I wrote last month about how three podcasters were thrust into the headlines in a national newspaper.
I tried to explain my anger and disgust regarding what were farcical double standards and the sheer hypocrisy of the story while showing my support for fellow Rangers fans.
The newspaper involved explained last month that it intended to have an investigation into its own employees racist, misogynistic, homophobic and sectarian tweets.
Apparently, the investigation is over; that’s seen those involved reprimanded and dealt with. Time to move on then I suppose…
That’s what this media outlet obviously thinks is the way forward. Nothing to see here, time to move on, folks. Let’s ignore the great big white elephant in the room.
No chance. Is this the result of some kind of fudged investigation? Everybody was dealt with behind closed doors, so nobody has the right to know what sanctions or reprimands were imposed on the people that write for a national newspaper. Really?
Let’s be absolutely clear here; this publication was demanding Heart & Hand be sacked as a Rangers media partner. They attacked three guys for historic tweets publicly. It was so public; in fact, they gave them three full pages in their comic, displaying an outrage they don’t show for murderers or war criminals.
It’s obviously a different thing entirely when the boot’s on the other foot. This investigation will stay an internal one, and the findings will never see the light of day outwith the senior management doors of The Daily Record.
Talk about double standards. You couldn’t mark their necks with a blowtorch here. If lads doing a podcast get lumped on the front page of their rag with the author of this Exclusive demanding they be sacked, then why did I see said author winning some utterly irrelevant journalist award or another last week while under investigation for disgusting historic tweets himself?
He appeared not to have a care in the world sitting there at some award ceremony. All well and good but surely a media outlet that thinks it can attack ordinary people should see how sanctimonious that is?
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I’m not sure what journalists and editors do nowadays at all, to be honest. You need to be a certain type of lowlife to think you can highlight and expose people in such a brazen manner then presume you can just brush the very same discretions from inside the building swiftly under your own carpet.
The faux outrage, the promulgation and the sheer audacity to presume you are untouchable because you’re a national newspaper is excruciating.
It takes a lot to get my blood boiling these days. I don’t do confrontation or arguments as best I can; I love a debate and I always try my best to respect others opinions, but this really does do my head in.
It’s astonishing; it really is. Umpteen journalists that write in that paper should’ve been on their own front page just for reasons of parity alone.
How can you possibly be respected with anything you ever print when you’ve shown this level of duplicity? If there’s one rule for the general public, then surely the same rule should apply to your own journalists?
Nah. Not going to happen. Sadly and truthfully, we all knew then and we all know now that those three guys were collateral damage in a battle with Rangers Football Club. We knew it then, and we sure as hell know it for sure now.
It’s examples like this that prove to everybody that Rangers and their fans are being targeted. It also shows the different levels of standards we’re expected to adhere to while ‘journalists’ and suchlike simply get to be ticked off and marked down by their superiors at work.
They should be ashamed of themselves, but they aren’t at all. They’re all sitting there thinking they’ve got away with one here.
It doesn’t take a superior intellect to consider the notion that just about everybody highlighted by Rangers fans with the “This You?” campaign was most definitely not a Rangers fan, does it?
They mostly seemed to be of a certain other persuasion, and that’s why no matter what way you look at it, yet again it displays the “do as I say not as I do” attitude that’s festering in our society.
This ‘We can do what we like but I’m going to be outraged by the least wee thing you say’ indignance has become increasingly nauseating. Time and again, all we hear or read about is ‘anti Irish’ this or ‘anti Catholic’ that while we’ve got absolute headers writing blogs attacking Rangers on a daily basis. A few of these ‘journalists’ I mentioned used racist and sectarian slurs against people who don’t follow the same religion and definitely don’t follow the same football team as they do. The bloggers are an insipid lot; I have to say.
They have the intellect of a goldfish, forgetting what they’ve written one day to the next, but everything wrong in our society can be found at Ibrox Stadium. Day in, day out, they churn out messages of hate without a care in the world. All in the pretence that they know the answers to societies ills in the west of Scotland.
One of them, and try to stop laughing here, wrote that Rangers were causing a diplomatic incident due to a lawyer being outraged that Glen Kamara was targeted in the Czech Republic in the recent Sparta Prague game versus Rangers.
That’s the level of hatred Rangers fans, predominantly Protestant Rangers fans, are dealing with on a daily basis in Scotland. The sheer scale of this is never mentioned by any media outlet or politician in the country.
I guess as our very own First Minister, you know, Chief Mammy as she once delighted in calling herself got it right then, Rangers should’ve done more as she incredibly put it one day in Holyrood.
There’s so much hatred and racism about in this country, and to be perfectly fucking honest, the least of our worries is the constant gripes and whataboutery from a few hundred clowns with the biggest inferiority complex this country’s ever had the ignominy to have to endure.
It’s pathetic. A football team with a large fanbase has won the league while said football club has told the media and the rest to stick it where the sun don’t shine. They really don’t like it up em’.
