>
> "ZB" hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:69b89nF31dsh5U1@mid.individual.net...

>>
>> "FishSupper" sea.com> wrote in message
>> news:7ICdnTHSyLYn_63VnZ2dnUVZ8hednZ2d@bt.com...

>>>
>>> "Paddy" ninespam.co.uk> wrote in message
>>> news:d5XXj.16634$ie5.11120@newsfe05.ams2...

>>>> ...for dragging Scottish football right through the mud, yet again !!
>>>>
>>>> A disgrace on the field, and a disgrace off the field.
>>>>
>>>> I am ashamed to be Scottish.

>>>
>>> How exactly did Rangers drag scottish football through the mud - by
>>> qualifying for the UEFA cup final and securing enough coefficient points
>>> to practically guarantee CL football for the Scottish champions for a few
>>> years to come?
>>>
>>> Sounds to me like you are unable to differentiate between Rangers FC, the
>>> 199,000 decent fans and the couple of hundred thugs who disgraced their
>>> club and country. Sounds to me like it's all just 'Rangers' to you -
>>> which is a very childish way to look at things.

>>
>> It was a lot more than a couple of hundred thugs mate. It was more like
>> between one and two thousand.

>
> The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle and is not helped by claims
> that the violence was happening 'all over the city' - it wasn't, it was in a
> couple of localised hot spots.
>
>

>> I don't think the actions of Rangers "fans" should be attributed to
>> Scotland. However, if you read the English newspaper reports, letters
>> columns and listen to the phone-ins on stations like 5live, it seems to me
>> that many English people *are* tarring all Scots with the same brush.

>
> There's a growing anti-Scottish sentiment in England tied in to the decline
> in the fortunes of the Labour party and the shit spewed out by the
> right-wing press about the supposed subsidising of Scotland by the English.
> (FACT: Scotland with North Sea oil is the second biggest contributor to the
> UK exchequer. Without NS oil, we're 4th. Source: Oxford University dept of
> economics - but that's by the by). And the day we listen to the English
> criticising us about football hooligans is the day I wear a green and white
> scarf. They have killed, maimed and destroyed their way across Europe for
> decades and they DARE to point fingers at us?
>
> In any event, they have been waiting to launch into us for some time now and
> Manchester gives them the perfect opportunity. They, like the majority of
> celtic fans if this newsgroup and the phone ins are anything to go by, have
> their own agendas and are more than happy to indulge in knicker-wetting
> finger pointing and ignore the fact that of the 150-200,000 - the biggest
> single movement of people for one event since World War II - there were a
> few hundred drunken troublemakers, some of whom were travelling casuals from
> elsewhere.
>
> I'm not trying to say that the great majority of the troublemakers weren't
> Rangers 'fans', - they were - but it would be naive to think that the
> football casuals wouldn't turn up to an event like this. I suspect that the
> 'main events' of the evening were planned by the casuals from rangers and
> elsewhere but that the great majority of the violence was executed by the
> footsoldier neds in Rangers colours.
>

>> I don't think it is helpful either for Celtic fans to point score over
>> what happened or for Rangers supporters, management and media to brush
>> this under the carpet as nothing to do with Rangers. The line being spun
>> constantly is that these are not Rangers fans (even though there were many
>> wearing Rangers gear), they were not even Scottish (even though there are
>> plenty of Scottish accents present on the videos) and it was only 200
>> people (even though that is not possible given the widespread damage that
>> occured).
>>
>> I would rather spend our energies working out what we can do to kick these
>> scumbags out of football for good.

>
> Although Rangers FC have been working very hard for some time to get rid of
> this problem, progress has been slow and it's time now to get serious.
>
> Rangers is identified as being part of this 'Blues Brothers' coalition of
> unionist/loyalist right wingers and this is what RFC has to work to
> eradicate. I would introduce the following 7 measures.