[mp_row]
[mp_span col=”12″]
Everyone on this site has football experiences, views, stories and opinions. Everyone also wants things to be better in the future too. These are bonds that make us who we are and this forum what it is.
I’ll share a few experiences with you now.
I will never forget an impromptu and inspirational 60 minute Q. and A. masterclass by Davie MacParland to a group of relative youngsters at Hampden in 1975 after Scottish Unis had played a friendly with his team.
It was “over the moon Brian” time for me on finding a £5 note in my shoe. This was after I played my first game (unexpectedly) as an S form in the Highland League when my club’s Aberdeen-based players had been held up by a road incident.
So happy and corrupted was I that I never questioned the widespread practice of giving money to amateur players thereafter so I’m part of the problem.
I also sat next to a young Jim Leyton who came to Butchart to watch himself on a match video after he had let in two goals when we dumped Deveronvale (where he was on loan) out of the Aberdeenshire Cup. It was the very early days of video and Jim had never seen himself on a tv before.
Every person in the SFM community will have equally diverse and interesting experiences and I’m going to share one more with you now in a little more detail.
In the mid 90s I was given an amazing insight into how Scottish football really worked. In many ways it hasn’t changed much since.
Back then I was part of a small group brought in to help find funding for the upgrade of Tynecastle with the urgent need to construct three new stands. At the time it was a massive requirement for a very financially challenged organisation and at a push there were potentially just about enough pots of monies available from several sources to trigger the investment from the Football Trust and squeak over the line.
The most critical pot was mobilising the fans.
My role was to find a way of getting them to come aboard working with some fine lifetime Hearts fans like the late Alex Kitson so it would all look like a Hearts Community rather than a Mercer initiative.
The then, colourful Hearts majority owner was under constant pressure on other fronts at the time.
The team was not really performing with relatively new manager Jim Jeffries trying to get best out of predecessor Tommy Mclean’s mixed bag of old pros and kids. Making things worse was a growing, highly critical and very vocal consortium of local business people trying to get Mercer out (and themselves in).
I guess you could say in today’s parlance that they were RHM and civil war was very much happening down Gorgie way.
Anyway I can’t now recall all the detail and apologies if my memories have fused a little but a key AGM type meeting for Hearts shareholders at Ingliston was coming up and there was an agenda that looked like it might hurt “The Chairman” as Wallace liked to be called.
Never any flies on him though, he had seen the danger signs and was ready in his own way.
He turned up with his trusted few and simply yet quite brilliantly hijacked the negative agenda and ignored the real issues. He didn’t have a solution for them and couldn’t implement the changes that were in reality needed but quite simply he kicked all the trouble into the long grass.
He did this because he fundamentally understood that most shareholders in the room were just ordinary football fans and wanted nothing more than to be able to talk about football the game, Hearts their club, who they were due to play next and who would be playing.
It was that simple.
Mercer’s message to all that night was “Yes things have been tough but our best possible future is with me”.
He rammed this home by confidently telling the assembled body that Hearts were on the up because we had a new manager who needed time and then blew everyone away by announcing he just signed three amazing new players for them, Giles Rousset, Bruno Pasquale and Hans Eskilsson. After the applause and mayhem died down he had won.
Bruno and Rousset were newsworthy in any Scottish football context one being a French International and the other an ex Juventus tough guy with a EUFA and a couple of Coppa Italia winners medals.
Oh and Eskilsson had amazing hair.
Mercer’s simple bit of insight, showmanship, brinksmanship, call it what you like, led to the survival of his regime.
In a parallel maybe to what the SFA did after their meeting with Craig at the Hotel Du Vin in Glasgow, Mercer had enough time to be ready for the trouble he knew was coming and used his power to ignore the real issues and the detail and move on with a big gamble.
Looking back Wallace got a lot right .
He understood what the majority of ordinary football fans wanted. He’d also learnt that good press was needed and came from feeding the football writers enough tasty exclusives so they’d look after him in a symbiotic relationship, the kind of relationship that remains much the same today.
Even back then in the days when there were less full-colour pages pre-allocated to certain teams to fill and more able journalists to fill them, the sports pages were about game reports and gossip rather than insight.
The packs of hacks all craved being handed tasty semi-exclusive stories.
It was and ever is thus and in those days the Daily Record was a wee gem with circulation nearer 700K than the 200K-ish today and amazingly all its costs were covered by it’s advertising revenue alone. The proud boast of Endell Laird was the purchase price was pure profit.
With hindsight Wallace may only have postponed the inevitable campaign by the RHM rebels that night at Ingliston. History tells us that the Robinson/Deans rebellion eventually forced their chance. They did have to dig much deeper financially than they ever wanted when their time eventually came, and soon fell out too, but that’s another story.
Wallace’s long grass was just never going to be deep enough to hide the issues he wanted to ignore but to his credit on his watch the stadium was upgraded and the first Scottish Cup since 1956 was paraded to the fans.
Mr. Mercer was an operator who like others before and since could see personal and business value in owning a club.
He cultivated friendly football writers.
He learned that the SFA could be difficult to deal with but much less so when you placed people on their various management boards. That was key to the inner power sanctums and brought you at best influence and at worst early warnings.
He may have been autocratic but knew you needed powerful friends at other clubs too and was always close with David Murray in particular.
So what has this little piece of retrospection and a handful of Finloch football stories got to do with a blog on SFM?
Last week I met Big Pink for the first time over a few coffees.
It was like meeting an old friend in the pub because of all the stuff we’ve lived through and shared over the last 5 or so years.
We talked about stuff and traded stories and opinions on life, football and about SFM what it does and what we are.
We got on to the subject of it’s future and with my business background he asked me to consider a piece for the blog about where the SFM, our fledgling business might go from here.
I maybe agreed too hastily because I have found it challenging to gather and spell out my thoughts.
So this is very much a starting couple of steps to bring in the SFM minds and set up future discussions following this blog and when we meet in Perth in April.
