RANGERS manager Ally McCoist believes the club's supporters should be issued with a safe songsheet outlining what chants are and are not acceptable. The Rangers travelling support rolled back the years on Saturday with a string of sectarian anthems and offensive songs during their Irn-Bru Scottish Football League Third Division win in Berwick. The match was televised live, with the broadcasters ESPN making an on-air apology to viewers and the club reacting with a statement issued midway through the match. The Rangers manager also apologised in the wake of the game, but did not hear the chants from his position on the touchline and today expanded on that - stating that supporters should be told exactly what songs they are and are not allowed to sing. He said: "If that eradicates the problem, then I'm all for it - absolutely all for it. "Anything that would move us forward and eradicate that problem that we had at the weekend would be helpful. "It might seem like a drastic measure but if it helps, then I don't have a problem with it at all. In fact, I'd encourage it." UEFA issued Rangers with a £35,180 fine and banned its fans from travelling to Sweden for the club's Champions League qualifier against Malmo last season after they were charged with sectarian singing during a Europa League match at PSV Eindhoven in March, 2011. But McCoist insists the club has been stringent in its work to rid its support of the sectarian element. "The club has taken giant strides to move forward," he said. "The vast, vast majority are of that opinion and that is what we want. "There is no place for those songs in the modern game, we all know that. They are unacceptable and there is no place for them in a modern society. "We are doing our best to move forward and some massive, massive steps have been taken. The weekend was obviously a disappointment but I'm not going to get too carried away with that disappointment because we want to keep moving forward again. "I don't have any doubts that the majority of our fans want to leave those days behind us. "We will move forward, because we have got a phenomenal fan base who have been nothing short of fantastic this season. The vast majority of them know what is expected, because they are representing the club as well. "It's important that they behave themselves and the club has a good image moving forward. "I want them to come and sing the songs that get the Rangers team going but support them in the proper manner. That is exactly what we want. "I'm very hopeful that this is just a minnor hiccup." Rangers return to the scene of their only league defeat of the season when they face Stirling Albion at Forthbank tomorrow night. Brian Allison struck for the Binos in a stunning 1-0 win back in October but since then the Ibrox men have gone on to open up a 22-point lead at the table summit. That has now put them potentially within six wins of the title but McCoist insits his only focus is finally winning in Stirling. He said: "That was the venue of our only defeat this season and I can obviously remember it well. It was a very disappointing performance. Certainly it was one of the blacker days of the season so far. "So we will know what to expect. Even at Ibrox I thought Stirling played well and made it difficult for us. "But we are just concentrationg on winning the league, not where or when we win it. I haven't even looked at when it could happen. "Let's be quite frank about it. We have got ourselves in a great position to go on and win the title. Hopefully that is the case, and if it is, hopefully it is sooner rather than later." --------------- 6 games is Montrose away Ally.
Using nasty words in the Super Rangers song will get you lifted but there are other songs that the fans don't realise can also get you lifted such as Build My Gallows. That is if the songs are sung in Scotland, not in England. Apart from the odd nasty words I thought the fans were very good the other day, made up for a pretty poor game.
Rangers troubled by "inappropriate singing" Does poor football cause poor behaviour? 26 February ~ At Stirling Albion's Forthbank stadium tonight Rangers return to the scene of their only league defeat this season. However, many will believe this season's biggest setback took place on Saturday at Berwick. A few hundred of the travelling support, which constituted over half Shielfield's 4,500 crowd, sang about "Fenian blood", *****philia and co-commentator Craig Burley's wife. It was picked up loud, clear and live by ESPN's microphones. More than blackening an already grim 3-1 away win, these songs dented the "phoenix from the flames" romanticism around the Glasgow club's lower-league life. The resurrection of sectarian ditties was brief and, in truth, confined to a section of younger supporters who had clearly enjoyed a liquid breakfast before the noon kick-off. In Fever Pitch Nick Hornby posits the theory that poor football attracts poor fan behaviour. And it's pertinent that the catalogue of *****philia songs – aimed initially at the heavy police attention ("Why don't you go and catch a *****?") then extended to Jock Stein, Celtic and the Catholic church – ended when Rangers produced the one pleasing move in the entire game, scoring on the stroke of half-time. However, sectarian singing was often at its worst when Rangers were at their best. The extensive eroding of anti-Catholic songs at 21st-century Ibrox actually ran parallel with the club's increasing financial problems. From personal experience I can say that the disorientating transportation of our support to lower league venues has often felt like a quantum leap back to the early 1980s. Rangers fans in their teens and twenties won’t have experienced regularly standing on terraces, nor watching a poorer standard of football. Boredom and identity crises are classic drivers of anti-social behaviour but the most valid mitigation for what went on at Berwick was sat in the directors’ box opposite Shielfield's cowshed covered enclosure. Chief executive Charles Green, the appointed representative of the new company running Rangers, has engaged in a sustained campaign of blaming everyone else for our current position. There's no structure to his public ranting; the only consistency has been to take the most embittered voices as representative of the entire fan base. He's threatened to take the club out of Scotland, blamed their exclusion from the SPL on bigotry and last week he claimed he would quit the club if chairman Malcolm Murray didn’t resign. By half time on Saturday Rangers had expressed disappointment with the "inappropriate singing". Time was obviously of the essence but the two-line statement contrasted starkly with the novella-sized condemnations of journalists and administrators which have become the norm on the club website. You can’t criticise blind bitterness when it’s actually club policy. It was left to manager Ally McCoist, after the match, to actually apologise. Rangers fans says that those mocking our financial implosion of last summer are "obsessed". However, six different songs about child abuse in five minutes demonstrate a far more sinister obsession. As the tabloids often demonstrate, there is a thin line between condemning *****philia and celebrating it. Rangers fans who feel the need to attack the Vatican can safely stand down – there are enough people, better qualified and far more invested, currently on the case. And it's not just in Rome where an institution enduring a year of setbacks could do with a change of leader. Alex Anderson http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1158...ppropriate-singing-continue-to-blight-rangers
See my point. I didn't know that as well, but at the game last week and when the fans were singing it my mate told me not to join in. He knows people that were lifted for singing it. The fella sitting in front of us said the same. It's not exactly clear how or if it is illegal but there have been occasions were people have been scooped because of it.
The Rangers support this season has been fantastic and they deserve plaudits for supporting the team when they need them most. Shame some of them let us all down by singing some songs/chants that we really should have left behind us a long time ago. Having said that, I watched the match on the telly and didn't hear anything bad. First I knew of it was the half time apology by whitshisface who was presenting.
It's a farce The cops will arrest you for singing one week but escort you to Glasgow Green for a party while playing the same songs on a flute the next Salmond and the cops want to be seen to be doing something about "sectarianism". The easy fix is to accuse fans of being sectarian and get it in the papers....they don't say much when the cases are thrown out of court though Dealing with the real problems would be more hassle than an executive can handle...especially one run by a fat slug
The only one I heard that I knew would land them in trouble was Super Rangers. Though they were chanting about someone being a ***** and Burley's wife being a hure, but you can get that at any game.
"Who Shagged All the Boys?" was another that came across very loudly, though that's probably OK as it's a matter of public record.
I remember getting the official Celtic Songs cassette bought for me from the Celtic shop and thinking it was pure ****e, not a single Chucky song or even an 'and the IRA' to be heard
Safe Song Sheet List "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to work we go" "There is a green land far away" "Onward Christian Soldiers" "What's a matta you hey"
Without a doubt, probably belted out Rangers fans singing from back in the 90s over the speaker system.
