Offensive Behaviour: the case for the SNP repealing their own act

Bernard Thompson presents the argument for repeal of a controversial law


How does the SNP government avoid an early defeat? By repealing the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act

There has been much speculation as to how the loss of an SNP majority at Holyrood will affect the government’s ability to get its programme through parliament.

Early predictions are that the opposition parties will unite to abolish the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act 2012 (OBFA), striking a first blow against the government.

It could be seen as a smart – even obvious – move by the Tory, Labour, LibDem and Green parties to flex their muscles in repealing an act described only last week as “deeply flawed” by Sheriff Maxwell Hendry at Dumbarton Sheriff Court while acquitting two Rangers fans of offences under section 1 (1) of the Act.

OPPONENTS

Opponents of the Act – none more so than the campaign group Fans Against Criminalisation – have been vociferous in their condemnation of the legislation.

And they have been joined by a host of academics and media figures. Human rights group Liberty have expressed concern that: “the broadly framed offences in this Act will unnecessarily sweep up individuals exercising their right to free speech who have no intention to commit or incite a criminal offence and in the event do not do so.”

The case for the repeal of the Act is increasingly being recognised and it seems inevitable that it is now a case of when, not if, it will be removed from the statute books. The SNP would do well to pre-empt the opposition by moving first for repeal or at least declining to try to preserve it.

The problems surrounding the Act are more complex than are often acknowledged. It is often claimed that the public support it, based on a poorly-worded Panelbase survey of just over 1000 people, as sometimes uncritically reported in the media.

The survey was commissioned by Wings Over Scotland. However, an inspection of the Panelbase survey considerably undermines the claims of public support.

(One minor point to note in relation to the sample is the total percentage of respondents amounts to 102% or 1033 of a declared sample size of 1013 people.)

Of the 1013 actual respondents, only 45% claimed to be interested in Scottish football. Once the figures are analysed,  the survey found 308 football fans in favour.

DECLARATION
From this sample, Mr Campbell declared: “So let the debate end here. Every single demographic in Scotland, without exception, including the people targeted and supposedly “victimised” by it, backs the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act overwhelmingly, despite uniform media criticism and the constant shrieking of persecution-complex loonies.”

And yet – look at the question posed: “The Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act 2012 bans the singing of sectarian songs in and around football matches, but some supporters claim it infringes their civil liberties, or that it was intended to victimise their club alone.

“Do you support the Act, or do you think it should be abolished?”

This is quite clearly not an adequate representation of the provisions of the Act. The Act does not simply ban “the singing of sectarian songs” but also: – “other behaviour that a reasonable person would be likely to consider offensive…

“…behaviour [that] would be likely to incite public disorder”, even if ‘persons likely to be incited to public disorder are not present or are not present in sufficient numbers’.”

We can offer all sort of examples of behaviour that might offend a “reasonable person” but, for brevity, we may note that the Act banned Frankie Boyle (or recordings of his material) from being played wherever a tenuous connection to a football match could be established. Not so rugby matches.

UnknownIn defending the Act, after someone wearing a tee-shirt supportive of Palestine drew police attention, SNP MSP John Mason even went so far as to say that wearing a Yes badge should be considered unacceptable while watching football.

“We should all know by now expressing political views is no longer acceptable at football matches.”

Mr Mason was apparently not questioned on whether wearing a poppy could be considered to be expressing a political view, and we can only speculate as to how objecting to a poppy might be viewed.

POWERPOINT
The Scottish government itself has also noted support for the Act based on a YouGov poll. (Available as a PowerPoint presentation here.)

The poll begins by asking how people feel about sectarian chanting at football matches: “Generally speaking, sectarian singing and chanting at football matches is offensive.”

“Sectarian singing and chanting at football matches is an important part of football culture”

It continues in a very similar manner to the PanelBase survey:

“The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act” aims to tackle sectarian or offensive chanting and threatening behaviour related to football which is likely to cause public disorder. To what extent do you support or oppose this law?”

It beggars belief that people can reasonably be asked if they support sectarian singing with the expectation that a majority will approve.

Both the PanelBase and YouGov surveys portray the Act in benign, simplistic terms (giving their respective sponsors precisely the answers they were looking for).

Are we to believe the the same results would have been achieved had the questions been:

“Do you believe that freedom of expression is essential to a just society?”

“Do you believe that people should be arrested for wearing Yes badges at football matches?”

“Do you believe that football fans deserve special treatment and laws that do not apply to people in any other circumstances?

“Do you believe that laws should be transparent and workable by both the police and the courts?”

