Not in my name.

"You can change your wife, your politics, your car, but you can't ever really change your club." But does mine still sit well with who I think I am?

The Albachiara Journal is an eclectic collection of our opinion and perspective, from our travels and encounters.

We live in a polarising world where the centre is collapsing all around us, and the middle ground in anything is now rare. We are all being forced everyday to take a side, and then hold it fiercely.

Aggressively.

I do a podcast with a buddy, entirely based instead on two diverse characters who see sport very differently, and maybe never find resolution in any debate. We often agree to disagree, but never fall out.

The very idea of that seems to be dying, especially at my club Celtic, and this thesis is today’s Sunday Column.

The one where the Hoops came to Como.

Last month, Celtic played a friendly tournament in my new home town of Como.

Their sojourn as invited guests was not a success!

They didn’t do well on the field, losing heavily 5-1 to Ajax, but also off it hardly covered themselves in glory. Como’s police chief issued an eight-year stadium ban to five Celtic supporters for "provoking opposition fans" by waving the Palestinian flag. See here:

“The bans for the Celtic fans were issued for provocation, not for the Palestinian flag itself. Despite the utmost respect for the suffering of a people, the stadium is a place with rules. And failure to comply with them, obviously, has consequences. The rules on what can be brought into a stadium during a football match include a strict ban on bringing symbols, banners, or flags with political overtones. This is because the stadium is a sporting venue. The central issue was their behaviour during the match. They came down from the stands and approached the Dutch fans, who were very calm, with the sole intent of provoking. Their behaviour was gratuitous and provocative.”

An interesting use of words from the Italian bobby, making a clear distinction between any opinion on Palestine, as opposed to simply enforcing his law and order. An honest attempt at nuance.

I sat in the stands at that game, watching my team in the flesh for the first time in a dozen years, and cringed.

Como and the Comaschi are now my home, they know my team, and I was hoping for better. A lot better.

It's all about opinions in football, that's what they say.

Is debate even envisaged in the divided world in which we now all live? Is having a view still allowed?

Here is a football opinion about my club.

It doesn’t claim to be the truth. It is only my truth.

Celtic and me is a story lasting 55 years, so this is a serious internal introspection, articulated in naked public transparency, and in some ways deeply cathartic. It seeks to change the mind of absolutely no-one else, and has no aspiration to lecture anyone.

I’ve had an issue with Celtic for a while, because they have for years been staggeringly unambitious, especially in Europe, with a Board and C-Suite full of parochial thinking, always looking in the bargain basement for players. Despite every single advantage in the world, they negligently and unforgivably allowed our rivals to interrupt the record-breaking 10-in-a-row sequence of title wins. We’d be approaching 15 now. They took their foot off their throat with a series of amateur-hour errors and general complacency. A mass-resignation event for me.

The same people on the Board have been in positions of power for over 25 years, have now passed all that onto their nepo-babies, and are seemingly unable to realise that football is no longer an analogue and linear business. A club, for me, too easily sated by domestic dominance over a weak rival, whose entire strategy can be summarised as winning in Scotland with as little spend as possible.

They understandably cannot live with the megabrand clubs of today, financed by private equity and sovereign wealth, but they should easily still be competitive with the likes of Brugge, Porto, Ajax. Tragically, far too often, they haven't even been close, and their whole set-up is objectively a mile off best-in-class for 2025. A certain Mr Tony Bloom may educate them on all that now.

This is an opinion that for some may seem harsh, and with which many will understandably disagree, but I don’t care. I’m not running for office. I like to win, and/or compete hard.

So am I still in connection with the current Celtic brand? Does it still represent me?

Brand is powerful, defining, and so damn hard to shift once established.

I’m writing this in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, an island undeniably with a certain reputation. Michael and Apollonia Corleone, Totò Riina, Falcone and Borsellino. Cosa Nostra.

But Palermo is so much more than these perceptions, and that's exactly the point. Brand sticks, especially when negative.

In reality, Sicily is one of the most cultured and interesting places in the whole world, benefiting from a million influences over the centuries, from Greek, Roman, Arab, Spanish, and Norman dominance in various different eras. Like Constantinople, it is a living Venn diagram of European and Mediterranean history, with nuance and complexity everywhere you look in the dialects, art, architecture and cuisine. The people at the mean are incredibly well-read, kind, and often, from direct experience, superb human resources for any company in the world. The Ballaro’ quarter of Palermo is an optimistic living example of tolerant multi-culturism, created over centuries.

