QUOTE (The Hun's Ghost @ Sep 26 2008, 14:04)

I think we all know who I was before and it certainly wasn't Angela although I do admire for having the guts to stand up against the bigotry.
What makes me laugh is most of you wouldn`t say boo to each other if you were face to face!
Arguing about issues is all very well if you have a common goal for the good but point scoring is a bit weak!
Personally, I think sectarianism is getting worse again between Old Firm supporters which is a shame considering the efforts being made to teach children the ills involved with this type of feeling!

I actually think you're right and I'll tell you why and who is to blame.
Sectarianism was dying out and people were moving on. However, when Martin O'Neill, a notoriously bad loser and purveyor of frenzied trackside antics, took over at Celtic, he introduced a sectarian anti-Protestant agenda in which every word of the Rangers fan related not just to the relevant context of an Old Firm match, but whatever misperceived delusional social problem that O'Neill deemed fit to be attached to it.
When Celtic lost to Rangers, it wasn't a football match with terracing banter, it was part of some delusional anti-Catholic conspiracy theory in which referees helped "the proddies". His autobiography highlighted this bitterness in him from an early age. Being a bigot, O'Neill was blind to this. He made bizarre, illiterate accusations or racism. He stoked up the hatred and even said this at UEFA press conference when they were beaten by Barcelona.
At the same time, the Celtic fans were using the internet to try to improve their image after the scandal of their actions against Mark Walters, Hugh Dallas and Fergus McCann's failed "cleaning up" of the Parkhead song sheet. O'Neill's words gave them fresh impetus.
Graham Spiers, also at this time, had fallen out with Murray because he lost out on a few signing scoops and went into a huff, attacking Murray rather than his previous lauding of him. He befriended O'Neill and through his own pettiness and bitterness, he gave O'Neill's bigoted sectarian agenda, despite contradicting his own earlier words on the subject of offensive chanting at Old Firm games.
Now exposed as a hypocrite, Spiers lost all his early credibility and had to pander to his remaining sole constituency of the Celtic minded bigot and also befriended UEFA match delegate, Gerhard Kapl, ironically known as the "Pope of Rules" who thought it was him being derided in song.
This aggregate of demented fools, childish minds and sectarian bigots have peddled an agenda that says if you sing words which can be interpreted in any way or even distorted as sectarian in any context, regardless of that very context, then you are an anti-Catholic bigot.
Throughout all this, Celtic fans continued to sing anti-British, racist by their own standards, and sectarian songs. More sinisterly, the IRA stuff continued and still does, but now Rangers fans have noticed it and realised that the playing field isn't level, so they must now counter and perhpas mirror that strategy.