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 Scottish football media - a special shower

That fans of a Celtic persuasion tend to distrust the Scottish football media is nothing new. Those of us old enough to remember Don Morrison and Alex “Candid” Cameron needed little convincing that being anti-Celtic was rarely, if ever, to the detriment of any aspiring young journalist's career.

But, even in those days, the Scottish sports press had the odd reliable maverick, such as Ian Archer, the cautiously respected like Alan Davidson and the rare pearl that was Hugh McIlvanney whose retirement in March of this year surely pulled down the curtain on Scotland's last great sportswriter.

It now seems ironic, if not fanciful, to note that one of the would-be heirs to McIlvanney's mantle was one James Traynor, formerly of the Glasgow Herald parish. There is a whole generation of football fans too young to remember those heady days and most are reluctant to believe they existed.

Traynor, like no other, embodies the collapse of professional and ethical journalistic standards and the derision heaped on those who followed him into the profession.

I sometimes wonder what prompted Traynor to propel himself from understated respectability to the sort of man who would represent the worst form of dishonest tabloid journalism to the darkest tactics in PR – sometimes blurring the two roles.

Once, Scottish football fans simply laughed at Darryl Broadfoot and his “Greek Saga” prose. But few are laughing now – from within the ranks of the media or their consumers at any club.

However, since the events preceding – and subsequent to – the liquidation of Rangers, there has been the sort of psychotic meltdown that one might only expect when facing Armageddon.

With shock troops rallied by Traynor and Jack Irvine before him, a climate of fear has arisen concerning any mention of Rangers.

Chris McLaughlin was banned from Ibrox, with scarcely a whimper raised publicly by his peers. Graham Spiers was forced to leave his freelance gig at the Herald, after a gutless performance by Magnus Llewellyn, who is now to be his new editor at The Times.

And only recently Tom English and Stuart Cosgrove were named in an “enemies-of-Rangers” style press release that some viewed as an incitement to disorder. Again, the defence of both men was muted, to say the least.

But if some would say this calls into question the intestinal fortitude of the press pack, they have pulled no punches in attacking the readers, listeners, new media interlopers and their fellow inhabitants of “Socialmedialand”.

In this, few provide better exemplars than Neil Cameron, normally a relatively low-key player on the scene. After a warning to Herald & Times staff came from Barclay McBain, Cameron quickly took to social media with a “what the boss said” Tweet that, to some, may have looked like a bit of career opportunism.

But Cameron has been more full-blooded in his online spats with retired journalist Brian McNally and particularly Phil Mac Giolla Bháin, who Cameron has described as both “a vile man” and “a scab”.

Some Neil Cameron Twitter exchanges

Now, Phil is not everybody's cup of tea, including a number of Celtic supporters, but he remains a figure who challenges the natural order, being on the outside of the Scottish media tent pissing in, against years of tradition and patronage in the private members' club.

And yet there is something desperate in all of this. Some have questioned why Cameron should have been so silent on the fate of Spiers (and Angela Haggerty) yet so abusive to Mac Giolla Bháin, invoking their common membership of the National Union of Journalists, as if the number one rule of the club is “Omerta”.

It's relatively easy to attack McNally as he presumably has few strings to pull for young journalists and has had the irritating habit of enjoying his retirement by criticising coverage of football issues. For this, he has drawn abuse from, among others, Keith Jackson.

Much of the current talk is of a column by Gordon Waddell, who has insisted that only the word of journalists on the scene at Hampden can be taken at face value over the events of the Scottish Cup Final.

The likes of Cameron and Spiers, naturally enough, support this while playing down Jackson's claim that every Rangers player was assaulted after the final.

But there's the rub. There is barely a shred of trust, respect or sympathy left for any Scottish sports journalist – and they have brought that state of affairs entirely on themselves.

Spiers remains the one who has done most to stand up for the integrity of his profession but he has got less fearless as time has gone on. And Spiers retains a haughtiness, sometimes verging on a sneering tone directed at the plebs who follow this game that he graces with his words, an attitude that is amplified by English, who seems to feed his not-inconsiderable ego by putting fans down.

Spiers and English will mock their own readers as derisively as Jackson (if a little more pithily), laugh up their sleeves at the antagonistic antics of Hugh Keevins and blindly ignore the absurdity of their fellow journos Chris Jack, Matt Lindsay et al.

And for this, they expect what – our trust? The people that have gone into every contortion possible to resist saying that Rangers Football Club was liquidated and the evidence of corruption at the heart of the Scottish game expect respect?

Cameron eventually did something to mention The Offshore Game report into corruption, after Spiers acknowledged its existence.

But it is an indictment on the entire industry that the best and most comprehensive treatment of the issue was by Robbie Dinwoodie – again retired – writing for the independent Bella Caledonia (aptly titled The Unreported).

And, after so conspicuously failing to stand together on real interference and even intimidation, why should they expect a level of regard so much higher than that which they (fail to) show the football public?

