When this site started in 2008, one of the first issues it tackled was the emergence of the Famine Song.
I noted two things at the time:
- That it was racist.
- If you permit one type of racism, then you open the door to other variants.
The first point was won rather quickly when Lord Carloway ruled in June 2009 in a case involving a Mr William Walls that the Famine Song was indeed racist.
However, the failure to adequately tackle the anti-Irish racism that permeates the matchday experience at Ibrox has meant that other forms of racism are also extant there.
Sadly, yesterday was no different.
This is the moment when Kaiyne Woolery, scored the equaliser for Motherwell at Ibrox yesterday.
Apparently, some of Sevco’s klanbase showed their displeasure at the player in a way befitting a subculture that lauds the memory of a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I am, of course, referring to Billy Fullerton, the eponymous founder of the Billy Boys.
I’m not aware of any other football club in Britain with supporters who fondly remember a street thug who adored fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
The featured image shows Mr Fullerton’s pal in his blackshirt days when the Bridgeton razor gan were terrifying Glasgow’s Fenian Untermensch.
Such Herrenvolk hatreds are at the core of the Ibrox subculture.
However, yesterday the racism directed against Kaiyne Woolery by the klan was too much for at least one of the home support.
Fair play to the lad.
I then observed the pile-on of dignified types who questioned his Ibrox credentials.
He even asked another Ibrox buddy for some social media support.
Rather than tackle the issue head-on, it would appear that the policy being espoused by the in hose PR superhero is to control the media.
If they do not report the racism of the Ibrox klanbase, then it didn’t happen.
That appears to be the strategy.
This site started in 2008 mainly because the Fitba Fourth Estate was clearly not fit for purpose when it came to the racism of the Rangers support.
Getting the Stenography Corps to accept the judgement of Lord Carloway apropos the racism in the Ibrox songsheet appeared to be a Sisyphean task.
After the carnage and chaos of George Square last May, civil society in Fair Caledonia had stepped up, and the chaps on the sports desks are falling into line.
If I allow myself a look back, then at the very least, the term “anti-Irish racism” is now being regularly used to accurately describe the behaviour of the Ibrox klanbase.
Herd mentality has always been in play amongst the Rangers fanbase. Anyone get’s out of line they are trampled on by the rest of the brainwashed. There must be many of the Klan mixed on the racist/bigoted amongst the support but they stay in line regardless for Queen and country.
When we have our referendum, I hope most of them see past the Britishness aspect that is being spun out now as all the promises from the last referendum, promises in Brexit and Tory party policies that have U-turned show what a future Scotland faces under Westminster rule. Vote for you and yours and leave the Britishness nonsense behind. Never trust a tory.!
ps, Britannia does not rule the waves, they waive the rules.
How many ‘small minorities’ add up to make a ‘majority’ ?
Fair play to you kenny mc kay , I suppose I could say what kept you , on calling out the behaviour of your fellow ” supporters ” inside ibrox . But they are many
Your comment is not really fair play though. The notion that it is left to a black guy to call out the obscene racism of a considerable section of that support, that somehow the victim of racist abuse is complicit in it, is nonsense. I would rather offer solidarity to any victim of racism and to anyone anywhere challenging racism.
I pity them , life is short and to waste it on hatred usually against people you don’t know or a religion you have no knowledge of is such a sad existence. That hatred and anger usually ends up bouncing off each other when they have ran out of chapels to march past . There is a competitiveness amongst the adherents to out staunch one another and all that built up negativity ends up in the scenes we witnessed in George Sq when they eventually turn on each other . Challenging the narrative of bigotry and sectarianism to one of racism has hit a nerve especially when they themselves have had to support the anti racist cause due to Kamaragate. They claim they are not anti Catholic but Pro Protestant so I want to see more condemnation from the various Protestant churches on this as they have to condemn these gatherings and organisations that claim to be at one with them . When the Church of Scotland tells the Orange Order that its behaviour is against the teachings of the Protestant faith and isn’t culturally acceptable then they will have nowhere to hide.
Your first three paragraphs sum up the situation as accurately as anything I’ve ever read anywhere.
I have a a good Rangers supporting friend, who, in his mid-teens, travelled to Rangers games for a chunk of one season on a bus run by his local Orange Lodge. He did this simply because some of his pals did. He stopped travelling with them because, no matter the result, win, lose or draw, the atmosphere permeating from the adults on the bus was the same. Negativity and hatred.
Fifty odd years on he still says it’s his ONLY abiding memory of those journeys. That’s sad, simply because any teenager doing anything with his pals should be building and storing some of the happiest memories of his life.
Didn’t see many headlines about the Lyon bus either strange that
I think we can see why Celtic use Park’s busses.
Didn’t even KNOW about this one. What happened?
The Morning Star questioned the Anti-irish racism of Orange Marches today.
No disrespect but that publication has a very limited circulation. Although every little condemnation of this inexcusable, barbaric and indefensible behaviour is welcome.
I think Robert Jenkins was making the point that very little coverage of the marches was given in the MSM