn of the year, Derek McInnes was approached. Deek, the most transparently dishonest, Ibrox-hearted Aberdeen manager since Jimmy Calderwood, did everything short of baring his bearded backside in order to show his preference for the Glaswegian imposters over his current employers. But still, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to cash in on the points gift he had sent in advance, so troubling were his doubts about the club's financial stability.

That disappointed me as I was quite sure that he would fail at Ibrox. But he also surprised me. Never appearing to be the sharpest tool in the box, Deek nevertheless made a wise judgement.

I wasn’t unduly troubled, though I would have felt better if he had been in the bag – a few months can bring untold changes and that might mean improvements.

And so I wondered if there was the possibility of some new investment, however improbable, from the Bank of China or some such institution looking for a high-profile presence.

In the meantime, the next obvious candidate would have been Steve Clarke. This prospect bothered me a little.

Clarke has a varied and high-level coaching background, has done an excellent job with Kilmarnock and could surely do much more with the sort of funding that, even The Rangers could likely find, given his reputation and extensive list of contacts.

He also comes across as an intelligent guy, which was why I was fairly confident that he would decline any offer.

Then there was Steven Robinson, whose style (if you can call it that) I dislike intensely.

Robinson is a throwback to days that should be long gone, using physicality and a peppering of brutality to good effect against superior football teams.

Robinson is reminiscent of a young Jimmy Nicholl – staunch, no one likes him and he doesn’t care. So, in that sense he would have been a good fit at Ibrox, though not box office.

He’d have straightened them out in terms of being organised and aggressive but he wouldn’t have sold season tickets, so he was a non-starter.

Then there were the “Warnocks”. Of course, there is only one Neil Warnock but I use the term to describe one of those experienced firefighting bosses, who English chairmen turn to when their clubs are in distress.

The kind who have lived with the intense daily pressure, fans calling for their heads, the press pack stitching them up and who, year after year, come back for more.

He is one of many who just might have done a job – at least on an interim basis – finding a tactical approach to favour a desperate situation and maybe even swinging a cup or two.

But what The Rangers got was the much-admired player and virgin manager, Steven Gerrard.

He thinks it's all over: An emotional Gerrard so close to a title

This pleased me greatly, for a number of reasons.

Map-reading

Firstly, “it puts Scottish football on the map” – no, it doesn’t. Scottish football was already on the map and our own Brendan Rodgers has done a great deal to make that happen.

Brendan was the bookies’ second-favourite for the England manager’s job, within a few weeks of joining Celtic, after Roy Hodgson resigned. He has also been quoted as a likely candidate for most half-decent prospects in the English Premier League, including Chelsea, and was heavily-linked with the soon-to-be-vacant Arsenal job.

So, Scottish football is getting plenty of attention from down south and beyond, which is partly why we have Moussa Dembele, Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard. It was also quite probably a factor in attracting Clarke to Kilmarnock, persuading Youssouf Mulumbu that he could reset his career there and convincing Steven Caulker that a season at Dundee would be worth a try.

These things have all been excellent for Scottish football as has the work Neil Lennon has done at Hibs, building a very promising team.

Having Gerrard in Scotland will generate more interest and perhaps persuade the likes of Aberdeen and Hearts to consider experienced, progressive managers, who would not have been available to them two years ago.

Why else would I be happy that Gerrard is there?

Having a rookie coach thrown into a torrid situation is obviously a bonus for rivals, but the lack of tactical experience is only one element.

Leadership

Leadership is said to be one of Gerrard’s strengths but that is the sort of glib comment uttered by people who have little or no understanding of the skills and qualities associated with leadership in modern-day football.

Personally, I have never felt Gerrard to be a great on-field leader. If he had been, perhaps he would have won a league title in his career.

But, that aside, leading by example is a very different prospect to leading through communication.

This is something that the majority of ex-pros and Scottish football pundits seem never to have considered.

Book-learning

As a hobbyist blogger, I am very much a half-assed amateur when it comes to football. However, I do read about the game and biographical works about football managers reveal some common themes.

First is that a little reading about football demonstrates that, in the modern game, old-fashioned techniques are largely obsolete, partly due to increased education as well as the changing dynamics brought about by huge salaries.

Even in the lower reaches of the English game, managers study various psychological techniques, including drawing on successful leadership and motivation strategies from other sports.

