I did take it personally- Sensitive Beale goes to war with Union Bears as he takes banner at Livingston to heart

Micky Beale has met up with the Union Bears and doubled down on his criticism of their banner at last week’s match against Livingston.

The former Liverpool u-5’s coach spent a week basking in the media acclaim for allowing Partick Thistle to score in the Scottish Cup straight after Malik Tillman had taken advantage of the sportsmanship of the Championship side.

The praise came to a halt at Livingston with a banner that read ‘Two trophies in 11 years. Uphold the standards that matter’.

Beale was responsible for eight of those trophy losses that included cup defeats to Aberdeen twice, St Mirren, St Johnstone, Hearts and a cup final loss to Celtic.

Since arriving at Ibrox people have been falling over themselves to tell Beale how utterly wonderful he is as a coach and that he is also a very lovely person.

One item of veiled criticism has jarred a nerve with the rookie Ibrox boss running to the Daily Record to share his hurt over that banner:

They (fans) reached out to me personally to say it wasn’t (aimed at me) but I thought it was, to be honest. I did take it personally. It’s one of those things. We have fans all across the world and that’s a small minority. They’re very passionate and I think they do a lot of good things.

They pay their money and come to support the team. So they’re allowed to voice their opinion But I explained that I would have preferred it not to be in that way and at this moment. It’s fine, everyone has their opinion on the game. I was a fan before I was manager so I get it. But it’s important that we stick together. It’s important that our fans are with us because when we’re united we’re a very strong club.

Beale seems to have recently discovered that his club have fans across the world and seems to need to remind himself of that in interviews.

At some stage he will be back down the road to England blabbing away like Mark Warburton about what an incredible time he had- while the Union Bears continue putting money into the club and unfurling banners.