“The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act” has been said to criminalise certain political expression, discriminate against football supporters and has been described as “deeply flawed”. To what extent do you support or oppose this law?”

INSULTING
For the avoidance of doubt, few opponents of the Act long to hear hate speech bellowing from the stands of Scottish football grounds and the often-implied accusation to the contrary is both insulting and obfuscatory.

The questions for the OBFA are simple:

• Is it necessary (in the sense that pre-existing legislation on hate speech could not have been used)?
• Is it fair?
• Is it just?
• Is it workable?

The answer to the above four questions appears to be No.

As for the part of the question pertaining to behaviour “in and around football matches”, the Act lunges into absurdity when it defines what may be considered in relation to a football match, including any pub where the match is being shown and on a journey to a match, the provisions noting: –

“(a)a person may be regarded as having been on a journey to or from a regulated football match whether or not the person attended or intended to attend the match, and

(b)a person’s journey includes breaks (including overnight breaks).”

In the case thrown out by Sheriff Hendry, Police Inspector Marian Maclean testified: “I believed at that point an offence had been committed which could be likely to incite public disorder – it could provoke a reaction.”

The offence was singing about the YCV, popularly known as the youth wing of the Ulster Volunteer Force, but Inspector Maclean’s contention that such singing “could” provoke a reaction was hypothesising as to possible outcomes had people who were not in the immediate vicinity been there.

In fact, so broad-reaching is the scope of the Act that endless ridiculous scenarios could render innocent people liable to prosecution.

For example, take the case of a family from Inverness choosing to visit Glasgow for – let’s say – the father and son to attend a Sunday match but make a weekend of it by spending the night in Edinburgh so that the mother and daughter can shop while the menfolk go to watch the football. (Yes, I know women like football, too, and that men also shop.)

Anyone in the family would be liable to prosecution should they, for example, be heard to say “No paseran” in a hotel hotel room, as neither their intention to shop in Edinburgh during the match nor the absence of enough Neo-Nazis to start a rammy in the hotel room is a defence against prosecution.

And that’s aside from the fact that by focusing on football and not other public events (such as Orange Order parades, for example), the Act singles out football fans as an underclass worthy of special measures to restrict their behaviour as well as their rights.

INDIGNANT
Football fans have a right to be indignant and it is reasonable to assume that that feeling would be more widely shared were the complexities of the Act better appreciated.

The abolition of the Act will be a coup de grâce and there are SNP MSPs who privately agree.

As well as the obvious flaws, it has become almost symbolic of a breakdown in trust between football supporters and the police. It invites police officers to speculate on what a reasonable person would consider offensive and to speculate on what might cause disorder, if only the wrong people were present.

If you believe that a reasonable person would be offended by a defence of Tory welfare cuts, anyone arguing that case at a game, on the way to a game or in a pub showing the game should be liable to arrest.

Likewise, loud, vulgar belching is considered offensive to many people. Do so in a pub serving lunch before a match, and you could be faced with prosecution, if a suitably- minded police officer happens to be present.

Not so long ago, two people of the same sex expressing public affection would be seen as causing offence to “reasonable people” – and likely to incite disorder. It would have been a desperately bad idea to have done so at a football match. Or in the corner of a pub where Stirling Albion were facing Forfar in a televised cup tie.

Pre-existing legislation on hate speech and public order offences could be revised, by all means making attendance at public events – not just football matches – aggravating factors carrying more severe sentences.

That would require clearer definitions of what constitutes hate speech than had been in place before, which would both leave the public knowing exactly where they stand and the police clear about their duties.

But the OBFA flies against basic principles of justice, of which freedom of expression is just one.

SUBJECTIVE
Just laws are not applied only to select groups. They do not make people liable to arrest when they have no reasonable expectation that they could have committed an offence or when their actions are being assessed according to the subjective opinions of police officers, who cannot be properly equipped for every potential situation.

And these appear to be very good reasons to repeal the OBFA.

But there is another reason for the SNP to move to admit its own mistakes (beyond the fact that it is a sign of mature government to recognise its own failings).

There are few other, if any, “open goals” on which the opposition parties could comfortably unite without being tainted by common association.

The “named persons” legislation is controversial but nowhere near as accommodating in terms of allowing parties that would like to create distance between each other presenting a “united opposition” front.

In fact, it is hard to think of any other issues on which Labour, the Greens and Tories could join forces without being mutually damaged. (You may note that I excluded the LibDems).

The days of the OBFA are numbered. The SNP will either suffer a popular defeat or, in a dignified manner, admit that they got it wrong.