St Mirren’s Jack Ross gives indications of this sort of thinking but he is one of a very few in Scotland to allude to this. I have my doubts about whether Gerrard has been similarly studious but you can guarantee that Pep Guardiola and Zinedine Zidane did so before entering management. Ryan Giggs? I’m guessing not.

Second, is the intense, nigh-on intolerable pressure, which seems to increase year-on-year. Gordon Strachan recently spoke of sitting in Glasgow holding hands with his wife hoping it would get better, when first in the Celtic manager’s job.

But look at the physical changes that took place in Slaven Bilic, once one of the coolest young managers in the game but who appeared to be collapsing before our eyes before he was finally released from his West Ham purgatory.

Before & After: Two years took their toll on Slaven Bilic

Likewise, Antonio Conte – looking like an Italian film star on his arrival, exuding confidence to the point of mania but latterly resembling someone recounting his traumatic survival of an earthquake – one year after winning the League on his first attempt.

Before & After: Antonio Conte

The Rangers is one of the least forgiving and most unreasonable clubs in football and Gerrard – neither an insider nor one whose England performances cut much ice in Scotland – will discover this when unrealistic expectations are not fulfilled.

Circumstantial evidence

But, more than this, are the circumstantial factors.

According to the media mania, his name alone will attract top-quality players and investment has been promised.

But let’s look at that rationally.

As recently as Friday, Dave King couldn’t even state if the necessary investment would be internal or external, claiming that it “didn’t matter”.

Now, far be it from me to call King a glib and shameless liar, but the empirical evidence is against this mystery investment existing.

A few weeks ago, The Rangers signed a third-rate kit deal that was derided by a large proportion of their own fans.

So, it seems safe to assume that the club hadn’t even thought of signing Gerrard at the time, as having such a big name manager on board – with exciting signings to come – would surely have been a bargaining chip in negotiations with Nike, Adidas or even New Balance.

Secondly, having promised a manager “capable of delivering trophies”, just in time to undermine Graeme Murty (and make this blogger’s concerns that The Rangers would run Celtic close in the Scottish Cup semi-final seem like frightful anxiety), King has appointed someone who can offer no evidence of the same.

Again, that sounds awfully like someone who had no idea that Gerrard would be boss, just a couple of weeks ago.

And yet, with a multi-million-pound war chest arriving any day now, The Rangers would surely have felt confident of luring a manager who had actually won something in the past – or at least managed a team – and who would back up Dave’s promise of Silverado.

We are also invited to believe that, on the cusp of a brave new era, two directors decided that they wanted to bail out before the times got truly exciting.

Add to this the debt, the issues with the takeover panel, the need for stadium repairs, etc. and the Steven Gerrard appointment looks more and more like a swindle perpetrated on someone who knows little or nothing about The Rangers or the Scottish game, aided and abetted by the most ignorant and unscrupulous shower of reporters that have ever covered any sport.

I’ve been wrong before, of course – like when I thought that we would face a few scares in the cup semi – but, at face value, this whole episode looks not so much a damp squib as a custard pie primed with a banger, ready to explode in a lot of faces.

Sympathy for the Red?

I suppose I could sympathise with Gerrard, who seems to have displayed that English-football arrogance of thinking that Scotland should be a soft-touch and a shortcut to the top.

I suppose I could predict that Brendan, Neil, Clarke, Robinson, Ross and even McInnes or Levein will take great pleasure in bringing the big-shot rookie down to earth, with a mixture of tactics, man-management and experience at the coal face, and that we should go easy on someone who has been pretty inoffensive, thus far.

I could but, on reflection – nah – f*ck him!

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For Celtic PLC, will Resolution 12 be their Labour Party IndyRef moment?

If you thought the above headline signalled a party political blogcast, rest easy – this is instead about a lesson from history.

For most of my lifetime, the Scottish political scene has been a two-horse race. There was a brief period before 1979 in which the Scottish National Party was securing around 30% of the vote but, for decades, Labour and the Conservatives had dominated the vote with the majority of seats going to Labour.

Having lived through the Margaret Thatcher years, I saw support for the Tories evaporate and Labour secure what seemed an unassailable position of political supremacy.

But the two graphics posted tell a remarkable story: from 56 Westminster MPs in 2001 to just one in 2015; from a party that was able to lead a Holyrood administration for the first eight years of the Scottish parliament to one facing predictions of a near wipe-out in just over six weeks time.

The details of Scotland's changing political landscape and the complex issues are various but one common accusation remains: that Labour thought Scotland would always vote Labour, regardless of its message or policies, because Scotland always HAD voted Labour.

