Stokes lack of ambition befuddles Matt Lindsay

Befuddled: Blame Stokesy

In a world of austerity and belt-tightening, many in Britain are staring at uncertain times.

A cruel Tory government is launching a relentless attack on the poor and vulnerable, with the bedroom tax and hacking cuts to support services bringing misery to many.

But there's always someone worse off, so they say, and at present that someone appears to be Matt Lindsay.

Matt's a curious chap in that his writing is often surprisingly upbeat. Vying in healthy competition with his close colleague, Chris Jack, he has had a laudable tendency towards (royal) Blue Sky thinking, admittedly mostly when predicting halcyon days at Ibrox. (Giving succour to the suckers, you might say).

But in recent days Matt seems to have been turning lemonade back into lemons – and, not for the first time, Anthony Stokes is prompting the disharmony.

Stokesy, it seems could “start a fight in an empty hoose” but he has exceeded all previous expectations by creating conflict in the inner sanctuary of Matt's comfortably-furnished mind.

A mere fortnight ago, he was on fine form, lauding Mark Warburton's capture of two players from Accrington Stanley and mentioning a whole clutch of Celtic failures to boot.

This was Matt in his pomp. Sycophants have come and gone, tilting for his crown but Matt shows a deftness in his lionising of the club currently calling itself The Rangers, urging those with a less nuanced appreciation of the game to recognise the unique qualities of lower-division football.

Stokes:All mouth - no ambition

But in a matter of days, the bachal that is Stokes and Ronny Deila somehow contrived to upset the cart leaving Matt floundering under a deluge of them apples that he clearly doesn't like at all.

On Friday, he was citing Ronny's decision to loan Stokes to Hibs (after agreeing terms with at least two other clubs) as causing “Rangers concerns”, noting “the striker could help to prevent Rangers from winning promotion to the Premiership”.

“The switch has been queried by many in Scottish football,” he wrote without naming anyone who had queried the move outside his own swivel chair, “because Hibs are currently vying with Rangers, who are just five points clear in the second tier table with 16 games remaining, for a place in the top flight.”

Scurrilous stuff and the fact that other clubs should be allowed to strengthen their squads to challenge for the Championship title, is indeed cause for concern.

By today, Matt had found a new one of his not insubstantial broadsides to deliver. The fact that Stokes chose his former club suggests to Matt that Ronny: “had good reason to harbour misgivings” about Stokes.

“The fact the 27-year-old decided to go to a lower league club which is situated within a short commute of his West Lothian home leaves him open to accusations that he lacks ambition and a desire to resurrect his career,” Matt thwacked, apparently forgetting that Championship football is where its at and where the UK's most prolific goalscorer-cum-penalty-taker has his stamping ground.

“Is O’Neill going to be bowled over if he scores against Alloa or Dumbarton?” Matt asked, seeming to have forgotten that victories over such clubs have appeared to have got Matt very excited indeed in recent memory.

In questioning the ambition of a player choosing the Championship Matt sails dangerously close to the rocky waters of denigrating players at other lower-division teams.

Matt concluded that success or failure for Stokes would be disastrous for Deila: “But he is in a no-win situation here. If Stokes does shine at Hibs – and he started his time there in an encouraging fashion at the weekend when he came off the bench and scored in a 3-1 victory over St Mirren at Easter Road – it will give ammunition to those who maintained he should have been featuring all along at Celtic.”

But, something about the flimsiness of that barb seemed to suggest that our esteemed sportswriter had lost heart.

It is difficult to see how this can end well for Matt. Perhaps Michael O'Halloran will yet leave St Johnstone to sign for a Championship club and that might cheer him.

But, of course, much will depend on O'Halloran's ambition.

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Time to fight back against newspaper bigotry

"The hard end of sectarianism is that people can die on our streets as a result"
Rev Alan McDonald,
Convener of the Church of Scotland’s Church and Nation Committee, 2002

When Rev Alan McDonald addressed the General Assembly and urged that Scotland "consign bigotry to the history books, where it belongs", there was much public and media approval.

More than that, there was hope. Hope that Scotland was finally to enter a new, enlightened era; one in which there were no acceptable targets for discrimination, abuse and violence.

The Kirk’s action was commendable in many ways, not least for its honesty. It repudiated a previous Church and Nation report, delivered in 1923, entitled "The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality", caricaturing Irish Catholics as people who could never be assimilated into Scottish society.

The newspapers largely characterised the problem as being one of two equally responsible social groups

Meanwhile, as reported in the media, Pastor Jack Glass stood outside castigating those who had “betrayed John Knox”.

Rev McDonald went on: "We may also be judged in hindsight to have turned a blind eye to sectarian attitudes which will still remain on and under the surface of the Church of Scotland today."

His statement was one of honest self-awareness and regret, the stuff of which truth and reconciliation are made.

In the wider media discussions, some attention was paid to Rangers, who had finally accepted Catholics as players; an equal amount was devoted to Celtic, who had never been part of that particular story.

The newspapers largely characterised the problem as being one of two equally responsible social groups, with the worst manifestations being a matter of poverty, over-exuberance and education.

