On a cultural level, it was a perfect day for the Ibrox klanbase.
Lots of maudlin militarism, plus some rather fortuitous officiating decisions.
The last time the British Army was close to a real live enemy, they clambered on planes in Kabul to escape the victorious Taliban.
In Iraq, in 2007, they were evicted from Basra on the orders of a local Shia militia.
Lest we forget.
For those who regularly attend the stadium that John Brown played for, the reality of Britain’s decline as a military power since the defeat at Dunkirk in 1940 is an undiscovered country.
That’s mainly because the relevant information tends to be concealed in books.
In this century, Britain has lost the two wars it has fought in, and both times they were up against militia-type forces.
That’s rather unimpressive from Tommy Atkins.
Much of the nostalgic performance art at Ibrox, including the Poppy Porn every November, is based on a deep understanding of just how much Britain has declined in the second half of the last century.
Moreover, the Ibrox herrenvolk are a tad angry about that.
Indeed, they see their cherished Britishness assailed from many sides.
At this point in the 21st century, the certainties which comforted their grandparents and great-grandparents are as dead as the original Ibrox club.
By Edwardian times there was an established hierarchy on the Clyde with a labour aristocracy looking down on the Irish Gastarbeiter class.
That was the era that Rangers FC brought in the signing ban on Catholics.
As for the footie itself, let’s just say that decisions went the way of the team playing in their traditional livery of Norwegian Blue.
I think it is fair to say that this occurrence, early in the first half, did not come as a complete surprise to the rest of Planet Fitba.
Indeed, we were all kinda waiting for it!
Rangers Tax Case blogger, the winner of the Orwell prize for journalism, was moved to comment on Twitter about the officiating at Ibrox.
As ever, there is zero journalistic scrutiny from the local media.
This is from the Daily Radar:
Another day, another VAR controversy and Callum Davidson will be thinking that his side simply can’t catch a break. The penalty given against James Brown was one of those where the defender simply can’t get his hand out of the way and then VAR’s intervention deemed that Nicky Clark’s foul on Ryan Jack was worthy of a red. And when Collum went to the monitor to check if Jack’s foul on Montgomery should have been upped to a red, the Saints’ manager’s misery was complete.
Well, “simply can’t catch a break” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
All of this is hiding in plain sight.
When it is pointed out, there is a collective shrug because that is how it has always been.
That’s why the post-match assessment of Craig Levein in 2008 was so atypical.
He simply told the truth as he saw it about the role of the match officials in delivering the points to the home side at Ibrox.
His candid post-match assessment cost him £5000.
Earlier this week, I endured something, so you don’t have to, dear reader.
I listened to Mike McCurry being schmoozed by Graham Spiers about that entire episode.
If you really want to, you can find it on Patreon.
An amazing reveal is that Reverend McCurry was reared as a Queens Park supporter.
Well, here he is, telling some wee ones at his church why Jesus is “simply the best”.
Oh, dear…
Discover more from Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
VAR in Scotland means Victory Assured for Rangers
Whats it going to take before all spfl get together and insist on foreign refs for their games. This blatant bias cheating cant go on
Scottish football’s officialdom are obviously desperate for a Sevco championship success. It’s blatantly embarrassing. Postecoglou’s team will have to make sure football wins in the end.
As for the military ghouls creeping around Ibrox yesterday: They’ll surely be first on the front line when another illegal war erupts. Killing and slaughter is the ‘Brutish’ speciality, after all.
We’ve had this situation for a very long time ! We already know the clubs, including ours, have done squat ! That is precisely why it DOES need a legal case and preferably one that is taken externally. This is a fraud on the paying public and fraud is a criminal offence.
I see Mickey Beale knows exactly what he wants at Ibrox reading his quotes from todays Daily Ranger.
Quote ‘I don’t want to sign bad players.’
Quote ‘I want to sign a midfielder who can run.’
Wow, just wow. Perhaps if Jim Goodwin had followed Mickey’s lead then he might still be in a job at Aberdeen?
There is hardly a game goes by where the match officials don’t make a wrong call, sometimes game changing.
I thought VAR was brought in to minimise these calls but instead all it has done is create further opportunities for the match officials to get it wrong.
A Celtic win today will reinstate the 9 points gap along with a substantial goal difference which is worth an additional point in itself. That being the case then a victory against the Ibrox club in their next visit to Celtic Park will remove any doubts as to where the SPFL title is heading.
When or who was the last Scottish match official to be relieved of his duties or demoted due to a poor performance and marked down accordingly by the referee supervisor on duty?
Or it the case that they are all bullet proof?
And the Celtifc board sit by watching their blue nosed partner who is not their partner benefit from these decisions while their support who pay week on week get cheated as do the cash paying support of the other clubs. Celtic should decide where their loyalties and remember who their competitors are..