Political allegiance is usually more complex than simply assessing lists of candidates and policies. For many, it is tribal, sentimental, to do with family traditions, even “in the blood”.

Many of those who abandoned Labour did so with a heavy heart. “I didn't leave Labour; Labour left me”, was a common defensive cry from those facing accusations of disloyalty – even treachery – giving succour to their political enemies. The very need to explain exposed a deep-felt sense of anguish – sometimes guilt – in abandoning the party that had once represented their parents' and grandparent's interests when no one else would.

But, for huge numbers of those who believed in a set of values, the party's shift to accommodate modernism and “new realities” represented a betrayal – and the rational conclusion that if the party no longer held true to its founding principles and ideals, then it was no longer worthy of support.

And yet this logical outcome was something that the party's leaders, political strategists and communications professionals apparently believed would never happen.

It beggars belief that a party that could be so strategically successful in its campaigning in the Scottish Independence Referendum could at the same time finally exhaust the patience of those who had long doubted their political integrity.

But the reality is as stark and sobering an example as it is possible to get of the folly of taking people for granted. Labour's tactics, communications and cooperation with parties it claimed to oppose was for many the final nail in its coffin.

Yet there is room for suspicion that Celtic's directors and chief executives are similarly complacent.

While many, if not most, Scottish football supporters deem the Scottish Football Association to be corrupt, flying in the face of its own rules and the principles of fair play in order to maintain an establishment club in the Premiership, Celtic have stood by.

As the team, players and fans were cheated, Celtic at no time formally complained or protested publicly.

As a new club was entered into the bottom division – one which did not meet SFA criteria for membership, depriving qualified applicants a place – Celtic approved. And, infamously, they took no part in preventing the Ibrox Newco being admitted to one of the top two divisions, leaving the fight for integrity to the laudable actions of Turnbull Hutton.

Raith Rovers leading the way where Celtic apparently feared to tread.

And now we have Resolution 12, which seems almost certain to fail, and on which the club could have acted years ago.

And, for all this, they expect continued support – primarily with cash – from supporters they no longer defend, appear to care for or even represent.

So what is Celtic? A club that plays in the same colours at the same ground as the one graced by Tully, Johnstone, McGrain, Burns and Larsson? Its continuity as the entity founded by Brother walfrid is in no more doubt than that of the Labour party of Keir Hardy.

But it's values can no longer be seen as being in any way consistent with those that once bonded together a “Celtic family”. Celtic fans are being asked to support a club that no longer values fair play, the communities from which it has gained its support or playing football for the fans in a way to thrill and inspire.

And without those values, does the name, strip and ground alone entitle the club to the continuing support of people who have agonised over its decline?

When Labour found common cause with Tories and LibDems to oppose Scottish independence, the sharing of a platform with a Tory-LibDem coalition, as well as some cynical tactics, were too much for even its most faithful supporters.

But you could easily replace Labour's Jim Murphy, John McTernan and Blair McDougall with Dermot Desmond, Ian Bankier and Peter Lawwell, standing with the SFA and the Ibrox regime, led by a convicted criminal.

It appears that they do so in the belief that a promise here, a discount there and a “heartfelt plea for unity” are all that are needed to keep the tills ringing for yet another season; employing naïve hope in the aftermath of crushing experience.

But when trust has been damaged beyond repair, can supporters Keep the Faith?

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Mafia? No! Spiers, The Herald and something within Scottish football

The Scottish media are a curious bunch. The newspaper market, in its heyday, was described as the most competitive in the world.

And the tag was probably accurate. Scotland has had a plethora of news titles in a country with a small population and high levels of literacy, at least amongst potential readers.

Add to the local inks, “Tartan” editions of the London titles and you should have a vibrant, not to say, cut-throat scene in which only the best would survive, through ever-increasing standards and innovation to fend off relentless competition.

That's the theory, anyway. But Scotland is a unique country in more ways than one and one of the things that sets it apart is the ability of its institutions, official and cultural, to defy the normal rules of operation that govern commerce, sociological change, the media and more.

Of course, such isolationism can be romantic. Read Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet to discover a world in which people once lived blissfully unaware of the outside world, lovingly worshipping their deities and beatified leader, slow to anger, quick to laugh, and all while observing medieval norms of existence.

The Tibetan equivalent of the Enlightenment was a 20th-century appreciation that heritable debt was an indefensible wrong – something to which Scottish society did not awaken until 2012.

