Do We Rangers Fans Deserve Better?

Written by John McCallum

Do we deserve better? I always felt I had a pretty typical Rangers supporter upbringing. Brought up in Glasgow to Hebridean and Ayrshire parentage, I went to the local primary and secondary school, the local BB and Sunday school. Part of that upbringing was supporting Rangers of course. Finishing your dinner, not swearing and an understanding that anything you wanted in life had to be worked for was intrinsic to that childhood. I’ve tried to keep these lessons with me as an adult and father myself now, and some are easier to keep than others. It is probably because of this that I am struggling with the current "we deserve better" campaign. I understand the theory behind it, I even agree with some of the points raised, however I have a real problem with the public nature of the campaign and particularly the term "deserve". Why does anyone think we deserve anything? Football is a far more meritocratic profession than most, you can genuinely climb from the poorest most disadvantaged upbringing to become one of the most recognised, feted and admired people in the world through the combination of talent and hard work. That is what our club did, we climbed from a group of young men playing for fun in a public park to become one of the most famous, recognised and loved teams in the world, we didn’t do that by thinking we deserved it, we did that by dint of hard work and talent. As supporters, some of us seem to have forgotten this. There is arrogance to this phrase that grates, we are no more deserving of success than the supporters of every other club, we have enjoyed more than our share of success over the years, how many of us ever give thanks for this? Two moments last season brought home to me where some of our problems lie. A home game in the UEFA Cup first leg, we go in at the break to a chorus of boos from a decent percentage of our support, the score is 0-0 at the time. Now these guys that booed are probably season ticket holders, life-long fans and guys who will say they pay their money and are entitled to express their view. The second time was during the UEFA Cup final, certainly the biggest match in my supporting life and I’d guess that goes for the majority that attended. We’re 1-0 down with 15 minutes to go, we’ve 85 percent of the crowd and we’re being out-sung by the Zenit fans. How did that happen? Why couldn’t we raise the roof for the last 15 minutes, had we given up before the players had? We as supporters have a part to play in all games, are we playing it as fully as we could, every week? Even the last Old Firm game was strangely muted; are we really doing our bit? Some no doubt are, but most aren’t. Too many are willing to criticise, vocally, rather than encourage. Too many are willing to point out mistakes rather than offer solutions. If you speak to any professional player, they will tell you the affect the crowd can have on a player. How many times recently can you truly say we’ve had a positive effect on a Rangers player during a match. The people behind the press release last week are probably well-meaning but they have taken their grievances out of the family now, despite representing no one but themselves. They have gone public at a time when we could probably have done with some unity. Apparently we need £3 million to keep the bank at bay, or put it another way; £60 from everyone who went to the Falkirk match. How many of us would be willing to stretch ourselves at this time to supply that and prevent the sale of one of our better players? Would that be a gesture deserving of better? The dictionary gives the definition of "deserve" as "to have earned or to be given something because of the way you have behaved or the qualities you have." Everything we have, we earned; often the hard way. If we got back to concentrating on that again, we’d have by far the majority of the support on-side and would again be the team to fear. We don’t deserve better; we support the most successful club in the world, a club that has given all of us many, many happy times. That made three finals last season and took the league to the final day, and is very well placed in the league this season. How much better do you think it should be? Perhaps it is Rangers players, coaches and staff that actually deserve better.