Celtic - The Rangers: We don't like them or their people

"We don't like this team. We don't like their people."

It was in 1989 when the legendary Cincinnati Bengals coach Sam Wyche

probably summed up the unrepentant spirit of sporting contempt better than anyone else, either before or since.

The Bengals had just prevented the Houston Oilers and their coach Jerry Glanville from clinching the divisional championship - by 61 points to 7.

On the way, they had taken every opportunity to score that was available to them, including the sort of moves only usually made by teams ready to take a chance in order to score when desperate.

A fake field goal, an onside kick,  even a field goal in the dying seconds when their opponents were already thoroughly crushed. It was roughly the equivalent of a team that was 6-0 up sending the goalkeeper to their opponents penalty box for a last-gasp corner.

As Wyche went on to say,  "When you get a chance to [run up the score], you do it. I wish today this was a five-quarter game."

Was that in keeping with the spirit of respect for an opponent that normal etiquette demanded? Absolutely not.

Did every fan of every sporting team know how Wyche felt and secretly imagine themselves in a similar scenario? Hell, yeah!

Today, Celtic under Brendan Rodgers will, for the third time, face a club claiming one of the most toxic legacies in sporting history.

There will be no Wyche-like words at the end from Brendan. And there is no animosity between him and his former office junior Mark Warburton.

But the antipathy towards the visitors tomorrow will be real and justified. The aforementioned coopted legacy includes almost 140 years of willingly revelling in the persecution of minorities.

It includes bad debt, deliberate fraud and cheating, all of which were celebrated as if illustrating a sense of conspicuous entitlement, the like of which can only ever be demonstrated by supremacists desperate to believe that "lording it" over all others is their birthright.

At Aberdeen, Stewart Milne once endured years of criticism for never coming close to the success of the Alex Ferguson era, perennially pleading that the club consistently outspent everyone outside the "Old Firm".

After a sales glut,  Hibs chose to balance the books, in order to secure the future of the club, a decision that was widely criticised.

Hearts, suffering an administration event,  chose to pursue a strategy of recompensing the creditors, thereby avoiding liquidation and preserving the club's history,  though being relegated along the way.

And Celtic, let's not forget, "paid all the bills" under Fergus McCann.

All of the above would be considered honourable in any country in which the sporting authorities and media were not dysfunctional to the point of perversity.

But we're talking about Scotland, where those who chose to accept that one of the consequences of mismanagement must be a sporting penalty are decried as fools.

Where the cheats, the bad debtors and the fraudsters are simultaneously celebrated as both sporting and moral victors and victims, without dichotomy.

Where a cult has been created in which an imposed narrative is considered higher than truth itself; more powerful than accepted existential norms.

And the people who, without shame, pound their knuckles into the turf,  demanding that their inherited rights to "respect", "esteem" and deference take precedence over easily demonstrable facts - at gunpoint, if necessary - claim that occupying territory wearing a uniform and struggling under a historical name also lays claim to historical values.

These ideals they express through the most vile abuse, threats of violence,  guttural chants of prejudice and obscene accusations.

Their team lays claim to the legacy of its predecessor by signing the worst that football has to offer. If Rangers had El Hadj Diouf, The Rangers must have Joey Barton, who can insult Celtic, our captain and even our manager without his own "boss" being able or inclined to discipline him.

And in all this, they are supported by the media while the authorities at best look away.

There was another notable quote from that famous Bengals - Oilers match.

It came from the Bengals iconic quarterback Boomer Esiason:
"It's like playing against the bully in your high school. You finally reach up and slug him in the teeth and he runs away."

The team we will face today claim the legacy of Scottish football's ultimate bullies. In that, they play a dangerous game as they are poorly equipped to do so.

Esiason was not, of course, advocating violence and that should not feature in any form.

He was talking about dishing out retribution in a sporting sense - on the public field of play.

Celtic have a bigger game this week when we take on probably the best team in the world in the Champions League, so any fulsome thrashing is likely to be tempered by resting key players.

For that reason, it is probably unrealistic to expect a record-breaking five or six goals.

And,  yes,  The Rangers are better on paper than Red Imps, who beat us,  so anything could happen.

But remember that we don't need to recognise the continuity myth to dislike this team or their people.

And we needn't hesitate to say so.

Game on.
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