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The Northern Golf Club was the meeting place and I was met by some auld duffer saying 'Members Only...we're packed oot' the 'ah just popped oot for a fag min' line seemed to work and yet inside the club was far from packed...busy aye but I've seen it busier for Motherwell games.
Might be seeing a bit of class war where there is none and of course it's their club and they can do what they want with it but I suspect it was a case of 'You know Tarquil I think some of these chaps aren't members and some of them appear to be frightfully working class I clearly heard one of them say he was from somewhere called Mastrick do something about it will you? We can't have common oiks lousing up our clubhouse'.
The petty bourgoiuse tosspots are happy tae take oor proleterian shekls brother but they don't actually want us there...one wonders quite how they'll survive if the couple of hundred grand they make fae Dons fans in a season disappears if we move to Cove.
The hungover atmosphere in the pre-match boozers was tangiable on the Y to, which for a Rangers game was strangely subdued for the whole game mind you they were given little to work with from the players.
The game itself was woeful and instantly forgettable bar the explosion of noise and drama that stemmed from Hutton scything down Clark as the ball trundled out for a corner just before half time.
Now I've seen player sent off for that sort o thing...whilst he got the ball he took the man and was unnessicarily violent in doing so and in the melee that followed Barry Nesbit charged Lee Miller...the result ? Oh a booking for Lee Miller for blatantly getting in Saint Barrys way en route to a rammy a little known bylaw in the Strathclyde Fitba Associations rulebook
I've got nae time for the auld 'masonic conspriracy' garbage as it's usually used as an excuse when a sides failed to get a result and lets not kid ourselves and while it galls me to say it but even with 10 men Rangers were by far the better side yesterday..but if Ferguson can act like a well paid ned and get off scot free as he did yesterday then you can at least see where it comes from.
The selective blindness for officials came in again shortly afterwards Clark got his own back on Mutton and it kicked off again and heres the thing how can the linesman see McCulloch Kung Fu on Seve yet miss Ferguson slap on him at the same time ? I mean I saw it clearly fae 100 yards away.
Stench Hateley on Setanta rather bizarrely claimed his antics were that of a peacemaker....a festering pile of bollocks if I ever heard one lets just say the UN are unlikely to be on the phone for the Prince of Neds anytime soon.
Other than that and the goals that bookend these incidents there is nothing much more to say about the game because well...nothing much more happened really.
I was prepared to write it off as just a post UEFA hangover until Calderwood decided with 10 minutes to go against 10 men to bring on....a Centre Half. If your ever in any doubt as to why there's a section of the Dons support who've never warmed to the guy then there's your answer.
When they went down to 10 men we should have gone for the throat yet we did the exact opposite and actually made a very mediocre Rangers side looked half decent. Where as on Thursday we got flowing passing and movement yesterday we got gormless lumps up the park and invariably these went to a blue shirt.
It's a true observation of Calderwood that every time he does something that makes us start liking the guy he'll almost immediately do something to remind you why you loathed him in the first place.
A bit harsh after Thursday heroics ? Aye a touch but in many ways the UEFA campaign has distracted us from some pretty mediocre domestic form and performances and mediocre is probably being generous in describing the performances on either side of that wonderful wonderful Copenhagen result.
Still all the results went for us on Saturday and we have trips to the two worst sides in the league to follow before our inevitable 1-1 snore-a-thon wi Caley to bring in 2008 and yes in time taking a point in this fixture may be crucial but the overwhelming emotion yesterday was of anti climax and being let down.
Merry Xmas and Stand Free
The Red Avenger