Will any of these journalists of note rally to the aid of Rachel Lynch, the latest writer to be harassed for saying things that are off-script – or will they offer her the same support that Jim Spence enjoyed?

What they are struggling to accept is that their relevance is diminishing as fast as the esteem in which they may once have been held.

Frankly, we don't need to know that a journalist was sent to Monaco to watch a draw that was broadcast live by UEFA.

We don't need to hear their ill-qualified insights into events of matches that were televised live (especially when some of those match reports have been written by people who weren't even at the game).

And for their “eye-witness reports” to carry any weight, those delivering them must have more than a long-lost sliver of credibility.

The one enduring skill of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish football media pack is to irritate fans enough to get a reaction to feed off.

In other words, the term, “football journalist”, has become synonymous with being a troll.

But, like a troll, that will soon all be water under the bridge – most of their careers are sailing down the river.

--

Desperate U-turn won't solve great Herald fiasco

Only three weeks after the fiasco that saw The Herald Executive editor apologise for one writer, who promptly said he had nothing to apologise for and then jettison another one who tweeted her solidarity, the management at the group have decided on an unexplained U-turn.

But then, much has been unexplained since Group Editor Magnus Llewellin tweeted, “It's

Shredded: The Herald titles' reputation

complicated,” and his side-kick, Barclay McBain – allegedly a former NUJ representative sent a message to all staff warning that freedom of speech on social media would not earn their good graces.

For those lucky enough to have been cloistered away from the strangeness that occurs when the Scottish media intersects with Scottish football, the much admired/reviled Graham Spiers questioned the will of some directors of the identity thieves calling themselves Rangers to tackle the most obscene guttural utterances of their loyal hordes of follow-followers.

As evidence, he cited little other than the fact that the club is conspicuously doing nothing about it and a direct communication from a senior Ibrox figure indicating that some of the ditties currently considered criminal are in keeping with the values of the club. (Any ironic reference is mine, rather than that of Spiers.)

Facing a legal threat that “could not be defended” and – Llewellin insisted – no commercial pressure whatsoever, the editor buckled, misrepresenting one of the most high-profile writers in Scotland.

He then torpedoed a column by the, normally publicity-shy, Angela Haggerty for tweeting solidarity with Spiers, whining that she had undermined that false apology.

It cannot be often that England rugby internationals feel fascinated by Scottish football but, for this, Brian Moore described Llewellin as “spineless” in what could be described as a cowardly stab in Llewellin's invertebrate back.

Sunday Herald editor Neil Mackay “fought hard”, capitulated, Tweeted that he was washing his

hands of the affair and then posted a picture of a glass of wine, which we can presume he then promptly sent the same way as the rest of his bottle.

Mackay (r) challenging Llewellin (l) as McBain watches

There was justifiable outrage that the “free” press was so easily cowed into becoming self-censoring in the face of intimidation and the shredder was plugged in for the last hint of respectability for two once-honoured news titles.

In a difficult newspaper environment, one in which the Independent has already announced the end of its “paper” edition, management face many challenges. However, The Herald and Sunday Herald have faced more than most.

A catastrophic independence referendum campaign during which The Herald was often accused of doing the bidding of the Scottish Labour media office, saw much of the remaining confidence that the title had retained lost.

In contrast, The Sunday Herald was riding the crest of a wave, largely due to then editor Richard Walker's stewardship of the paper and winning the support of a large proportion of Yes voters. The transition to Mackay's editorship has not been a smooth one, with plummeting figures as the title seems to have lost its way.

Would Walker have remained in post as one of the writers he picked was axed? It's hard to say but for all the “nice guy, great friend” defences of Mackay, he can have done little to instil fearlessness in his team.

“These people have families and mortgages,” was the defence. Quite – as do the many public figures who are routinely called on to resign for misdemeanours unfitting to their positions.

The fury that greeted the stranding of Spiers and Haggerty was justified and yet, the decision to reinstate the former-editor-of-a-well-known-Celtic-fan's-book should not be expected to bring readers flocking back – she had far more defenders of her rights than admirers of her writings.

Haggerty has faced appalling online abuse from certain sections of Scottish society (and indeed Mackay called on all Scottish men to defend her about a fortnight before leaving her high and dry) but Llewellin is as likely to salvage his titles through his reverse-capitulation as a soldier waiting for reinforcements without realising that the war is over.

Spiers, in the meantime, has been emboldened to explicitly defend the truth of his original piece. Curiously, this does not seem to have been met with the “indefensible” defamation action that had Llewellin hearing things going bump in the night.

Whether or not that calls into question the veracity of Llewellin's claim that no commercial pressure was involved is a matter for sheer speculation.

The future can be predicted with greater certainty. Haggerty's reinstatement will be welcomed but that will neither inspire any renewed confidence in the integrity of the Herald titles, nor a slowing of the decline in their sales.

With a paper-free future surely looming, it will perhaps dawn on Llewellin that what has settled over the titles is not the dust from the stramash, but a layer of ashes.

--

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.

 ---

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.

--