Yes you read it right, Gordon Smith stated in the book "It’s Rangers for me" that he didn’t take part in "party songs" during Ranger’s Supporters Functions!

Which to me reads, they were signing songs but I didn’t join in! Kind of contradicts the agenda theory doesn’t it Smith, or should it be s-MYTH!


From the Times Online

More exposed to bigotry working in the media than I was as a player

In the second of our extracts from a new book, the SFA chief executive tells of his playing experiences at Rangers

Gordon Smith

There was no tradition in my family of supporting Rangers. My grandfather had been a Kilmarnock player so my family were all Killie fans. In fact, I had the impression that my dad didn’t like Rangers. When you consider my background was Boys Brigade and Church of Scotland, you would think he would have been more inclined to lean towards Rangers, but that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, I thought he was more comfortable with Celtic than he was with Rangers.

Maybe it was because Rangers were seen as the establishment team and we were a socialist family, with my dad a Labour councillor. Certainly, my parents were very clear about the whole bigotry issue. The message that I was getting all the time when I was growing up was that there was no difference between Catholics and Protestants.

I became a Rangers fan when I saw Jim Baxter play against Killie at Rugby Park. I wanted to be like him and even decided to be a left-footed player like him. My close pal Davie Paterson, who ended up signing a schoolboy form for Rangers, knew I was a Rangers fan but I kept it very quiet. I was worried in case it got back to my dad and the rest of my family. To most strangers, when asked, I was a Kilmarnock fan.

I had no problems with Celtic as I was growing up. I remember sitting with my family in 1967 and watching Celtic in the European Cup final and we were all cheering them on, me included. I was delighted that Rangers came in for me but if it had been Celtic then I would have signed for them, no problem at all.

When I signed for Rangers in 1977, I never thought anything much about the religious side of things. I didn’t think, "It’s ridiculous that we haven’t got Catholics", it was just the way it had been for decades. Did I think Rangers would one day sign a Catholic when I played for them? No, I probably didn’t but, surprising as it may seem today, there was no big fuss about it then. The issues of discrimination didn’t really come through until the 1980s.

I didn’t know the words of The Sash or anything like that. I didn’t do party songs and I still say that these days when I’m invited to supporters’ functions. I have never sung any of those songs because I grew up in a different environment.

While a Rangers player you would get the odd comment from Celtic fans but it wasn’t a problem. In fact, I got more stick from Celtic fans when I was a pundit than I got as a Rangers player. We went about Glasgow a lot more than Rangers players do these days. Bobby Russell, Davie Cooper, Derek Parlane and I would go into town for lunch and there was seldom any bother.

Wee Doddy [Alex MacDonald] got more stick: he was the Neil Lennon-type figure of those days, although obviously a Rangers player. I wasn’t a hate figure as such and so I never really got much hassle. Most of the time Celtic fans were complimentary. Rangers had a reputation as hammer throwers and hard tacklers but I wasn’t that type of player. So some Celtic fans would say I should have been playing for them instead of Rangers.

Today many football fans have a big problem determining the difference between neutrality and objectivity. They think you should be neutral, which means you have never supported any team. But if you haven’t supported any team, how can you have anything to offer? Consequently, there are very few people in the media – like myself when I was involved – who will say, "yes, I’m a Rangers fan" and that’s a sad thing. It would be quite easy for me to go down the line of saying that I’m a Kilmarnock fan but I choose to be honest about it.

I was more exposed to bigotry working in the media than I was as a player. I found that people disliked me just because of my Rangers background. People e-mailed the BBC about me being biased and I was called an Orange bastard a few times, but that doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t demean me, it demeans them. I always try to be objective and the most frustrating thing is that people can’t see that, they see what they want to see.

The season that Celtic got to the Uefa Cup final in Seville, someone wrote into a newspaper saying he could tell by my face that I was gutted. But I was delighted that they got through. I’m right behind Celtic and every other Scottish team in Europe. So that is what you are up against. I have also had stick from Rangers fans. During the Dick Advocaat era I was quite critical, saying that he wasn’t as good as everyone thought, and Rangers fans would have a go at me for that.

I was at Ibrox one afternoon and was asked if I would draw the raffle at half-time. Even after three years as a Rangers player, being sold for a record fee and still a supporter of the club, I got roundly booed. Some people said I changed after that but I didn’t; there just happened to be issues surrounding Rangers that I backed them on.

I don’t hide it - playing for Rangers was fantastic. Playing for the club gave me what I wanted out of my football career. It was the best set of players I ever played with, a great bunch of guys. I was playing for the team I supported, at the highest level, and winning trophies – the same as my grandfather had done for Kilmarnock. That’s all I wanted from life and that’s why my feelings for Rangers are still strong.