What is the difference between a Billy and a Tim ? No, it’s not the introduction to a sectarian joke, it’s a serious, rhetorical question. The answer, quite obviously, is very, very, very little. These people were brought up on the same streets, in the same towns, played on the same parks, ate the same food, watched the same TV, read the same papers and worked the same shifts. Many fell in love, married or formed lifelong partnerships with those who ‘kicked with the other foot’ and Scotland is a much better place for it. In fact, the only discernible difference, in these more secular times, between Billy and Tim is which football team they support. Why then the polar opposite reactions to the imminent demise of their beloved clubs in 1993/4 and 2011/12 ?
In 1993 Celts for Change was formed by five Celtic supporters in response to what fans had come to perceive as the inherent nepotism and ‘biscuit-tin mentality’ of the Kelly’s, one of the families that had controlled Celtic since its foundation. This ‘mismanagement’ was affecting the team on the park’s ability to compete with their fierce rivals across the city during what has become known, among Celtic fans at least, as ‘the barren years’. The future looked bleak and the fans did not like it, not one little bit, and they made their feelings known. Thousands cried ‘Sack the Board’ at home games and many hundreds stayed behind after matches to protest against the failed leadership and lack of direction of their beloved club.
At the same time, the Scottish MSM, to their eternal credit, went out of their way to highlight and expose the decidedly-dodgy financial goings on at Celtic Park (with one newspaper even sending a reporter all the way to the US of A in an attempt to uncover some juicier aspects to the saga). In a journalistic fervour not seen since, pertinent and probing questions were asked of the major players, with follow up questions asked where the interviewee had sought the refuge of distraction or obfuscation. There was no hiding place for those who purported to be the leaders of this great club. Leaders are supposed to be held ‘responsible’, that means they are expected to respond.
Alongside this, there was an undeniable element of ‘shadenfreude’ being expressed through the Red Tops. Jabba and his minions laughed like a pack of hungry hyenas in anticipation of a kill. Rangers were, seemingly, untouchable, financially-sound and rampant in all national competitions. Celtic were presented as no more than also-rans with cash flow problems. Interspersed among the gleeful utterances from Ibrox (including, it should be said, from Mr McCoist himself), many will recall the oft-referred to ‘Broken Crest’ and ‘Celtic in Crisis’ banners on the back pages. One rag (pre-Photoshop, remember ?) even hired a hearse complete with an undertaker, a coffin and a wreath to park outside Celtic Park in order to get a ‘sensational’ Back Page picture. It worked an absolute treat, loads more papers were sold that day. The Rangers fans were joyful, the Celtic fans were incensed.
CfC, at the point of desperation and with administration looming, managed to organise a’ reasonably successful’ boycott of a (rearranged) home match against Kilmarnock, which, no doubt, sent more than a few fiscal frissons up the spines of Messrs Kelly and the rest of the Board. In the end though, it was (ain’t it always been so) the ‘moneymen’ in the background who had both the impetus and capacity to negotiate an end to the daily declining dynasty of the dastardly King Kelly. At the last, and most opportune, moment, Mr Dempsey loaned the club a few bob to extend their overdraft facility, Uncle Fergus came in with a plan and a bunnet full of cash, floated the club in PLC fashion, fans bought a substantial amount of shares and the rest is, as they say, history.
Fast forward to 2011/2012. Compare and contrast. As far as I am aware, it was the Scots-Irish journalist and active member of the NUJ, Phil Mac Giolla Bhain who first raised the possibility of Rangers tax issues and potential administration on Radio Clyde during the autumn of 2010. What was the response of the Scottish football media and the Rangers support to this impending disaster ? It was ignored, derided and otherwise fobbed off as idle gossip or a ‘timmy’ conspiracy created to undermine the (desperately) proposed sale of the club.
When the former owner did eventually ‘get shot’ of ‘the most successful club in the world’ for the princely sum of ‘one Great British Pound’ to a well-kent, two-bit hustler, where were the Scottish football media ? I’ll tell you, they were, most likely, sitting at their desks waiting for the next well-crafted press release from the offices of Ibrox or Media House, which they then dutifully copied and pasted before settling down to a nice long lunch of ‘the most succulent lamb’, no doubt accompanied by some fava beans and a nice Chianti (fthst thss fthst).
