Firm foundation?
Rangers and Celtic might be the biggest football clubs in Scotland, but
why does that mean no one else gets a R
look in? Words: Doug Johnstone
| rruust have missed the press conference where Hibernian Football Club unveiled its new strip, the one made out of the same maternal as a Klungon cloaking devuce. Surrurlarly, I must have been sleeping when Kulmarnock declared it was to play thus season under a shield of unvusubuluty. At least that's what rruust have
happened since both these teams have been Virtually
ignored in the Scottish media's coverage of the SP'u.
this season. u
Despute both teams playing confident, attractive, attacking football (well, as much as any team (an in this mince-filled league), and sitting in the top four In the table, this country's illustrious sports reporters, both in print and on televusion, have steadfastly ignored them, the odd condescending aside apart. And of course it hardly takes a member of MENSA to work out the reason for thus that old chestnut, Old Firm bias.
Now this is hardly a new phenomenon, arud to a certain extent it is forgivable and understandable. Rangers and Celtic are clearly the biggest clubs in Scotland, both In terms of finance and support, so it's only natural that they should receive an amount of coverage proportional to theur popularity.
Ah, but that’s the vital word: 'proportional’. Ever since the dawn of footy in this country, these two Glasgow teams have enjoyed the lion’s share of attention, but in recent years, With the expansion of various media forms, the amount of coverage afforded them has spiralled way out of control, to the point where ut’s making a mockery of Scottish football coverage.
Witness if you will the recent demolition of Rangers at Ibrox by Killie, In a match where Killie scored three without return, virtually no mentioru whatsoever went to Kullie’s performance, instead every sentence being uttered beginning ’Rangers have failed to . . .' or ’Rangers simply must . . The Sunday paper coverage the next day was nothing short of scandalous. Typically, a small match report (where a quick tally had Rangers mentioned about eight times more than Killie) was swamped by four or more pages of ’Rangers in Crisis' type headlunes and massive pictures of Dick Advocaat holding his head uuu his hands, Ally
control.
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8 YIEIJST 30 Nov-14 Dec 2000
With the expansion of various media forms, the amount of coverage afforded them has spiralled way out of
Great coverage but is it proportional?
MacLeod style And it got worse. 'Celtic wull go fifteen pounts clear if they wuru tonught,’ burbled Jim White on Sky, despite the fact that Hubs were only a couple of points behind the Glasgow team,
So why has It got worse? Well, papers today have more and rruore pages to full, and ut's easy for lazy uournalusts (especially, dare I say It, jOUfllOS affuluated wrth eutluer team) to leSI rehash Old Furm gossip rather than bothering to seek out new stories. Sumularly for televrsuon, wrth both STV and BBC Scotland based in Glasgow, ut's much less hassle to bang on about Larsson's new haircut or Amoruso's charity work than to bother gettung theur arses out the office.
Due to restricted coverage of other teams, Craig Brown (who should know better but doesn't) seems reluctant to puck players of Scottuslu teams outside the Old Furm. Despite playing hrs bollocks off for Hubs last season, Kenny Muller only got his unternatuonal debut recently when he sugned for Rangers, lukewrse Neil McCann from Hearts. It seems that not only lS this bras urrutatung the hell out of fans (Including, I might say, plenty of Old Firm fans), ut's got to the stage where ut's havung a detrurnental effect on our already mediocre national team, and Chrust knows the Scotland team doesn’t need that. Stop it now, before it's too late (or before I put my foot through the telly). I Disagree? react@/ist.co.uk
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