LAST Monday morning in a city centre coffee shop I nearly spat my coffee half way across the floor upon reading Ken Boyle's defence and explanation of why the loyalist band he belongs to is called The Sons of Kai.
He asks us to believe that the band is named after a virtually unknown ex player of Glasgow Rangers called Kai Johansen. This lacks any credibility whatsoever because Johansen was a fairly mediocre player who spent a few years at Rangers and furthermore, if you asked the Rangers' support, young and old, the vast majority would be totally unaware of who this guy is. In the eyes of Rangers fans he is anything but a Gascoigne, Laudrup, Gough, Baxter or Greig.
The fact is Kai has long been a sectarian loyalist slogan representing Kill All Irish for years, certainly before Johansen ever came to Ibrox.
The sectarian bigots among the Rangers support and within loyalism in general seen as an opportunistic cloak to disguise their bigotry by muddying the true meaning of Kai by saying it is in reference to a former player of Glasgow Rangers.
This flute band is doing exactly the same. They are what is affectionately known within the loyalist community as a Kick The Pope band.
Among their followers these bands get greater respect and more kudos for the more anti-Catholic and virulently anti-Irish they can possibly be. The harder you can bang your drum outside a chapel and the louder you can sing the Billy Boys the better your loyalist credentials become.
One last bit of final advice to Ken - take a drive through any loyalist area of Belfast and you'll see the true meaning of Kai. In fact you won't even have to leave the environs of Newtownabbey.