Largely, however, they missed or ignored the most profound message of the Kirk’s debate – that the fabric of Scotland was one in which Irish Catholics could not hope to play a full part. It acknowledged that the established church had by action and neglect, played a part in engendering a dangerous antipathy towards people who would still be seen as unwelcome incomers more than 80 years after the report.

To date, the Kirk is the only major influential body in Scotland to have done so. David Murray has led Rangers for more than two decades. He once described the club as the second most influential institution in Scotland, qualifying his assessment only to accommodate the possibility that Rangers could top that league.

He has, on a number of occasions, expressed his distaste at the “FTP brigade” at Rangers and assured us that his club bans fans found guilty of unacceptable behaviour. But on the issue of bigotry at Rangers, Murray has been joined by a legion of Rangers legends in adopting a policy of “never apologise, never explain”.

The Scottish media always has been, as today, an important part of the problem

And why should he? What would compel David Murray (or any respected figure amongst Rangers supporters) to condemn the hordes of Rangers fans who decry the Pope and utter their “Why don’t you go home?” song so reminiscent of the National Front in its pomp with its “Send them back” placards?

The truth is that the only way in which these attitudes would be challenged are through the media. But there’s the rub. The Scottish media’s record in this area is worse than patchy.

How often do people stop to consider why a goalkeeper could attract such vociferous disapprobation for a t-shirt yet the late Pastor Glass – described as “a bit of an extremist” by Rev Ian Paisley – should be accorded the status of an amusing Scottish eccentric even as he punched the air spewing hatred of all things Catholic?

Where was the media castigation of the decades of abuse of anyone or anything that seemed to represent Irishness or Catholicism? Of course the answer is that the Scottish media never was in a position to be part of the solution. It always has

When distortion is married to a lack of decency - a culture where bigoted loathing is still acceptable - it becomes abhorrent

been, as today, an important part of the problem.

For years, there was nowhere that anti-Catholic recruitment policies were more rife than in the Scottish newspaper industry. If the BBC was once so “hideously white” as to repulse Greg Dyke, that was nothing compared to the industry of white male Scottish Protestant Freemasons that produced our newspapers.

Much has changed since the former editor of the Glasgow Herald, Arnold Kemp, was asked for an assurance that he was not a Catholic before being confirmed in the position. Women and Catholics have a better chance of securing employment, though the bylines carrying Irish-sounding names are still so rare as to be collectable.

But if the recruitment policies have largely gone, their legacy remains. In the most nepotistic of all industries, the jobs for the boys (and girls) are still overwhelmingly going to the sons and daughters of that pre-selected cultural group. This is where bigotry truly becomes inherent.

When that merely produces skewed cultural perspective, it is unfortunate and potentially damaging. When that distortion is married to a lack of decency; a culture where bigoted loathing is still acceptable, it becomes abhorrent. Yet we are requested to continue to pay for their output.

Recent months have seen as biased and conspicuously anti-Celtic news reporting as has ever been witnessed. Worst offender by far is the Daily Record. Not satisfied with actively securing the position of being the endorsed newspaper for Rangers, the paper infamously carried a caption alluding to a campaign to smear Jock Stein.

It was also the paper that intruded on the tragic passing of Tommy Burns, defying all newspaper conventions to speculate on his final moments when he should have been left in peace with his family. Its sister paper, the Sunday Mail, has been no better.

The News of the World, also true to form, chose last Sunday to speculate on the private life of Artur Boruc on its front page while the Sun went so far as to mock the violent attack on Neil Lennon with a truly despicable cartoon and a derisory and factually false report on the incident.

The Evening Times has also shown its fine colours in recent weeks, not forgetting that they too splashed Scott Brown on their front page on news of the death of his sister, despite the family having asked for privacy.

Having paid Murray mouthpiece Derek Johnstone for years to say “Rangers are great, Celtic are terrible”, we might simply have laughed at his u-turn to demand action against referees in the aftermath of a small number of decisions going against his club.

Should we succeed, they may have a new application for the word “crisis”

The Evening Times next carried a back page demand for action in the face of this “refereeing crisis”. That, we could have put down to absurdity.

The Sports Editor then devoted his back page this week to a piece that was nothing more than crowing by Andy Goram, degenerate drunk and known supporter of Loyalist terrorists; a man who once wore a black armband for a notorious Loyalist killer.

For years, newspaper editors have acted in this way in the expectation that readers will buy the papers regardless, out of habit. Why should we?

The newspaper industry is facing a circulation catastrophe. Some of them may very well fold within the next few years if downward sales trends continue.

There has never been a better time to demonstrate that we too have power. The power that comes from keeping our money in our pockets.

This Sunday and Monday is as good a time as any to start. The editors expect strong sales to follow Scotland’s international match. I would suggest that Celtic supporters disappoint them.

Specifically, I propose that Celtic supporters simply decline to buy the Sunday Mail and News of the World along with Monday’s Daily Record, Sun and Evening Times.

To do so would be a demonstration of our refusal to accept attacks on our players; refusal to accept a tacit approval of bigotry and racism.

Should we fail, the papers will dismiss this as a gesture. Should we succeed, they may have a new application for the word “crisis”.

• Celtic Underground: A Good Time For A Break

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