The Invisible Man

Good Afternoon.

Meet Alan.

Alan is a pretty intelligent guy, he did pretty well at school, got some qualifications and now runs his own small business. He’s got a house a car, and is married with two children.
Of a weekend Alan likes a bit of football. He doesn’t get to many games these days as he usually ends up going shopping with the family and taking the kids swimming. And sometimes he has paperwork to finish for the office. But if he can get to the match he will, and failing that he will try and catch up with it on TV.

Alan knows right from wrong and has a reasonable idea of how the world works. He’s pretty moderate in his views and gets on well with most folk. Alan sees himself as ‘Mr Ordinary’ and he’s quite happy with his lot.

He vividly remembers what happened to Rangers Football Club in 2012. He saw it on the TV and in the newspapers. And he even listened to some football phone-ins for once. Because it felt like a big deal. In fact he was constantly being told that it was a big deal. By the media, by Rangers legends, by his friends, and by people at work. Alan clearly remembers the day that Rangers’ CVA was rejected. He didn’t have children back then and he went to the pub with a couple of mates.

They talked all night about what an unbelievable thing it was that the all-conquering Rangers had gone to its death like that. And they wondered what the new Rangers would be like because that Mr Green seemed like quite a lively operator.

They agreed that there would – no doubt – be ‘a’ Rangers in Scottish football, because so many people wanted to follow one, and because the football authorities, TV companies and other media could make money from it. But it would be a new ‘Rangers’ with its own history to make. Because that is how the law and football rules work, and if anyone had any doubt about it, they need only look at the front of a newspaper for confirmation. It would certainly be upsetting for many people, but the world wouldn’t stop turning.

Alan is the kind of ordinary rational person who is now utterly invisible to the Scottish football media which is now going full-throttle with liquidation-denial and shrieking about the ‘Old Firm’ being ‘back’.

No one is even remotely interested in reporting on Sevco and its imminent league match against Celtic on the basis of actual events and facts. In short, the things Alan and countless others know to have happened in 2012 may as well have been written by Hans Christian Andersen. Because they are now viewed like a fairy tale. As things which simply did not and could not have happened in reality.

It is truly extraordinary to see a ‘serious’ sports media behave in this way and treat large numbers of its consumers as first-rate idiots. To go into the office every day and completely re-write history without a flicker of embarrassment and without even acknowledging the existence of the opinions of sensible folk like Alan is utterly shameful. And it is most certainly deserving of the mockery and contempt it is currently receiving.

Meanwhile, Alan thinks it is a curious sort of business model which sees media outlets systematically peddling untruths and alienating actual or potential customers in droves. It makes Alan wonder if these outlets have swallowed their own nonsense and believe that a media operation could survive liquidation without difficulty.

Alan is no fool.

Be like Alan.

#KeepOnClumping