Rodgers row is much ado about nothing…
Brendan Rodgers is making the news due to his ‘comment’ in a post match interview with BBC Scotland. The interviewer in question was Jane Lewis who is known for her appreciation of another team from Glasgow, like most of the folk over the years who have covered Scottish football for BBC Scotland.
This dates back decades, for instance Archie Macpherson has spoken about arriving at BBC Scotland in the 1960s and thinking it was the 1690s, such was the anti-Catholic, anti-Celtic sentiments that were openly expressed. Did the BBC ever apologise for that?
“I admit to being hyper-sensitive about deliberate agendas as, when I joined the BBC more than four decades ago, I found myself in a departmental anti-Catholic, anti-Celtic ethos which I had to fight against; successfully, I have to claim, as Jock Stein became a regular associate of mine as an analyst when previously he would not have been seen dead inside Queen Margaret Drive. This was not done to curry favour at Celtic Park, although the other side of the city thought it was. It was just the right battle to take on for the sake of integrity.” Archie Macpherson wrote in 2012, as reported on Rangers Media.
Jane Lewis as all reporters do, was haggling Brendan for a question she already knew the answer too. Brendan is an experienced manager and more than held his own with her. Her take on the game was totally negative from a Celtic perspective, compare and contrast with Uncle Tom’s gushing interview with theRangers goalkeeper the other day. Tom English, the same hack that got banned from Celtic Park for an attack on…Brendan Rodgers at the start of this season.
Update – this was obviously not the full interview. In her pre match interview she miss quoted BR and he had to correct her. Then she started waffling as was embarrassed. Post match she kept wanting to talk about first half. Ken
— Ken 🍀 (@Selickpark) February 25, 2024
The red tops that used to have a topless model on their third pages – Daily Record and the Sun – can lecture all they want about sexism – but they’re hardly going to be taken too seriously. They’d rather write about and carry photos of football WAGS on their outlets rather than cover the women’s game.
Nor is theRangers support who started the season waving Schutzstaffel flags because Celtic fans were displaying anti-fascist banners as we had Champions League matches against Lazio, then moved onto flying Israeli flags because of the pro-Palestinian support from the Celtic support. That’s some shift when you think about it.
Mainstream media demands that the manager apologise … for what exactly? How many times you heard him say “Good man” to a hack after an interview? I hope Rodgers does what I’d do in his shoes and tell anyone making such a demand to go and get fucked. It’s a joke.
— TheCelticBlog (@CelticBlog2018) February 26, 2024
Now theRangers support are all politically correct after Brendan yesterday somehow managed to confuse Jane Lewis with a Celtic supporter and called her “Good Ghirl”. That too is another massive shift in sentiment from them but to paraphrase “a Week is a Long Time in Bigotry.”
“Good Ghirl” of the week last weekend was Caitlin Hayes, the Irish international defender and stalwart in the Celtic FC Women team. She’s the CCV of the Celtic FC Women team if you like. After the 1-1 draw at Ibrox, in a match where theRangers cancelled the entire allocation of Celtic tickets the day before the match (a story broken by The Celtic Star), Caitlin lifted her Celtic shirt to display a t-shirt underneath with the message: Football Without Fans is Nothing.
That didn’t go down too well with theRangers support judging by the vile, hateful, sexist abuse that was thrown her way on the biggest of their fan media sites, the one that is an official media partner of the latest club playing out of Ibrox: “a Week is a Long Time in Misogyny” for these morons.
Jane Lewis the staunch gers fan who couldn’t take out ladies team beating theirs a couple of months ago and walked off from her hosting !!
Another staunch pundit who staunch fan like @DavidTannerTV
— Chalky (@Chalky8hoy) February 25, 2024
So if Brendan is a dinosaur he’ll be heading over to The Land That Time Forgot early in April where he can show his impressive teeth yet again at Jurassic Park and in doing so he can terrify those cave dwellers in the stands. Talking stick for sexism from that lot really does take the biscuit.
It was the way that Brendan ended the hostile conversation with Jane Lewis that has made all the mainstream media headlines. ‘Good G(h)irl was the phrase that’s had the two H’s, Hacks and…Horrible Zombies… up and down the country in a twisted frenzy.
Even in the PC age we live in today, the reaction has been over the top to say the least. If he’d said ‘good lad’ to a male reporter do you think we’d be hearing as much about it today? Brendan actually said ‘Good Man’ to the chap from Sky Sports, he says it at media conferences all the time. I think we can all safely say no to that one.
And talking again about the Women’s game, it’s worth noting that the players will say “Man On”, Your man” and so on during games and sometimes in interviews. Not just Celtic Ghirls but all players. And they are referring to girls? (no), ladies? (no) women? (correct). Should Brendan have said good woman? Who ever says that rather than good girl. Good girl is a commonly used expression in the context that it was used, good woman is not, and using it hardly makes you a dinosaur, Brendan.
Had it been the other manager in the title race the reaction would have been vastly different. Brendan shouldn’t feel bad or need to apologise as he done nothing wrong.
The thing that upset the hacks was his half-time changes that resulted in his side securing a vital late victory which had Radio Scotland, that well known retirement workplace for ex-Rangers employees, supporters and the odd soup-taker like English, feeling a tad upset. Their Sportsound presenter is even a self confessed supporter of the Ibrox clubs.
Was Archie Macpherson correct in thinking that he made a difference? That BBC Scotland, confirmed by him being both anti-Catholic and anti-Celtic, had actually changed? Very few Celtic supporters will be convinced that Archie is correct on this one.
So there should be no moral high ground given to them from anyone at Celtic, past, present or future.
The difference between Dunfermline and rangers remember, Dunfermline’s CVA was agreed pic.twitter.com/hqcEJ0n7PY
— Craig Whyte (@RIPRFC) February 26, 2024
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
I wonder if they’re taking issue with Jane Lewis either not being “good” or not being a “girl”, it has to be one or the other, surely?
The world is so soft today that everyone demands an apology for the most insignificant comments. What this world needs is a return to hard times when hurt feelings were the least of people’s worries. Anyway, this is classic cultural Marxism – taking the complimentarity of the sexes and turning it into competiton of the sexes. Don’t apologise to people with the IQ of a house plant, Brendan, there’s a “good lad”!
Jane Lewis reminds me of Rachel Levine. Not sure if it has been a deliberate plan, but Rodgers has in a way developed a bit of a ” they’re all against us ” narrative, if that develops into a siege mentality it can only benefit us in my opinion.
The reporter is drag into a into an embarrassing for her im sure brendan has spoke to her and no way she want this because anti Rodgers this is what it’s about BBC are anti Celtic
Celtic should stop entertaining the bigot media and Barr the lot of them from paradise
I live in Dublin. My colleague with whom I liaise regularly calls me ‘ good lad ‘ all the time. He is in his 50s. I’m in my 60s.