A Lesson To Us All

I don't hate Rangers because of what most of their fans religion are but it's hard not to despise them when you walk past a Rangers pub and get spat at because I was wearing a cross. They sing songs they don't understand and for a club that claims to stand for Britain have you ever seen a hun in a Wales top. The thing that really gets to me is people who support them with no English routes wearing an England top just like I don't understand Celtic fans with no Irish routes wearing an Ireland top. They are despised in most countries throughout Europe because of what they sing and what they stand for so it's not just us that hate them. But saying that there are a lot of decent Rangers fans who don't sing sectarian songs or hurt people because of their religion(just as this video shows)

 

Well regardless of whether we are protestant or catholics we are meant to love our enemies and forgive others. If you do not practice that then you are basically a hypocrite every time you set foot in a church. If hatred is a big thing in your life its not been a life worth living and the big man upstaris will not forgive those that do not forgive and nurse hatred of others.

 

yes but Scotland doesnt divide into huns and tims in the same way it works in Northern Ireland. The core 100,000 or so hardline OF fans are not the country. I was brought up in the north-east and 99% of people have no opinion and very little knowledge of the sort of historical stuff that OF fans and popuations in west-central Scotland clash over. You simply never heard a word about Irish orange v green stuff or religious rivallry. I think the OF especially and west-central Scotland is not representative of the country as a whole at all and visitors to Scotland fro ireland who come through as OF support get an incredibly skewed idea of the country that makes it look like northern Ireland type republican/unionsist catholic/protestant rivallry is a huge thing. It is not or at least its a localised phenomenon in one area of Scotland (as of course it is localised to one provence of ireland). The orange v green thing is an overspill of northern Irish subcultures but it is not really hardly known in huge areas of the country.

 

Amen

 

not trying to sound preachy or anything

 

No no no, not in your nature mate

 

Was a good video, has it changed my feelings toward Rangers fans? no.

I know that yes it is a (large) minority of Rangers fans that sing 'those' songs and are generally knuckle dragging, inbred racists. However my problem is that the majority of the fans as well as their club don't address this element and generally continue to let them be horrible spiteful vessels of hatred and violence, whilst at the same time say 'these people don't represent Rangers', well if they don't sort them out; The club could can them from the stadium, share their names with other clubs so they can do the same. The rest of the decent fans could make them feel unwelcome, not allow them on supporters buses, barr them from their pubs and maybe compose some decent non hate-fueled songs to sing at matches.

So basically it is the minority of Rangers fans I hate, but until I see some signs of them trying to be weeded out I will continue to hate Rangers as a whole.

 

The video tugs at the old heart strings doesnt it, the hairs were standin up on my arm.....R.I.P Tommy

I agree that bigotry should be eliminated and we must start with this generation and so forth, the problem is, some people disagree with this and we are all a product of our environment unfortunately.......sectarianism is still being handed down from parents onwards...

We have all been guilty of it and probably will be again, and we must never forget where we come from and the things that happened in our history, but we must try and have a constant effort to co-exist and move forward....

Great Video, Great post...

 

This will probably go down unpopularly but the majority of this thread is annoying me to be honest. It's become a sort of love in. The Martin Luther King quotes and numerous comments like "My best mates a rangers fan and he's a great bloke" are gettin a bit much. Obviously there are decent rangers fans out there, that goes without saying. However, when u talk about a clubs fans you have to generalize and so overall i feel it is more than fair to say rangers have a bigoted support. And their bigotry is against my religion and culture. It therefore annoys me all this "i hate them simply in a footballing sense and nothin more" bein applauded and being regarded as a great post, as if this is the right attitude and 1 we all should have! I hate them in much more than just a football sense because of what their fans (as a whole) do, believe in and stand for, and i make no apologies for it. It also in no way makes me a bigot. I am not a bigoted person at all but i hate a club with the type of support they have. If there's a decent man who supports rangers i wont hate him, but i'll still hate the rangers supporters of which he's a part of. What's wrong with that? Just because i hate them in more than just a football sense doesn't mean i condone all the old firm violence etc that goes on or agree with the sectarian element within our club.