But if Tibetan society was hamstrung by a lack of democracy, for example, waiting for their leader to be “discovered” after a sign-driven search by a small pool of qualified monks, Scotland was able to nurture thinkers such as David Hume and Adam Smith; engineers like John Loudon MacAdam and Thomas Telford; scientists like William Thomson (better known as lord Kelvin) and Alexander Fleming.

We could go on – painting from Raeburn to Howson; literature from Scott to Welsh, architecture from “Greek” Thomson to Rennie Mackintosh.

The list seems inexhaustible – philosophy, art, innovation, engineering, design – all unencumbered by the fatalistic whims that may divert well-meaning monks, guided only by sign and by symbol, from their discovery. In such fertile land, even the broadcast seed (without which, in a sense, we may never have had Chi Mi`n Geamhradh) could scarcely fail to thrive and bear fruit.

A newspaper industry going back more than 250 years; the possible inventors and indisputable propagators of the worlds most popular sport. Did I omit to mention television, in which John Logie Baird planted a saltire in Glasgow's Central Hotel 90 years ago this week?

Imagine the envy of our “peers” – of whom there are damned few (and none surviving) – when considering Scottish football's first-mover advantage, supported by a highly-developed media machine. Pity those in other countries, resentful of our dominance because they never stood a chance.

Imagine some enclave of our heritage had been left to the fortunes of monks.

If that prospect caused a bead of sweat to pearl on your brow, I apologise. I can only offer the warm milk of a modern, objective, fearless and favourless, media, football and cultural plurality that can scoffingly withstand the adrenal scrutinies of the paranoid.

Oh, did I mention the Scottish football “media”? That uniquely erudite brotherhood (rarely invaded by annoying little sisters, for a multitude of obvious reasons).

They are an oft-maligned class but few of their detractors fully appreciate the pressures attendant to their endeavours. Public scrutiny, visceral criticism, occasional whiffs of smelling-salt-like innuendo. Scorn, derision, abuse – and then the unfair reactions.

No wonder they close ranks, defend each other to the hilt, communally hone swords to wield as one against all attackers.

Except … there is (and a plague on Latin) always a caveat.

Should you inhabit that stateless land of the ethereal Internet, national stereotypes will be applied to your buffoonish insomnia. You are a raging partisan, your views to be dismissed because whatever love you claim to speak of dare not utter your name.

And standing strong as a unit is not a flaw in character to those who recognise the value of solidarity. So external attackers can expect to be rebuffed – witheringly disdained as “online”, as the common fashion dictates.

We could call this “closing ranks”, protectionism or use many other terms intended to describe people “looking after their own”, without regard to ethics.

But there is another, more easily-identifiable threat that sniffs the polluted air that the Scottish media would seek to occupy. It represents an overbearing constituency, driven by self-delusion, narrow-minded resentment and supremacist aggression.

Its geographical bases are known, as are many of the ranks of its personnel. And yet, somehow, this entity escapes retaliatory, never mind pre-emptive strikes. Defensive actions are of the type that are likely to leave loyal footsoldiers disillusioned.

Because accusations of cowardice are as absurd as those of infiltration. And charges of hypocrisy would surely be rejected as the rantings of an unruly mob without legitimacy.

So, what should we make of The Herald's proud apology for and on behalf of the title and Graham Spiers?

Spiers questioned the will of some at Ibrox to challenge the increasingly loud, guttural roars of legions of customers who believe that spleen-venting expressions of eye-popping prejudice are the best way to prove that 144 years of tradition are alive and in rude health.

He alleged – as noted in the Herald apology – that “at least one member of the current Rangers board thinks that The Billy Boys is a tremendous song”.

He went on to mention managing-director Stewart Robertson (without any reasonable accusatory allusion to him): “There has been real progress made at Rangers in recent years. Mr Robertson and your ilk, please don’t slow it down.”

The Herald chose to use a picture of Mr Robertson, to illustrate the story.

The result has been that, at the time of writing, the apology is the most-read “story” on The Herald website.

It could be inferred from Spiers's comment on Twitter, “Is my opinion - doubting the Rangers FC board's mettle to fight bigoted chanting – 'inaccurate'?”, that he did not authorise the apology on his behalf. That in itself – a news title putting words in the mouth of a writer – seriously questions a title's journalistic ethics.

When one of the leading Scottish sportswriters feels the need to go to social media to have his view heard, we are facing something dramatic.

