That's how the old saying goes and believe you me, truer words have never been spoken. Take Davie Provan's main article in The Express last Friday for example, now that really was a curious tome to behold. What inspired this piece from the 'Peace', was the supposed hysteria that has taken a grip of Old Firm fans as this season's championship swings this way and that. Damage limitation is Provan's strong suit when the yahoos are under fire and last week proved to be no exception.
What I just couldn't get my head round was that Provan chose to highlight the exclusion of Fabian Cabballero at the munky-hoose last Wednesday as a sign that people could accuse Jim (I'm a Celtic shareholder) Duffy of some ranygazoo in favour Celtic. Why should that be? After all, the same player had been missing from Dundee's line-up in their previous match.
And given the 'ponytail's' importance to this Dark Blues side, it is not too far fetched to assume he will be wrapped up in cotton wool until Scottish Cup final day.
As I say it was a strange thing, this article of Provan's. It was all about how other people might have perceived A - Duffy's team selection and B - Dundee's performance. At no time were we treated to a Provan's eye view of events. Although bizarrely enough he found time to label Kilmarnock's performance at Ibrox a few days earlier as 'woeful'.
So in an article, which was supposed to be about Old Firm hysteria/hypocrisy/madness etc, etc, Provan at no time lays any blame at the door of Dundee after their 'gubbing' at the hands of the yahoos. He makes no mention of the almost apologetic behaviour of a Dundee player for having the temerity to score against his old club, but still nevertheless manages to put the boot into Kilmarnock's display against Rangers. As I said earlier, strange but not surprising.
I'd like to ask a simple question here. Why do we have to tolerate ratbags like Davie Provan, or the media organisations that employ him? It was MDC on the eve of the Old Firm league encounter in March who said we stood on the threshold of a superbly crafted, if unlikely treble. It goes without saying that I want this title (and I find it inconceivable that we can lose the following week) but this Rangers support better wake up and wake up fast to what is happening here with regards to the Scottish press.
Now I realise I'm as well talking to a brick wall because we all know this Rangers support can be awfully slow on the uptake at times. For instance, despite all the evidence that was staring us in the face down through the years. It is only in the last year or so as the extent of the club's debt has finally hit home, that a large percentage of Rangers fans have woken up to the fact that David Murray is not (and never was) the financial whizzkid he was made out to be.
I really am at a loss as to how any of us can wake this support of ours from its slumber but perhaps I can sum it up best thus. If what was allowed to fester at Celtic Park for a generation, and hushed up by the real power brokers at that club had instead happened at Ibrox then certain sections of the Scottish footballing press, the very same people who have never uttered or written a single word on the subject, would be agitating to get our club shut down.
Not one Rangers supporter would tolerate a reptile like Provan or McDonald or Spiers putting the boot into their private businesses or their family. So why do we tolerate it when it is our club that is being abused? There has to be a policy of zero tolerance put into operation here.
For the record, When I say zero tolerance I include former Rangers (in both senses of the phrase) like Hateley, Johnstone and Sandy Clark here.
They have lost all right to our support, generosity and benevolence. I mean, just look at Hateley's record in the last month or so.
1 - He agrees on Radio Snide with Peace Process that Celtic were hard done by, regards the April 27th fixture controversy. But says the opposite in the Rangers News.
2 - He comes out in print and tells a possible Rangers signing target that it would be bad move for him to come to play for Rangers.
3 - Even the likes of Andy Walker is arguing in Rangers defence against him on phone-ins. That's some going for a Rangers employee, I'm sure you will all agree.
THUGS AND THIEVES TAKE A TUMBLE IN SEVILLE
So the run of the mill in Seville's dream has turned to dust. Aw feckin diddums. Honestly where do you start in trying to digest the gall of this shower? Goodness knows, but it really takes a lot to faze this cynical old cove, but the headlines telling us that they were robbed in the EUFA Cup final, takes my incredulity levels onto another plateau altogether.
If there is to be no trusting of the yahoos, there is certainly no shaming them. Imagine the biggest shower of cheats, thugs and divers ever to have disgraced the game here in Scotland having the gall to question Porto's tactics? I tell you, my flabber has been gasted to the extent I might not ever get it back in working order.
Mind you, you do have to feel a certain amount of sympathy for big Bobo.. After all, how was he to know you get red carded for two bookable offences, when he gets away with the same behaviour every week in Scotland due to our cowardly officials? I mean, you can wallop two players in as many minutes in Scotland in Cup finals and get away with it, so it stands to reason that you automatically feel you can do the same elsewhere without rebuke. I tell you, the Samaritans will have their work cut out trying to counsel the big man.
While we're on the subject of the yahoos and the press, we do have to mention the behaviour of the Scotland's ambassadors, both home and away in the last week or so. According to Timmy with typewriter on tour, the yahoos have been a model of goodiness and niceiness and jolly 'craic'skateeriness' this last week. Who is kidding who?
I watched an ensemble of them (with kids in tow) giving it big licks in Glasgow Airport on the morning of the match. Apart from telling all the h-words to tune into The Bill, they launched into 'Barcelona, Real Madrid, who the f*** ye trying to kid'. Now I'm as broadminded as the next guy, and the guy next to him. But this is how the yahoos were behaving ON camera for prime TV. So are we seriously being asked to believe that the yahoos over in Spain were behaving any differently?
We also know that there was widespread mayhem in Glasgow during and after the game with umpteen arrests and Hospitals/Plod being inundated with calls etc. The fun however wasn't all confined to after the game. For example, many of the worst (again with kids in tow) were to be found blootered outside Bairds at teatime on Wednesday. But hey, we've really to believe that sunburned Timmy, boozed out of his nut/vagrant in Spain was the ideal Ambassador for Scotland? But let's not go there. After all, that brings us back to our scum press!
SHOWDOWN SUNDAY
So Showdown Sunday is upon us. The main question we have to concern ourselves with is, Will the yahoos in the Kilmarnock team be able to lift themselves up from the gutter after the shattering of their dreams in Seville? I'm saying no, no a thousand times no! Which means we might just have to get ourselves a repeat of a 7-0 victory against Dunfermline in late 1997. That's what it might all come down to.
Just do it Rangers,
THE GOVANHILL GUB