Fair Play
sent off the two players the match handed out to players who, verbally or
would be reduced to something like a with clear card-waving gestures aimed
farce. Red cards for an elbow in the at getting the crowd on their side,
face, well, that's all right. But we felt demand yellow or red cards for oppo-
that these protests were nothing com- nents who are, after all, colleagues and
pared to some of the things which hap- fellow professionals. The gesture, say
pen in a game. So, led by our skipper the coaches, is mean and anything but
Richard Gough and our manager Fair Play. Hence the round of applause
Walter Smith, we all went to the referee for Walter Smith, Richard Gough and all
to ask him to be fair to the game, to the Rangers players for having a big
show some flexibility and not to send heart and doing exactly the opposite,
the two players off. Unfortunately, he
didn't show any sympathy with out
views and the last 20 minutes of the
game were 11 against 7. We only sco
red one goal. We could have scored
five or six but, frankly, we didn't see any
reason to do so in those circumstan
ces."
One can agree or disagree with the
referee's decision, but there is unanimi
ty in applauding Rangers' attitude as an
example of Fair Play towards their
opponents and as an attempt to make
the match a real spectacle for the fans.
The Scottish champions' behaviour
took on even more relevance in the light
of comments made a few days later Fair Play
length and breadth of Europe met in
Copenhagen to discuss the quality and
the future of the game. Among many
ideas they expressed was the sugge
stion that some sort of punishment be
when national team coaches from the The name of the game
The name of the game
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