Sicily is indeed an onion with many layers. Just like a beautiful woman.

Dua Lipa in Palermo, July 2025.

So the stereotypical image of Sicily is, if not wrong, then certainly incomplete. Take a few minutes to study the reality of Sicilian culture here, and then plan a visit. My fellow Glaswegians Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill, who have travelled the world with their band, and seen everything, have chosen to make it (Taormina) their home.

We all have a reputation.

Where you choose to live is part of that, your personal brand.

As is the woman you marry and manage to keep, the friends you frequent, the people who will work with you, the clients who will pay you for what’s in your head, the guests who will accept to come to your conference, the quality of podcasters who want you to appear on their show.

All this is called brand association. And for guys, so is your football club. Very much so.

If you don't believe that, observe how certain older fans of Manchester City are very quick to talk about visiting the stadia of the lower leagues in the dark days before the petrodollar. Throwing in casual mentions of Colin Bell, Malcolm Allison, even Paul Lake. Same with United, talking about Nobby Stiles, Willie Morgan, and Jesper Olsen; to say nothing of the Law backheel. Chelsea fans may even talk about going to a Cocteau Twins concert with Pat Nevin in the 80s.

All of these people are just trying to define and refine their personal brand. You can hear it: "I was here with this club well before it was cool to come. I'm not a tourist fan, a glory-chaser, or the son of an Oligarch or a sheikh. I’m authentic."

Yes, a football club is a very important part of who any bloke is, because as the famous quote goes...

"You can change your wife, your politics, your car, but you can't ever really change your club."

But does mine still sit well with who I think I am? As it once did so perfectly.

I got lucky, I ended up with Glasgow Celtic.

Normally we don't get to choose our football brand. It’s given to us, often forced upon us, and I just got very, very fortunate. I got to walk tall right out the gate.

Celtic was formed in 1888, originally for the noblest of all reasons: to offer food and sanctuary to the poor, desperately hungry Irish immigrant community in Glasgow. Founded by a religious man and holy teacher from Sligo, Ireland, called Brother Walfrid.

"In 1888, he founded The Celtic Football Club as a means of raising funds for the Catholic poor and deprived in the East End of Glasgow. In 1893, Walfrid was sent by his religious order to London's East End. Here he continued his work, organising football matches for and showing great kindness to the barefoot Catholic children in the districts of Bethnel Green and Bow. The charity established by Walfrid was named The Poor Children's Dinner Table." From Wikipedia, read here the full story.

🎶 "And if... you know... your history... ", it doesn’t get purer and more authentic than this. Celtic comes from very good jeans genes.

The ethos.

Celtic, different to the established Scottish club of Glasgow Rangers, built atop these purest of origins a natural credo about always being friendly, welcoming, and inclusive for all.

Those neighbours of ours, from across the city, instead made their name and fame around insular standards of exclusion. For example, no Catholic would ever play for them, or sully their brand, and that amazingly was the official club policy which lasted 100 years, until broken by a certain Graeme Souness.

Let’s let Sir Alex Ferguson explain those years best. They very much existed, and we all lived them.

Ferguson was a Rangers kid and it was the brand he was given, until he was forced to realise that it didn't actually represent him at all. He admits he should have just told them to “fuck off”.

Because absolutely without fear of contradiction, they were a nasty tribe who arrogantly called themselves "The People":

"We Arra Peepel".

Intolerant, blunt instruments, utterly confident and comfortable in their culture. Closed, unwelcoming, even violent. Staunchly certain of their (Protestant) superiority and being on the right side of history. Their songbook on a Saturday reflected all of that fully, and was simply horrific:

We’re up to our knees in Fenian blood
Surrender or you’ll die
For we are
The Brigton Billy Boys.

Viewers of "Peaky Blinders" will know who the Billy Boys were.

We were the opposite.

Open to all.

So important were the principles of Brother Walfrid to the enduring brand of Celtic that they still proudly sit on the club website. Rightly so. It is absolutely who we are, at least in my mind.

A club open to all, with no interest in your colour, race, or religion, and all of this was 60 years before DEI was even a thing.