My starting point was to first consider what we are today.
It’s a personal view but to me SFM is a valued medium I come to most days. It’s for when I want to find out or to discuss what is happening.
It is populated with a bunch of people with different backgrounds, skills and insights, is always polite and often very funny.
I’d actually like to see more headline blogs because I enjoy them but our biggest value will always be analysis discussion and good humour.
SFM is fundamentally different to the MSM back pages that still offer us all a mono diet of whatever day-to-day gossip they have been spoon-fed by the Level 9’s of this world or made up and maybe embellished with a random phone call for a quote.
Yes their world is declining and will inevitably see fundamental restructure and change but that change has in reality nothing to do with how they cover and will continue to cover Scottish football.
I’d even posit (to use a wee word I’ve learned from the excellent JJ site I visit sometimes) that the red tops currently see their style of football coverage as a way of slowing their inevitable declines because it delivers the difficult to reach male audience their advertisers crave access to.
As a spectator I’d say the MSM in Scotland mostly seem to suffer from a polarised demographic focus/ bias too but that can never excuse their revisionism or the Spiers and Haggerty episodes we’ve just witnessed.
There is one benefit though. One you maybe hadn’t thought about from all the dreadful MSM football reportage.
The stuff they collectively generate enables all of us to have daily conversations with friends and strangers without actually saying anything about anything.
It gives us our daily top-up for the international language of football minutiae we all converse in every day.
I’ve been able to speak it fluently since I was in my teens. You know the kind of thing – the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the comings and goings and the toings and froings.
The good news, the bad news the made-up news – its all part of being involved with a team or indeed just being a football fan and it’s all conversation for the males of our species.
There are plenty of places I can and do get access to that kind of stuff but SFM isn’t and never has been a source.
I quickly found out that most of my pals don’t want to talk about side letters in the pub on a Friday, or the need for asterisked titles because they are more interested in tomorrow’s match and who will be out of contract at the end of the season.
Without being disrespectful in any way I think they are cut from the same wood as the majority of Mr. Mercer’s Hearts shareholders and if I’m honest part of me is too.
That has given our administrators and clubs too easy a ride.
Beyond the gossip it is fair to say in the last 40 or 50 years football has changed beyond all recognition.
It has become a source of power and money and as we know proverbially and in real life power can corrupt and money can be the root of all-evil.
The stuff happening at FIFA now can be no surprise to any fair-minded fan and I’d be inclined to think that there have been finagled decisions at the top for longer than the current stewardship of Mr. Blatter.
Way longer.
Football-land is a dirty world. A world where all the transparency is for show and real stuff has always been controlled and rewarding for those in the right places.
Closer to home football in Scotland is no different. Power and money have been the origins of our own North of the Border soap opera saga.
Its sometimes been very funny, often been entertaining too but is ultimately tragic and a sad indictment on our country.
Being Scotland nothing is ever as simple as it should be.
We started from a unique kind of place where for over a century we have had to live with an unhealthy, quasi-tribal, two-club duopolistic domination of all things football including the fans, the trophies, the money, the media attention and the administrators controlling our game.
The stark reality of 2016 is our biggest club/economy now finds its real ambitions thwarted, potentially forever, by its location in our restrictive league structure. It has nowhere currently to go and annoyingly the biggest league in the world is just over the border and part of the same country in political terms.
This is a destabilising influence on our game that won’t go away until change allows the next evolution.
Our second biggest economy as we now know had to cheat a little to keep up, post Fergus, and is now making its way back to the top end but with some truly nuclear baggage that I guess we still really only know the half of. Nothing will be simple in its return to what we’re told everyday is its rightful place. It too is a latent destabilising influence awaiting like a grumbling volcano.
What depresses me is the fact that the much-vaunted return of our dysfunctional duopoly is not a formula to recreate the European success we all took for granted for so long. Those days will never return.
The decline of the Scottish giant that was and is Rangers has dominated our thoughts because it encapsulates so much more than what is wrong with our game.
It is a huge business and establishment fall from grace. A shocking story that has become an elephant in the room to our politicians, our media and many of our fellow fans and is still playing out to deafening silence in some quarters.
In the manic run up to the decline of David Murray’s club we benefitted from insights from the seminal RTC and were bombarded with mass denials from almost everywhere else.
We witnessed the £1 sale to Craig Whyte, the subsequent McCoist European failure, the eventual slide into messy liquidation with tax issues etc.
Our administrators failed us all the way through because they had a different agenda.
Our MSM didn’t want to know partly because it involved more than regurgitating press releases and partly because it was real news for real reporters and not back pages gossip.
Their editors failed us there too, big time.
Now the revisionism and invention of the post-liquidation ephemeral club and company scenarios has been creative to say the least.
I remember Mr. Traynor’s initial headline and smile how he and others are now wading in a contradictory swamp of their own making. It’s all confusion when it needn’t be.
I only know the kind of stuff that really happened because of this site and its RTC predecessor.
Four or five years on and I think these guys (SFA, SPFL) acted like Wallace Mercer did at Ingliston and ran roughshod over process to “win”.
These well paid admin staff were never off-piste though and our clubs share complicity for their actions to varying degrees.
If I was Regan’s or Doncaster’s devil’s advocate I could just about comprehend that they acted because they feared for their TV revenues. The prospect of being without half of their duopoly ace card and the blue fans scared them and they were mandated by the clubs to maintain the status quo.
I don’t mean all the clubs but if we look at the key committee structures we’ll easily see who were in that inner sanctum at the time. They collectively decided to throw their rulebook out the window and there is no grass long enough to bury their collective actions because truth always outs.
Cast yourself back a few years not long before the St Valentine’s day 2012 news when the push was all for a 10 club league.
I remember Stewart Milne aggressively trying to sell us all a 10-club league because of the TV revenue it delivered (to the few).
At that time there seemed to be a collective “TV Gold Fever” prevailing in the cabal of top club chairmen that makes the real decisions and tells our administrators what to do.