Despite specific warnings emanating from the Orwell Award-winning rangerstaxcase.com with regards to Mr Whyte’s ‘Modus Operandi’ and, notwithstanding Mark Daly’s BBC documentary expose on the EBT fiasco and Mr Murray’s (and the rest of the board’s) shambolic running of the club, the Rangers fans heads were encouraged to remain firmly ensconced, ostrich-style, heading in a southerly direction on that ironically blue and white river in Egypt. Regardless of an Award-winning English war correspondent and investigative journalist (who clearly had no axe to grind) indicating, in no uncertain terms, that all was not right in the State of Scottish Fitbaw, and signalling, to any who would listen, the unbearable inevitability of oblivion, no-one in the Scottish MSM asked anyone of any importance a single goddamn thing.
Once the aforementioned brown, smelly stuff hit the big swirly thing down the Copland Road, the sense of shock and disbelief was palpable among the loyal supporters. Literally ‘some’ disillusioned Rangers fans turned up outside Ibrox to demand that ‘the big hoose must stay open’. The oddly, but aptly named Rangers Fans Fighting Fund was hastily set up. Unfortunately their first foray into promoting a ‘fightback’ against their perceived enemies lead to the notorious Mr Custard the bluenose clown debacle (enough said!). Knights of varying hues hovered like bluebottles, then flitted silently to other, less pungent flowers.
Various potential ‘moneymen’ (both known and unknown), arrived like oriental kings, except bearing sycophantic platitudes about the greatness of the club and the loyalty of the support instead of the actual gold, myrrh and frankincense that was required. Due diligence and basic fiscal rectitude mandated that these guys look at the ‘numbers’. After which, they all made a sharp exit, retreating behind the boardroom door like the psychopathic nun out of ‘the Blues Brothers’, in case they drew any further unwanted attention to themselves.
This left the door ajar to, what one might term, the vulture capitalist(s), who had sat, patiently, watching from afar until Rangers’ rotten carcass was completely surrounded by no competing predators . Brave Bomber Brown began to bloom, almost blossomed and then bombed on the steps of Ibrox. The RST, RSA, RTIDNI, VB et al argued amongst themselves and thus, no real concerted attempt was ever made to drive forward the fans agenda and to question those in charge of their club.
” In Murray we trust” they cried, “in Whyte we trust” they added, “in Ally we trust” they reiterated and now they exclaim “in Green we trust”. What on earth is going on here ? Are these not my countrymen, my neighbours, my pals, my family? They are not some trifle to be played with then discarded like an old simmet. Could it be that the fans, actually, were adhering to their own implanted artificial stereotypes ? Surely everyone understands that Billy can be no more loyal than Tim and that Tim is no more rebellious than Billy.
Could the tabloid media actually be benefitting from playing up to these reinforced stereotypes in order to increase the sale and distribution of their tiresome tomes? ………….You can bet your last ten bob they could.
With this in mind, let us undertake a cursory examination the extreme stereotypes of Celtic and Rangers supporters as promulgated by our Scottish MSM. Bear in mind that I am talking about the extremists here. At least 95% of all followers of either team are thoroughly decent, unlabelled, human beings with whom I would/do share my blood. However, the media would have us believe they are ‘chalk and cheese’. For Rangers fans one is lead to envisage a ‘Mason Boyne’ type character, let us call him Billy Boyle; a loyal, British, hard-working, queen-loving, pope-hating, bowler-hatted royalist. For Celtic supporters one is coerced to imagine another contrary character, let’s name him Timothy O’Toole; a rebel, Irish-stocked, work-shy, pope-loving, queen-hating, toorie-wearing republican.
“Who are these people?, I want to know who these people are.” Do they have wives, children, jobs, lives ? Personally, I have (thankfully) never met anyone remotely like Billy or Tim and I seriously doubt that you have either. In my humble opinion, these ‘gentlemen’ do not exist. In fact, they are no more than mere caricatures, figments of some maniacal marketing man’s imagination. However, these are the very two guys to whom the Scottish football media still aim their derogatory and derisory messages (their target market, if you will).