Also regarding rangers as a club, lets not forget they're the same club who up until a relatively recent time ago we're a sectarian club who refused to employ people of the same religion as me. And so although again there could be decent people within the club, because of what the club as an institution has done in the past (allied to the supporters it has) i wholeheartedly hate the club in much, much more than simply a football sense.

Can someone tell me what's wrong with that?
And also how seeing decent (and welcome) gestures by a tiny minority of rangers fans after the death of Tommy Burns should make me change my mind?

 

I agree mate, I hate the club for what it stands for and the people who support it. I also make no apologies for hating the scum!

 

finish your sentences mate, theres like 5 of them that just lead nowhere, i have no idea what this post is supposed to mean

 

Obviously some of the stuff that gets sung at Rangers matches is totally abhorrent and I condemn and hate those songs in equal measure. I guess it's just nice when you see things happening like what happened in the wake of Tommy's passing. It became clear that there were nice, unbigoted Rangers fans out there and it felt, if only for a short time, like the barriers had come down. I think it's healthy and refreshing when that happens, it's a shame a great man had to die to bring it about. Obviously there would still have been some twisted Hun * out there who would have felt no different but I have to try not to think about people like that because I end up feeling very high levels of hatred toward them within myself and that's not good.

I still hate Rangers as a football team/club of course, I always will, but I just hope that as time moves on that the decent guys in the Rangers support can grow in number and the sectarianism element of the 'Old Firm' rivalry can diminish until it dies. Optimistic thinking? Probably, but I'd hate to think that in another 100 years no progress would have been made in the eradication of the sectarian element of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers.

 

My father is a protestant Celtic fan. I was raised catholic, because of my mother's family background. To me the rivalry has nothing to do with religion... I don't hate my dad, or any of the other protestants in my family.. And I certainly don't hate any Rangers fan for being a protestant. I really think the younger generations are certainly "growing up", and Tommy's funeral was certainly testament to that. The older generations are learning from the younger lads, too. I just hope that the beauty of Celtic and Rangers fans mourning Tommy together continues after the funeral. Violence because of religion is a disease and has no place in modern society.

 

The first Old Firm I went to was courtesy of Northern Ireland Rangers fans in my hotel who had 2 spare tickets. we won and I had to keep quiet 'cos I was sitting among the Rangers fans but it was a good crack with these 2 (who I still am in contact with despite living on the other side of the world) who could have had their own claim to sectarianism but were great lads.

In saying that, when they come to play my beloved Sydney FC next month in a tournament I'll be wearing my tri-colour keane scarf with my Syd FC shirt and heckling the * out of them

 

L.B. - Luigi Bruno (Interviewer)

M.N. - Marco Negri



L.B. - ' Marco, you left Rangers under very strange circumstances, why was that?'

M.N.-' Strange? There was nothing strange in anything that happened there, they simply did not want me there any longer'.

L.B.- 'Why was that?'

M.N.- ' The honest answer is that I didn't know then and I still don't know even today. Nobody ever explained why I had fallen out of favour.'

L.B.- ' Your goal record at Rangers was fantastic and when fit and available you were scoring for fun. I, and many others still do not understand why you left under a cloud'.

M.N.- 'Let's just say you are getting very close to why I think that I was frozen out. Scotland is a very claustrophobic place where everything is examined and analyzed endlessly. Scottish society is in many ways a backward place'.

L.B. - 'What do you mean by that?'

M.N. - ' The culture, the underlying culture of Rangers was not good. The first team players had a habit of drinking vast amounts of alcohol during the week. As you know here in Italy we have a different culture as professional footballers. We know that it is our duty to keep ourselves fit and healthy.
Some of the players there like Paul Gascoigne and Andy Goram would turn up smelling of drink BEFORE training!! I could not understand why such behaviour was tolerated by Walter Smith who was manager then'.

