GUARDIAN'S GLENDENNING BRANDS RANGERS FC AS HUNS

NOW I know there won't be many of you reading this who take the Guardian. Actually there are few folk anywhere who buy it.

However, its online presence and penetration is phenomenal. According to the website, Soccer Lens, it has 33 million readers. That's just slightly more than half the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Which makes it important that the Guardian.co.uk is as tightly policed as the ''hard''copy of the newspaper.

Something though, which the Guardian, on its pages and online, most certainly is, is the most politically correct daily publication in Britain, if not the world.

Not for a moment would anyone on the Guardian ever think of describing a disabled person as a "cripple." Quite right too. The Guardian's choice would no doubt be "differently abled." All minorities are treated with kid gloves.

Not so Rangers FC. Step forward Barry Glendenning, the deputy sports editor of Guardian.co.uk who, on Wednesday afternoon Twittered an obscenity about Rangers.

It seems he fancies himself as a bit of a tipster and the twit's Twitter message read: "Best bet of the day/month/year? Bursaspor to beat Rangers @ 3-1. The Huns Big Cup record is awful."

Now I remember when the folk who wrote sport for the Guardian were giants of the inky business. I often shared a press box down south with David Lacy, who was not only a fine writer and good judge, but an absolute gentleman.

Then there was a period in the early 1980s in the Midlands when the Guardian's man there, Charlie Burgess, and I became pals who shared many a balti in Birmingham's curry triangle after a midweek match. Big Charlie was wonderfully diffident, supremely talented and charming.

It is a tradition which is carried on to this day by Kevin McCarra, whose match report on the Manchester United-Rangers Champions League encounter was a model of balance and insight.

Glendenning clearly does not belong to that tradition. Perhaps the fact he lists being a stand-up comedian as one of his talents explains a great deal. Maybe he's better at being funny than he is as a tipster, for anyone wading in on Bursaspor  at 3-1 would have lost their dough.

It is just the latest in a long line of the use of the offensive word, Huns. The last was in the Scotsman a mere fortnight ago, which led to a signed apology by editor John McLellan.

It will be interesting to see if the Guardian's celebrated editor, Alan Rusbridger also grovels. Though this time any apology should not be directed only at those who support Rangers, but at the club itself. For it was Rangers FC which was the target for Glendenning's slur.

It is a matter for anyone who read his twitter, who may wish to get in touch with the Guardian's editor to complain, or to contact the Press Complaints Commission.

The actual origin and true meaning of the word Hun was well researched and documented on a still available previous blog, should a recap be required.

It is hard to see what prompted such a disgraceful slur, with the use of a word which the Guardian approved anti sectarian organisation, Nil By Mouth, has long listed as a banned word.

As far as I can see, Glendenning has no ties with Scotland. In fact his background does not even appear to be British, as his previous employment on his biography says he worked for the Hot Press magazine in Ireland, and with the Irish Sunday Independent.

What makes his low insult more dangerous is the number of people who are exposed to his opinions. He is often found at the helm of Guardian Unlimited, which provides minute by minute reports and which features live coverage of Champions League games and internationals, and he also appears on Guardian Unlimited's football podcast, Football Weekly, hosted by well known television broadcaster, James Richardson.

And get this. In an interview on the Soccer Lens site, Glendenning says : "Some of the correspondence we get from fans is often astonishingly offensive."

So what the devil does he think comparing Rangers chairman, Alastair Johnston, chief executive, Martin Bain, manager Walter Smith, captain and Scotland's Player of the Year, Davie Weir, and all the others at Ibrox, with Adolf Hitler, Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengle and the rest of the Nazis is?

Offensive does not even begin to describe it.

Now I know there are some Rangers supporters out there who believe it is all just banter. They should ponder on what might be the outcry if a newspaper was to refer to any other Scottish club and its supporters in a similarly derogatory way.

Aye, I thought so.

What, in my view, Glendenning's sordid slur showed is that so many press people and other media folk believe Rangers and their supporters are fair game. The fans and the Ibrox club can be insulted in a way they would never dream of in the case of any other organisation, institution or people from any other section of the population.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Glendenning is a bigot. And certainly shrink from branding him as being mentally crippled. Differently abled in the mental department though is a possibility.