For our club and its supporters, not being of the Irish culture, Catholic faith, was never a deal-breaker, and actions fully bore that out. Celtic signed one of the UK's first black players, Gil Heron, in 1951, and many of the people who really made the club, Jock Stein, Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, were all Protestant. Nothing in fact gave us more pleasure than to meet a foreigner, tell them about the famous Glasgow Celtic, and invite them to Celtic Park. Being part of Brother Walfrid's club did naturally tend to a certain evangelism. In our minds we had the moral high ground as enlightened, Bohemian, free-thinkers, friendly to all, and always up for a good old debate.

I may be biased but Celtic, as a brand with that backstory, had no rivals in football.

I got lucky.

The Starting Gun for a generation.

But it got even better. The club’s reputation grew significantly cooler from there, around the same time as "Sgt Pepper’s".

In 1967, Celtic became the first British club to win what is now called the Champions League, achieved with 11 guys from around the city, in times when money played no significant role in building football teams. A rich guy couldn't just buy glory in those days; it needed to be constructed as a club and as a team over years. So what was basically a Glasgow and District All-Star Select took on the might and reputation of Inter Milan’s catenaccio, and simply blew them away. They didn’t just win, they overwhelmed the Italians with floods of attacking play that heralded a completely new era for football. A baton that we would then pass on to Johan Cruyff's Ajax and Holland. For at least five years, Celtic, still all Scottish, was recognised as one of the top three teams in Europe, always competitive at the very sharp end of the game. In 1970, to prove that, they beat the great, feared Leeds United home and away in the semifinals.

A truly iconic strip, an admired style of football, respected.

Winning.

Yes, the club of the underdog had decided, under Jock Stein, that it was no longer just going to be a sanctuary for the weak and downtrodden. Nice guy losers no more. It would be known anywhere football was played as simply excellent, with clear statements of that sporting ambition, and quality standards.

I bought into this elitism hook, line and sinker. It wouldn’t shrink for a lesser player. This too felt completely on brand for me.

Even more importantly, back then in the 1960s, Celtic winning internationally under Stein showed the fans that there were no longer any limits for young working-class kids from Glasgow to go out and compete in the big wide world. A huge, huge statement for my generation. We may have all been children of families whose opportunities had been de facto restricted in Scotland, but that wouldn’t any longer hold for us. We were going to burst through the glass ceiling imposed on our fathers ("Irish need not apply"), and this team showed us the way. Absolutely not hyperbole.

My generation of Catholic-school educated Scots has since massively over-indexed on impact globally, and the green-and-white has always been the calling card we kept in our breast pocket. We were Celtic men. It was our brand.

Good branding always covers up some stains.

When you have a reputation for straight-shooting honesty, you also always need to admit the other side of the ledger. Celtic did have issues.

The Troubles in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday, IRA bombings, the H-Blocks and hunger strikes all kicked off in the early 70s and lasted for almost 30 years. For a club absolutely defined by the Irish famine, the Black and Tans, a political idea of a United Ireland, the hungry stealing Trevelyan’s corn, the Celtic fanbase was never going to be ambivalent and quiet on certain matters.

They weren’t.

"Fields of Athenry" is a simply beautiful song that in my opinion falls easily on the right side of the line of pride in your past, without being crippled with bitterness. On the side of the angels.

But let’s be very clear, Celtic Park at that time had a radical political fringe with a very different rebel songbook. Songs about freedom fighters, the "revolution", the Provos, Bobby Sands and the hated royal family. Many of these little ditties could for sure be considered to be passing well over the line, and no longer singing with the righteous.

The younger children of today think that they invented all this political stuff (new generations always act like that), but this has been a hot potato since forever, especially at Celtic. It was always an endless debate about what was acceptable, especially on days like Enniskillen.

Kerr and Burchill, Celtic fans, over the years took a very strong line in needing to be proactive on politics, in their case around Mandela and apartheid, and it’s something of which they are rightly very proud. Artists, whether Picasso or Simple Minds, have always had something profound to say through their work, whereas one could argue that sports stars and fanbases have no such job description requiring a view on politics. Many would claim, in fact, that it distracts from the main job of winning matches.

Just dribble, no?

A very nuanced conversation. A long debate.

Fergus McCann.

By the 90s, leading up to the Good Friday Agreement, Celtic as a club had got more than a little confused. Badly managed, with no clear direction or purpose, no longer competitive on the field, they were 60 minutes away from being foreclosed as bankrupt by the Bank of Scotland. Some of the fans may have still enjoyed been political on a Saturday, but pragmatically the bailiffs were at the door.

One of those Glasgow Catholic boys, inspired by his club to go beyond the bottom of his street, stood up.

