Today I learned more about the great Sevco shambles of Friday 16th January 2015.
This additional information from excellent sources convinced me that I am correct to worry about the upcoming League Cup semi-final between Celtic and the Ibrox club.
Sources tell me that the highly experienced SPFL Match Delegate’s report on this debacle is ‘huge’ and most of it is concerned with matters off the snow covered field.
I understand that at one point the match commander was concerned that the rioters would break through the front door of the stadium.
Had this happened then, I am told, there was a real risk that the control room could have been taken out.
At that point the stadium would have been, as it was put to me, ‘disarmed’.
This means that the PA system would be out of commission.
Thankfully extra officers were summoned; some of them on horseback, and order was restored in the immediate vicinity of the front door.
Later on the administrative centre of the stadium, Argyle House, was also ‘stormed’ and two members of staff (one female and the other and elderly gentleman) were assaulted.
Unsurprisingly these shameful scenes were downplayed by the stenographers in Glasgow.
After the match it is clear that visiting fans were attacked by some of the home crowd.
I am confident that once Ms Ann Budge is forensically sure on these matters that she will go public.
My fears for the League Cup semi-final are not around the fixture itself as, no doubt especially after the last match at Ibrox, there will be adequate policing.
Rather it is the aftermath in the West of Scotland.
I am reminded of when Rangers (1872-2012) returned to Manchester after their fans had trashed it in 2008.
The club’s supporters were transported into the city via Wigan in a policing operation that one does not normally associate with a democracy.
Now The People want vengeance for the terrible self-destruction that has befallen on both of the clubs to have played at Ibrox.
They prefer a narrative whereby sinister figures plotted in the shadows to do down the great institution on Edmiston Drive.
People invent myths to make themselves feel better about what life has thrown at them and in that The People are no different from anyone else.
That myths are untrue is neither here nor there.
What is crucial is what people want to believe.
That tells us so much about how they see themselves and their place in the world.
What a human community wants to be true rather than what actually transpired is where the anthropological action is.
At this stage even The People realise that the current operation at Ibrox is in very bad financial shape.
Where they deviate from the rest of us is how that came about.
Rangers (1872-2012) self-destructed due to the Gordon Gekko world view that ascended the Marble Staircase in 1988.
The club was financially viable only with regular transfusions of Other People’s Money (OPM).
On the surface everything seemed wonderful and The People could not be accused of being strategic thinkers.
There was a team full of highly paid stars brushing aside the opposition in all domestic competitions.
The Herrenvolk mind set of The People was fed steroids during the financial doping of the 1990s.
Then in the first decade of the millennium, faced with a rejuvenated Celtic, Sir David Murray decided to go for broke until the bank called time on FC Lehman Brothers.
2012 should have been the end of the affair, but too many in positions of authority could not see beyond the Ibrox brand.
Subsequently, the creature created by Charles of Normandy was a bonanza precisely because he was allowed to pretend to The People that his new club was actually Rangers.
Now shambolic Sevco face the champions of Scotland in a League Cup semi-final.
The stenographers fear a mismatch for their beloved light blue brand.
However, my fears are of the health and safety variety.
The klan is already in lynch mob mode.
At the Hearts game ,as the referee called time , the home crowd was moved to remember in song their favourite Klansman Billy Fullerton.
I will, of course, support Celtic in this encounter.
However if truth be told I’m really supporting the police.
Stay safe folks.
