Verisimilitude: Teenage Fanclub…
I’ve got a pocketful of words in my brain
I pull something out when I think I should
I feel like I’m going insane
I’m not, I just said it cos I thought I would
I always feel the need to profane
I’ve always said f**k when I thought I could
To me, this seems so inane
I don’t need an attitude
Rebellion is a platitude
I only hope the verse is good
I hate verisimilitude
I’ve got a reason to think of your name
I always feel good when I look at you
I never feel the need to defame
Irony is something I mistook
In you, I know our needs are the same
I’m thankful for not overlooking you
Still, I need to declaim
To me, this seems so inane
I don’t need an attitude
Rebellion is a platitude
I only hope the verse is good
I hate verisimilitude
I’ve got a pocketful of words in my brain
I’ll try to find something I can give to you
I feel like I’m going insane
I know I’ll calm down when I live with you
You always feel the need to profane
I guess that’s something I’ll forgive of you
Still, I need to explain….
Verisimilitude: The appearance of being true or real.
Monday morning, the start of the working week and here I am, still off work and waiting to get back to it.
I’m beginning to miss a routine, you see. That disciplined lifestyle I’m used to. Up at seven, get ready, go to work, come home and enjoy my evening with the good lady, go to bed, get back up and do it all again.
Normality. That mundane way of life that kind of institutionalises us. Yes, I’m beginning to miss it a lot.
If you’ve been unaffected by this pandemic work wise, then I envy you; I really do.
Life has an unreal feel about it for me at the moment, and without a doubt since last March has been unlike any time in my life. In saying that, I’m fully aware I’m feeling the same way as millions of ordinary people across the country.
How ironic it is then that my team only went and won the league while we are all enduring this year of freakishness in our lives.
Last week my hopes and wishes all came true. Nine years of The Journey is over. Our club celebrated, and rightly so. All the time, effort and money invested by those that love the club, from the boardroom to the fans, lost their shit for a few days.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel no need to condemn anyone that wanted to release their emotions last weekend. Nonetheless, along came the Scottish Government, the mainstream media and fans of other clubs to criticise everything Rangers.
No surprise, and as I must reiterate, everyone understands that lockdown rules are in place for a reason.
The majority of the population are being forced to live their lives with such restrictions, and Rangers as a club have asked their fans not to celebrate in public.
Everyone knew fans would be ecstatic and would celebrate this amazing success, so much so that Rangers and Police Scotland had Intel that confirmed that as a fact.
If and when Rangers won the league, there was going to be a fair few that wanted to be a part of such a historic day in Rangers history.
What more Rangers can do, I’m not sure. In fact, there is nothing else they can do, in my opinion. Asking fans to stay away is about as much as any football club can do. They can’t physically stop people from leaving their homes now, can they?
The narrative on this has found me smirking mostly. As I mentioned on T40 last week, I’ve sat here for a year not breaking any Covid restrictions whilst watching fans of Leeds United, Liverpool, Celtic and St Johnstone all take to the streets and break these rules without so much as a fraction of the grief Rangers are having to endure.
It’s fake news this; it really is. A weekend on, and we have restrictions being ignored by people choosing to go to a vigil for the tragic incident where the young lady lost her life in London last week. Add to that the BLM demonstrations, Indy marches and others, and it’s still clear the “do as I say, not as I do” mantra is in full flow here.
This ignoring of restrictions seems to be acceptable to most as the cause is a just one in the minds of some.
Rangers fans got more criticism than anyone else has across the country, and there’s a reason for that. The reason, in my mind, is a pretty simple one, and I’m going to try to explain it. The criticism is unfair and reeks of double standards, but as a Rangers fan, I’ve come to understand what to expect from people with an agenda against the Institution from the southside of Glasgow.
The narrative from the media and politicians in Scotland is one that concludes anything Rangers to be bad. We, as fans of the club, are used to this. We believe it to be unfair and hypocritical in the extreme.
The public funded BBC Scotland, based only a mile along the River Clyde from Ibrox Stadium, has long had a weirdly adversarial relationship with Rangers too. The corridors of power at Pacific Quay have long been crowded with men and women who have a hatred of the newly crowned Scottish Champions. They stopped pretending otherwise a long time ago.
Our biggest selling newspaper allegedly has a quite open relationship with Rangers rivals from the green half of the city. Business connections in publishing are common knowledge.
The biggest commercial radio station has business connections with the club from the East End of Glasgow too; there’s a reason why the term “you’ve been Hollicommed” was in open use over the last couple of years; you know.
Other radio stations, TV channels, newspapers and media outlets have nothing nice to say about Rangers and we, as a country, have become desensitised to it. That doesn’t stop us Rangers fans from seeing it, hearing it or reading it though.
The moral outrage is now a false narrative or fake news. I doubt even the most hardened or bitter Celtic fan even believes half of this garbage that gets continually aimed at Rangers or the club’s fans.
It’s boring now; it really is. In fact, so much so that the Rangers fanbase have long stopped caring what the media conjure up in terms of the rhetoric used against us.
It isn’t just the media though, Scottish football, in general, has believed for years they can just throw Rangers under a bus, and that’ll be accepted by all.
Just the other day up popped the perfect example of how a braggart behaves. Not one but two, actually. Both in statements from Celtic football club.
Both could’ve been written by Armando Iannucci, given that satire flowed through both.
I could almost hear Malcolm Tucker spit both statements out; such was the bitterness in them. Hugely entertaining, highly funny and staggering in their lack of self awareness.
