Are Rangers Fans Right To Boo Captain Lee McCulloch?
When it comes to booing players or teams, I always seem to get caught between the ‘should they‘ or ‘shouldn’t they‘ camps.
I’m a big believer in fans having the right to show their frustration and disappointment at their team or members within it. Those fans pay for the privilege to support these clubs and like any other customer they should be allowed to make their voices heard when things aren’t right.
That said, I also don’t see the point in booing during a match or at one player. That won’t really motivate the tam, if anything it will probably have an adverse effect on a players performance.
The booing of Rangers captain Lee McCulloch by his own fans, didn’t sit easy with me.
The Gers utility man has been at Ibrox for eight seasons now. The former Scottish international has won lots of trophies in that time and given plenty of outstanding performances. Lee is the type of player that will play anywhere for his boyhood club and he’ll always be committed to the cause. Those types of characters hardly exist in modern day football, especially at Rangers.
Along with a few others like Lee Wallace, McCulloch stood by the club when it found itself in the bottom tier of Scottish football. Others like Steven Naismith and Steven Whittaker were lambasted by legions of Gers fans for quitting the club back in 2012 after it became a new company. Yet now a player who stood by the club gets abuse from sections of the Ibrox crowd because he is no longer deemed good enough to play for them.
Now at thirty-six years of age, I can agree that McCulloch’s abilities on the park have started to diminish. But is there really any need to boo him? Is that actually going to help the situation?
Have people in Govan just forgotten the vast amount of goals that Lee has scored during the last two consecutive promotions?
Obviously silly errors like the one that seen Falkirk go two up in the weekend are hard to take for the Gers support, but really is that not the time for the fans to get fully behind the players on the park? That used to be the way at Ibrox.
It’s great that the sensible members in the crowd eventually drowned out the boos with an applause for the captain but that boos still got out in the first place.
The whole episode clearly had an impact on current ‘Light Blues’ boss Stuart McCall, who stated…
“I was obviously disappointed, sad and a little sickened by the booing”
Unfortunately the club can’t really step in, after all those fans are valued customers. Plus the new board gave the fans their voice earlier in the season. Those same fans helped kick-out the last regime and it would seem very hypocritical if Paul Murray or Dave King asked them to show a little more respect for their captain.
Me? Well I think there is a time and place for booing. I really don’t think any Rangers fan should be turing on their captain at this critical stage of the season.
The club are still in a big mess and everyone needs to come together and fight tooth and nail for promotion. Not many in this Rangers squad can look back once this season ends and take much pride from it.
But believe me, no one will want to see Rangers go up as much as Lee McCulloch, one bad season doesn’t change that, nor his his past or his commitment!
Posted on April 29th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article
Think some of them that booed are just wee neds yes were all frustrated at the situation were in and were all desperate to go up but when your here some of the comments and booing of so called rangers supporters it makes me sick funny enough when they moved him up front he nearly scored twice i wonder what the reaction of the boo brigade would have been then
Well said.
I for one would like to see Mr. McCulloch be granted a testimonial for his services to the cause, looking forward to promotion.
Yes totally agree I was disgusted and actually left because I was sickened by this ,personally I noticed. Lot of big blunders which went unnoticed and feel that McCullough the next scapegoat as the rest have gone.i just wondered what will happen if Mr King doesn’t come up with the money ?
I find your quote interesting. I listened to that interview over and over again and I hear SM say that he was ‘a little disappointed’ (by the booing) and then go on to say why. I never heard him say he was sickened … though I have heard -other- news sources claim that he said that.
On the subject of ‘booing’ I figure folks who do that to their own team need to go home and look up the word ‘supporter’ in the dictionary. Totally unnecessary, unproductive and outright rude. Yes, we all get frustrated .. but booing your own captain is lame on so many levels. I boo the ref, I boo the other team .. Never EVER boo your own.