Months of work by extremist websites has gone for a burton.
Football clubs, governing bodies, the City Council, the police, building industry regulators and others have all been subject to a dishonest bombardment by fanatical fraudsters motivated by sectarian hatred. Despite their worst efforts they have been rebuffed.
Maniacal as this behaviour may seem - a flurry of Freedom Of Information requests, harassing emails, menacing phone calls and the publishing of dishonest articles - in the current climate the powers that be have to appear to take such “concerns” seriously and respond to them. Playing it by the book as it were.
Of course, beyond normal footballing rivalry, there is a diseased undercurrent to all this. It is unspoken in the articles but it’s a wicked undercurrent given voice to in Celtic fan forums - it’s a new way of mocking the dead of the Ibrox Disaster under the guise of concern for fan safety. It’s truly vile.
We’ve seen claims that the Rangers board met to discuss the safety of the stadium on the 23rd of this month. In fact, they last met the day before the Ibrox AGM. We’ve seen claims that a Rangers director, John Gilligan, gained promotion at Tennents since a lad leaving school due to his membership of the Masons. In fact he was headed hunted as their Sales Director (and subsequently became their managing director) just five years ago by a Celtic season ticket holder. I might also point out to the Celtic conspiracy theorists that Tennents has been headquartered for a number of years in Dublin but since when did reality every bother these chaps.
After months of studying this lunacy I’m happy to report that no safety nets will be employed at Ibrox for the game - although the curious habit Celtic fans have developed of throwing themselves from the upper tiers of football stadia in the last few decades might actually make this advisable.
I can further illuminate the topic by divulging that having authorised expenditure on the upgrade of Ibrox the work plan for the first stage of the work which will begin (somewhat too logically for Celtic bloggers it might seem) in the close season was lodged months ago with the relevant authorities and subcontractors. To paraphrase Father Dougal - with structures that are very high health and safety regulations stipulate the use of scaffolding and nets. It’s that simple.
Enjoy a hate-free game at the home of football.