We can imagine, especially from the statement, that Spiers is anguished by this but that is something we can choose to care about or not.

What is more deserving of our immediate attention is what is happening in Scottish football, with special current reference to stories circulating around the club claiming the history of Rangers.

We have “journalists” clearly, laughably, doing the bidding of Level5 PR. Representing Rangers. I was present at a social gathering during which one news hack angrily objected to the condemnation of the news media, outlining the threats – necessitating police communication relating to his family's activities and whereabouts – that he had to endure.

Recently, the BBC's Chris McLaughlin has been banned from Ibrox – again – at least keeping Graham Spiers company.

The Herald went far beyond a simple apology. Not only did they speak for Spiers (without his consent, as he says himself), they pulled the piece from their website. No minor edit with an explanation as their footnote.

They admitted that they should not have published the piece (that's what editorial responsibility is – and it is exercised pre-publication), they left their own writer marooned (the convenience of using freelancers – a staffer could have challenged them) and they completely capitulated without the least pretence at a defence of editorial integrity.

And, however the very vulnerable freelance Spiers tries to be diplomatic, the title has hung him out to dry.

Will the Scottish media professionals stand with Spiers? Will the National Union of Journalists? It may be rash to second-guess those stalwarts.

Did any BBC journalist question whether Jim Traynor may have breached the BBC charter in representing narrow, paid interests whilst still employed by the state broadcaster?

Did Graham Spiers – or did he, like every other mainstream journalist, ignore the inconvenient truth?

Cosa Nostra – “something between ourselves”, as a very loose translation.

Whether the personnel are monks or Mafiosi, we can see something that is being directed from above and the wise will observe “omerta”.

The Internet is inhabited by lunatics and fools. We should await the leadership of the real media – you know, the ones we can trust.

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Rangers must uphold progress by resisting return of 'the old songs'

2:05pm Wednesday 30th December 2015

Rangers FC, in whatever guise you recognise it in the post-2012 period, has made considerable strides to eradicate bigotry around the club.

Whereas as recently as 10 years ago – and it really was excruciating – Ibrox Stadium resounded to sectarian chants, in more recent times the atmosphere has been cleaned up, with erstwhile dodgy songs adored by many Rangers fans being put on the back burner.

It would be totally wrong to ignore this progress at Rangers. I remember the summer of 2006 when Paul Le Guen arrived at the club. Ibrox was mired in “fans issues” and bigotry, and Le Guen was utterly perplexed by it all.

One of the first things the Frenchman had to do was take part in initiatives set up by the club, begging Rangers fans to stop singing these songs.

To a large degree, many of these measures worked. Rangers made significant progress in quelling its bigoted sentiment, and the club made great strides in the years ahead. Ibrox, I believe, in time became a much healthier place in which to watch your football.

The Billy Boys, an anti-Catholic anthem beloved of Ibrox, was put on mute. Indeed, for a number of seasons it seemed to disappear completely, at least at Rangers home games. This, surely, was progress.

But few of us had any illusions about it. More than once I’ve been told that, if you venture onto a Glasgow subway train with travelling Rangers fans, their old anthems can be given quite an airing. The old songs appeared to have survived and thrived, being sung with gusto whenever a more guarded context will allow.

And then there were these occasional public eruptions of it, such as at the infamous 2011 League Cup final at Hampden, when some of the choral stuff exhumed by the Rangers support that day took us back to a pre-Enlightenment period.

It is staggering, in this day and age, to hear stuff about Catholics, ******s, *****s, the Pope and the rest emanating from thousands of people. It is as baffling as it is sad.

Now this Rangers FC board – and I am not convinced by their mettle on this issue – faces a fresh test.

At Ibrox this week we heard a further eruption of what might euphemistically be called the “old songs”. It was another example, amid all the progress that Rangers have made, of the cap being blown off, and of some Rangers fans getting back into the party mood in the way they like best.

Social media was very interesting following that Rangers-Hibs game on Monday afternoon. Setting aside some preposterous stuff from the Rangers Supporters Trust, who were in full denial mode, there were a number of Rangers fans openly lamenting the re-emergence of these songs, and condemning them.

I have said this often enough: there is a new generation of Rangers supporter that the club should nurture and cultivate. They want nothing to do with this old obsession with “******s”. They are modern, decent, football-loving fans who love the game and love their club.

Rangers need to embrace these supporters, and leave to one side those others – including some official fan groups – who said after the Hibs match (I paraphrase): “Well done, lads, terrific stuff, great atmosphere, great to hear the old songs…”

Will this Rangers FC board, as has been required in previous years, step up to the plate? I hope so, though I doubt it.