Scotland will be a better place without the Act, the SNP will be stronger for admitting its mistake. And the other parties will have to carefully consider the length of their supping spoons.

Update: The Act was repealed on 20 April 2018, with the support of all parties, except the SNP whose MSPs all voted in favour.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone

Sanctimonious Scots should get their own house in order before attempting to lead campaigns condemning Johnny Foreigner's cheating

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

Now that the international heroics are out of the way, Scottish football fans can devote their energies to what they have been itching for since Saturday: the baiting of Saulius Mikoliunas.

Rangers fans are the first invited to join the media-led campaign to harangue the Lithuanian who dared to dive at Hampden against the country that is giving him a home and a livelihood.

To be fair, Mikoliunas is a hard player to love, which makes him perfect for Hearts just now. Undoubtedly talented, occasionally interested, prone to sly kicks off the ball, but always ready to bleat to referees at the slightest provocation, he has up to now been more often booed by his own fans at Tynecastle than by those of opposition teams.

But nothing rallies the Gorgie faithful more passionately than the Weegie media or the SFA criticising any aspect of their brilliantly run club. So just a few weeks after some Hearts fans had pencilled in this weekend to demonstrate against the regime of another Lithuanian, owner Vladimir Romanov, contempt for outsiders has prompted them to close ranks. The prevailing feeling is that Miko "may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch".

If the reasoning of Hearts fans - that everyone based in Glasgow is out to destroy a club already living on borrowed players as well as time - is flawed, they have some justification in asking why their 23-year-old winger is attracting such special attention. Granted, the penalty he won could have been catastrophic for Scotland's Euro 2008 campaign; but it wasn't.

And if players like Craig Gordon or Jay McEveley could claim that the venom they directed at Mikoliunas was uttered in the heat of battle, the SFA Chief Executive Gordon Smith has no such excuses. Smith is undoubtedly intelligent and his experience as a player, assistant coach and agent appeared to make him the ideal choice to replace the unpopular David Taylor.

But more crucial to his appointment was his media background - it was thought he could be relied upon to avoid the sort of idiotic remark that precipitated the demise of former SFA president John McBeth, who famously argued that "by and large, the four British countries know what fair play is and when we are stepping out of line. But, as soon as you hit Africa, it's a slightly different kettle of fish. They're poor nations and want to grab what they can. I presume the Caribbean is much the same - they just come at it in a different way."

When Smith gave his own reaction to Mikogate, there were echoes of that insular sentiment that had embarrassed Scotland so badly: "It could be that he reverted to what is acceptable in Lithuania because he was playing for his national side, even though it's unacceptable here," he said. "I don't think the referee helped the situation, either, possibly because he comes from a country where that sort of behaviour isn't so frowned upon." He then went on to insist that Scotland - and presumably Smith - should lead the world in eradicating simulation, name-dropping Franz Beckenbauer and Dino Zoff along the way.

Smith, of course, did plan to tackle the issue in Scotland before discovering that retrospective punishments based on television evidence would breach Fifa regulations. But he is naive to believe that, having made such crass judgements on the values of Lithuania and Slovenia respectively, he could be trusted to lead any such international movement. The fact that his comments came after a match in which Garry O'Connor also dived didn't help. They also came on the back of an apology for the Tartan Army's disrespect for the Lithuanian national anthem, which only added to the surreal air of farce that would have made the Marx Brothers proud.

Smith has merely demonstrated precisely why Scotland is in no position to lead any campaign on fair play: while Scots - or the British as a whole - delude ourselves that we are inherently more trustworthy than other nationals by dint of our birth, we will never show ourselves capable of objectivity. For example, when France last visited Hampden (before beating the world's best team was commonplace), Uefa found that Scotland were slow in returning the ball to the field after Gary Caldwell's goal.

Standing next to Alex McLeish on Saturday was Roy Aitken, the model hard-but-fair pro, but one who was also guilty of outrageous opportunism while winning the Scottish Cup for Celtic at that very stadium. His predecessor in the dug-out, Ally McCoist, was far too beloved of the Scottish media to ever be accused of "going down easily" while playing for Rangers, although fans of every other team were less reticent. But suggesting that Scottish players are as guilty of underhand tactics as those "on the continent" is viewed as a kind of treason.

The irony is that many of the same fans who booed Mikoliunas on Saturday, and who will continue to do so over the next few weeks, will happily list Maradona's Hand of God goal among their all-time sporting highlights. So the Lithuanian might well be justified in shrugging off the righteous indignation of his adopted country. "If Hearts fans want me to apologise I will, but not to Scotland fans," he said. It is a response that, probably temporarily, has endeared him to his club's faithful, a surprising number of whom chose to support Lithuania rather than their own national team.

