I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Many years ago, a baldy Irishman, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, created this site. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to dozens of Rangers fans who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But years later, the Rangers fans are still not free. Years later, the life of the Rangers fan is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. Years later, the Rangers fan lives on a lonely island of prosperity in the midst of a vast ocean of material poverty. Years later, the Rangers fan is still languishing in the corners of football society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Rangers community must not lead us to a distrust of all Scottish football fans, for many of our football brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk away. As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Rangers fan is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of internet brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Rangers fan's basic mobility is from a smaller ground to a larger one. I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Glasgow, go back to Airdrie, go back to Paisley, go back to Belfast, go back to Edinburgh, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the Rangers dream. I have a dream that one day this website will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all football fans are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the green grassy slopes of the Boyne the sons of Rangers fans and the sons of Sevco fans will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the slums of Ardoyne, an area sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the team they support but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day, down in Celtic park, with its vicious bigots, with its board having their lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Glasgow, little black boys will be able to join hands with little thai boys and white boys as brothers and expose the horrible truths. I have a dream today. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every website, from every county and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Rangers men and Sevco men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and atheists, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Rangers spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
"And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every website, from every county and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Rangers men and Sevco men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and atheists, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Rangers spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"" Spot the deliberate ommission
Advertising Standards Authority ruling withdrawn It doesn’t rain but it pours.* The Independent Review Process of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has looked into the ASA’s recent, and widely reported, ruling on Rangers International’s claim on football titles won by a liquidated club. The Review found that “it was a procedural flaw for the ASA to have relied on an extract only of a report sent to it by the advertiser”. Further, the review process ruled that “there was also the risk of a substantial flaw of adjudication in the distinction that had been made between ‘club’ and ‘company’, especially in the light of previous ASA decisions about companies that change hands and the circumstances in which the new company could or could not trade off the reputation of the old company”. The Chairman of the ASA, Lord Smith of Finsbury, as decided to reopen the ASA’s investigation into the case and to withdraw the published adjudication, which favoured the advertiser.* Withdrawing this adjudication does not infer that a different outcome will subsequently be reached.* To use a football analogy, it’s half time and they’re all square. An interesting, and potentially critical part of the story, is that after the initial ASA decision was issued, the club’s web site noted that their submission to the process included information that a “panel of the London Stock Exchange” supported their claim. The Stock Exchange subsequently appeared surprised at this assertion, so much so that the club promptly withdrew the claim from the web article.