I write as a journalist who has been banned by Rangers. None of that aspect bothers me. Football clubs sometimes do these daft things. I want nothing but the best for Rangers as they ascend towards the Ladbrokes Premiership. Indeed, I want Rangers challenging for the Premiership title as quickly as their football will allow.

But when Stewart Robertson, the new Rangers managing-director, informed me of my press ban, I would say his demeanour was that of someone somewhat embarrassed by the action being taken.

I do not believe Mr Robertson is anything other than a decent man – but his pitiful reasons for my ban, which included my past criticisms of Rangers over bigotry issues, sounded distinctly unconvincing.

It also doesn’t help right now that at least one member of the current Rangers board thinks that The Billy Boys is a tremendous song. This being the case, the club may well go backwards, not forwards.

On their dreaded songs issue, I hope this Rangers board go forward, not backward. I hope they are pro-active, not passive. I hope they acknowledge a potential threat, and don’t lapse into denial.

But, frankly, I’ll believe it when I see it. Banning writers who write about the issue is an ominous start.

It is now 39 years since Willie Waddell, then the Rangers general-manager, made an on-field public declaration which signalled an end to Rangers FC’s old anti-Catholic policy. I was there that day at Ibrox as a 12-year-old kid, though the fuss then was beyond me.

It remains my belief that, taking that day as a starting point, it will take 50 years for Rangers to fully flush out its bigoted baggage. There are pitfalls along that long road, as we witnessed again this week, but at least the journey is being taken.

There has been real progress made at Rangers in recent years. Mr Robertson and your ilk, please don’t slow it down.

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Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

John Lydon, 1978

Cast your minds back to December 2008. Celtic were Scottish champions and coasting to the SPL title. We played the R-word in January, establishing a 7-point lead in the SPL table. We were heading for a fourth title and bemoaning two title blips under Martin O'Neill that had spoiled what should have been a historic run of championships. All was right with the world, right?

Well, not quite. Few of us were actually fooled into thinking we had a good team. Complacency had appeared to set in at every level of the club.

Gordon Strachan had already submitted his notice (as suggested here), despite lies to the contrary. As with almost every man who knows he is marking time in a job, his demeanour changed. He was that bit less angry and more dismissive.

His ideas - when he appeared to have any – increasingly looked tired and predictable. The performances on the pitch were reflective of an attitude that everyone seemed to be guilty of – going through the motions in a slightly disinterested expectation of eventual success.

The team on the park was leaderless, gutless and lacking any spark of creativity or passion. The players turned up, regularly failed to win and went home, only to take the same approach week after week.

The fans were unhappy but there was little that could be recognised as a consensus. Some said the football was boring. Others said they were unrealistic and should be thankful of the inevitable title, however it was achieved. Some questioned the board's fiscal policy. Others told them they were the sort of people who brought Leeds Utd to financial ruin. Some feared for the future. Others told them the club was in the best hands but that average Celtic fans were too ignorant to understand the strides being made at boardroom level. Some were angry, some were bored and, frankly, some didn't seem to give a damn.

But we had one consolation. We were going to win the title because our nearest rivals were an abysmal team, almost totally bereft of talent, and in such a financial hole that there was damn all they could do about it.

Then came the long, cold January of 2009. It is a time that will live in ignominy in the history of Celtic. Rumours abounded that Celtic directors had reneged on promises to improve the team in the summer. The arrival of Willo Flood had all the impact of Neil and Christine Hamilton turning up at a charity event as surprise celebrity guests.

The rest is so much history – the title was lost, the manager vanished, he was replaced with someone who had just had his team relegated after the manager of Burnley turned us down (only to later be lured by the bright-lights-big-city of Bolton). And, yes, we were told lies about that too.

Well, the chickens have come home to roost. On this blog, I expressed concern about the sort of managers Celtic had approached, not even considering someone like Davie Moyes who was clearly interested. But, in truth, I suspected that they would get away with it.

I had a hunch that a new manager would see players more motivated, kick a few backsides, inject a few ideas and comfortably outclass the other teams in Scotland. Shouldn't have been too hard, should it? To outclass St Mirren? Or the Scottish champions who had actually got weaker than that side we were lolling past just 14 months ago?

For those of you who deplore the blame game, look away now. It's high time to indulge in recriminations with gusto.