But then he comes from a nation of heroes, sportsmen, geniuses, villains and cheats - a bit like Scotland.

Scotland poised to embrace new heroes

This could be the week in which Scotland's new golden generation starts to shine

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

Alex McLeish knows exactly what he must do over the coming week: get three points from the games against Lithuania and France.

Anything less and he will be in the stocks for killing an admirable qualifying campaign, albeit one that has been based in no small part on one gloriously lucky win.

Four points or more and Scotland's third-most-capped player should get a Hall of Fame all to himself.

For other managers, the upcoming brace of internationals will present problems in terms of spreading resources - but not for Eck, whose chances of taking even a point from Parc des Princes on Wednesday are commonly understood to be on a par with the prospect of caging a Cottingley Fairy. There, his team will disregard such side issues as energy conservation or potential suspension and, if they want to, play good, old-fashioned, run-themselves-ragged, kick-everything-that-moves football.

Just when Scots were comfortable with the tag of perennial underdogs, a status that had alleviated managers like Walter Smith from the burden of expectation, Marcello Lippi had to go and open his big mouth about Scotland being "the fastest emerging country in Europe". So that's it - all of a sudden, beating the Lithuanians should be a doddle (especially as, unlike Scotland, they're overburdened with Hearts players).

Such tasks have broken men before but McLeish is refreshingly honest, straightforward and, dare one say it, Scottish in his approach: "The fact is, we have no choice but to go after them... we know we have to play at a good tempo and show aggressiveness from the start to get our supporters roused into the excited backing that is such a great help on these occasions."

Attack is precisely what this Scotland team is made for, even if the country's most expensive player will be standing in his own box for 90 minutes. But if the half-dozen players who will matter most on Saturday have commanded around the same amount as one Craig Gordon in transfer fees, that doesn't reflect their relative merits. In the enforced absence of Barry Ferguson, Scotland fans can expect to witness the first showing of the midfield pairing on which the nation's future aspirations will be founded.

Often disregarded in England (not least by the man who paid £9m for Gordon), Darren Fletcher has established himself as a reliable force for his country. In the recent friendly with South Africa, for example, he played the sort of deceptive pass to Kris Boyd that would have had the pundits cooing had he been representing one of the game's great powers.

Next to him, almost certainly in the centre, will be Scott Brown. Standing between Brown and an ascent to worldwide - even UK-wide - recognition are two demons: unthinkable catastrophe or paying too much heed to the hyperbole of his admirers. Nevertheless, it is not merely his talent, energy and self-belief that make Brown stand out among his contemporaries, but the sharpness of his offensive instincts, his ability to launch an attack within a nanosecond of having won the ball.

They will support a forward line that has no superstars but carries the sort of possibilities for variation that Steve McClaren might envy. Garry O'Connor will presumably start with Boyd, whose abilities will continue to divide observers even if he outlasts Stanley Matthews. Boyd does have shortcomings but they are unlikely to ever be displayed in his statistics for club or country .

While Scotland must be confident of a win on Saturday, it will be a surprise if Craig Beattie and Shaun Maloney do not also feature at some, perhaps crucial, point. Ungainly and injury-prone, Beattie nevertheless combines reasonable strength with a short burst of pace that takes him behind defenders and an eye for goal that, at present, seems to mark him out as a deputy to O'Connor in McLeish's plan.

Maloney, who in the absence of Kenny Miller is almost certain to feature as a substitute, has also been too familiar with the treatment table, a fact that has inhibited his progress. But for all-round skill and vision he is the most gifted Scottish forward and capable of playing as a forward, attacking midfielder or in the pocket, while also the country's best striker of the ball.

Scots national teams don't often respond well to optimism, the most memorable performances usually marrying endeavour, commitment and a whole lot of resentment. So, lest we get carried away, it is best to remember that the chances of being in a qualifying position in November are slim.

But what must give McLeish real hope is that almost all of his most important players are 25 or under and should be at their peak in the period leading up to 2010. It is, if you like, Scotland's golden generation, albeit perhaps only a nine-carat one. On Saturday, we should see the best of them. And next week in Paris? Mr Gordon, the stage will then be yours.

More than a game

Gordon Strachan reckons his latest misconduct charge is about societal rather than football issues, and it's hard to disagree

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

From bad boy to moral crusader; from discipline case to victim of injustice, Gordon Strachan's route to popular heroism has been unconventional, imaginative and, of course, very individualistic.