I wrote last month that these continual attacks on Rangers and its fanbase is becoming an irritant. The whole issue of racism is being demeaned by these clowns. The perma-offended within a particular section of society just want to find offence in anything and everything connected to Rangers Football Club.
It’s so tedious, and in my opinion, those that constantly hark on about one particular type of racism or bigotry only narrow their own argument. I’ve stated before, and I’ll do so again… I come from Glasgow and anyone attempting to tell the nation that sectarianism or racism is a one-way street in this part of the world needs to do two things. 1) get your head looked at, you’re not well, and 2) wind your neck in, this kinda rhetoric is dangerous, and it’s lies.
All forms of racism need to be dealt with, but if you listened to politicians in this country, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the only people targeted in Scotland are those Plastic Paddys the Irish nation really can’t be doing with.
You know the ones, the same people that get so offended by being called a name but think calling you the opposite equivalent is perfectly acceptable.
Racism in any shape or form needs called out and hate crime is prevalent throughout society, but when you see national newspapers using it for their own agenda, then that’s just sinister and mischievous, dangerously mischievous.
There’s an undercurrent of genuine hate for Rangers and Rangers fans in Scotland. It’s always been there, but from the turn of the twenty-first century, it’s been the fashionable form of bigotry here. Politicians use it, the media does so too, and fans of other clubs think they can stereotype and stain the biggest supporter base in the country.
That’s all well and good but the levels of acrimony aimed at a (large) section of society, smearing every single person, young or old, man or woman as a racist or a bigot while finding it wholly acceptable to screech that said fanbase as a bunch of OB’s or Huns as they’re firing these sectarian insults at them really does show the insular and biased mindset.
That’s what this newspaper has done here. Targeted a podcast that’s associated with Rangers Football Club and attacked the club in an indirect way.
That’s cowardly, it’s sleekit, and it’s fooled no one. Rangers board saw through it, that’s for sure. We’ve also had other instances of these attacks this year. The most ridiculous and famous being the ‘WullieW* nker’ TikTok post. This was a doctored video of Rangers players and staff celebrating winning the title last season.
They were singing Sweet Caroline. Some eedjit thought it a good idea to doctor the audio to include some nasty words about The Pope. Yes, this really did happen in Scotland in 2021.
That it made the BBC Scotland news, with a man not welcome at Ibrox standing there trying to be serious in front of the viewing public, made it all the funnier, to be perfectly honest.
Is it actually lost on this entire country that well over half the Rangers squad are practising Roman Catholics?
We had politicians demanding these Roman Catholic football players be fired if found to be singing this ‘add on’ to a Neil Diamond classic.
Meanwhile, in Scotland, the Asian communities are victimised, the gay community is targeted with homophobia, and the disabled are victims of hate crimes constantly, yet the media in Scotland barely mentions it. At the same time, our prominent Government Ministers and MSP’s chase the spotlight every time an Old Firm game is finished claiming anti Irish racism is awash on our streets.
What utter nonsense. Glasgow and the West of Scotland is a modern, vibrant area where the people of this nation live together perfectly normally and happily. This is the greatest agenda of the twenty first century, and I’ve seen it being hailed ad the Ulsterisation of Scotland.
That isn’t far from the truth. We have a scenario where prominent members of society repetitively preach to the lowest common denominator and prey on their fragile inferiority complexes. That’s all this is, a way to demonise a football club and its fanbase because of their perceived predominant politics and the unequivocal truth that Rangers are and always have been associated with The United Kingdom.
That doesn’t suit the politicians of this country who seek independence. It doesn’t serve the media outlets where our Government spends a small fortune advertising on their pages and their radio stations. Let’s not forget it doesn’t suit the BBC either; they’ve chosen to stay away from Ibrox while treating Rangers fans who pay their TV licence, as everybody else does, like second class citizens. They haven’t had a single decent word to say about Rangers for over a decade, and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
That’s what Rangers are up against, and the men running Rangers know it. Everyone connected to the club knows it. That’s part of the reason why they’ve chosen to charge the media for media privileges, I’m sure.
The Rangers fans can see through it and, in reality, mock the afflicted here. There are so many fans of a certain football club that remain the most self unaware and deluded wet wipes in society.
All they’ve done is see the SNP gain power in Scotland, a political party that realises Rangers as an institution in this country are or could be a genuine danger to their ultimate goal. They’ve used the fact the Government would like Rangers to be marginalised or shut up completely and used that knowledge to have free rein on spouting their very own hatred at Rangers and its fanbase.
That’s a fact. Whether people choose to agree or not is irrelevant. Everybody associated with the football club knows it. No ifs, buts or maybes. It’s the reality of the here and now in 2021.
I mean, we even have a situation where the media in this country simply refuse to acknowledge the rules of the game in order to cause negative controversy when it comes to Rangers. The case of Ryan Porteous the most recent example of this preposterous agenda.
