Our 'obsession' with Neil Lennon

Got to talking about how Lennon is viewed by Rangers fans this season on another thread and this seems quite an interesting point to reflect on what happened last season.

Now – what happened to Lennon with the threats and the attack were well out of order. That’s clear. But I do remember an awful lot of discussion going on around Lennon and there seemed to be two arguments.

First - many Celtic fans accuse us of being obsessed with Lennon and hating him purely because of his background and religion. For me that may have been true for a tiny mad minority but for the vast majority it was nonsense. This was never accepted as an argument as far as I can remember. Rangers fans hate Lennon because we are bigots we were told.

The defence of reasonable fans was that Rangers fans disliked Lennon because he was – well pretty dislikable. It really was as simple as that. The touchline antics, the innuendo laden comments around refs, the goading of the Rangers fans etc basically just made us dislike the guy. But all this did for the majority of Rangers fans was create a general feeling of dislike towards Lennon and not a lot more.

However – for the few nutters – who had an inherent hatred of Lennon for the religious and background reasons these antics were probably enough to push them over the edge to act in the foolish way they did. I am not saying this was Lennons fault – I am saying that its just the way it is with people who aren’t all there and are easily provoked.

So we fast forward to this season and there has not been a jot of trouble around Lennon. He seems to have calmed down a bit on the touchline, there has been no furore around refs and no suggestions of bias through sly comments in press conferences. He seems to have matured and calmed down a bit.

Personally I think this completely backs up my understanding of the situation regarding Lennon from last year. Rangers fans are not all growling bigots who carry round a hatred for Lennon. Most of us just didn’t like the way he behaved last year. And unfortunately for the few true nutters this was enough to provoke them.

I for one am happy Lennon is in charge. He is far from being a great manager and he has an entertainment value. Hes not a bad lad and the sight of his wee face when we put four past them a couple of weeks ago was as heart warming as last seasons triumphant ear cupping was infuriating.