A word of sense from Graham Spiers

From The Times

May 16, 2008

A club with a poison at its core

Graham Spiers

Utterly predictably, the fate of Rangers is once again to find excitement on the field marred by loutishness and delinquency off it. Losing the Uefa Cup final in Manchester on Wednesday night was no disgrace for Walter Smith or his team, whose very presence at the game was a triumph in itself. Beyond the stadium, however, before and after the match, events told their own story of how accursed Rangers remain as a club.

Willie Waddell, a memorable Rangers manager of the early 1970s, whose team brought the 1972 European Cup Winners’ Cup back to Glasgow, once aimed the following simmering words in the direction of his club’s supporters: “It is to these tikes, hooligans, louts and drunkards that I pinpoint my message. It is because of your gutter-rat behaviour that we are being publicly tarred and feathered like this.”

After that European triumph of 36 years ago, Rangers were banned by Uefa for the rioting of their fans, causing Waddell to implode with rage. The blight of Rangers - defined by loutish behaviour and bigoted chanting among groups of supporters – is proving a durable social poison. Here we are four decades on, still lamenting the seemingly endemic way in which these supporters behave like primitives.

The chaotic scenes in Manchester on Wednesday night - a Zenit fan stabbed, rioting Rangers fans, and 15 policemen getting injured - were frightening to behold. Moreover, the footage released yesterday and shown on Sky News, of hundreds of Rangers fans charging at police and setting upon one who stumbled to the ground, will make the already weary Ibrox hierarchy cringe.

Rangers have a repeated get-out for these episodes: the script always says this is “just a small minority” of fans. Moreover, as incident upon incident passes with the club’s supporters - at Villarreal in 2006, in Pamplona in 2007 and now in Manchester in 2008 - it is always “heavy-handed policing” and not the Rangers fans themselves who are said to be the blame.

Well, this is no small minority of Rangers supporters, and nor are the Greater Manchester Police renowned for their truncheon-wielding brutality. Instead, this is a football club with a poison somewhere at its core.

Such scenes will enrage those legions of decent Rangers supporters who love their club and follow it with impressive ardour. The postmatch eruptions were all the more depressing on Wednesday because the vast Rangers support gathered inside the City of Manchester Stadium had created a brilliant spectacle of colour and noise, including many who stayed on to applaud the Zenit St Petersburg players on their 2-0 triumph.

Other aspects, however, were familiarly ugly. During the day before the match, and certainly in the drunken aftermath, there was too much evidence of the sort of primitivism that enraged Waddell 36 years ago. In particular, bigoted or sectarian chanting remains an excruciating pastime for too many Rangers supporters, despite repeated pleas by the club to give these anthems a rest. For two days in Manchester, if you were based in the city centre as I was, you woke up to these dirges in the morning and you went to sleep to them at night.

Since being punished by Uefa two years ago for such antics by their supporters, Rangers have hired PR people, as well as Kenny Scott, a seasoned and former high-ranking Glasgow policeman, to try to gouge out the social disease which has clamped itself to the club. Scott, in particular, knew very well the inherent dangers of 100,000 Rangers fans descending upon Manchester for the Uefa Cup final.

The downside of Rangers reaching such a prestigious game in as close an area as the north of England was that it was an open invitation for the club’s less impressive followers to display their capacity for drinking, aggression, and sectarian abuse. I would go so far as to say that Scott, as head of security at Rangers, will have been cringeing at the very prospect from the moment the club qualified for the final.

Some spoke yesterday of another Uefa investigation of Rangers, but this surely won’t occur. It is almost impossible for Uefa, however much they care about the image of football, to weigh in on such affairs as public disorder in the city centres of Britain.

But who has the answer to this blight? Can anyone offer Rangers a cure for this ugly delinquency which afflicts a sizeable group of their supporters?

Until that cure is found, the once-proud name of Rangers FC will always trigger thoughts of yobbishness and bigotry. The club, to be blunt, is paying a heavy price for its century-long antipathy towards signing Catholic players, a policy which planted this bitter harvest.

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

You might have noticed the little ad on the right for ‘bloggers unite for human rights’.  Today is the day when bloggers all over the world will share their thoughts and highlight situations where human rights are violated.

I had hoped to write something well researched but just haven’t had the time.  And I guess that’s what I wanted to say.  There is never time or we are all too busy.  It reminded me of these words attributed to Niemöller:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

Our civil liberties are the most precious things we have, and yet we take them for granted.

I’m responsible for developing work with children and young people so I though I’d use my post today to remind us all (in accordance with Article 42: All adults and children should know about this convention) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:

Article 1  Everyone under 18 has these rights

Article 2  You have the right to protection against discrimination

Article 3 Adults should do what’s best for you

Article 4 You have the right to have your rights made a reality by government

Article 5 You have the right to be given guidance by your parents and family

Article 6 You have the right to life

Article 7 You have the right to have a name and a nationality

Article 8 You have the right to have an identity

Article 9 You have the right to live with your parents unless it is bad for you

Article 10 If you and your parents are living in different countries, you have the right to get back together and live in the same place

Article 11 You should not be kidnapped

Article 12 You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously

Article 13 You have the right to find out things and say what you think, through making art, speaking and writing unless it breaks the rights of others

Article 14 You have the right to think what you like and be whatever religion you want to be with your parents guidance

Article 15 You have the right to be with friends and join or set up clubs, unless this breaks the rights of others

Article 16 You have the right to a private life, ie you can keep a diary that other people are not allowed to see

Article 17  You have the right to collect information from the media

Article 18 You have the right to be brought up by your parents if possible

Article 19 You have the right to be protected from being hurt or badly treated

Article 20 You have the right to special protection and help if you can’t live with your parents