Luckily they failed.
They nearly failed again too in 2012 with their tawdry 5 way agreement and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the late Turnbull Hutton whose personal integrity, bloody-mindedness and leadership meant a significant change to the premeditated 5 way plan that our top clubs had all signed off.
Since then we’ve all suffered from Armageddon and long may it stay.
SFM has been at the forefront of the last five years. A place where fans from all the clubs come together to question, analyse, give insight, balance, consciousness on all aspects of the meandering road that has been this story so far.
It’s all recorded on our archives somewhere too. We’ve noted and discussed the following and more –
- Two different signatures from the same club on the 5-way agreement
- Two different and concurrent memberships of the SFA
- Players TUPE-ing for free and no lawyers getting rich in trying to get them back
- Pre-season games being cancelled because of registration and insurance issues
- The Brechin game coming too soon for the paperwork
- The entry-round in The Ramsdens Cup for the old club or is it the new club?
- Record crowds, an even more aggressive songbook
- Ian Black getting a surprise call-up and a bit of a game to legitimise The New Rangers with their first cap
- Millions raised from a gullible city and desperate fans but still several last gasp saves needed to avoid new financial stramashes
- A charity that pays for holidays in America
- Quasi-legal stuff with dodgy parameters for questionable enquiries like Nimmo Smith
- Bryson and his logic that Spartans could and should have used to stay in the cup
- A “Hopelessly Conflicted Chairman” re-elected and a new one who has fitted in seamlessly
- Real legal stuff like HMRC appeals, and phrases like side-letters
- Charlotte Fakes and maybe even Fake Charlotte Fakes
- Fit and proper persons running our clubs
- Recorded conversations
- Onerous contracts
- Metaphysical concepts of what football clubs in our courts with big bucks being spent on our behalf by our administrators
There is and has been a whole lot more and more to come on the schedules too.
How much of this would I have found on our MSM?
Very little – so thanks to those who go the extra mile for us including John Clark, EasyJambo and others at the courts, Phil who will never go away, James Doleman and others too including JJ – all playing blinders where the hacks don’t dare.
Finally fast-forward to today.
Most Scottish fans probably know a little about the stuff I’ve touched upon and we’ve debated in depth. Not enough though.
But we have Darryl Broadfoot who is the SFA so we can all sleep rest assured each night.
Going forward we must address how we communicate as a medium to spread the word.
Ask yourself – Is what we do more important than knowing Rangers signed Dean Windass’s son from Accrington Stanley on a free because he’s going to play for England one day and stuff like that?
I’d say it is different although both have a place.
Our challenge is to create more impact with ours.
In finishing I have one serious starting proposal to make as a community but first a thank you.
Thank you to all the blog writers and posters because we have collectively created a site where real stuff can be dissected and discussed politely and in a non-partisan way.
Well done to the mods in particular and to our community In general
My simple proposal as our first step forward is to start a Wikipedia style library of the facts and keep it on our site.
Dates, happenings, people and all the stuff that will not allow any of it to stay buried forever in the long grass. The kind of detail that is in Auldheid’s amazing and resolute Resolution 12.
Chapter and verse whys and wherefores with dates and names.
This will achieve three things.
- It will create bedrock for us as a trusted media channel whatever we decide to become.
- It will put stuff factually into the public domain forever.
- It will contradict any highly paid revisionists trying to change what really happened for their own agendas into the future.
[/mp_span]
[/mp_row]
nawlite 4th March 2016 at 6:41 pm #
A wee identity crisis in Govan, mibbes ? Or do they expect(like me) that Mr Harkins will score- that level of provocation. Or even worse, Darren O’Dea ? Maybe the next announcement will be an exhaustive list of those banned from Ibrox as a result of the community singing versus Hibernian ?
rougvielovesthejungle 4th March 2016 at 7:07 pm #
———————–
The purpose of the statement will be two fold. Firstly as a rebuttal of Gary Harkins “new club” jibe, and secondly as a reminder to fans about their behaviour tomorrow, in the event that Harkins is the target of some unsavoury vitriol.
The club will be able to protest its innocence, in that it issued such a reminder on the eve of the game.
Regards the Friday statement (fond remembrances of when they were weekly occurrences!), I wonder if the SFA have a had a quiet word in TRFC’s ear about the ‘party songs’ & the statement is a pre-emptive move before Saturday’s game?
The best part of the statement: the phrase ‘unbroken timeline’.
‘Fingers on buzzers, who actually played Brechin on 29th July 2012; no conferring!’
http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/glasgow-celtics-leap-year-leap-into.html?m=1
An interesting read for a quiet Friday night. I have no idea as to the reliabilty of the blog’s sources, by the way.
If the idea is to eventually access the EPL, then entry at League 2 level seems a very risky strategy to me. The lower English leagues are notoriously difficult to get out of, even for clubs with more money than the rest.
nawlite4th March 2016 at 6:41 pm#
I don’t know how, but is there a way in which we can challenge the statement in respect of the ‘legal’ viewpoint? How could we – or someone else – ask them exactly what legal judgement they have to confirm they’re the same club? In this day and age in this country, is there really no way to challenge lies in public statements?
——————-
Well they did mention Transparency,openess,accountability and honesty
give them an e-mail, it’s worth the try
Yes, this nonsense TRFC statement could be a useful ‘getting their defence in early’ prior to anything nasty coming from the ‘usual minority’ of TRFC fans tomorrow.
But it does seem a bit desperate / counterintuitive that a club feels it necessary to issue a statement to its fans – mainly to remind themselves about who they think they are ?!
I think the TRFC folks doth protest too much about being the same club…
John Clark4th March 2016 at 2:25 pm
Could we theoretically bring an action against them for, essentially, dereliction of duty and/or cheating in the interests of one party to the detriment of all other parties including us- who now cannot rely on the sport being fairly and honestly administered by compromised men? Because, by the lord Harry, if it were legally a goer………..and I had the money….. such an action would be raised!