Just a few days ago, Celtic fans were still divided as to the merits of one of the finest managers of his generation, football officials were unsheathing their pencils and some sections of the media were expressing a mixture of impatience and disdain.

Such a short while ago, we would hardly have guessed that Strachan, a man with more fatal put-downs than a vet during a foot-and-mouth outbreak, secretly felt that "to be truthful, I like to be liked". If he had been in any way troubled about his popular standing, there was scant evidence of that in his adoption of a diplomatic approach that would make John Bolton look like Nicholas Parsons, employing the sort of pejorative language that would shame Simon Cowell.

Spitting contempt at one manifestation of phone-in culture, he was quoted in a Scottish newspaper saying: "What you should ask is who is posing the question? Not an intelligent person, that's for sure. It's someone who's sitting with his tracksuit on, his devil dug at his side and a can of Kestrel in his hand, maybe coked up to his eyeballs, shouting down the phone. I'm not answering to that. I'm not answering a question from Mr Ned."

Though he qualified his statement - by adding "thankfully that doesn't reflect on most Celtic fans ... when I meet people they're always pleasant" - and later reminded people that he once assisted Adrian Chiles with his phone-in programme on Five Live, he fully merited some of the criticism he received. It is one thing to caricature "unreasonable" football fans as boors but nobody is asked to undergo an IQ test before shelling out £50 on a club tracksuit top.

Besides, to suggest that the unintelligent, the uneducated or simply the underclass of Britain has a lesser right to express an opinion on the game they support through attendance and television subscriptions is simply offensive. But Strachan is on unassailable high ground when he points to the sheer hypocrisy of fans who believe that buying a ticket entitles them to exhibit the sort of behaviour that normally attracts ASBOs only to go crying to the police if there is even a slight response to their provocation.

"Fans should have a responsibility to behave themselves when kids are about. I find it horrific that they can shout all kinds of abuse and then look for the police to complain if somebody smiles back at them from the Celtic bench. It's a mad, mad world and I couldn't get my head round what was happening on Sunday ."

Strachan was referring to what appeared to be an absurd haranguing from an Aberdeen steward, a dressing-down to which he quite properly objected. But there's nothing like a whiff of persecution to rally the Celtic support and the fact that he was sent to the stand for a third time in his Celtic career for, he insists, defending his colleagues from an unreasonable attack has prompted a sudden burst of unconditional love. If his latest misconduct charge is causing him any anxiety, there is the unanticipated plus side that Strachan vs the Establishment is just the sort of battle Celtic fans love.

The manager himself is playing down any notion of a fractious relationship with the authorities, insisting that he expects the testimony of Sunday's referee and fourth official to be sympathetic. However, depending on the outcome of a separate pending appeal - after, in what looked to be an act of unpardonable pettiness, he was sent from the dug-out on the day his team was to be presented with the SPL trophy, apparently without explanation from referee Stuart Dougal - he could face an upcoming ban totalling 10 matches.

The two incidents combined now present the SFA with a headache. Dismissing both charges - and Strachan is adamant that he has done nothing wrong in either instance and Celtic are sure to defend him with their now customary robust legal counsel - could lead to the impression that he had been victimised by referees.

Strachan has often spoken out against "yob culture" and told the Celtic View: "It is not an argument with officials, the SFA, coaches, with players, the opposition. It is a moral argument that is outwith football." If more managers felt as strongly, fewer players might feel inclined to spend Saturday nights drinking and fighting.

If Strachan has learned anything from this experience, it will have been from the example of his assistant Tommy Burns who faced the media at the weekend with his boss reportedly too upset to speak. Burns, who as Celtic player, manager and coach has endured every type of insult that the most vindictive fan has in his arsenal, reliably faces the most sensitive situations with a quiet dignity that seems to enhance his personal stature but insisted: "The abuse that we've had to take in the last few games has been shocking."

In the past, some Celtic fans have been guilty of that type of behaviour, such as when some of them abused the memory of Davie Cooper in song, while the recent phenomenon of some Rangers fans trying to implicate Jock Stein in a child-abuse scandal is also beneath contempt.

Yet while the supporters of clubs outside the Old Firm often revel in a certain smugness that scrutiny seems to centre on only two clubs, perhaps football should wake up to the nature of some of the "banter" from other fans. Isn't time to kick yobbism out of football?

