Football celebs vote in #GE2015!

We all know that Alex Ferguson is a Labour man, whatever their policies are. Also that ex-Hearts and Hibs red-card junkie Michael Stewart is an intelligent advocate of independence and is backing the SNP. Terry Butcher is, or at least used to be, a Tory. But, let's face it, fitba celebs rarely put their heads above the parapet on the political front.

Tocasaid will hazard a few guesses though.

So, with the election upon us and episodes of mindless sickening violence (see above) now in the past, let's enjoy some 90-minute nuggets...

First up is house-favourite Leigh Griffiths. Hibs fan and righteous Celtic FC forward has been banging in the hat-tricks lately. His ongoing hat-trick seems to be the triple-grudge of racism, homophobia and Islamophobia. That's surely makes him a Ukip man.

Moving slightly to the left, we have Ally McCoist. He's a well known Unionist and with Oldco Rangers having corned the right-wing conservative market for fans in recent decades, he's sure to be a Tory. In fact, I reckon he's so taken with Scottish Conservatism that he's morphing into Ruth Davidson.

Anne Budge of Hearts and Leanne Dempster of Hibs are two independently-minded women with clear visions of what their respective clubs should look like. They also thrive in an otherwise backward-male environment. That makes them SNP fans of oor Nicola.

Robbie Neilson. Young manager who's quiet demeanour has nevertheless yielded spectacular results for Hearts this season, albeit in the second tier. They won the league by a country mile as the SNP are predicted to do on May 7th. SNP again for this winner.

 

Lee 'Elbows' McCulloch. Past the sell-by date footballer and vicious hardman of The Rangers FC. Even his own fans don't like him. Other fans detest him. Referees don't know he exists. He's not very popular. He must be a Lib Dem.

Alan Stubbs. Used to be a likeable guy but has grown into one hell of a bitter man this season as Hibs yo-yo all over the place - one minute they're horsing Sevco and the next allowing Christian Nade of all people to dance around their defence and score. Given his bitterness towards other teams and fans coupled with the fact that his team finished a very distant second to winners Hearts, he has to be a Labour man. No Jim Murphy though as Stubbs is just bitter, not evil.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Hell, we may not all support them but most of us have a soft-spot for them. There's Yogi for a start who's gone from buffoon to manager of the year. And, there's the excellent Twitter account. The Frankie Boyle of the football Twitter world though not as foul-mouthed. They also love beating the corporate-corpse of Scottish fitba - Celtic FC. I'm sure they're partial to a few jars and a 'wee smoke'. Defo a Green Party team and what's wrong with that?

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Vote early, vote often, vote SNP.

A season like no other kicks off

Though I still think of it as Division One, the new Scottish Championship is where it's at this year. The Club Formerly Known as Glasgow Rangers having emerged from its pet cemetery made short work of winning Scotland's third tier to gain promotion. Hearts having being handed a 15-point penalty on top of having Gary Locke as manager were always likely to go down.

Hibs though, like they have done so often in recent years, took the word misery and made it their own. Big style. Hard as it may be to remember, but a year ago Pat '5-1' Fenlon took the Abbeyhill club to new depths with a 9-0 aggregate loss to mighty Malmo. In stepped Tory Butcher who took a bad thing and made it worse. Hibs saw the cliff of relegation some distance away and raced headlong towards it. The final flourish of woe against Hamilton in front of a home crowd attracting gasps of amazement and guffaws of laughter from supporters of wee clubs around Scotland.

Hibs to their credit, played well against The Rangers last week in the minor Challenge Cup that these wee teams have to compete for despite losing to a badly organised Neu-Ibrox XI.

The farce known as 'The Rangers' will be the focus for most us - even for us supporters of The Other Teams. Their woes have multiplied though mostly off the field at this point. Their dire display against Hibs though to the backdrop of a near empty Ibrox will surely boil over into more rage should they lose to Hearts' youngsters on Sunday. It appears that Rangers 2.0 have lost more than £70m in two years. How?! The Rangers debacle is too complex and labyrinthine to enter into here, so I'll leave that to others.

Scotland's other establishment club, Celtic, have not played well either. After finally overcoming the part-time footballers/ fishermen of Iceland, they were royally humped by Legia Warsaw. Fortunately for Scotland's Walmart of Football, Legia were found guilty of some minor infringement of the rules and Celtic were awarded the exact scoreline they needed to progress. This, is the second time in a few years that their embarrassment on the pitch in Europe has been salved by Europe's footballing high-heid yins.

