Rangers fans have raised over £13k across two petitions to repair five memorial benches which were damaged when many of the Ibrox club’s supporters partied in George Square over the weekend.
In exuberant scenes, Rangers fans took to the City’s main central landmark to reclaim Glasgow after they reclaimed the Scottish Premiership title a decade on from the club’s financial ruin in 2012.
Whilst it is difficult to condone the scenes, the arrogance and hypocrisy of many condemning them is transparent but where the support has fallen down is with regards to these benches.
The suggestion that these have been deliberately damaged by fans is remarkably fanciful and any right-thinking person would imagine the damage has been done accidentally, likely from people standing on them.
This may do little to ease the pain caused by a memorial to a loved one being damaged but it’s an important thing to get right.
It is also important not to blow things too far out of proportion with the benches feeling like a stick to beat the support with when little else is working.
Nonetheless, in true Rangers fashion fans have cobbled together to pay for any damages.
Across two petitions – one started by the Louden Tavern’s Robert Marshall and another by Rangers fan John White – both funding targets have been resoundingly smashed.
At the time of writing, the combined total on both petitions is £13,027 – an impressive amount which will go some way to paying for the damages and then some.
According to the Glasgow City Council: Neighbourhood & Sustainability Charges 20/21 p.11 – READ MORE HERE – a timber memorial bench with a five-year lease is £1215.
According to this document, the five benches would cost a combined £6075 although there is clearly no recompense for the hurt and worry this may well have caused families.
However, Rangers fans have raised double the costs which are listed on Glasgow City Council’s own website.
Supporters should be saluted for cobbling together to make sure this is sorted and with more than enough money there to fix memorials, all is well that surely ends well.
Well, unless there’s another reason which isn’t just related to the presumably accidental damage of benches which makes you want to berate the club’s supporters.
Rangers have written to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to raise worries about how the government has responded to the incident at George Square, challenging much of what deputy first minister John Swinney claimed in an address to the public yesterday.