Fergus McCann, a socially-awkward small man, who made an entrepreneur's money when emigrating to Canada, would not let Celtic die. Underestimated by many all his life, he had balls of steel, and a fire in his belly, that few saw coming. He gave zero fucks and absolutely suffered no fools. He deposited £1m of his own money with the bank at 11am, one hour before the receivership deadline, with no legal paperwork. Just on the verbal deal he made with some other great Celtic fans, like John Keane. He bought the club and publicly gave himself 5 years to fix it. Straight talking, no wiggle room. In that time, he built a top stadium, listed the club to re-finance it, created 50K+ season ticket holders (with a waiting list), ran the club with proper prudence and governance, never played the PR game with the local media, and stopped Rangers winning the 10-in-a-row grail.

You just cannot do better than that from what he inherited. You just can’t. This gives you an idea of who this man was, and is.

It’s about restoring the pride of the fans in their club. Give them something to be proud of.

- Fergus McCann

By this time, I was running the Scottish Premier League.

One day, I got a call from Eric Riley, the CFO of Celtic, informing me that Fergus’s 5 years were up, and that he’d attend his last match that Saturday. But there would be no announcement or fanfare. Everyone in fact had forgotten about Fergus’s self-imposed term limits. I called him up, figuratively took off my Commissioner hat, and spoke as a Celtic fan. I thanked him profusely for saving my club and all he had done. I think my voice broke. I know it did.

Typical Fergus, he dismissed all that coldly, and demanded to know why we hadn’t sold more overseas TV rights! This was a very very unique, if unusual, man, driven for his cause right to the very end.

He did attend that last match, and I watched him around the 75 minute mark get up and leave the stand. Not a word, no speech, no request for the inevitable applause. He just took his leave, never to return in any role.

Bhoys against bigotry.

Fergus knew he wanted to change the Celtic image. He felt it was outdated. A flawed brand.

In January 1996, early in his tenure, McCann announced a new campaign that would be a concerted attempt to disassociate the club from prejudice of all kinds. He stated that the Bhoys Against Bigotry campaign would highlight only Celtic’s charitable and inclusive origins and proactively seek to eradicate Irish political chanting from the club’s support. And it worked. You seldom saw the IRA flags at Celtic Park after that, and the song book changed. Fergus made a clear deliberate and public stance on what he thought the origins of Celtic really meant. Not politics, but kindness, charity and welcoming inclusion. Others could remain chained to their bitterness, but not his Celtic.

Many of the hardcore fans never forgave him. Immense courage.

I next heard from McCann a good few years later, by phone call from Canada. That ridiculous accent and clipped delivery. Zero small talk. Oh, it was him all right.

“Would you write me a reference for these Canadians here? Some silly bureaucracy needs someone to say I'm upstanding”.

Him, asking me for a testimonial. Despite everything I've done, it remains one of the great honours of my life. Because I’d like to think that I too would have pushed for Bhoys against Bigotry.

I admired Fergus.

The glory of Seville. Celtic’s finest hour.

By 2003, the football economy was very much moving against the small leagues like Scotland, and clubs like Celtic. We drifted down the food chain through no fault of our own, but we were still always respected and loved. Many people’s second team. That year, in one last roar of the diminished old lion, Celtic reached the Seville final of the UEFA Cup, against the Porto of Jose Mourinho.

We eventually lost a truly thrilling game, but that day was not in any way a defeat. The Spanish witnessed 80,000 travelling Celtic fans who behaved impeccably for two days, fully in the brand culture of our club. We made friends with everyone, and that city will never forget when the Glasgow Celtic came to town.

Neither will I, nor my wife. Like many in the crazy throng, we got detached from our bus rendezvous at the end of the game and started to panic. Raffaella was heavily pregnant with our daughter. I stopped the first car I saw.

"Lads, I need help. Are you going anywhere near Faro?"

They weren't, but made the massive detour to our hotel. Strangers in need of help, saved by the spirit of Walfrid.

"The estimated 80,000 Celtic supporters who travelled to Seville for the final received widespread praise for their exemplary conduct, and were later awarded Fair Play Awards from UEFA and FIFA for their extraordinarily loyal and sporting behaviour." - read here on Wikipedia.

To quote Fergus, this was a club and fanbase of which to be proud, never moreso than those days. The Bhoys from Seville, was perhaps our most glorious moment. The peak of our true brand.