Article 21 You have the right to have the best care for you if you are adopted or living in foster care

Article 22 You have the right to special protection and help if you are a refugee

Article 23 If you are disabled, either mentally or physically, you have the right to special care and education

Article 24 You have the right to the best health possible and to medical care and information

Article 25 You have the right to have your living arrangements checked regularly if you are living away from home

Article 26 You have the right to help from the government if you are poor or in need

Article 27 You have the right to have a good enough standard of living

Article 28 You have the right to education

Article 29 You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for other’s rights and the environment

Article 30 If you come from a minority group you have the right to enjoy your own culture, practice your own religion and use your own language

Article 31 You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sport, music and drama

Article 32 You have the right to protection from work which is bad for your health or education

Article 33  You have the right to be protected from dangerous drugs

Article 34 You have the right to be protected from sexual abuse

Article 35 No one is allowed to kidnap you or sell you

Article 36 You have the right to protection from any other kind of exploitation

Article 37 You have the right not to be punished in a cruel or hurtful way

Article 38 You have the right to protection in times of war. If under 15 you should never have to be in the army or a battle

Article 39 You have the right to help if you have been hurt, neglected or badly treated

Article 40 You have the right to help in defending yourself if you are accused of breaking the law

Article 41 You have the right to any rights in laws in your country or internationally that give you better rights than these

Article 42 All adults and children should know about this convention

We in Scotland often look around the world and shake our heads at what goes on in other countries but I read a statistic which shocked me last night.   Nearly 20% of children attending the  Sick Children’s Hospital in Glasgow show signs of malnutrition.  It’s time we all made some time to look around and take seriously the rights of children in the world.

church websites for URC

iChurch is, in my humble opinion, the best idea I’ve seen in ages.

If you are a URC congregation who either wants a website but think it is too hard to set up and run

or

are paying for web hosting, trying to design and update your site and all that

then ichurch is the answer!  For a one off fee of £100 you get your own website with a yourchurch.urc.org.uk address, a site that is already set up and really simple for anyone to update.  It runs from the URC server so no web hosting costs or any of that website hassle.

It’s a brilliant idea and one I think every congregation should take up.

christian aid week

Mark Yaconelli - Comtempative Youth Ministry

Making a difference

Ramble Alert! OK. I’m not sure where this post is going but stick with me and hopefully it will get somewhere…

I’m working on some aims and objectives for my job. I tell everyone I train to do it so it’s practice what you preach time.

The thing is… I can write down the stuff I do/will do/can do standing on my head OR I can do all that and try to do something that will make a difference. We have been talking a lot in our little Synod Team about ‘Culture Carrying’. That discussion has grown from a feeling that we have to do better than maintaining the church. To do that we need to embody something else. We need to be culture carriers.

So my quandary is twofold:

Does any of the stuff I do make a difference? And if it does, who or what does it make a difference to? And are those the right people?

What culture should I be carrying? I start where I always do. Asking for thoughts and ideas.

Headphonaught suggests I keep being me. I’m not sure I can be anything else, or that I can write that down on my forward plan!

1. Be me.

2. see 1

I think he’s right though. I need to be authentic. And so does the church. If it’s not about life and living it then what’s the point?

Avril asked me what difference the church can make to the lives of people in and out of it? I don’t really know the answer to that question. I’m sure it makes a bigger difference than we might at first think because the ‘organisation’ isn’t the be all and end all of being church thank God. The people live and move in the world, loving, caring, helping and supporting as they go. But then so do lots of others who have no involvement in church.

My thing is children and young people and the adults that work with them. At least that’s what my job is. My problem is that sometimes I have no idea what to do with that. (is that something I should be admitting?) I sometimes wonder if the church as it exists is anyplace for our children and young people? In some cases yes and in some no.

What I have noticed is that the churches that are willing to invest some time, money and most of all themselves are the ones that do well with children and young people. And yet few of our churches are growing significantly. That isn’t because they are not good places full of good people. I would recommend a number of them to anyone.

I wonder if it is because we don’t advertise our existence? Is that a confidence thing? Are we silent because we don’t know who we are or what we are for?

I wrote a chapter in a book called Inside Verdict which I began with the words “This isn’t working anymore.” Well, is it any better now? Of course some of it is. The Together@MCT project I’ve been working with people on perhaps sheds some light. Engaging worship. Discussion with no pressure. Hopefully some community building. But I’m not sure we have gotten our heads around who it is for and how we should move forward yet. We need to keep the bigger picture before us. That will come though.

The pervasive themes of personalisation and participation return to my thinking again and again. The world, my world, seems to value both of these. How does that fit with community? It seems to in the world of facebook and bebo. I can be me. I can have my personal page but I belong to the community and can participate and add and contribute. How does/could/should that work in church?

Media that targets you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.

Clay Shirky

So just a few questions to answer. I’ll get back to my aims and objectives now and see if any or all of those thoughts make it onto the page.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Really. They would.

Shawlands Community Forum

Tonight I’ve been invited to be on the panel for an open community discussion at Shawlands URC in Glasgow (map).

The topic is ‘What role can the Church play in the community?’ and I’ve been asked to speak about the church and young people.  There are another two speakers and the local MP was to have been on the panel but has been called away.

The event starts at 7.00pm and you would be most welcome to join us.

neither is being brown

Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ Speech

This is perhaps one of the best speeches ever given.  Take some time to sit and listen.  You won’t regret it.

Almost time for TED

There are few conferences that I really wish I could go to, but TED is one, and not just for the very cool conference bags! The TED 2008 conference is almost here. You can follow the build up at the TED Blog and watch some amazing talks like this one from Isobel Allende and this one from LOST creator JJ Abrams:

I wonder… what would you talk about given 15 minutes with some of the smartest people on the planet?