“We’re not half of anything”, hissed the first one in reply to Douglas Park asking Nicola Sturgeon about a failure to reply to him regarding her comments on Rangers after Celtic fans had taken to attempts to batter our police and to get at their team bus after a petulant outpouring of anger against their team getting beaten, again.
Well, that’s not true, is it Mr Celtic? Only the week before, both halves of the Old Firm had renewed the IP rights on the term “Old Firm”.
That’s a tad inconvenient and shows that football club up as dealing in falsehoods yet again.
The second statement was just as funny as it proclaimed Celtic fans had nothing to do with last weeks breaches by Rangers fans after winning the league.
Well. No Shit Sherlock. Spotters badge for you. It was a title winning celebration, you weren’t invited, and we aren’t really sure you would’ve wanted to be there; thanks for confirming though.
It also chose to change history by attempting to portray their fans as Mother Teresa, Cliff Richard and Princess Diana all rolled into one, suggesting their fans haven’t taken to shark attacks and police baiting while telling their manager to get to f*** in their thousands.
Didn’t happen apparently.
Jolly old Celtic. The self righteous, pious and condescending nature of their state of mind, their beliefs and moral standing are as funny as it is delusional.
Give. Us. Peace.
No one believes this, and to be frank, you’re making a complete arse of yourselves at a time when it would be best to try and figure out where you’re going next, not where you’ve been.
It’s over you see. The stranglehold that the club had over Scottish football has been broken. The media they use, as shown above, are becoming parodies of respected media outlets.
Politicians sullying Rangers name is now old news. It doesn’t register. Parity is being restored.
Here we are in Glasgow, nine years on from the biggest fall from grace football’s ever seen, and we have one club using verisimilitude while the other has risen from the depths, modernised itself and became a success both domestically and in European football.
Rangers are the champions of Scotland; on Thursday, they have a real chance of reaching the Europa League’s quarter-finals.
They have a board that is fully aware of its responsibilities to society. They have a management team and players that are also acquainted with what playing for this world famous club requires.
This is the beginning of the end for many influencers in Scotland. I wrote about why I felt that the ball booting Rangers were forced to endure and why I felt it had to stop way back in 2014.
The political landscape is changing, the media in this country is dying, it’s in its death throes, and even they know it.
The spin put on things is vitally important to how society sees the world, and painting Rangers as the baddies has worked in terms of the way Scotland likes to see itself.
The problem with that in the right here and right now is that Rangers Football Club has modernised itself because it had to. While most believed (particularly Celtic) the tail being spun about Rangers over the last decade, Rangers have gone about their business.
This is a football club going places. Whether Scotland wishes to appreciate that or not is of no consequence to anyone connected to the club.
Rangers are set for the next decade while their rivals appear stuck in 2012. Believing that Rangers are the epitome of all that is bad in Scotland has led to the media in this country being lazy and complacent. It’s also led to Celtic being in a bit of a paradigm shift here.
Releasing simply untrue statements or conveniently ignoring your own fans’ wrongdoings only leaves you looking old and tired.
A club that still believes it has the right to take the moral high ground when it has no logical right to. A club that’s attacked the government on numerous occasions this season due to their being incapable of reading the room whilst all around them are pleading for them to just stop. It’s been a delightful show of being unaware of what others think of you.
Here we are, Rangers Ready for the next ten years, or getting there for sure while Celtic and their fans still believe they have the biggest club, the most money, best team and the entitlement to have a pop at the Champions because…well because they’re used to it.
They’ve had a compliant media to conspire with, accomplices in the damaging of the Rangers brand.
It’s the verisimilitude that’s done it. It’s beginning to dawn on the rest of the country. Rangers are back, modernised, ambitious and getting their own house in order.
May I suggest the rest of the country does the same because it’s that verisimilitude that makes you look as if you’re stuck in the past.
While Celtic, Aberdeen and others have a major rebuild pending in the immediate future, Rangers have their infrastructure organised.
The foundations have been put in place, the club is in the best shape it’s been for decades, and the ambition to pull away from the challenges Rangers face.
Rangers don’t and won’t take anything for granted, you see. They will strive for perfection both on and off the park. The complacency shown by the other half of the Old Firm won’t be seen at Ibrox because of where we’ve been, where we’ve come from and respect for others.
Is there any chance of our rivals or our media showing any respect or at least showing that Scotland is a country of equality?
I doubt it’ll happen overnight, but it’s certainly changing slowly. I presume an establishment such as BBC Scotland openly admitting they would like to end the dispute with Rangers proves they’re beginning to realise they’re on the outside looking in.
Others should take heed and consider their stance that an Institution of such importance in Scotland such as Rangers does this country no good, particularly when others look in and genuinely don’t have a clue as to what you’re on about.
All in all, it’s really quite simple really. There have just been far too many bitter Celtic fans in positions of influence, and way too many of them simply detest everything Rangers stand for, in their eyes anyway.
Here’s their problem, and it’s a rather large one. Others don’t see what they see. From the outside, they see the biggest football story they’ve ever seen. They don’t understand the semantics, and even if they did, that would only confirm to them that this is a bipolar and insular little backwater of a country.
The days of Rangers being treated with disdain by the sanctimonious, holier than thou in this country are at an end.
It’s the rest of you that needs to wake up to that and modernise your thinking, not Rangers or the best group of fans on the planet.
I trust you enjoyed the last decade, but the only ones that have listened to a word of it are yourselves; no one else has paid you any attention whatsoever. Any public statement is a play to the masses for appearance only, when you proceed to double down, you only make yourself look even more oblivious to what others see in you.
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