READING the warring dispatches between Ibrox and Pacific Quay simply brings to my ear the sound of distant gunfire.

In the quarter-of-a-century of fronting Sportscene, hostility was always pounding at the door. Fusillades were let off against us from time to time, which sometimes gave us the impression we were like those besieged inhabitants of the stockade in Peking during the Boxer rebellion.

I suppose working within the grandeur of such an institution as the BBC, with its distinguished record of having repulsed political intervention, from the time of the miners’ strike of 1926, when Winston Churchill wished to control its news output, but resisted by director-general John Reith, we thought we were untouchable, above the fray. I felt that sense of security within BBC sport in my early days, although it was delusional, because it supposed you could have a professionally safe life within a compound and just let the world pass by, regardless of what critical, and sometimes, poisonous views, were held about you.

What that led to was indifference within our group. There was no sense of reaching out to people or institutions who clearly felt they were being short-changed, and that prejudice underpinned some of the work we produced. And we were certainly aware of a man whose foot, in those early days, was never likely to cross the threshold of the BBC, and who would gladly have seen Sportscene replaced by extended versions of Muffin the Mule, which he would have considered more entertaining, and certainly less biased. His name was Jock Stein.

READ MORE: BBC respond to Stewart Roberston's 'Trial by Sportscene' comments

He talked of the BBC in terms which seemed to me to be echoed recently by Luciana Berger, when speaking about the present Labour Party, when she spoke about institutional prejudice. Except his description was somewhat earthier. Stein knew from his sources, which were as plentiful and as effective as that of the MI5, that the editor of Sportscene had been a Rangers supporter since the cradle onwards and that all news and comment from BBC sport would be filtered through that blue lens. It was not so.

However, perception is all. That is how we were viewed from Parkhead. So there was a complete cut-off from Celtic Park for interviews, for a period that seemed to drag on interminably.

Even when it was relaxed, to an extent, after Celtic’s triumph in Lisbon in 1967, Stein still refused to accept recorded interviews with us, because he could not accept the editing process would be fair and accurate. He would always bring up that infamous 1957, 7-1 Scottish League Cup final win his club achieved against Rangers, when the second-half with its five Celtic goals seemed to disappear into the void and were never shown on the channel. He thought my very accurate technical explanation of that mishap derived from Jules Verne. It was dialogue with him, sometimes brutal at times, that eventually paved the way for a better relationship.

Where is the candid dialogue now between Ibrox and the BBC other than, insufficiently, on websites?

For within Ibrox, they believe the compass needle has swung the other way and there is a belief that a cadre of Celtic sympathisers effectively run BBC sport. I have no more intelligence about that than I have about a Maoist tendency in their sports output. But, as I said, perception is all.

The Herald:

There is certainly no onus on the BBC to do anything other than allow their sports broadcasters to get on with their business and ignore the clamour from Ibrox. I suspect, though, that most at the corporation are frustrated at not being able to do normal business with one of the game’s major institutions. That is why they should not suffer the complacency that afflicted us in the past about ignoring necessary relationships. For whatever views there are about Rangers stance, the current position is a broadcasting deficiency. The corporation is right to defend its staff, but at the same time not conclude the relationship with Ibrox is a lost cause, and find time to indulge in a bit of introspection.

For from my experience there has been no broadcasting team I have been part of, that can claim to have been completely, impeccably, fair in its output.

Lapses of judgment do occur. John Motson, one of the most immaculately-prepared sports broadcasters of all time, has just been put in the dock for talking about a player in distinctly racial terms which I know he would never have intended. Shit happens. Ally McCoist’s fall from grace at Ibrox, for example, portrayed as the 9/11 falling-man, might not have been crafted with malice aforethought, but nevertheless was seen as insensitive. It might amuse. It also provokes; whether an apology is offered or not.

To many the current impasse is of minor importance, or, perhaps, even boring. But there is a large listening and viewing audience for Rangers out there and somehow that needs to be wholly normalised, if the BBC wishes to fulfil its broadcasting obligations. But it is going to be difficult. Rangers still ban certain BBC personnel from their property. Bans have been imposed at Celtic Park as well, and I detest them. So that ban should be lifted forthwith and then they should get on with the business of trying to win games.

They do need to spurn the social network and talk frankly face to face, perhaps within the Sportscene studio itself. A Stewart Robertson confrontation with Michael Stewart would be a welcome relief from their obsession with Alfredo Morelos.