Things from then on would take a slightly different direction. Politics and hardcore beliefs would be back.

Back huge.

The rise of the Brigade.

The Green Brigade (GB) was formed around 20 years ago, shortly after Fergus left. It would never have happened with him still there IMHO.

God, the warning was always in the name, wasn't it?

"The Boys of the Old Brigade is an Irish rebel song about the Irish Republican Army of the War of Independence (1919-1921), and the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising." - read here.

They are most easily described as a passionate “ultra” faction of the Celtic support, similar to these original fan movements in Italy, like Livorno, Lazio, Verona.

The reason for their rise is up for debate. My view is that as Celtic became less and less competitive on the field in international football, losing that glorious reputation for sporting excellence, newer fans needed to find a different sense of belonging around a new purpose. Because, in football terms, outside the very small and parochial market of Scotland, they had become irrelevant. Worse, the whipping boys of UEFA competitions. When that happens, and you are a very big club like Celtic, you need to find another reason for pride.

Others will have the opinion that we were just going back to our roots as "rebels" with a political cause.

The GB were/are heavily politicised, and over these two decades have grown significantly in importance and impact. For many, myself included, they now undeniably represent the Celtic reputation. They create the atmosphere in the stadium, deliver stunning tifo banners, and are extremely opinionated. You can't miss them, they are the full brand palette, and very vocal on many topics, from the use of the Poppy, Black Lives Matter, Scottish independence, capitalism and wealth in general, and most clearly, the Pro-Palestine movement.

A quick read of Wiki shows how noisy, problematic and challenging their opinions and actions have been for the club, generating multiple and repeat fines from UEFA. The Board even tried to formally disband them in 2013, and they are the literal dictionary definition of “problem children”.

In less polite company, perhaps, a right royal pain in the arse.

The Green Brigade isn't a debating society.

I personally think that politics doesn't ever sit elegantly with sport. But if it must, I’d like it to be up for intelligent discussion every time.

The words "debate" and "reason" are one of the things that separate humans from the cruel laws of the animal kingdom. Some of us, in fact, travel far and wide in life, specifically in search of fresh new insight that may offer enlightenment from different religions and cultures.

https://albachiara.net/journal/stray-refections-in-sport/

Experience and maturity bring these lessons. One realises, especially when you have sat in positions of power, that the world actually operates on Realpolitik more than principles, and you don't always get to make the perfect choice. Sometimes, under triage, under conflicted governance, the best you can ever hope for is the least bad option.

But these things are never, ever understood by the zealots in life, with their absolute truths, because, like political parties in opposition, it’s easy to demand perfection when you have no power. Try and sit in the big seat first, before lecturing people on what needs to be done.

The GB are people of dogma, and absolute certainty in their views, and they are never looking for a discussion on the nuances of all the causes they embrace. No interest in compromise or context. They just look to shut down, and ideally cancel, anyone not following their approved creed to the letter. With them, one is reminded of the Spanish Inquisition, an analogy more than apposite, given the central element of the GB outrage.

This type of outlook in life is just not me. The day that you think you have nothing new to learn is the day you die, because you never know what you don’t know. If this is now what the Celtic brand is, that green-and-white calling card in my breast pocket no longer represents me.

Anyone with a soul must be pro-Palestine.

This is, these days, one of the GB's favourite lines, linked forcibly to the claim that people with any understanding of the Irish Famine have no choice but to side with Palestine, and against Israel. Celtic Park is awash with flags making the point.

It’s a credible and popular argument, but it needs, in my opinion, to be seen from all perspectives. In fact, ten-word answers to any complex problem are never right; because what are the next ten words, and the ten after those?

I am very certain that I am someone with a soul, and also a solid belief system. For the record, I am a vocal practising Catholic, unashamed to promote the teachings of Christianity, from the Good Samaritan to the Beatitudes, but never ever shoving it down secular throats. So I am just not inclined to take lectures on morals, certainly not from the Green Brigade. I wrote this, in horror, after October 7th, and I still stand by it.

https://albachiara.net/journal/running-towards-the-sound-of-gunfire/

The issue is not whether those poor, wretched souls in Gaza are going through purgatory or not.

That's obvious to all, and it is one of the great human failures of this century.

It’s why.

There are two questions that need addressing.

It pains me enormously in a sportbiz column to even have to address politics this Sunday morning, but as this literal and figurative flag-waving is now the predominant element of the current Celtic brand, I have no way to avoid.