Whilst the SFA (cough) leadership remains silent in the Hampden bunker,
there maybe 2 scenarios were the SFA is forced to address VAR ‘inconsistencies’ and unacceptably poor match officiating standards.
1) The clubs collectively demand that the SFA sorts it out ASAP.
or
2) Another unbelievable match decision results in a pitch invasion, some form of violent reaction directed at the referee and match officials – or a riot outside the stadium.
Hope it’s number 1)
I’m just back from the pub. Good night. Had some banter with Sevco fan I know. Nice lad. Then he started talking about when Celtic went into liquidation before Fergus came to power. Told him he was talking bollocks. He said ‘google it’ ,I said no, ye fanny.
The thing is which I can’t understand is why fans from clubs. Waste their hard earned money. To watch blatant, corrupted, cheating. When it comes to playing Sevco. More the SFA know they get away with it, obviously the more they do it. My guess, UEFA are totally ignoring it.
Its more likely that UEFA are blissfully unaware of it, like they were blissfully unaware that rangers (the deady berrz) had been using “imperfectly-registered” players for a decade, or that they already owed HMRC in unpaid taxes, thus meaning that they should never have been licensed to participate in UEFA competitions during season 2011-2012!!
One thing the board could do would be to hold a sweepstake where you choose:
The time Sevco gets a penalty perhaps say within 5 mins slots;
Who gets the penalty for Tavpen to score.
Which opposition player is to be sent off and at what time.
Details to be worked out.
Other clubs could follow suit.
Dunkirk wasn’t a British Army defeat, it wasn’t a victory either to be fair. It was a lucky escape that allowed the British Army to recover, retrain and eventually go on the offensive. While it was the junior partner of the alliance that won the war, for a while, it was the only partner. Yesterday was Holocaust Day. The British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Lest we forget.
Your historical illiteracy on WW2 isn’t a good look.
Peter Hitchen’s “The Phoney Victory” is the best primer on the subject.
Britain was on the winning side of WW2 because two supers powers (USA & USSR) were dragged into the conflict.
The BEF was defeated in the field and abandoned millions of pounds worth of equipment which the Germans used in future campaigns.
From Dunkirk until Pearl Harbor, the British war effort was reduced to SOE operations and bomber command deliberately killing German civilians (“Among the dead cities” by A C Grayling recommended).
The British Army accounted for a tiny percentage of Wehrmacht losses from 1939-1945.
A decade after the German concentration camps were closed, Britain was operating their own shameful facilities in Kenya.
Simon Webb’s book “British Concentration Camps” should also be on your reading list if you have such a thing.
In Webb’s book, you would find out that former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George visited the Dachau concentration camp in 1936 and was very impressed with what he saw.
Lest we forget, indeed.
As I said, Britain was the junior partner, but importantly it was for a year the only adversary the Nazis faced. “The USSR and the USA were dragged into the conflict”? Operation Barbarossa anyone? As for David Lloyd George, was he just a (Nazi) useful idiot?
The USSR accounted for 80% of Nazi casualties in WW2.
The Red Army smashed the Wehrmacht.
If D-Day had not happened, the Third Reich would still have been defeated.
The timescale would have been longer, but not by much.
Perhaps another year.
You allude to WW2 and Britain being ‘the only partner for a while.’ This is about Britain’s unrelenting initiation of wars time after time. The ‘Dunkirk Spirit’ is one thing, but continual contaminating/bombing/invading by the empire is the wider historical picture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU5UKeUVCGI&ab_channel=SkyNews
Ouccccch!!.. maybe the sevco fans should be sent to the front line of any future conflicts, to shout “WEEARRAPEEPUL!!” at the enemy? That would be sure to give Putin, etc “the fear”!! 🤣🤣🤣
How much longer can this carry on ? This is a fraud perpetuated against the paying public. Would happily crowdfund a prosecution against the SFA because there is certainly enough evidence. The EBT evidence would irrefutably back up any litigation.
It doesn’t require a legal case, it only needs the other clubs (including my own) to grow a pair of balls and fight back. They won’t though, they’ll collectively continue to fiddle while Rome burns.
Still deep in darkness in Scotland ,even well into the 21st century,where the establishment club must be appeased at all costs.What utter dated bollocks.We need an outside arbiter to get involved,but I agree with Grant Sloan,I won’t be holding my breath waiting in Uefa
Seems to me that the media, the SFA and our board all feel they need the Rangers* to keep Scottish football profitable. I don’t think the current conspiracy is of much concern to any of these – the media get to inflate stories and get the deceived to buy their ‘product’, the SAF have a ‘competative’ league to sell and our board get 50,000 bums on seats. I suppose if they were to go to where they belong we would go back to just opening the biscuit tin enough to wint he league and go nowhere in Europe?
Referee and VAR official as expected.