The only problem with Barry Ferguson is he's better than his team-mates

Barry Ferguson has had his problems, but the Rangers skipper is not a trouble-maker, just an outstanding player, writes Bernard Thompson

Guardian

What's in an armband? Nothing, according to former Rangers manager Paul Le Guen;
everything, if you ask the player he stripped of the Token, or Walter Smith, who restored it to its rightful owner just days after returning to Ibrox. Even by the standards of Barry Ferguson MBE's turbulent career, the eight months since Le Guen attempted to sell him have been remarkable.

It is normally indicative of impending doom for any footballer when he is publicly reminded that "no player is bigger than the club". In Ferguson's case, however, it was obvious that a massive institution would be critically diminished by his exit.

But, "the trouble with Barry Ferguson", despite the claims of a leading Scottish football writer in his book on Le Guen's tribulations at Ibrox, was not so much that he failed to follow on-field orders - in fact, Ferguson's performances indicated that his instincts were more finely tuned than his manager's instructions. Nor that he supposedly had some grand plan to unseat the man whose appointment had been lauded by fans, the media and the player himself, though having spent the summer running a marathon across the sands of the Sahara, the Frenchman could be forgiven for wondering why players just had to drink alcohol at a Christmas party.

No, there was and is a real problem with Ferguson: he was then, as now, the one exceptionally gifted player in the Rangers ranks - and also a far better bet for the future than the Frenchman who had taken the club to third place in the SPL and 17 points behind Celtic.

And that's only part of it. If ever there was a player primed to be Rangers royalty, it was Barry Ferguson. As a star-struck 10-year-old, he was taken into the inner sanctum of Ibrox by his older brother Derek, who was later ousted by Graeme Souness due to his reputation as a hell-raiser. Barry has had his own flirtations with disaster, the most infamous being the Battle of Bothwell, when he found himself in an idiotic street-fight with Celtic fans after getting sent off in an Old Firm game. Then, many expected him to go the way of his sibling and other talented prodigies who lost their way, like Charlie Miller or Sandy Robertson. But an ultimatum from Dick Advocaat, who recognised a genuine talent, was enough to direct the player on to a more sensible path. He matured as a man and a footballer and became the club's youngest ever captain.

It was an extraordinary vote of confidence from Advocaat, who discarded the fans' cult hero Jörg Albertz because of his technical deficiencies and sold Rino Gattuso following the Italian's refusal to convert to a full-back role. Though the latter decision was football's equivalent of rejecting the Beatles, Ferguson's continued rise in stature indicated a level of ability that one of Europe's most demanding managers would comfortably support.

Ferguson's reputation has been unfairly sullied in the eyes of some onlookers. An inauspicious move to Blackburn, marred by serious injuries, prompted some Ibrox die-hards to question his loyalty - which is akin to querying the aristocratic credentials of the Prince of Wales.

A few even accused him of "crawling back" when he returned, the player citing his and his wife's desire to be closer to their families. In truth, both moves suited Rangers better than Ferguson - the sale helping to balance the books, the return bringing reassurance to a team that had been unable to replace him.

Ironically, given the fact that he was accused of failing to fulfil an attacking role for Le Guen, he is now showing long-forgotten ability to raid into opposition penalty boxes and has three goals from two league games.

This re-emergence is partially due to necessity - Rangers having failed to sign Paul Hartley or Scott Brown; and partially thanks to reasonable support from his team-mates. With Kevin Thomson in midfield and the assured combination of Carlos Cuellar and David Weir in central defence, Ferguson can now afford to move into positions that would have been calamitous in a team that trained without tackling and contained lightweights like Karl Svensson, Jérémy Clément and Libor Sionko.

But Ferguson is now also enjoying one of the few periods in recent years when he hasn't been playing through an injury or even delaying surgery for the good of the cause.

In modern football, he is a fashion disaster. He is the bad-boy who grew up. He articulates his intelligence on the field rather than the post-match tunnel or studio. You won't find him advertising shampoo or shaving gel and he has a wife and family, rather than a Wag. He is also driven by the out-moded desire to "play for the jersey" at a club he desperately loves.

He may be no Gerrard or Lampard, and southern critics will refer back - simplistically and forever - to his time at Ewood Park and sneer that he's just a big fish in a small pond. That suits Smith, because it's no exaggeration to say that all Rangers' current hopes rest on the shoulders - and hips and knees and ankles - of one of Britain's truly talented midfielders who simply believes that to captain his favourite club and country is the highest achievement to which he can aspire.

There is a classic Ferguson pose: with the ball at his feet, arms outstretched, urging team-mates, who never seem to be quite as quick of mind as him, to make offensive runs. If Rangers are to have any real success, he'll have to drag them up to his wavelength. He's capable of it.

