Every now and again the occasional supporter of the new Ibrox entity will tell you that they are the most successful club in the world. In fact, all they are doing is repeating the statement in the hope that someone, somewhere, will believe them.

After all, its complete nonsense to claim that anyone except Real Madrid , with twelve European Champion titles , are the most successful, but it appears that “rangers ” are not even the most succesful in Glasgow , by their own somewhat shoogly criteria.

According to a report by OMGTens, they aren’t even in the top ten.

OMGTens is a one source point for all your Top 10 Lists. It strives to become a huge resource for most authentic top 10s, so that you can find out about any and every topic in one place.
OMGTens covers areas like Health, Lifestyle, History, Gadgets, Web and Internet, People, Auto, Entertainment, Facts, Animals, Travel and Places. 

The list reads like a who’s who of European football, and its difficult to think of a club who have a similarly distinguished  history to those on it who have been excluded.

Well, any that are still in business, that is.

On behalf of many supporters of old Rangers, I wrote to OMGTens and asked them to explain the omission of Rangers from their list. Pretending to be a Rangers fan, that is.

They took the time to send a considered and thought provoking response.

Dear Ralph.  

                          Fuck off, yer clubs deid. 

Well, they would have done if I had written to them, I suppose.

But if any of the hordes do put crayon to paper, they are more than welcome to use that template to save a bit of time.

Ibrahim Afelly ? I’ll check that particular piece of nonsense with the chap who told me about Bojan.  Which will leave all of us none the fucking wiser.

He might be a useful replacement for Tom Rogic, who doesn’t appear to be in any rush to sign a new deal . Perhaps there’s a shortage of pens at the ground….Stuart Armstrong can’t seem to find one either.

I can’t see many people being happy if those two leave…

“Hopefully after the summer when I go back I will have the confidence now after a full season of games, knowing I can hopefully go in and fit into that Celtic squad.” 

A loan spell worked for Kristoffer Ajer, and there’s no reason to expect Christie not to follow suit.

It hasn’t worked for Scott Allan, who will go back to Hibernian, instead of joining  Scott Bain, and Scott Brown in the Hibee ex-Pat clique.

Leigh Griffiths has offered to change his name to Scott if it will make things easier for everyone. And I’m also on the point of spotting why John McGinn isn’t here yet.

Daily Record reporter…I know, reporter my arse…Ben Ramage was invited to observe the police as they went about their jobs at the recent Motherwell Celtic game.

Match Commander Mark Leonard oversees the match from the police command room. 

While most eyes were firmly fixed on events on the Fir Park pitch on Sunday, a huge police effort was in force to ensure there was no action off it.

With more than 5,000 visiting away fans making the trip to the town, a co-ordinated approach led by the police kept disruption on the streets to a minimum across the region.

Mark Leonard, local area commander for Motherwell, Wishaw and Shotts, led the police’s management as match commander. From the morning briefing to the post-match analysis, no stone was left unturned in an effort to keep residents and supporters safe. 

This is a report, remember, not an advertisement.

Chief Inspector Leonard said: “The priority today was to ensure the fans get here and have a safe day, enjoying the game supporting their team. We have a pre-ops meeting with ourselves, Motherwell and Celtic club representatives and the stewarding company where we look at any information that suggests it won’t be a safe event.

“For example anything from the weather, to traffic disruption, to any intelligence we have in terms of disorder.

“What we do is put in place a policing plan that doesn’t impact on the community. If that means putting out disorder patrols, the horses we’ve got out as well – it’s whatever we think is needed for that game. 

One man was ejected by stewards for disorderly behaviour during the game, while two sets of opposing risk fans were separated by disorder units afterwards in Motherwell town centre. That vindicates the need for a robust policing plan to protect the community.” 

One of the biggest problems clubs across the country are currently dealing with is pyrotechnics, which are easy to smuggle into stadiums due to their size.

Thanks to patrols and a search scheme introduced by Motherwell and the stewarding company, many of these never made it into Fir Park.

Chief Inspector Leonard said: “It’s an emerging trend just now. A flare or firework going off in a section where there’s families and young people can really cause a sense of panic.

