Party of 5

I've actually been planning to write an article on this topic for a while now, but I needed to wait for the outcome of the hearing. I am of course talking about the 5 Rangers players (Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey, Bongani Zungu, Dapo Mebude, and Brian Kinnear) who were caught having a private party, breaking COVID restrictions.

The outcome of the hearings was published earlier this week and all players were given 6 match bans, with 2 of those suspended. I would have written this article as soon as this was known however, I've been pretty unwell this week and wasn't able to until now... which has proven fortunate for me as at the time of writing there is another chapter in this tale. It was announced earlier tonight that Rangers have appealed these bans.

This article isn't really to discuss the rights and wrongs of the punishments issued, or indeed the appeal lodged by Rangers. Yes, it seems that Rangers players, despite what the dog food eating blogs will have you believe, seem to be being held to a higher standard than other teams' players. None of the Aberdeen 8, Bolingoli, Leigh Griffiths (who can forget the internal investigation that never went anywhere), the St Mirren players, the Kilmarnock players, Brown et al in Dubai, or Duffy flying back from Dubai on a commercial flight have had punishments anywhere near the 7 games handed out to Jordan Jones and George Edmundson or the 6 games to this group.

That discussion is for another day though, and it is more than likely being discussed by the thousands on every social media platform going so it makes little sense to make an article on that. We will all have our feelings about the SFA and SPFL's handling of things and so will every other fan base. Instead of talking about other clubs and the governing bodies I want to use this article to focus purely on our own players and club.

To make things easy I'm mainly going to discuss the 3 first-team players. For all intents and purposes, it sounds like Dapo Mebude was intended to leave the club at the end of this season anyway so there's not much point focusing on him and I just don't know enough about Brian Kinnear, however a lot of what I say about Nathan Patterson and Calvin Bassey will apply to them also.

When news first broke that some Rangers players had broken COVID restrictions and been caught at a private party by police I'm sure I won't be the only person to admit I was furious. What on earth were these idiots thinking? After seeing what happened with Jordan Jones and George Edmundson how could they take such a risk? A risk to our season, a risk to the squad, and of course a risk to their Rangers careers? The initial news that was leaking to me had only 3 players, Patterson, Bassey, and Mebude. As time went on that became 5

At first, Twitter was a mixed bag, some folk condemning the players and some folk saying they doubted the story was even true and that they wouldn't believe it until the club confirmed it. A sensible approach to rumours like this in the social media age as we've seen many a false rumour spread by the orcs across the city. 

Once the club did confirm the rumours though and then confirmed the 5 players through an interview with Steven Gerrard on RTV, that balance started to mainly shift towards condemnation for the players, though there was a minority that said we should give the lads a chance as they were only young. This was mainly aimed at Patterson, as the brightest prospect of the group, and was often coupled with condemnation still being aimed at Zungu. I'm sure that minority would sound like a majority now though as people will often re-write their opinion in retrospect.

I won't lie though, I was firmly in the "they should never play for us again" camp. I was probably in that camp for quite a while, until I started to think about how I was going to discuss the situation for this blog a couple of weeks later. I started to think about the players involved, their ages, and their situations. 

These are, mostly, young men who through no fault of their own have been robbed of a year of the most sociable period of their lives. Not only that, they have broken into the Rangers first team and should by all accounts be feeling like kings, playing in front of fifty thousand supporters, being recognised walking down the street, having fans coming up to them on a daily basis. 

Instead, they're having to play in empty stadiums, going home to watch Netflix, and having to wear face masks everywhere they go. I imagine when they dreamed of this season it was very different. Was what they did stupid? Absolutely. On reflection is it surprising? No, not really.

You only need to look at how we celebrated winning the league. Thousands of us broke COVID guidelines and restrictions to go and celebrate. The government on both sides of the border is littered with politicians that have broken the rules. Every team in Scotland just about has had people break the rules publicly. 

Not to mention the fact that who among us can say that at the age of 20 they didn't do anything they weren't supposed to? Didn't smoke weed or take harder drugs, steal something, get drunk and end up in a fight, etc. Are we saying that it's ok for us to do these things and expect forgiveness but not for these young lads to meet, as a group, and have a few drinks in a private domicile without condemnation? Remember they see each other just about every day as work colleagues and will be in close proximity during training and games.

When you put it into that kind of perspective it's kind of mad really. However the rules are the rules and they should have been following them, but that mistake shouldn't be the end for them. They seemed genuinely sorry for their error in the videos made for RTV and I've no doubt at all that they will have been read the riot act by Steven Gerrard and Ross Wilson.

Those of us so ready to condemn them at first were caught up in the emotion of the situation, we were concerned that this could have cost us the season when we were so close. We were a pressure cooker ready to explode and this could have been an implosion instead. Yes, you can compare the situations with Jordan Jones and George Edmundson but honestly, Jones was all but certainly on his way out anyway and Edmundson may get a 2nd chance when he comes back from Derby.

Is that fair? It's life. Anyway, this wasn't Jones' first mistake and he is a lot older than these lads so the two scenarios, while being similar, aren't a straightforward comparison. Plus from the leaked pics of the party Jones and Edmundson went to he deserves to be finished at the club for risking it all to attend the worst looking empty I've ever seen.

The only member of the trio I think deserves more long-term consequences is Zungu, I mean what is he even doing there? He's 28 and he's kicking about at a wee party with 19yr olds. He should have been the mature head that when it was mentioned guided the young lads and told them why it was a bad idea, not nipping to the shop to buy them booze because none of the others could get served...

I think it's safe to say he won't be kept on at the end of this season. He's struggled to get into the team and when he has he's so far failed to make much of an impact. That's not to say he's been poor, though he has had some poor games, but in those games you'd be hard pushed to pick out a player that hadn't been poor, it's just he's not really done anything to warrant the expected large fee he would cost. In all honesty, I don't think he'd have played again if we didn't have injury issues with Ryan Jack, but we've needed him to be available in the last few games and he has been.

I think this mistake could end up being a very important part of Patterson and Bassey's careers. They've made a big mistake, it's been very public and they've been forced to sink or swim from it. So far I would say Patterson has more than swam. Bassey, it's still to be seen as he's not had the chance to show, but I'm not yet ready to rule him out. 

With the club appealing the bans I imagine all 3 of them will play against Cove Rangers on Sunday and that will give Bassey a chance to also put this situation behind him.

This error could be the making of a very good Rangers player or two and I'm excited to see how that turns out.

The Rambling Ger

Twitter - @GerRambling

IG - TheRamblingGer