———————–
That got me thinking
Now could i as a fan who may be sold a ticket next season on the pretence that sevco are still rangers,and at a later date it is proven in court that that is not the case, a kind off misrepresents the product i’m suppose to be paying money to go and see. Yet it is just a tribute act and not the real thing. Will clubs next season be selling tickets for games involving a new plc club as if it is the old plc. will that be classed as fraud.
Could we theoretically bring an action against them for, essentially, dereliction of duty,selling us a product that is not the real product?
Ihope you get where i’m coming from, in my strange way of writing
would clubs not be scared of some such legal action?
Cluster One 4th March 2016 at 7:47 pm #
John Clark4th March 2016 at 2:25 pm
Could we theoretically bring an action…
=============
Will clubs next season be selling tickets for games involving a new plc club as if it is the old plc. will that be classed as fraud…
=============
Mibbees the match tickets & programmes will simply be billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.
And with no other clarification / explanation about it being a new club.
But the bears would still be raging…
Regarding the missive from the Ibrox bunker – is JJ getting too much attention? I overheard some TRFC fans of my acquaintance discussing his blog in a positive light where beforehand they had been staunch .
StevieBC 4th March 2016 at 7:57 pm #
Mibbees the match tickets & programmes will simply be billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.
————————–
But if the match tickets & programmes are not billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.
Are clubs ready for a fan or fans taking such action against them? or would the fan or fans take the action against
1. the club
2.Mr Doncaster.
3.The SPFL
OR ALL THE ABOVE.at being sold a product that is not what it say’s it is
Easyjambo,
You seem to have only highlighted parts from the statement that suit the point you were making, while ignoring all the points worthy of praise. Which is not to single you out – every other poster since seems to have latched on to the parts which allow criticism to be made.
The comments made by the Dundee player regarding Rangers being a new club have been discussed here. They don’t bother me in the slightest, but we all know they will bother some Rangers fans. This may lead to renditions of illegal songs as a mark of protest, which again I do not agree with. As such, the statement mentions:
“do not sing any inappropriate songs. Gestures and chants which are deemed offensive should also be avoided no matter the level of provocation and while it is important to be aware Police Scotland, the SFA and SPFL can take action, remember also that this Club enforces its own code of conduct.Fans who behave in an inappropriate manner and who bring the Club into disrepute will face punishment. They might be given lifetime or limited bans so please, let us all support Rangers in the correct way.”
Surely this is a good point to make? If there were offensive songs sung these pages would be awash with condemnation. Rightly so. So is it not worth pointing out that steps are being taken to try to prevent this?
StevieBC 4th March 2016 at 7:57 pm #Mibbees the match tickets & programmes will simply be billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.
————————–
But if the match tickets & programmes are not billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.Are clubs ready for a fan or fans taking such action against them? or would the fan or fans take the action against1. the club2.Mr Doncaster.3.The SPFLOR ALL THE ABOVE.at being sold a product that is not what it say’s it is
===========================
Personally, I don’t think the other SPL clubs will have a pop at the new club in their match programmes.
The clubs might even receive some pre-season ‘advice’ from the Hampden bazers about how to treat TRFC !
“The Rangers FC” might be the least ‘controversial’, but legally accurate reference when selling match related products, and thus avoid any accusations of misrepresentation.
But it just shows how the continued SFA/SPFL’s incompetence could enforce SPL clubs to defer to a new club – and become reluctantly complicit supporters of the same club myth – if only to avoid trouble.
However, it’s really the fault of the spineless 41 senior clubs for letting this TRFC lie fester for so long.
A little light entertainment .
http://twitter.com/adam_melia/status/705830671055523840/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Someone must surely do a You-tube ‘Hitler’ thingy, with the foaming-mad Adolf( looking suspiciously like Dave King) and his board proclaiming ‘the Statement’ at a Nuremberg Rally kind of thing, with lots of ‘Sieg heils’ and dignified goose-stepping!
And the odd black- leather-coated evil looking Gestapo hood hovering about looking for someone to bash.
Yet another PR disaster, calculated to render them even more of a figure of fun and purveyors of untruth and nonsensical self-contradiction.I swear to God, they are beyond parody.
RyanGosling 4th March 2016 at 8:34 pm #
“do not sing any inappropriate songs. Gestures and chants which are deemed offensive should also be avoided no matter the level of provocation and while it is important to be aware Police Scotland, the SFA and SPFL can take action, remember also that this Club enforces its own code of conduct.Fans who behave in an inappropriate manner and who bring the Club into disrepute will face punishment. They might be given lifetime or limited bans so please, let us all support Rangers in the correct way.”
—————————–
They could have in that statement kept us up to date on the investigation into the fans behaviour at the recent hibs game, and what steps they are taking in helping the police. Maybe that would have been a more hard hitting statement, what they are doing not just another run of the mill plea to the fans.
anyway 3 posts from me in one day that’s enough
A little light entertainment .
http://youtu.be/hv6Xw7kasRA
neepheid 4th March 2016 at 7:30 pm #http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/glasgow-celtics-leap-year-leap-into.html?m=1
——————————————————————————————————
I read the link, and cannot vouch for the veracity either, but I am unconcerned. I suppose investors are entitled to invest where they like, but it will not turn one club into another club. Nobody can force them to continue investing in the Scottish clubs, and there are rules in place to prevent them investing in both. They would need to be into an English Premier team to bypass that.
David Low is saying Sevco have links with a Northern Premier League, but I can’t understand as to what advantage.
https://twitter.com/Heavidor/status/705832277452955649
Well well. !
I read Phil’s piece earlier, but I never noticed this.
https://twitter.com/moo_ted/status/705800022252724224
Corrupt official 4th March 2016 at 8:51 pm #
It is being suggested that it may be a “front” for a certain glib,etc . Bill Shankley managed there, according to Wiki .