The boy rightly got his marching orders last Sunday in the 2-1 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox, but as ever, we have those anti Rangers puppets mincing about social media telling all and sundry the rules are wrong and it wasn’t a red card.
What utter nonsense. I’d like to see the reaction from the same apologists if the boy had flown in at that speed, straight-legged with studs aimed at Kyogo Furuhashi’s knee. They’d be apoplectic with rage, that’s for sure.
However, I digress. This is just yet another example of trying to take the shine away from another terrific win from Rangers. There’s been a hope, nay, a desire for Rangers success to be a one hit wonder and for 55 to be a flash in the pan. It would appear not. Sadly for those of a particular persuasion, despite all the issues Rangers have had to contend with this season, they appear good value to be successful again this season.
I’m sure that will go down like a lead balloon among the media, the prominent and the politicians that love trying to boot Rangers in the balls but alas, keep failing. No matter how hard they try, trust me on this one. Rangers fans are laughing constantly.
The Great Myth. That’s what this is. A section of society that decided to make itself political back in the seventies have managed to get themselves into positions of influence and power and use that influence to maintain their mantra that everything Rangers is evil and everything they believe is seen as some kind of Pious righteousness. That’s all this is, agenda driven drivel, but if you listen to them, Glasgow is as desolate as Belfast at the height of The Troubles. Laughable bullshit and deserves to be treated with utter disdain by EVERYONE in society.
The attack on the Heart and Hand is a watershed moment. The day a fanbase decided enough was enough and chose to unite as one. The notion that The Daily Record can sweep their misdemeanours under their own rug and pray that it all goes away is an act of desperation from an outlet that’s dying on its arse. The quicker it realises that and treats such a massive segment of society equally and chooses not to target ordinary men or women for ultimately what is inconsequential errors of judgment is the day Scotland will become a better place to live in.
Politicians would do better to deal with our schools, our hospitals, our roads, our council taxes, our living standards and getting this country back on its feet instead of displaying faux outrage at boys singing songs or at the very least if they’re going to be outraged then do us all a favour and Call It All Out, not just the hurty words that allow then to play to their gallery and get their political agenda across.
As I’ve said before, this is not and never has been a one-way-street street. The idea that two such massive football clubs in one city, with genuinely enormous fanbases, have a scenario unfolding where one is evil personified, and the other is saintly is vomit inducing.
Give us all peace. Give us all peace and get off your wee soap-boxes because no one is buying it apart from those that are already blinkered by their own hatred and racist opinions.
The Great Myth and a watershed moment in time for Scotland. A day where a group of supporters who follow a football team decided together and called it out. We see you. We see you for what you are, and we see you for what you are doing.
The demonisation of a football club and its fans hasn’t worked, and it won’t work even when you call in your big guns.
They all have the same collective agenda, you see. We see it, everybody sees it, and no one really believes it. The Daily Record tried to go after Rangers; they didn’t even have the courage to go after them directly, instead attempting to try via the number 56 bus route going all round the houses before reaching its final destination.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find all this hilarious. There are so many people in this country of Irish descent and I mean a massive part of the population. Still, here we are with the same useful idiots trying to stick their heads above their very own parapet, telling us that Rangers fans are Beelzebub and should be exorcised. Don’t make me laugh.
The bottom line here is this, they can spin it any way they like, but here are the facts of this matter in simple black and white….
They tried to kill us in 2012. They failed dismally. Rangers rose from the lower leagues while that shower lost an independence referendum while they were throwing proverbial grenades at the one section of society that could cause them a political problem, they still lost and badly.
Rangers rose, despite the chaos within the club, regardless of the financial precipice they stood on, and they slowly worked their way back. It took longer than any Rangers fan hoped, but they still got back to the top league.
Despite Celtic having a decade of accrued wealth when Rangers were going through this journey, Rangers still managed to close that gap, albeit slowly. Ultimately, they won their 55th league title last season despite every political and financial burden put in their way.
Ten years of being able to abuse and characterise a club and its support in a politicised way, all the while remaining as complacent as Mr Complacency from Complacency Street, Complacenyville via the east end of Glasgow has seen Rangers rise to the top of the pile in Scotland with a very legitimate hope they’ll be there for a few more years yet has seen panic arise within our media, our politicians and from those that our politicians believe is their core vote.
They had ten years to leave us behind, all of them too. From Celtic to the media and our politicians. Rangers should have had no route back to the summit. Not when Celtic made a third of a billion pounds more than Rangers accrued in the same time period.
That’s all this is. Rangers are the champions of Scotland, and many in Scotland doesn’t like it one bit. Acceptance is one of the first steps to recovery from grief, guys. Get over yourselves because from where we’re sitting; you’re nowhere near beginning to realise what’s happening in front of your eyes.
I genuinely believe that the story in that rag last month is the first step for Scotland to move on from the bedwetters rhetoric. It’s just a pity a couple of good lads had to sacrifice themselves for the better good. Time will judge them; the Daily Record will not.
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