Rangers: A Shakespearean Tragedy. Act One: Et Tu, Walter

Friends, Roman Catholics, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Rangers, not to praise them.

The evil that club hath done lives after them;

There is no good picking over their bones;

So let it be with Rangers.

The noble Walter hath told you Rangers were ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Rangers answered it,

Here, under leave of Walter and the rest of the club’s custodians.

But Walter is an honourable man;

So are they all, honourable men – Minty, Craigy and Charlie

Come I to speak at Rangers’ funeral.

They were not my friend, faithful or just to me:

But Walter says they were ambitious;

And Walter is an honourable man.

He hath brought many trophies back to Ibrox through buying players they couldn’t afford,

Whose ransoms should have filled the general coffers,

But because of Minty’s obsession with the European Cup they couldn’t pay their taxes.

Did this in Rangers seem ambitious?

When that the poor people have cried, “We won’t renew our season tickets!”

Rangers hath wept: we need that money to pay ourselves as our EBTs are a bust flush.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Walter says they are still ambitious;

And Walter is an honourable man.

You all did see that on the 14^th June

Rangers presented creditors with a kingly crown worth nine pence in the pound,

Which they did refuse.

Was this laughable CVA a sign of ambition?

Yet Walter says they were ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Walter spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

The myopic people did love Rangers once, not without cause:

They won many things using other people’s money,

They sung about being up to their knees in the blood of their foes,

While being up to their necks in Final Demands.

They looked down on everyone and spoke about dignity,

While dodging taxes and stealing papers from the local newsagent,

They even bumped a face painter for forty quid,

While leaving a trail of debt and destruction in their inglorious wake.

So what cause withholds us now, to mourn for them?

Oh judgment! Have thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason?

Is it not the once mighty Rangers who lie in this coffin?

Whose sectarian signing policy and rioting fans made them

An occasional embarrassment and permanent disgrace.

Bear with me, bears;

For I know your hearts are in the coffin with Rangers,

But you must pause, for just once in your lives,

To spare a thought for those on whom you trampled,

And repent for the sins of your club,

I’m sure Walter, who is an honourable man,

Would settle for nothing less than absolute absolution

From the sins of the past. Perhaps it might go something like this:

'Forgive us, everyone, for we have sinned.'

But I’m sure Walter, the most honourable man in town,

Will breathe new life into Frankenstein Rangers

and lead them into a bright new era

where the birds sing pretty songs

and the flowers dance to the tune of summer.

No, wait, news just in: Walter is walking away.

And I thought he was an honourable man.