CAUSING OFFENCE is a trait for right-thinking folk to deplore. It should sound as despicable, I suspect, as a decent family newspaper allowing those terrible Castle Greyskull jokes. Who could dream of ever permitting such a thing?

It falls into the category of saying not-nice things about Tory Boy capitalists who happen to be in the local metals-and-football business. You wouldn't. It's not, if you know what I mean, good for the career.

If you know what's good for you, and before you can spit, you'll be talking about the Ibrox "family", or or worse, "heritage".

I know: these are very cheap shots. Bargain basement, and far beneath us all. But our only Glasgow Rangers has been built around the idea that there is us, then them. Or rather, "Them". Tragically, I was born to be one of those. But - and if I can only get this speck of ancestral grit from my teeth - the Gers this week have a point.

Nowhere else on this continent, or on any continent, would a nation's latest best hope be hindered as Rangers have been hindered by the SPL. I know: rules is rules, and David Murray does blustering the way a Scottish spring does rainfall. I would not, from choice, wish to aid the persuaded ones. But still, Rangers really do have a point.

You could frame this argument in various ways. One is actually simplistic: who cares about the Scottish Cup, or about the last week in May? This is a person of a Hibs variety speaking. That blasted trinket has mattered more to my tribe than it has ever mattered to anyone. But seriously: an entire fixture list and a European trophy must depend on a piece of cheap tin? I think not.

Secondly, there is the paranoia of the persuaded. Rangers-type folk like to believe that the world is arranged in a conspiracy against them.

The rest of us hold to the equal-and-opposite view. The SPL is not, in fact, a cabal orchestrated for the destruction of one football club. On the other hand, there are always penalty decisions we could discuss.

I don't like the Old Firm. That's as basic as I can be. I care for neither half, and I despise the history they insist on bringing, like a waster with a half-pint of Buckie, to every party. We can cope with that, though.

I'm not interested, meanwhile, in the bizarre idea that what is good for Ibrox is bad for Parkhead, and vice versa. If true, so what? A chief executive of a major employer in the east end, say, of a major city - let's call that Glasgow, and him Peter - will do his level best for his firm. Someone in the metals business, having perhaps bought a couple of interesting vineyards lately, will take the opposing view. Fair enough. Again: so what?

But let's ask what we would say if a tawdry "fixtures pile-up" seemed to be obstructing the progress of a smallish club from a very tiny country in an unlikely effort to claim a major European trophy. We would laugh, I think. Not at the club, but at its masters and mentors and suits.

Walter Smith has won his bet with the Ibrox purists. Winning "ugly" still gets you to European finals: what was the alternative? Craig Levein does not put out bad football sides, but 3-1 spoke for itself. There was the sense of a Rangers squad that has decided to bite the bullet, take all the crap, and simply go on. The football may yet become prettier as a result.

The legal position would no doubt require some research. The pawing and poking of the Old Firm would probably require adjudication by Dr John Reid's former very best boss. But seriously: if Rangers lose the Uefa Cup because some SPL dink decided that fixture lists are sacrosanct, the SPL itself would stand serious legal examination. Just a thought.

Two things struck me yesterday. First was the image of Walter Smith behaving like a man whose job is merely half-done. The second - slightly new for Castle Greyskull - was the ubiquity of Saltires in the crowd. A Scottish team? Rangers? I'll give it a try if they will.

Again, I'm being deeply unfair in the sure knowledge that I'm being deeply unfair. The attitude of the SPL, meanwhile, is beyond equity, and beyond all my cheap jokes at the expense of Sir David Murray et (not the pies) al. Oor Premiership is being actually perverse. Why?

This news just in: we're not actually quite as good at "the football" as we sometimes used to dream. There are mountains still to be climbed. So why demand that our least- unsuccessful club crawl upwards with hands and feet bound?

Yes, I know: if GRFC were actually to win the damned thing, entire new definitions for the word "insufferability"

would have to be prepared. I never pretended that "unbiased" is in my language. Honesty demands, nevertheless, that we admit that they - never mind They - have a point. The injustice of piling games on Rangers at this moment is rank.

I write about politics, now and then. It's a living. But every time I make the attempt I wind up thinking a couple of things. First, what an odd little country. Secondly, it occurs to me: wouldn't you think that an old society with certain historic problems would seek to make life easier for itself, or just play football instead?

The SPL's attitude towards Rangers and fixtures complications offers a certain picture, I think, to the wider world. Look, it says, we'll tie both arms behind our back, then break our knees, then roll over for you. We're a very sporting lot.

But not, in any world, too bright. Why would I hate the SPL so much? This: those suits have actually made me agree with David Murray. Damn.