Don't expect the Bhoys to sink

Celtic will still be very much the team to beat when the SPL season kicks off tomorrow, argues Bernard Thompson
Guardian

Recently, the Scottish Football Association repeated its warning to all SPL clubs that sectarianism and racism will lead to them being docked points.

Fans of teams other than Rangers and Celtic are chilled about the whole thing, believing that new sanctions will only be used against the two most powerful clubs in the land. But smaller clubs with cheaper lawyers have been made examples of before, it may yet happen again.

Celtic will win the league, of course, because frankly to predict anything other than a victory for the best squad in Scotland by far would just be plain silly.

More to the point is whether the Bhoys can again progress beyond the Champions League group stages (and they will have to beat Spartak Moscow to even qualify) and even maybe win a game away from home on the way.

After a season that owed much to Artur Boruc and Shunsuke Nakamura, both of whom are attracting interest from other clubs, new arrival Scott Brown should set the standard for other precocious talents such as Aiden McGeady and Derek Riordan. Gordon Strachan would like also to think that his six strikers (plus maybe Steven Naismith) could muster a decent goal tally instead of waiting for midfielders and central defenders to show them how.

At Rangers, much is expected of a squad full of new signings, if not exactly obvious match-winning stars. Pick of the new arrivals looks to be Carlos Cuellar in defence while Barry Ferguson remains clearly the club's best player by a country mile and, barring mishap, Kris Boyd will again be Rangers' and Scotland's top scorer. Lee McCulloch, Alan Hutton and Charlie Adam will undoubtedly be effective at SPL level but the club looks ill-prepared for a Champions League qualifying campaign.

Neither Hearts, Hibernian nor Aberdeen look to be strong enough to threaten the established order but all three should cause some sleepless nights in Glasgow. Theirs is a tale of three managers.

At Hearts, Anatoly Korobochka starts the season as favourite for the sack purely because of Vladimir Romanov's record of dispensing with personnel. But what has frustrated the Jambos most is their team's ability to play any Scottish side off the park only for off-the-field disruption to ruin their ambitions. There is no reason to expect change.

Meanwhile at Easter Road, John Collins faces a fight to establish his credibility as a manager after Hibs' players undermined him last season. He could also use some of the £9m accrued from transfers since the turn of the year, funds which have largely gone to stabilising the club's finances and paying for a new training centre. Hibs' biggest challenge will be to maintain their record of developing talented players having lost their youth academy director John Park to Celtic last season.

At Aberdeen, Jimmy Calderwood is tasked with extending an enviable record: six continuous seasons of improvement (four of them with Dunfermline). But after a third place finish last year, the Dons look to have hit their ceiling as far as the league is concerned, and would settle for a modest Uefa Cup run. But, after watching Hearts and Hibs win cups over the previous two seasons, Aberdeen fans are entitled to feel it could be their turn. They must overcome the loss of Russell Anderson to Sunderland but the experience and versatility of Jackie MacNamara should provide significant options.

The unfurling of the first division flag in Gretna's first-ever SPL match will be bittersweet, given that the club's proudest moment will take place without Rowan Alexander in charge. Ill-health forced Alexander to resign from his position as manager during the summer, having led Gretna through the lower leagues and to a Scottish Cup final place in 2006. New coach Davie Irons can only hope for the sort of early-season momentum that ultimately saved St Mirren last season and might just keep Gretna one place above the Saints to survive another year.

Keeping up with the neighbours leaves Smith craving moonbeams and miracles

All Walter Smith is now asked to do with Rangers is deliver the success of 1997 with the finances of 2007. Bernard Thompson explains why that's easier said than done

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

What a difference a decade makes. You gain experience but also age, some ambitions are realised

while other hopes are surrendered; you move onwards and upwards or decline. All are things for

Moonbeam-provider & miracle-worker: Murray and Smith

Walter Smith to ponder on Saturday.

On August 4 1997, Rangers unfurled another championship flag, kicking off what they hoped would be the club's 10th - and Smith's seventh - consecutive Scottish league title. Around £15m had been spent in the close season.

The chairman Sir David Murray insisted that for every £5 the impoverished Celtic spent, Rangers would splash out a tenner. They had just negotiated one Champions League qualifying round and seen off a string of helpless or hapless Celtic managers - Liam Brady, Lou Macari and Tommy Burns - with Wim Jansen barely threatening to disturb the peace in Smith's blue heaven.

He could scarcely have imagined then that, long before the end of that season, he would be redefined as yesterday's man. It must have been even more unthinkable that 10 years on he would be looked upon as the last hope for tomorrow. How did it come to this?

