Tom English: 'The Old Firm derby is a circus act, a freak show'

SO THE Rangers fan calls the Celtic fan "Fenian scum" and the Celtic fan retorts with a "Hun scum" barb.

That's where we pick it up, that is where we join the underclass on the Old Firm messageboards and observe the 'patter' of the fans in the wake of – yawn – 'the most passionate of all football derbies.'

"Dirty scum," says Celtic man.

"Sub-human scum," says Rangers man.

"Shower of scum."

"Pond life scum."

"Cowardly scum."

"Lowlife scum."

"Scum to a man."

"Scum of the earth."

"SCUM FC."

"Scummy scum."

Ah, fantastic stuff. The clever satire, the biting wit, the comedic genius of these people. Lovely. It's all part of what makes Old Firm games so absorbing. Train-wreck football, sectarian chanting, violence in the streets and unbridled bigotry on the messageboards. Special.

Or perhaps not.

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As a fixture, the Old Firm has virtually nothing to recommend it, yet it gets acres of our newsprint and hours and hours of air time on radio and television simply because there is such an appetite for these teams. It is a sporting tragedy that there is a generation of kids being reared on this muck right now, thousands of children who are born into Old Firm families and who aspire to nothing more than signing for one side or another and taking part in these slugfests.

The Old Firm derby is a circus act, a freak show. It is football's bearded lady, interesting only because it is a bit weird to behold. As a footballing spectacle, it is garbage. And, of course, it doesn't begin and end with the whitewash on the pitch. If only.

At the moment you have two sets of fans taking pot-shots at each other in cyber space. The Rangers mob are incensed because the subject of their bigoted chanting has resurfaced after a brief lull. They don't like it because us "scum" in the media have started to bang on again about their sectarian element, which was evident at Ibrox on Sunday. Their point, as ever, is this: 'Why focus on us when the scum Celtic fans were singing about the IRA and about killing Nacho Novo and other cheery ditties? Why give us grief when a Rangers fan was knifed on the night of the game and Kyle Lafferty's car was vandalised? Why don't you focus on the Celtic vermin for a change?'

It's an argument that I have thought long and hard about. I have also given due consideration to the counter-claims of the Celtic fans and their outrage at the way their rivals behave. And here is my considered response to both groups: Zzzzzz. Wake me up when you've finished, please.

I wonder if Alastair Johnston is taking in any of this from his home in America. Last week, we sat down with the new Rangers chairman and one of the questions he was asked related to bigotry and whether the baggage attached to the club might prove a barrier to a prospective buyer. He didn't seem to like the enquiry, which is hardly surprising given that Johnston comes from the sycophantic golf world, and, in that environment, especially at his company, IMG, they don't do controversy.

"Nobody's ever mentioned it to me in any discussions I've had," he said of the bigotry issue. "I really think that's all behind us now." Is that right, Mr Johnston? You see, this is corporate Al at work again. See no evil, hear no evil. Well, maybe next time the Old Firm play he might stick around to watch (and listen) instead of high-tailing it out of Glasgow as he did in the middle of last week. Cleveland wasn't exactly the ideal place from which to judge the extent of the bigotry problem on Sunday.

The folk on the Celtic messageboards are throwing stones, as they are wont to do. They're having a good laugh at Rangers being under the microscope. That's the way this pitiful rivalry plays out.

Somebody sent me a link to a YouTube video yesterday. It showed two Celtic fans with Northern Irish accents getting ready for the Old Firm game at home. The oldest was about 16 years of age, the youngest around 13. They sit in front of the television and the junior partner shouts: "Orange scummy c****!" when the camera pans to the Rangers fans. Then he screams: "Get out, you British b*******!"

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He's 13 and the hatred of Rangers has already been bred into him. Not just hate either, stupidity as well. It's bad enough being as thick as two short planks, but wanting to broadcast it to the wider world makes it even worse.

It has been written that the intensity and bile is all part of the grisly appeal of the Old Firm match, that it is these very things that lend the fixture a morbid fascination. I don't buy it. If I want morbid fascination I'll get a DVD of Jim Rose's creepy circus acts and tune into the chick who stays in the large plastic bag while somebody else sucks all of the air out with a vacuum cleaner.

As for the Old Firm, I sometimes imagine what life would be like without them. I think the rest of Scotland would get over their loss somehow.

The meter is running on taxi for Boyd

GIVEN the poor health of the club's finances, it might be understandable if Rangers had an urge to doctor Kris Boyd's shirt, sending him out to play not just in his usual number nine but in a new 999 that better illustrated the emergency at Ibrox.

Boyd is nobody's idea of the perfect athlete. And it is fair to say that his personality has little in common with a ray of sunshine. But Boyd was among the top two or three most influential players when Rangers won the title last season and he kept banging in the goals even when it became abundantly obvious that his club were desperate to sell him.

That desperation has apparently reached new levels with the offer of a new contract that would see his wage drop.

Rangers could hardly make it more clear to him that they want to cash in on him. Boyd's problem is that his goals have given him a value on the open market and Rangers need the readies. Memo to all those players who wish to stay at Ibrox: don't play too well or you'll be getting a pay cut and a taxi.

Ramsay puts pressure into perspective

I'M NOT sure that top footballers understand what pressure in sport is really all about. They talk about it all the time, but their definition of stress and worry has to be put in the proper context.

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For instance, could any of those who appeared in the Old Firm game on Sunday claim to have been under the same burden as Richie Ramsay at the Alfred Dunhill Links championship? I would say not.

Ramsay has had an indifferent beginning to his professional career. He's played well in patches, but, up until Monday, he hadn't brought in the kind of cheque that guaranteed his status on tour next year. And he was fast running out of chances. He had maybe three or four events in which to save his card or else he would have to face qualifying school.

Q school is the nightmare every young pro dreads. Some survive it, but many are broken. Every shot Ramsay hit had massive financial significance, but he managed to freeze out the doubt and played brilliantly to tie for fourth place. His prize money, 149,810, secures his place on tour next year. As regards performing under pressure, this was as good as we've seen from a Scot in some time.