L.B.- ' Marco we are well aware of Paul Gascoigne's problems and it is sad to see his decline, we saw it earlier at Lazio. Are you saying that the players were out of control?'

M.N.- ' Absolutely, I tried to point this out to Walter Smith several times but he became very defensive and said that I needed to understand Scottish footballing culture. He would hear no criticism of Goram and especially Gascoigne who could literally do anything he wanted to and still get away with it! It wasn't just their drinking however, they had some really extreme political and religious views'.

L.B.- ' Could you elaborate on this please?'.

M.N. - ' Of course. They hated Catholics. All of them. I never understood why they were so filled with hatred. Several of us who were Catholic players and all foreigners were told upon arrival, never to bless ourselves at Ibrox as it could cause problems for us. I began to understand that Rangers was an extreme club very similar to Lazio here in Italy. You know, a right wing club with right wing supporters. I personally am not a practicing Catholic but my wife Anna Maria is, and it used to cause me pain when I heard what they said about my fellow Catholics. Lorenzo Amoruso and Jorg Albertz, just kept quiet and kept their heads down'

L.B.- ' What finally brought things to a head?'

M.N.- ' I was rapidly disillusioned by Rangers and especially their supporters. As part of my professional duties I was strongly encouraged to attend social functions which meant going to several Rangers supporters clubs. The last one I attended really brought home to me the fact that I had nothing in common with these people. The anti-Catholic feeling was venomous and the songs they sang that evening filled me with disgust. It was at that point I decided not to give my all for a club that condoned such behaviour. I went sick. Walter Smith knew the real reason for my 'illness' and he just ignored it. But I wasn't lying, I was sick, sick of Rangers and sick of what they stood for and that is the truth'

Well said Marco Negri

 

No disrespect but your are posting and watchig the games in China? Things are ALOT diffrent in Glasgow. On OF day after the game some of the winning and losing fans feel lucky if they make it down the road to their house without being shouted at, spat on, ounched or even stabbed. It is far more than a sporting rivalry.

 

I've never hated the huns based on religion, my utter contempt for them has been based on my experience of those I've met. I don't hate someone because they support the huns, or because they are Protestant I dislike them because of their general attitude.

Of course there are decent rangers fans just like there are total scum in the Celtic support which is why I would never hate someone based on which team they follow, but at the same time I'm not going to go singing their praises as most of the rangers fans I've met have lived up to their reputation.

 

DanniGhirl - I've never hated the huns based on religion, my utter contempt for them has been based on my experience of those I've met. I don't hate someone because they support the huns, or because they are Protestant I dislike them because of their general attitude.

Of course there are decent rangers fans just like there are total scum in the Celtic support which is why I would never hate someone based on which team they follow, but at the same time I'm not going to go singing their praises as most of the rangers fans I've met have lived up to their reputation.




well said dannighirl couldnt agree anymore with you

 

I dont hate Rangers i despise them always have always will and even though some of my family and friends are rangers fans i make no appoligies for saying that during the 90mins of old firm games that hatred is there for them just as it is for any other rangers fan but as with most sensible fans after the game is over normality return's and the hatred is gone until the next game against them.

 

I dont HATE Rangers, I just don't like them.

Growing up with a Catholic father, and Protestant Mother, i was brought up, and taught, form an early age, that hating people because of their religion wasn't acceptable.

What the Rangers fans sing during games is up to them, the same as our fans will sing songs with 'add-ons'. What Sinn Fein or * Bless The Pope has to do with the Fields of Athenrye, i don't know.

I have grown up around Rangers fans all my life. My best friend and Best man leads the Local Orange Walk. Some of my mates also play in the band, and they also stopped playing their songs during 1 walk to stop and play 'Happy Birthday to You' outside the house on my sisters 18th.

Protestant, Catholic, Rangers fan, Celtic fan. Doesnt bother me. I'm better than that