O Connor - a diet of coke and pizza.

In other worlds, Leigh Griffiths continues to revert to form with rumours that he'll be back at Hibs in the not to distant future. Surely, they wouldn't take him back? One of Hibs' other troubled children, Garry Jos... O Connor is now funding his habit plodding the turf for... Selkirk.

I have no predictions but do hope that... The Rangers are forced to spend another year in the lower leagues and that's if they survive financially at all. Hearts could beat them to the title but I'd imagine their youngsters to be too inconsistent. Hibs, currently with about 13 players to their name but with a new manager are bound to improve on last season's misery. I wouldn't put money on it though.

In the SPL, I'd love Aberdeen or Dundee Utd to take the title. On current showing, Celtic are... shit. But, money talks. Especially to the SFA.

Oh... and Lambie is out for a Yes vote.

The banana selfie we'll never see

When racism rears its head in football, some racists are more equal than others. If you're a first team regular for Glasgow Celtic and a Hibernian fan who's been filmed in a bar mocking another player as a 'fucking refugee' on account of his east European origin then there's some wiggle room.

It's good to see footballing professionals throughout Europe take a stand against racism and in solidarity with Dani Alves. Leigh Griffiths has a track record of racist and homophobic abuse. His clubs, Hibernian and Celtic, should know better. Some excuse him on grounds of his working class origin and alleged low IQ. The same charges could be levelled at much of the BNP or EDL membership and no sane person tolerates them.

Fun at the fitba with Leigh Griffiths and The Rangers!

Scottish football has been all shook up but some things have stayed just the way they always were. Such as... Rangers fans bringing violence and aggression to another city. A Celtic player indulging in dumb but dodgy politics. On the bright side, Raith Rovers have won more games at Easter Road in 2014 than Hibs have and one of them was against a Rangers' side who were marginally less violent than their fans outside.

With Rangers, you know where you are. They don't just have some dodgy fans, they have them in the thousands. At least. As I've mentioned before though, some teams and their fans see themselves as occupying a moral highground when it comes to attitudes to bigotry and racism. Celtic and Hibs are probably the proudest wearers of the golden halos in Scottish football.

Having moronic fans is one thing but having highly-paid professional players indulging in anti-social and racist behaviour is another. Celtic have been here before with Scott Brown's infamous fotie-op with the SDL. Hibs have been there with Derek Riordain and Leigh Griffiths. Now Celtic have Leigh Griffiths on their hands.

What will they do? Both clubs make a lot of their origins as clubs formed by immigrant refugees. To have a major first team player singing anti-refugee songs in a pub with racist fans of another team must surely see his ass exiting the door.

Some Celtic fans such as Glasgow-born Phil MacGiollaBháin make much of the bigotry of others. Is racism only unacceptable when aimed at those who claim Irish descent? MacGiollaBháin condemns Griffiths but only makes a meek demand that Celtic 'take him on about it'. As observed, Griffiths has form on the racist front and seems to find it difficult to keep out of trouble in other areas too.

Sadly, if Celtic do let Griffiths go, it seems as if many Hibs' fans are only too willing to take him on again. Most Hibs fans on the Hibs Net forum condemn his behaviour but seem to happy to take back a prolific goalscorer. This isn't much of a moral highground.

Scottish football has progressed though a significant minority still shit in their own backyard.

In recent years, I've started attending Hearts' games again after a long absence, mainly to support the club that became the local team of my Irish and Catholic great-grandmother and her sons. At first, the cross-community aspect of the Hearts' support was a joy to behold. I can remember the bad old days when significant numbers of fans would shout or sing songs that were offensive in one way or another. But here were fans of all colours presenting a genuine cross-section of the Gorgie Dalry community with many Asian, Eastern European and Chinese Scots. There were also families and more women in attendance than I remember years back.

Unfortunately, at my next derby game I was forced to confront a pair of fat and ageing bigots who repeatedly shouted anti-Irish abuse at the Hibs' players. There's always one or two dickheads who spoil the party. I later heard from a Hibs' fan that one or two of their supporters had shouted 'Paki bastard' at Hearts' Mehdi Taouill - a French Moroccan.

Fighting racism will be a never ending battle. There will always be someone who feels the need to impinge on the freedom of others. What matters is how we deal with it.

Paying a racist ned a small fortune just because he can score goals does not deal with it. If education is the answer then a spell of unemployment will give him the message.