100% agree it is a good thing (if true)but it is not me being cynical, it is the statement that is cynical. Why? Has one person been identified from the thousands that could have been from Hibs visit to Ibrox at the end of 2015? If not then this statement is lip service and a pre-emptive strike at mitigation. Happy to be proved wrong by the banning “sine die” of anyone mentioning fenian blood or famines in the little sing song tomorrow but I would bet on it being more likely TRFC getting a home draw in the semi’s having lost tomorrow than that happening.
RyanGosling 4th March 2016 at 8:34 pm #
————————————–
I highlighted the bits that I did, as you say, to make the point that the first few paragraphs of the statement went out its way to argue the case for continuity. Who is it aimed at and for what purpose? It comes across as a “Nobody likes us, but we don’t care” pitch.
When writing a statement, you would normally put the key message you wish to convey up front, with less important points to follow. If the key message to be taken from the statement was about the conduct of fans then it missed its mark, despite its content. To that extent, I think that statement was back to front, but then again it is consistent with the style of Chris Graham (assuming he was the scribe).
As you also say, there were positive elements to the rest of the statement with regard to offensive behaviour, with which I concurred in my follow-up post at 7:21pm.
StevieBC 4th March 2016 at 7:57 pm #Mibbees the match tickets & programmes will simply be billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.————————–But if the match tickets & programmes are not billed correctly as “Hometeam FC v. The Rangers FC”.Are clubs ready for a fan or fans taking such action against them? or would the fan or fans take the action against1. the club2.Mr Doncaster.3.The SPFLOR ALL THE ABOVE.at being sold a product that is not what it say’s it is===========================Personally, I don’t think the other SPL clubs will have a pop at the new club in their match programmes.The clubs might even receive some pre-season ‘advice’ from the Hampden bazers about how to treat TRFC !“The Rangers FC” might be the least ‘controversial’, but legally accurate reference when selling match related products, and thus avoid any accusations of misrepresentation.
But it just shows how the continued SFA/SPFL’s incompetence could enforce SPL clubs to defer to a new club – and become reluctantly complicit supporters of the same club myth – if only to avoid trouble.However, it’s really the fault of the spineless 41 senior clubs for letting this TRFC lie fester for so long.
Good morning fellahs,
If my memory serves me correctly a few years back the Tannoy Announcer at Falkirk received his “jotters” and almost a public flogging for the crime of pronouncing the Govan team’s “official”name in the correct manner. The powers that be over at Falkirk Football Club cowed to the RIFC hierarchy as some of the Bears were a wee bit upset at the announcer having the audacity to tell the truth!! Instead of sticking up for him they couldn’t get rid of the poor guy quick enough. I wonder if this problem is going to be replayed in the upper League next season and if the outcome is going to be the same. This could lead to Tannoy announcers all around the SPFL Premiership giving out the name of the Govan team in braille !!
your in sport
Gaun the Killie
RyanGosling 4th March 2016 at 8:34 pm
Wholly agree that there is a good message in T’Rangers statement today.
However the fact that the statement can be carved into separate stands tends to suggest it was written in a manner for two or three purposes. As such the good message has not only been ‘missed’ by posters on here but may well be missed by some of the home support.
A simple reminder about supporting your team with pride, being a family club etc and not singing abusive and (lets all say it) sectarian songs would have done the trick.
However the author couldn’t help throw in the needless references to the oldco/newco debate, history tradition etc and then had to put the knife in re those who may dare to have a different opinion on the matter.
IIRC you have said in the past you recognize the legal and corporate consequences of liquidation but that in spirit your club lives on continuously. Most on here appreciate that stance.
Does that ill-informed opinion, of possibly not agreeing with the likes of Doncaster, LNS and making your own mind up – as I believe Regan suggested fans should do, mean that your own club maybe possible view you with contempt.
To hold others within the game be that other clubs, their players, officials, fans, journos etc in “contempt” for disagreeing with you or holding a differing opinion is a pretty hateful word to be coming out of a club that is always talking about pride and respect.
Once again there seems to be an element of demanding respect based on some near forgotten Struthian history as opposed to the modern club getting over its recent troubles trying to earn and win it back.
I am sorry but the tone of supremacy and ‘No Surrender’ rings out loud and clear to others when a bit of humble pie re the club’s recent past and a clear and definitive statement re crowd behaviour should be the order of the day.
The statement is either the work of a seasoned PR person who knows what buttons they want to press (which is worrying) or the words of someone who is more of a fan than a grown up, responsible representative of a proud football club (which is more worrying). I expect hateful and contemptuous things to be said on internet forums and message boards but not from official club statements.
Away from all that though, tomorrow’s game should be interesting, so if the fans behave maybe there will be a bit of talk about the footballing side of things.
Thanks for your post Wottpi.
i agree with you for the most part. One point I’d make though, not to argue, but to ask your view; given the views we know a lot of Rangers fans hold, and indeed given the oft quoted “WATP mentality”, if such a statement was made and just seemed like it attacked its own fans for bad behaviour, would it not be ignored by those fans? By “pandering”, as it may be viewed, to the aforementioned mentality, does it not give the rest of the statement more credibility for those same fans, thereby making it more likely to be heeded?
tayred 3rd March 2016 at 4:44 pm #Back to bore you again with a wee comment about referees. The incident last night where Aberdeen got a goal chopped off because Shinnie was accused of taking a dive. Tempted to say bring back Collum! For those interested its up to view on the SPFL youtube site. Honestly its worth a look, its staggering!
=========================
I’m catching up after a day off yesterday and just saw the above.
That is absolutely incredible. As Victor Meldrew would have said, I don’t believe it.
If you had just described it, rather than provide visual proof, would anyone have believed you?
I assume that Derek McInnes didn’t say that the referee made the right decision and then go on to criticise the Aberdeen player for not staying on his feet? No? I thought not.