Brand loyalty is a well understood marketing phenomenon. All individuals have, whether they like it or not, deep-rooted emotional and subconscious attachments to a particular image of themselves as being a certain’ type’ of person. Moreover, most, if not all, people consider themselves one of the good guys (better than all the rest, as some would say). This fallacious and corrupted self-image leads to them being attracted to and sticking with specific product brands, which they perceive (wrongly) to share an affinity with them, over others which don’t (Apple v Orange).
Marketing and media companies have, for many decades, used sophisticated and covert techniques to engender these ‘avatars’ and created the ‘illusion of choice’ in order to manipulate the required changes in attitudes and behaviour (more often than not to compel you to buy more of their crap). At its simplest in can be the use of ‘loaded language’ i.e. using emotionally charged words to illicit a desired response (e.g. ‘punishment’ is a far more emotive word than say, ‘consequences’ or even ‘sanctions’). You can see many, many examples of this every day in both the printed and broadcast media.
At the more extreme end of the spectrum, these techniques include Neural Linguistic Programming (sometimes aptly called hidden or ‘hack’ hypnosis) which involves the use of emotive terms (Hope, Change, Trust etc), sophistry, suggestion, hidden meanings, secret hand gestures and tones of voice to captivate and manipulate a suggestible audience. This is established fact, not some anti-Masonic conspiratorial fantasy. Politicians (at least their spin doctors) do it all the time and it appears to work.
The three wise monkeys of the Scottish MSM (newspapers, TV and Radio), who heard nothing, saw nothing and said nothing throughout the calamitous reigns of both Mr Murray and Mr Whyte, will continue, Bobby Ewing like, to pursue their failed schema as though ‘the Rangers thing’ had never happened. By callously exploiting the self-image of both Billy and Tim and thus polarising the debate (the old divide and conquer routine) they will be able to circumvent questions over their own complicity and continue to set the entire agenda. It’s simple, it’s devastating and it’s effective.
Loyalty is one of those highly emotionally-charged words which can be, and is, used to manipulate people. Loyal people, by their very definition, have a tendency to trust ‘the powers that be’ and those whom they perceive to be above them. Rebels, on the other hand, are predisposed to a latent mistrust of all authority and those they feel are attempting to control them. However, loyalty should never be confused with Loyalism. Many, if not most, Celtic fans consider themselves to be loyal or (‘faithful through and through’ as they call it) with regard to their club. How is being faithful that different from being loyal ? Could this misplaced and ill-conceived ‘loyalty’ be the simple reason why Celtic now thrive whilst Rangers barely survive ?
Let me be absolutely clear here, I am not suggesting for one minute that any of this is the Rangers fans fault. Sure they gloried in their triumphs, who wouldn’t ? But when it came down to it, most of them just ‘reacted’ like Pavlov’s pooches to the unremitting triggers of loyalty and supremacisim. Those few decent supporters and ex-players who tried to speak out against the failing leadership of their favoured brand were quickly accused of being disloyal and stood down, silent. Where were all the well-paid, professional and eloquent types (who, I should remind you, had claimed substantial sums of fan’s cash for promoting the club throughout the glory years) to speak up on behalf of the club and the support ? When the fans needed Bamber (Gascoigne), they got Bomber (Brown). When they needed the truth, instead they were proffered the same old, same old rabble-rousing rhetoric and tired cliches.
Billy doesn’t appear to mind though. In any case, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all. As a matter of fact, despite their public vilification, both the hyenas and the vultures appear set to embark on a new joint venture, to glean the last few meagre pickings from the bones of the emaciated and desiccated cadaver of the loyal supporters of this new club purporting to be the once mighty Rangers. How many will be compelled to ‘prove their loyalty’ by donating their hard-earned cash to this legal fiction. Some call it investing in their club, some call it buying shares in a new ‘holding company’, some call it taking the piss. I call it legalised corporate extortion.
So then, what is the difference between a Billy and a Tim? Could (should, even) Billy try to be more like Tim and begin to rebel against their ‘superiors’ ? Would that ? could that save what is left of their beloved club? Perhaps! because, after all, to paraphrase General Jack D Ripper in the late/great Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, to the fans, football, like war “is far too important to be left to the generals”.
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