Like all well-balanced Scots, Rangers fans have nursed a chip on each shoulder. Matching Celtic's nine-in-a-row record of Scottish league titles salved the wound on one side. The problem persisted on the other - they had never seriously threatened to match their rivals' 1967 European Cup victory (a Cup Winners' Cup in 1972 hardly compensating).

It is only possible to begin to understand how Smith and Rangers came to be where they are now - trophyless for two seasons and with modest funds to remedy the problem - by appreciating the recklessness of their obsession with matching Celtic's achievement. As far back as 1989, the then newly-appointed chief executive Alan Montgomery had declared that "Rangers must win the European Cup". It was a typical example of defiance overriding realism.

But Smith's failure to make a major impact in Europe - the finest moment probably being the home-and-away defeat of Leeds United in 1992, later missing out on a Champions League final place by one point - led to the clamour for something new.

Like Dick Advocaat, for example.

"Believe me when I tell you that we are going for it this time - we want to be successful in Europe, and the money we are raising now will take us there," Murray boasted of a team that, by then, contained Arthur Numan, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Michael Mols. "This is the last part of the jigsaw for me ..."

The puzzle was that lavish expenditure delivered two league titles and some exciting European performances, notably eliminating a formidable Parma from the Champions League in 1999, but little else to show for financial crisis.

The arrival of Martin O'Neill having prompted Rangers to move swiftly on, Alex McLeish was asked to keep pace with Celtic while replacing high earners with radically cheaper alternatives. His record - two cups within six months of his appointment, a domestic treble in his first full season, a second title in 2005 and reaching the last 16 of the Champions League - set the context for a rueful but masterfully understated parting comment: "I'm sure those people who look at the facts will say that during a period of downsizing, I was reasonably successful."

But it must also be said that his tenure also coincided with Rangers' worst-ever run of competitive results and a record string of Old Firm defeats. He was pushed out by popular demand.

Turning to Paul Le Guen was bold, imaginative and seemingly unrealistic but demonstrative of a degree of audacity that Murray has often matched with persuasiveness to great effect. Le Guen described Murray's overtures as having "such force, such charisma and enthusiasm, that it gave it an extra dimension ... He's the kind of guy who can't leave you indifferent." Even more typical of Murray was his display of hubris in heralding a "moonbeam of success".

One brief, unmitigated disaster later, Rangers were returning to the man who self-evidently could not win the trophy they most covet.

Why Smith should have taken on the job when his reputation was at its highest after a short but successful period as coach of Scotland could easily be said to defy understanding. For sure, he must have found it irksome to see the fate that befell Rangers after his talents were considered inadequate for a club with European issues. Could he have felt he had something to prove, given that no manager since the legendary Bill Struth had brought more league titles to Ibrox? Sometimes in football logic, self-interest and common sense count for little compared to the innate sense that a club is in the blood of some individuals.

These days Sir David Murray doesn't even try to pretend he could double Celtic's spending, having lost out on Derek Riordan, Paul Hartley, Scott MacDonald and Scott Brown in the past 18 months. Murray's recent insistence that the club could have afforded the £4.4m transfer fee that took Brown from Hibs, but not his salary and add-on fees, is an indication that Smith faces the managerial challenge of his career. Last Monday the club announced that its debt has risen to £16.5m.

In the past Rangers have invested their finances with the shrewdness of a gambler on tilt. But contrasting the money wasted over the years with the more prudent acquisitions provides a lesson and Smith's best hope: the price ticket isn't always the best guide to quality, even if it is fun to be flash in front of the neighbours.

Smith once squandered £4m on Sebastián Rozental but gave an unknown Rino Gattuso his first big chance. The £12m Advocaat spent on Tore André Flo was outshone by his nurturing the talent of Barry Ferguson. McLeish, with little money to waste, landed Kris Boyd: to the purist, hardly even a footballer; to the statistician, an outrageously prolific goalscorer.

Now, as they prepare for the second leg of a vital Champions League qualifier with FC Zeta - after a first leg that, despite the 2-0 win, ranks among the club's worst European performances - the bombast is muted and Murray's summation of the club's fortunes drably pragmatic: "If we are in the Champions League we make £5m, if not we lose £5m." He is also now talking publicly of selling up.

And all Smith is now asked to do is deliver the success of 1997 with the finances of 2007. So Roy Carroll, Carlos Cuellar, Lee McCulloch and Jean-Claude Darcheville will be tasked with emulating the achievements of Andy Goram, Richard Gough, Brian Laudrup and Mark Hately. In other words, Smith must deliver a miracle - or at least a moonbeam.