I blame the Coolmore Mafia's Dermot Desmond, a man with an ethical business record that makes David Murray look like Richard Branson. Brian Quinn has not been forgotten.

I blame Dr John Reid, who spent a lifetime betraying and backstabbing political colleagues to get what he wanted, who had no qualms about killing children in an illegal war, yet has shown no stomach to fight for Celtic.

I blame Peter Lawwell and Eric Riley, partners in crime who have made huge sums of money while Celtic have declined.

I blame the players – nearly all of them – who have shown no sense of understanding that it is a privilege to play for Celtic.

I blame Tony Mowbray, who I urged to resign with dignity several weeks ago, and who appears to lack the most basic footballing intelligence.

I blame the Scottish football establishment and their friends in the media who perpetuate the myth that, just because we are playing badly, we are not entitled to impartial officiating, while another team that is playing badly is gifted points and has players let off scot-free after committing assaults just because of who they are.

I blame the Celtic supporters, who in five years under Martin O'Neill started to think of winning trophies as something that just happened.

I blame the insidious campaign of propaganda and disinformation masquerading as “independent” comment on a certain blog and I blame the adherents to that blog's “party line” who smugly derided fans who just wanted to adhere to Celtic's traditions, including trying to win things. They are perhaps the worst of all. They have embraced decline and declared themselves to be financial geniuses in doing so. Rest assured, the volunteer men who built the first Celtic Park with their bare hands did not do so for the likes of them.

A club and a support divided? So be it. Draw the battle lines, prepare for idealogical warfare. We must root them out, whatever the cost. We are not even serving in heaven, but in hell.

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Rotten to the core. Scottish football: of the peepul, by the peepul, for the peepul

Forget the corruption jibes against Italian, Eastern European or South American football. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that Scottish football is rotten to the core.

Take the Chief Executive of the Scottish Football Association, the Chairman of the Scottish Premier League and the Chief Executive of the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association and they have one glaring thing in common: all three are former Rangers players. This is such an astonishing imbalance that it would shame Ceaucescu's Romania or Saddam Hussein's Iraq but is easily overlooked, given the fact that the Scottish media routinely ignores the issue.

Is it a coincidence that all three bodies have contrived in recent seasons to materially affect the outcome of the Scottish Premier League Championship in favour of Rangers? And, today, true to form, they continue their naked corruption with the approval of the Scottish news industry.

Cast your mind back to the end of last season where one extension was not enough for Rangers. In an unprecedented act of duplicity, the SFA's (former Rangers player) Gordon Smith and George Peat secretly met with Rangers officials and offered to move the date of the Scottish Cup Final, briefing the Daily Record in the process to present the move as a fait accompli.

In doing so, they disregarded the rules of their own association without consulting any member clubs, including Queen of the South who were Scottish Cup finalists. And crucially, this move could not benefit Rangers in their UEFA Cup final campaign – it could only benefit their SPL challenge.

The attempted intervention was an outrageous act of duplicity yet acting against the interests of one of the competing member clubs – Celtic, of course – was allowed to pass without censure for the officials.

At the same time, the SPFA's (former Rangers player) Fraser Wishart, a man paid as a trade union official under the umbrella of the GMB, actively supported a full season extension, again without consulting his members, even though it was against the interests of those who paid his wages.

Take any unionised company or organisation in the United Kingdom and see what happens when they arbitrarily announce, at short notice, an illegal reduction in holidays without consultation. Any union would immediately threaten action. But Wishart, acting in favour of Rangers against the interests of his own members, actively supported an extension that could see hundreds of players having to cancel holidays without compensation, never mind affecting European Championship preparations, all for the sake of trying to help Rangers win the SPL.

No reference has yet been seen in the Scottish mainstream media querying Wishart's role or, for example, his publicly disavowing the actions of his own members when they happen to play for Celtic. In any real trade union, he would have been dismissed.

The SPL, led by (former Rangers player) Lex Gold, at the time agreed to one extension, specifically defying UEFA's continent-wide instructions to finish the season on time due to the Euro 2008 championships. It was a move that was opposed by Celtic and defied the SPL's own rules but it was largely supported by the mainstream media in Scotland, those who like to claim they are the arbiters of common sense, even if their diction and attire suggest that most of their “journalists” would be better suited to selling knocked-off bottles of suntan lotion.

This season, the SPL contrived to allow Rangers to play Scotland's third-best team, Hearts, three times at Ibrox Park, excusing the actions in such fanciful terms that they could only be believed by a proponent of the seven-day-creationism school of science.

