Hartson and co
 

Probably all over the newspapers tomorrow.

Hartson, Pearson and possibly McGeady chanting "IRA" between the verses of the Fields of Athenry.

Considering the parallel with Donald Finlay's drunken antics, I'd expect a bit of storm over this...

What the fuck is Hartson doing singing IRA in the first place. :confused:

Any links?

Hartson and pearson arent singing, they are standin with the people singing but you can cleary see that they are not. They are standing with there arms around the other guys shoulders.

I wondered if anyone would post about this. I've seen the clip and am not convinced it's McGeady - just some other unfortunate looking twat. I don't know how to link to the clip but its on followfollow. Can clearly see Pearson chanting IRA throughout the song (he puts his hand up to his mouth at one point to shout it out).

An Aberdeen paper printed a story about it today but said that Hartson and Pearson weren't actually chanting IRA.

Wonder why the press in Glasgow have been so slow to pick up on this when they were so quick to condemn Donald Findlay?

Ok this is my attempt to post the article. It's from the Press and Journal (Aberdeen equivelant of the Herald apparently)

I think it's obvious to anyone that has seen the clip that Pearson chants I-R-A during the song.

Just to add, this was a major story around sections of the web on WEDNESDAY afternoon. Major efforts were made to get the story out and it was discussed at every newspaper in Scotland, but they point blank refused to run the story on Thursday (compare this to Donald Findlay in 1999). The P&J, an Aberdeen-based paper, were the only ones in the country not so scared of Celtic that they printed the article today. From then, the flood gates opened and the story is now making headlines - two full days after it should have.

If it wasn't for the P&J, this story would have been swept under the carpet just like the one about Celtic paying a convicted IRA terrorist to paint their Jock Stein banner a few months ago.

A story that should have naturally made the front-pages, but a colossal effort from a huge amount of people was needed to get this into the news.

I really don't think that's front news material though. Most ex convicts from Northern Ireland have menial jobs.

If Rangers were to do have employed an ex-UVF man, or a player was singing about the UVF, then the media would've gone mental...like they did with Donald Finlay for singing Hello Hello at a private function when he was pished.

He was hounded out of his job etc, so people expect that this will make the headlines and be high-profile enough to maintain objective parity.

Personally i reckon what people get drunk and sing about privately isn't really anyone's business, but unfortunately this sort of the stuff with Old Firm is like a small industry these days. The media sells papers, the Scottish Executive can be seen to be focussing on topic in the subsequent limelight, everyone's happy - except the football supporters.

Difference between Hartson and Findlay? Findlay was actually singing.

And before the Gers get on their high horse, the condemnation of Paul Gascoigne was hardly deafening, was it? I didn't see Gazza get sacked from Ibrox, although I do remember him being made a hero for doing it.

Still, the press in Scotland has always been pro-Rangers, so why should anything change now?

The press in Scotland are so pro-Rangers that stories regarding Celtic paying a convicted IRA terrorist money, a Celtic player chanting I-R-A on film and a generation of child abuse in the youth team were absolute non-stories to the media.

On the other hand, the way Rangers ground staff cut the Ibrox pitch, the colour of the straws in the canteens and the menu in the Argyle House restaurant are all headline-making sectarian 'scandals'.

If you honestly think the press in Scotland are pro-Rangers then your head is firmly buried in the sand. The manner of the handling of the Findlay and Hartson/Pearson situations is proof enough of this.

They child abuse was a huge story down here, and it was up there.

The other two are non-stories. Especially as the proof is that no Celtic player chanted IRA on film.

And unless you were calling for the immediate punishment of Mr Gacoigne, and the immediate sacking of Mr Findlay- who was actually singing sectarian songs, not just an unfounded allegation of a short chant- any attacks on Celtic are totally hypocritical and unfounded. And I doubt you were on the top of Ibrox demanding for Gazza to be sacked, were you? I suspect, like the rest of the Gers fans, you thought him a hero for committing acts of racial hatred during an Old Firm win.

Interestingly, I happen to know of one Hibs player singing racially abusive songs about Hearts, and that isn't in the paper either.

They don't call the top tabloid the Daily Rangers for nothing. Rangers get an incredibly easy ride off the press on both sides of the border, and always have done.