“The bonus for me today is the pro-active searching done by the stewarding companies. How the clubs communicated that out to the fans groups has led to none being brought into the stadium. It’s totally unacceptable to bring pyrotechnics into a stadium.”

Chief Inspector Leonard is also tasking his officers to try and get their personality across in a bid to improve how police officers are perceived in the street.

He added: “In my briefing earlier I tried to put across to think how they’d expect to be treated at a football match. 

How they’d expect to be treated …not how they would want to be treated.

There’s a difference.

How I’d want to be treated..

And how i’d expect to be treated, given several years experience of police at football matches..

The report..and I’d like to remind you it is a report, and not something from the Police Scotland PR department, well, at least they say it isn’t, continues..

When the turnstiles opened on Sunday, the safety of fans inside the ground switches to the club, supported by the police in the joint control room. 

Here we see a supporter who couldn’t fit through the turnstiles offered a seat in the control room.

Alan Marshall, safety facilities manager at Motherwell FC, then takes charge.

He said: “There’s a lot of planning goes into the game. It starts about five days before it, we have meetings with the police, the ambulance service, the fire service and with the visiting team and put together a document to cover likely numbers, any risk supporters and any traffic problems at the time.

“It’s important to be able to brief people so they know exactly what their role is on a match day.” 

Mr Marshall added: “It’s evolved. I work with the match commander so up to a point where we think we can’t do this any longer, then we can hand over to them until they sort the problem out. It’s never happened here at Fir Park and touch wood it never does.

“It can be stressful. You’re physically and mentally drained at the end of it but if everyone’s come in, enjoyed the game and gone home safe then that’s a big well done to everyone that’s involved.” 

A Motherwell steward checks a supporter to see if he’s wearing a crucifix.

I’m surprised at the Daily Record for printing this blatant piece of propaganda, especially as parliament has repealed the OBFA.

Especially as anyone who has ever been to a football match in Scotland knows that the reality is very, very different.

Ach, lets lighten up.

It’s international weekend, so there’s fuck all interest in football , and what we need is a little game we can all play, and I want you to find two of your friends who do not know each other, and introduce them, using these rules…

If you don’t want to do that, then you could do a damn sight worse than getting a coffee and mulling over this, from James Forrest, which looks at the damage done, in depth, by the Hampden -Ibrox Axis to the Scottish game..

Hampden Ibrox Axis

Everything is in there, and everyone should read it.

Well, its Friday again, and that means we have to sing the praises of the man, or woman , who has done the most to earn the much copied and much coveted Etims

Knob of the Week 

award.

With the attention of the country focused on the use of a nerve agent to kill a former Russian double agent in Salisbury, just up from Porton Down, where they specialise in that sort of stuff, Theresa May, the Prime minister, and her cabinet, so called becuase they are all as thick as fucking planks, have decided to blame russia and Vladmir Putin in a desperate attempt to make everyone forget all about Brexit, which is what David Cameron and all the other intelligent tories left her and her diddy men  to sort out.

Boris Johnson, a knob in any week, says its not on , and along with other assorted fuckwits, has jumped on the Imperial bandwagon to wave the flag at the Russians, largely because all the guns, tanks , bombs and planes have been sold to Saudi Arabia who have been using them in the Yemen.

but neither of those two, or their acolytes, are quite knobbish enough to win this week.

That has to be the guy who no doubt paid thousands for the nerve agent that hasn’t actually killed anyone yet, and you’d think he’d have spotted this when he opened it and it didn’t kill him and everyone else around him for bloody miles.

For not immediately closing the cap on the bottle, digging out his receipt and taking it back to the chemist, this weeks Etims

Knob of the Week 

has to be the Salisbury Sillysod.

Whoever he is.

Oh, and if he’s reading this, I’ve got a Cruise missile in the garage if he’s got cash..

Caption competition from yesterday…

Simply just for being cleverer than everyone else…

I’ve already entered…

Finally..On behalf of Wee Red, I’d like to  pass on his  thanks and appreciation to all those who sent best wishes and condolences following the illness and passing of my sister in law . 

Thanks.