Their Rangers obsession

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Jeezo, Russ, what ****ing age are you? Rampaging about the internet calling fellow human beings *****'s and spastic's because their opinions differ from yours.

Shame on you!!
 
Queef Chegwin said:
Having been excused from the sitting room last evening, as is the case most weekends during the reality season (I think the word banned is inappropriate although possibly more accurate) I took to watching the delights Sky and ESPN had to offer.


Not wanting to spoil my MOTD experience (it’s time for me to say hello again to the remote control) I declined the greatest league in the world match choice, tolerated a small portion of one of the Matrix films and settled on the college football game between Army and Navy. I can’t say I know much about it but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the way the game clearly meant something to all involved, on the field and in the stands. Having done some minimal research it’s clearly mostly a tradition, and in the grander scheme of things perhaps not that important in the wider world of college ‘American’ football. But that doesn’t mean that the game lacked edge or import. The sight on the sideline of the disconsolate losing quarterback with head first in hands, then in a towel, was an image with which anyone who supports a sporting team can identify. Losing hurts. And when you’ve fumbled away the ball, grasping defeat to that forehead when victory was within the grasp, and that defeat is to a rival it’s utterly miserable.


Rivalry is primarily about wanting to beat your opponents, and being able as a club to gain more trophies and a competitive edge and as a fan to gain a temporary advantage in pub and work conversations, but it should also touch on the matter of matching yourself against someone for whom you have respect, if even in a grudging manner: after all, if you don’t see the games against your rivals as important in the basic sense then what are we really doing here? Where’s the enjoyment in beating them? It can be tribal, it can be a community thing or have a national or social dimension but when it tips over into nothing but hatred then it loses perspective and the ability to do the rivalry justice and keep it healthy.


Many of the greatest of players, some of the greatest men to wear either the blue or other jersey, have been good friends off the park and would often be much cosier than your average fan would be happy to contemplate. That doesn’t mean they were any less committed on the field or that the desire on the pitch to put the other side to the sword was compromised. These men were and are for the most case proper professionals. Most of us have friends, workmates, sometimes even long-lost cousins who support the other side and even if they sometimes slip from the Christmas card list (this is why having a wife is both good and bad) there are few instances where reasonable people cannot be tolerated in one’s life.


But I’m afraid as I look at how the rivalry in Glasgow terms has developed, that recent times have brought out the pernicious, petty, obsessive, creepy and in increasing number of cases, the mentally disturbed side of the Celtic support.


Not content with a form of mass hypnosis over the ‘Big’ tax case through the means of a partisan and increasingly messianic blog, it has spilled onto the airwaves, and sprouted as the proliferation of blogs and personal preaching posts has consumed and in some cases diverted more mainstream voices and what were once more responsible mediums.


At least one national newspaper had to close the comments sections on their articles due to the unchecked lunacy of the mob and in general terms the toxicity and unrestrained venom which was once the calling-card of the social misfit has become the common currency of the (admittedly small) self-elected voices of the support. All the while the most outrageous and actionable commentary has been excused all standards of decency, accuracy, moderation and temperance by the seized truth that the MSM (mainstream media) had failed the common fan and thus had surrendered the moral high ground and begat the monster, with all the poison and wildness that comes with it.


The growth in volume and importance of social media undoubtedly has something to do with it all, and of course larger congregations of fandom across the web (on message boards, private forums, newsletters, groups and other arrangements beyond the ken of this young fogey) have for years fostered a sense of shared identity and grievance alike, while offering a chance to develop arguments, strategies and confirming suspicions and condoning long-held slightly extremist opinions as some inverted case of groupthink.


Much good can come from all this: fans’ groups, supporters’ trusts, ways for the fans to get across their concerns and improve relations between them and their Club. And without the input from the fans the sporting media covering Glasgow and Scottish football, across print, web, phone-ins and all possible outlets, would be in a spot of trouble.


But here’s where it has gone wrong. People who have for a number of years been pushing away at what is possible and have at almost every juncture been patronised, then permitted before finally becoming indulged have lost track of what is decent and what is normal.
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Didn't read it.
 
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