Jingso.Jimsie 4th March 2016 at 7:24 pm #Regards the Friday statement (fond remembrances of when they were weekly occurrences!), I wonder if the SFA have a had a quiet word in TRFC’s ear about the ‘party songs’ & the statement is a pre-emptive move before Saturday’s game?
The best part of the statement: the phrase ‘unbroken timeline’.
‘Fingers on buzzers, who actually played Brechin on 29th July 2012; no conferring!’
============================
Can I phone a friend?
That question is the one that I always ask when the OC/NC debate crops up, and even down here in NR1 it still happens (usually straight after someone mentions the word Rangers in connection with Scottish football post 2012).
I have no answer, but it is always a good starting point for a sensible discussion and it very quickly identifies the time wasters.
Folks,
Been really busy with organisation stuff over the last week or so, and have had little time to contribute. Couple of things;
The blog sustained a very attack on Wednesday evening. We did manage to stabilise things pretty quickly, but there is some residual damage arising from the editing and recoding that had to be carried out.
Consequently, the new site skin has had to be pushed up in the schedule, and will be published in the next few days (possibly by Sunday).
There are two issues continuity-wise that we are looking at right now;
1. Private messages: Hopefully we will be able to maintain the historic stuff, but just in case, please make sure you have everything you need asap.
2. Local avatars (not Gravatars – the ones you can upload to SFM): Again, we are hoping to rebuild the Avatar library, but please ensure that you have a copy for re-upload if necessary when the new site goes live.
3. Login should be seamless to the new site. However please let me or Tris know if you have any problems.
4. Have to doff a cap to our old pal OldGold. He came back, and like a halfwit, I gave him the benefit o the doubt in the hope that he would actually try to engage 🙂 He is not half as good at the trolling as he used to be though, cos he lost it very early on in the proceedings. Grudging respect though for him and his tenacity!
To address another disappointing item, we have been reluctant to call of the Perth meeting, but we are still nine tickets short of break even. We will give it until Monday evening before deciding whether to go ahead or not.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think the slow uptake is a sign of our demise. Certainly the folk who initiated the DoS attack on Wednesday don’t appear to share the view that we are on the wane 🙂
The blog is slow right now, but it has always had it’s ups and downs. To be honest I am more worried about the lack of volunteers to assist with the radio startup than I am about the relative scarcity of posts on the blog.
We are determined to make SFM as much of a Scottish football institution as the clubs are. As long as our core support remains at the level it is at, I have no worries that will happen.
Corrupt official 4th March 2016 at 8:51 pm #neepheid 4th March 2016 at 7:30 pm #http://footballisfixed.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/glasgow-celtics-leap-year-leap-into.html?m=1 —————————————————————————————————— I read the link, and cannot vouch for the veracity either, but I am unconcerned. I suppose investors are entitled to invest where they like, but it will not turn one club into another club. Nobody can force them to continue investing in the Scottish clubs, and there are rules in place to prevent them investing in both. They would need to be into an English Premier team to bypass that. David Low is saying Sevco have links with a Northern Premier League, but I can’t understand as to what advantage.
https://twitter.com/Heavidor/status/705832277452955649
================
Newcastle United are a northern Premier League club, for the time being, and at least one RIFC PLC shareholder has an interest in that club.
Workington, as well as being northern, are third in the Evo Stik Northern Premier League just behind Darlington on goal difference. The original Darlington FC’s Wikipedia page is interesting reading, particularly the third paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlington_F.C. as is the entry for the entity now in the NPL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlington_1883 Perhaps Neil Doncaster and Stewart Regan should read that and learn how football administrators act elsewhere.
After the way that TRFC treated Accrington Stanley, I can’t imagine that there will be a queue of clubs down south wanting anything to do with them, unless they are facing liquidation in which case the TRFC expertise in liquidation survival would come in very useful.
paddy malarkey 4th March 2016 at 9:13 pm #Corrupt official 4th March 2016 at 8:51 pm #
It is being suggested that it may be a “front” for a certain glib,etc . Bill Shankley managed there, according to Wiki .
====================
I doubt the glib one would get far in the English game, as they take criminal convictions seriously when it comes to directors or controlling interests.
RyanGosling 4th March 2016 at 8:34 pm # Easyjambo,
You seem to have only highlighted parts from the statement that suit the point you were making, while ignoring all the points worthy of praise. Which is not to single you out – every other poster since seems to have latched on to the parts which allow criticism to be made.
The comments made by the Dundee player regarding Rangers being a new club have been discussed here. They don’t bother me in the slightest, but we all know they will bother some Rangers fans. This may lead to renditions of illegal songs as a mark of protest, which again I do not agree with. As such, the statement mentions:
“do not sing any inappropriate songs. Gestures and chants which are deemed offensive should also be avoided no matter the level of provocation and while it is important to be aware Police Scotland, the SFA and SPFL can take action, remember also that this Club enforces its own code of conduct.Fans who behave in an inappropriate manner and who bring the Club into disrepute will face punishment. They might be given lifetime or limited bans so please, let us all support Rangers in the correct way.”
Surely this is a good point to make? If there were offensive songs sung these pages would be awash with condemnation. Rightly so. So is it not worth pointing out that steps are being taken to try to prevent this?
_________________________________________
Ryan,
Like you, I initially felt there was some merit in the statement over it’s condemnation of sectarian singing, but then I noticed – there was absolutely no condemnation of the sectarianism the new club has inherited. No condemnation, just a plea not to harm the club by singing ‘inappropriate’ songs or ‘offensive’ chants and gestures. The club still doesn’t acknowledge the on-going attraction of Ibrox to those of a sectarian and bigoted nature, the statement is actually more critical of the club’s ‘detractors’ than it is of the bigots attached to it. At absolutely no point in that statement is there anything that says, or even hints at, singing sectarian, or as it calls them, ‘inappropriate’, songs is wrong. In fact, it doesn’t even refer to the real problem with the songs, their true nature!
