Religion and football remain a potent and unpleasant mix. Dianne Millen finds the Old Firm may have ulterior reasons to distance themselves from bigotry.

When is an orange not an orange? When it’s a tang­erine, of course – or so the Rangers fans who gleefully donned the club’s notorious 2001-02 away strip would have liked the rest of Scotland to believe. At best ill-judged, at worst inflammatory, the strip drew an outcry from anti-sectarian groups. Few outside Ibrox believed the club was unaware of its connotations.

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Religion and football remain a potent and unpleasant mix. Robbie Meredith examines the problems on both sides of the border in Ireland

In 1998, in a routine attempt at male bonding, I took my son to his first international at Windsor Park to see Northern Ireland play Moldova. Our players wore green, but numerous fans sported Rangers scarves of red, white and blue or the purple and orange colours of the Orange Order. Many bellowed “No Surrender!” in the midst of the national anthem, while The Sash, the Protestant marching song, was sung regularly.

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Newspaper rumours of a Manchester United bid for Steven Gerrard set Ashley Shaw thinking about just how rare transfers involving Liverpool have been in  the modern era

As transfer stories go, Steven Gerrard’s recently ru­­moured move to Old Trafford would seem about as likely as an Osama Bin Laden peace mission to Washington. But why should this be? If Manchester United and Liverpool were ordinary businesses and a key member of staff spotted an opportunity for lucrative promotion at a rival company, then there would be few bars to a “transfer”.

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In spite of the fierceness of the clubs’ rivalry, there has been a remarkable amount of transfer activity between Newcastle and Sunderland.  Joe Boyle examines the history

“A massive error of judgement” was how Lee Clark described the actions leading to his exit from Sunderland in 1999. Many in the north-east would go further. The error was not the infamous T-shirt he was pictured in bearing the anti-Sunderland slogan “Sad Mackem Bastards”. The error was his decision to move to Sunderland from Newcastle in the first place.

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The word ‘Judas’ has been heard a lot lately, but  Adam Powley refuses to ignore a fundamental difference between fans and players

The issue of loyalty is a bit of a bête noire for football supporters. While fans readily display their de­votion to the cause, players rarely match such selflessness. That discrepancy was sharply illustrated by three high-profile moves during the recent transfer window. The deals involving Scott Parker, Jermain Defoe and Louis Saha accounted for an aggregate outlay of over £30 million – not bad going for three young players, none of whom is yet to make a significant impact at full international level. But while the purchasing clubs glowed in the satisfaction of being seen to splash cash in sup­posedly depressed times, at the clubs they departed from there were bitter recriminations.

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