It is the kernel of the thesis. Forgive me.

• Are the Israelis solely to blame?

• Do the people running Gaza, Hamas, recognise that Israel has a right to exist?

The answer to both questions for me is NO! This is my opinion. I am entitled to it.

And from there, it all becomes horrendously complex. Here, the very liberal NYT makes exactly this point, about blame on both sides:

What makes this war different is that it pits what I believe is the worst, most fanatical and amoral government in Israel’s history against the worst, most fanatical, murderous organization in Palestinian history.

- The New York Times.

Different to almost all of the Green Brigade, I have also spent very significant time in that part of the world, and spoken to people, Jews, Arabs, Christians, with very different political views. Many Israelis despise Netanyahu. Many Arabs have absolutely no time for the Iran-funded terrorism in Lebanon and Gaza. And that's before reflecting on Shiite versus Sunni tensions.

A dear American Jewish friend sent me this, around the old political chestnut of proportional response.

This is a crucial clip for the whole debate, but it is way way above the heads of the zealots. Sadly.

My friend tells me "Rog, I was for Bartlet's disproportional response after October 7. But now we've gone too far."

I actually agree with that fully, and this is the world of intelligent opinion that I like to think I inhabit. Opinions that have complexity and can change, But I see none of that in the Green Brigade.

So when they are today clearly the full-fat Celtic brand, even in Como, it causes me existential problems. It just has to. Seville is a long, distant memory, and those glorious days are gone.

Celtic has changed. Do you shrug your shoulders and stay silent, or do you complain?

Do I, like Sir Alex Ferguson, think that I should just tell them to “fuck off”?

I offered a frustrated tweet on what happened in Como, in my new home. Have a look at all the comments. All of them.

Still open to all?

Rich, and zionist, are two adjectives which together invoke a certain imagery of grotesque caricatures used in the 1930s.

That just doesn’t work for me, because that language now smells and sounds like an old, old story. A word so horrific that, like Voldemort, cannot be named.

To be as fair as possible, the GB will claim that their position makes crucial distinctions between Israel and the Zionist state, between the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and individual soldiers, suggesting no anti-Semitism whatsoever. That’s their line.

But I find these semantics to be truly naive and often deliberate gaslighting. Brand is never into micro definitions. It absolutely works only in the macro.

And this is where it leads.

From the river to the sea, and what it really means, no longer represents me. At a push, I could debate it all, if I thought minds were open. Open to all.

But you see, they just aren’t.

Even Sir Rod Stewart doesn’t meet their approval.

The truth is that the Green Brigade has a whole load of triggers that get them foaming at the mouth these days. In fact, they seem now to actively define themselves solely by things they don’t like. Anti-Tory, Anti-the Union, Anti-Zion, Anti-war heroes. Even anti-80-year-old Rod Stewart, because he enjoys money and the Conservative Party.

The old rocker, who more than anyone has promoted the Hoops globally with pride, gets a kicking from them everyday. And right here is the definitive conclusion for me.

The GB have now become exclusive, not inclusive, the complete opposite of "Open to All".

"Totally intolerant, blunt instruments, utterly confident and comfortable in their culture. Absolutely certain of their moral superiority and being on the right side of history. Closed. Unwelcoming. Violent."

If that paragraph looks familiar, it’s because it is. It is exactly how this Column described Glasgow Rangers at the top of the show.

The Celtic Green Brigade are now the "Peepel".

And that is why I can no longer share any public affiliation with them. I have zero interest in carrying Rangers around in my breast pocket.

They will do what they have to do, be what they have to be. They will travel around Europe exactly as Rangers used to, trouble everywhere, nasty, truculent, intolerant. Looking to push their views and their culture in the faces of every town they visit. Like Como.

Knock yourself boys. But not in my name. Absolutely not in my name.

The Green Brigade loves their literature, and they will quote Gramsci at you with some credibility. Many of them, to be fair, are well educated and have serious pretences of being intellectual. But the only book they should be reading is "Animal Farm", because the Green Brigade has truly become everything that they once despised and fought against. In my opinion.

And I have zero faith that the club and its Board have the stomach to try and change this.

So I prefer to put maximum distance between these people and me, and every Sunday I will just go to Mass to pray for those poor souls. And the hostages.

Life Is Beautiful.

It was a good run but all things must pass. Thanks for all the glory and the principles Walfrid. I was indeed very proud. Call me when another Fergus turns up.

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