Seeing it’s Scottish Cup weekend, have the SFA announced the venues for the semi finals yet or are they waiting for Rangers to progress before they declare both semis are to be played at Ibrox?
Anyone who doubts how contemptible and corrupt the SFA are prepared to be in favour of their pet club just has to think back to the home draw they gave them in 2014 at the semi final stage.
Such decisions will never be forgotten in my world!
BP, if the Perth gig doesn’t come off, use my ticket money as a donation as I haven’t been subscribing for a couple of months now, hopefully I can start again soon.
@TheEveningTimes @NeilCameron5 @RangersFC The TRFC doth protest too much methinks. Legally they are what they are, not what they are not.
If the author of the latest statement about behaviour thinks there is legal backing for them being the same club I’m sure we would all like to see it. If it exists, as BP has commented, sue the SPFL for misadministration that saw them applying as a new club to enter the SPL Premiership.
Sometimes you have to wonder at the mindset that attacks other mindsets for straight thinking.
RyanGosling 4th March 2016 at 11:12 pm
Tried to respond last night but mobile device was not playing ball.
I agree it may be worth a go with what you see as the old ‘double bluff’ approach.
However for a club with history and tradition on its side we know what happens to many of the fans when either failure or victory is at hand.
After admin it was all defiant, chest puffed out stuff trying to get diddy clubs’ tannoy announcers and programme editors the sack. Folks of wee towns like Berwick were allowed to hear the songbook
Once folk got settled into the journey then things quietened down a bit and of course the problems in the boardroom and on the park due to a lack of competence from the Gardener were all self inflicted so who was their to rant against.
However as we have seen this season a steady place at the top and beating nearest rivals in December got folks back into the old habits as glorious victory looks close at hand.
Like kids on a long journey, beating Hibs was the last motorway stop, and some began to ask ‘Are we there yet?’ and low and behold the naughty step beckons once again.
It has nowt to do with Harkins and the oldco/newco issue, the problem is much much deeper than that.
As I say, willing to give anything a go and hopefully can be proved wrong but guess I will be posting about points deductions being the only way forward in the not so distance future.
Auldheid,
In fairness to JJ (where I know you occasionally frequent) he is currently majoring on the fact that TFRC appear to record (y’know, all official n’that) however many titles it is against them and often question where and when the decision was made to make this official transfer, and who sanctioned it.
Celebrate the Club, its unbroken timeline LOL
, honours (sevco have no honour) and achievements (2 titles be proud) but do not sing any inappropriate songs.This would at least sound better if they said do not sing any songs that we deem inappropriate.
Gestures and chants which are deemed offensive should also be avoided no matter the level of provocation and while it is important to be aware Police Scotland, the SFA and SPFL can take action aye right when have they ever taken action against sevco or their previous incarnation, remember also that this Club enforces its own code of conduct translation well done boys come drink from the luvin cup.
I see a couple of references, but no link, to this:
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/03/04/the-directors-box/
Apologies if already posted!
Big Pink 5th March 2016 at 1:35 am #
===========================
I’m no I.T wizard but I guess a DOS attack on a website takes a bit of effort. Perhaps you can advise.
I suspect the reason the site is attacked is an attempt to suppress an awkward truth.
Auldheid 5th March 2016 at 9:31 am
‘…If the author of the latest statement about behaviour thinks there is legal backing for them being the same club I’m sure we would all like to see it….
________
The best that a usually very able QC could come up with recently was like the breathlessly excited utterances of a medium at a séance :’ manifestations’ ‘incarnations’ ‘the passion’ ‘the meaning’ ‘all that it means………’.
(I kind of half-expected the ghost of an RFC(IL)-shirted Banquo ,anachronistically wearing a particular type of footwear, to emanate from between the floorboards of ye olde Parliament House and shake Counsel’s hand)
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones
substitute Rangers for Caesar and there we have a summary of Sevconian necrophilia – old Wullie Shakespeare got it right again
An interesting spot by JohnJames in the photo featured in Phil’s Bella Caledonia article about Glasgow councillors in the Ibrox directors’ box at the Hibs game on December 28th. It would appear that Neil Doncaster was also there to hear the jolly ditties being sung (far right of the photo near the top).
Yes, that is a picture and a half. The guy behind Walter looks familiar too.
upthehoops 5th March 2016 at 11:24 am
=============================
DOS attacks aren’t difficult per se. So long as you have the resources in place to do it. If you either have access to a load of PCs (which the owners don’t know you have access to) or you have access to someone who has such a resource. It is merely a matter of picking the site you want to attack and telling the PCs to do it.
DDOS is probably a more accurate description in such circumstances. Distributed Denial Of Service.
The trick is getting your hands on the “zombie” (yes really) PCs in the first place.
Good Evening.
If I may… a wee plug for my latest blog (you know where to find it), which may be of interest to SFM members. It’s a reflection on the hypocrisy of Messers Regan and Doncaster.
Keep up the good work.
TC
Hiya Clumpy, I wish you would allow comments so as you know how much a lot people think of your site.
Brilliant.
But then again maybe not. Poor Ralph gets a lot of stick.
It wasn’t this quiet in here after Rangers lost to St Johnstone.
Ryan, You dirty rascal. After months of being posted missing, on you come to rub salt in the wound!
. It wont be that when we beat Morton 1-0 tomorrow with a penalty! 
(Who is the ‘ Celtic minded’ Ref. tomorrow BTW?)
Anyone else wondering exactly what Graham Spiers means by this tweet?
————————————-
Graham Spiers @GrahamSpiers 2h2 hours ago@AyeReadyPod Not sure if ‘scandalous’ is the word, but point taken…I think the Beeb and RFC can benefit from each other, in truth.
————————————
ryan gosling, just to clarify, it were TRFC/SEVCO SCOTLAND that lost to st johnstone.hope you enjoyed the new clubs victory over dundee but will the new entity see out the season?