Celtic are no angels, and I aren't a Celtic fan, but Rangers are by far and away the worst club in Scotland for racially aggravated violence, and are one of the worst clubs in the country for it. They are up there with Cardiff, West Ham and Leeds, and beat the Ointment of my club all ends up (and they are odious fucks as well).

That was a pretty big story in the papers here actually I think you will find.

It is quite clear that Pearson chants 'IRA' so the accusation is not unfounded at all. It's simply a case of much of the media in Scotland being scared to offend Celtic (who actually have a decent PR department ulnlike Rangers).

I think the reason so many people are outraged by this is because of the whole 'Bhoys Against Bigotry' nonsense. Jack McConnel himself has praised Celtic for their attempts to eradicate sectarianism and here on film are 2 first team players singing along to this song - one of them chants IRA and the other is hugging fans who are chanting it. If they were seriously against bigotry then they would have walked off the stage.

I'm not totally naive and therefore I realise that these things go on at private functions. I just don't see why it should be one rule for people connected to one club and another for Celtic!

Sorry, just had to point out that this is certainly not the case at all. In fact the majority of Rangers fans have boycotted the Daily Record in recent years due to their very one sided reporting. I think you will find that it is only the minority of Celtic fans who even still call it the 'Daily Ranger'. I really do wonder where you get your information from Kermit. You sound like the wee Celtic fan they take the piss out of on Only An Excuse every New Year. (And before you say anything, yes I know you're not a Celtic fan but you don't half sound like one :rolleyes: )

Watch the clip. On 13 seconds, Stephen Pearson is clearly chanting I-R-A along with some of the punters. If you can't see it then you could well do with a white stick and a labrador.


Gazza wound roundly hounded by the media, accused of disrupting the Northern Ireland peace process and sent numerous death threats. He was transferred from Rangers not long after.

Donald Findlay lost his job with the club he loved, he was, like Gazza, roundly hounded by the media (front-page news for days) and driven the brink of suicide.

Punished? They both were. Severely.

Compare to Hartson and Pearson. The Celtic PR machine went in to full swing immediately and that's something they're expert at. I'm not calling for them to be sacked; I just want the media to treat them in the same manner they did Findlay and so far that isn't happening.

It's akin to Red Sox players, for example, getting up on stage to sing pro-Bin Laden songs while the crowd join in and egg them on. Now the situation suddenly sounds absolutely ridiculous, right?


Expand on that as much as you can. Please :)


The song he was singing was deemed non-sectarian in a court of law. Whilst I don't condone it, feel free to argue with the justice system about that one.


Eh, yes it was in the papers. Riordan also admitted he was in the wrong and apologised to Skacel.

Interestingly, that made the papers through the natural process of the news spreading. It didn't require two days and a massive effort from hundreds of people to get the story out in the open.


"They"? Oh, you mean Celtic fans? Shock horror that "they" call it the Daily Ranger. It's commonly referred to as the Daily Retard too; that hardly means it's overly sympathetic toward the intellectually less fortunate.


Aside from the 'sectarian scandals' mentioned above, I could give you a huge amount of quotes that give Rangers an unnecessarily hard time; not about performances on the park - where a poor show deserves criticism - but off the park where the club is given a needlessly hard time with no basis. No other club in Scotland receives so much unjustified bad press.

The club were effectively accused of the murder of a lad in Northern Ireland because of an away strip, the fans were openly labelled "orange scum" and a certain Herald writer has a long, long history of unjustified attacks on Rangers. Even the most exciting finish to a league season in nearly 100 years was not mentioned in the papers at all on the Tuesday (two days) after the game; instead the second best manager in the country was given a huge amount of pages in the build up to his last game in charge. Surely a pro-Rangers press would be writing about THAT last-day-of-the-league for as long as possible afterwards?


No set of football fans are angels but when you label Rangers as above, considering Celtic fans dressed in monkey suits and KKK hoods to throw bananas at Mark Walters on his debut, you can't say that any set of fans in Britain come close to Celtic for having a history of racial hatred.


Just out of interest, if you feel so strongly that the Scottish press are pro-Rangers, why do you think the story about Celtic paying money to a convicted IRA terrorist was not mentioned at all in any of the major tabloids, broadsheets or news websites?


You're either strikingly ignorant on this topic or you're mentally diseased. I'm fairly sure it's the former but to be as blinkered as you are does make me wonder.