Again, this materially affected the run-in to the SPL and was largely supported by the Scottish media.

Further hitherto unheard-of actions have been undertaken by our referees. For the first time in several decades, referees have been publicly punished for “dubious” decisions, the head referee, Don McVicar having abandoned his practice of defending officials in the face of club attacks when decisions were seen to go against Rangers or in favour of Celtic.

The most obvious example of this was the removal of Iain Brines (who has no fan on this blog) after accusations emanating from Rangers that they had been hard done by. This is the same club whose former manager in his “132 years of unsurpassed dignity” rant insisted that nobody at Rangers would ever question the integrity of an official.

Walter Smith publicly implied bias by assistant referee Tom Murphy, again without sanction or comment from McVicar, even though he was forced to send Murphy a written apology which was unreported in the Scottish newspapers and broadcast media.

Finally, in recent weeks, two Celtic players have been referred to the SFA to consider further sanctions over incidents that referees thought unworthy of attention at the time while we are now told that the Rangers and media campaign to free Madjid Bougherra for the last match of the season has been successful.

This is in the face of one of the most appalling pieces of cheating by a footballer in recent years, Kyle Lafferty's dive to have a fellow professional sent off and regardless of the fact that Bougherra's studs are clearly shown to have made strong contact with the head of Aberdeen goalkeeper Jamie Langfield. Smith and Smith have clearly been in consultation again as the SFA Chief Executive has now praised the Ibrox club for fining Lafferty in a move that was intended only to pave the way for Bougherra's reinstatement.

And let's not forget Rangers' flouting of international anti-doping legislation in using pain-killing injections to allow them to field injured players or the dismissal by Gordon Smith of Rangers fans racist chanting, even though it strained international diplomatic relations between the UK and Ireland.

In the meantime, Celtic officials remain silent, save for one letter requesting “clarification” of the SPL post-split schedule. We have a former Home Secretary as Chairman, who apparently sees fit to allow the combined forces of Rangers and their allies to continually move the goalposts for the benefit of the Ibrox club.

We have a billionaire major shareholder, who may or may not be aware of these things from the sun-drenched tax haven of Gibraltar and we have a Chief Executive who has learned from Reid to keep his head down when there is flak flying, regardless of the detriment to the club that pays him handsomely.

It would appear that the parlous state of R-word's finances have led to desperate measures by the Scottish football and media fraternities to support them, rather than observe fair play. Celtic should – but won't – refer the entire matter of the administration of Scottish football to UEFA.

It seems that only Celtic fans have the interests of Celtic at heart.





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UEFA must investigate corruption at the heart of Scottish football

In 2005, Robert Hoyzer shook German football to its foundations with the revelation that he had been involved in match-fixing in the 2nd Bundesliga.

Hoyzer had sent off SV Hamburg’s Emil Mpenza and awarded two penalties to Paderborn who had been trailing 2-0 at the time.

Hamburg’s players’ complaints of bias were vindicated.

In 2004, Czech club Synot were fined 15,000 Euros and docked 12 points when the club were found guilty of bribing referees. The crisis worsened when 17 referees and club officials were charged with corruption.

Some of the biggest clubs in football were found guilty of corruption in Italy and punished severely.

Today, Celtic should call upon UEFA to investigate corruption in the Scottish game.

With an SFA Chief Executive who has not even pretended to be impartial, and whose comments, submitted prior to his appointment but which were published afterwards, did much to question his capacity for objectivity, it seems unlikely that any such allegations in the Scottish game will be taken seriously by our authorities.

The SFA decision to respond to charges of sectarian singing at Rangers with “no action” closely followed Smith’s appointment and since then their fans have been guilty of disgusting racism at home and away matches without censure.

However, the performances of Mike McCurry in Rangers matches, notably against Dundee United today, demand special attention.

With Dundee Utd 2-0 down, McCurry failed to award a clear penalty that should also have resulted in a red card for David Weir.

Later in the same game an own goal by Weir was disallowed for offside.

A few moments later, the Rangers player Daniel Cousin received only a yellow card for a head butt.

None of these decisions can be justified in any context. The fact that they all favoured Rangers who are challenging for the SPL demands attention.

If the Italians, Germans and Czechs can acknowledge corruption, why should we suppose that it does not exist in the Scottish game? And if the Scottish authorities will not take action, UEFA must be asked to investigate.

Craig Levein on the match