Did fan backlash persuade Scottish Sun to drop Rangers book serialisation?

The Scottish Sun has pulled a planned book serialisation looking at the downfall of Rangers football club after a backlash from fans.

‘Downfall: How Rangers FC Self-dectructed’, was promoted in the paper yesterday.

But today in a leader column The Sun revealed that it had pulled the serialisation, arguing that this was “NOT because of the social media backlash” and “NOT because of the internet bullies… but because the author – previously unbeknown to us – is tarred with a sickening sectarian brush.”

This is apparently a reference to a satirical blog post written by the book’s author Phil Mac Giolla Bhain in April which proposed a fictional situation where a criminally insane murderer was bred with a ten thousand pound gorilla and turned into a Catholic-hating thug. The fictional story was cited as offensive by some of the Rangers fans who have complained.

The Scottish Sun appears to have deleted all references to Bhain, including today’s leader post, from its website.

But Roy Greenslade has more on this story on his blog.