The lack of posts is likely a result of many contributors being reluctant to risk contempt of court with regards to the current cases against Green, Whyte & Co. Many of the issues discussed on SFM in recent times are covered by the charges. There is a lot I could post about with regard to these charges and the impact on RIFC the SFA & SPFL, however not only is it in breach of Judicial instruction, it isn’t fair on those charged and some who haven’t been charged but should be.
Once the cases are tried, then I have no doubt many will have a lot to say
upthehoops 5th March 2016 at 11:24 am #
………………………………………….
The attack may not necessarily have been an attack on the SFM….but an attack on a server used by more than one client…
I don’t contribute as much now…mainly due to work commitments etc…however at a recent business meeting, I was astounded by the opinion of a colleague who I don’t get to meet with that often…due to each of us working at opposite ends of the country..
Not only is he a colleague but a friend of many years and his views and opinions in light of the last 4 years, highlighted and defined why the whole saga will continue to fester in the way it has.
He was always an enthusiastic rangers fan of the moderate persuasion from when I knew him in the 80’s…and when we met recently we spoke for the first time about the situation in Scottish football…
He indirectly acknowledged the new club/same club possibility in a light hearted way, but clearly did not wish to discuss it in any meaningful way beyond this…and I would say he is a man of high intelligence…but to discuss it beyond this would have required a degree of honestly I don’t believe he could face or accept this…
Once we had accepted he would not enter any real discussion on the matter he went on to impart his opinion of Warbs in his usual enthusiastic way…and he genuinely believed this…that Warbs was a tactical genius…that one day he will become the England Manager and one day he will win the world cup with England if they appoint him??
After laughing heartily for a good 2 minutes I suddenly realised he was serious….it become blindingly obvious that this saga will never become accepted…his enthusiasm for the club he has always supported…a club that has been part of his life for over 50 years…must always exist in his eyes…and as an intelligent man…and a man I have known for over 30 years…he struggles with the whole concept of them no longer existing and reforming as a new club…some how it is seen as giving in…being defeated…and he would rather believe they carry on as before.
Unless there is publicly stated confirmation from a recognised body…whether it is a court or footballing body then this will continue to run…with the SFA and the Scottish media doing everything in their power to ensure the subject is supressed…ignored or dismissed…will prevent this changing any time soon.
RyanGosling 5th March 2016 at 10:54 pm #It wasn’t this quiet in here after Rangers lost to St Johnstone.
We’re all getting a bit fed up with being lectured. Was Warburton a schoolteacher at some point?
================
Fair comment, Ryan.
Warburton has certainly shown that he can build a side playing attractive football from the ruins of McCoist’s disastrous regime, plus some very astute signings on a shoestring budget. He deserves a lot of credit for that.
Now if he would only ditch the words respect, respectful, and respectfully from his vocabulary
Interesting times we’re living through at present. I was out last night, meeting many old friends and there is no doubt that the light blue touch paper has been ignited among the TRFC fans. Promotion in the bag, semi final place in the Scottish Cup, a young, vibrant side playing good football and the promised land is within their grasp. Added to this, is a delicious sense of schadenfreude (or is it supremacy) of seeing their bitter East End rivals, in a spot of bother at present……..so among my collective of Ibrox supporting friends, they haven’t been this upbeat, since the heady days of the bank of Murray, when they were laying siege to Scottish Football?
And being my oldest friends, I can’t help, but be amused and slightly happy for them & find it difficult to be too curmudgeonry.
BUT, and it’s a big but, as I explained last night, there is the upcoming court cases, which could throw a spanner in the wheels of this great revival. Ha, typical Tim, they cried, why you’re just scared that we’ll beat you in the Scottish Cup??
Am I…hmmm, let me think about that. And the truth is, I ain’t….not in the slightest. Because over 40 years of supporting my club, I’ve had defeat lots of times, that’s part of the game, that’s sport. Getting beaten by a superior team on the day, fair & square, is a part of the sporting environment, that we all love so much.
And therein lies my difficulty, and I suspect the difficulty that EVERY other Scottish football fan will face, when their team comes up against TRFC.
We were beaten by them many times in the past, when the competition wasn’t fair & square, in fact, we were playing against a crooked deck and the new team(in my eyes) is never and will never, be the same one, that John Greig played for, and I somehow have to deal with this, without losing many of my oldest friends, who believe it is.
And until this anomaly is corrected by the relevant sporting authorities and/or courts, I will never accept that the Rangers playing under Mark Warburton, is the same one, that won all those league titles. And of course, in those heated moments, I will be reminding my oldest friends of this, and frankly, they will have to suck it up….
So battlelines have been drawn. There is no escape from this inevitable conclusion, since the day, the footballing authorities, decided to anoint the new Rangers, as being the same, as the old one.
Is that me being a curmudgeon Ryan, no it’s just how it feels and seems from my perspective, of being a supporter of a football club, which was cheated against for years. A supporter, who paid his money(lots of) into the game, believing that it was fair & square.
Cygnus it wouldn’t make you a curmudgeon to your mates, no. I think in that situation the rule would be that if they keep talking about being the same club, you keep saying they’re not to your heart’s content. But if they don’t mention it and you do more than once, then it’s not so friendly in my view.
P.s. You sound a bit scared that we’ll beat you in the Scottish Cup
Nice come back Ryan, but no, I’m scared of many things, but getting beaten EVER in a football game, isn’t one of them thank you-:)
I posted my comment, because it is a scenario, that will be played out in company, in pubs, and clubs, the length & breadth of the country and it stems from the boil not being lanced, to use an expression
Until, all the trophies, cups & medals won under the DOS/EBT/Side letter years are stripped from RFC(IL), then I’m afraid an enormous debt is owed to teams like mine and others, indeed to the whole game at large.
My friends will always be my friends and fortunately in my life, a football team(no matter how important) has never put food on my table, nor money in my pocket. It is a game, no more than that.But it is game that exists only as a sporting competition, where the rules are the same for every club, and are administered fairly & squarely, by the relevant authorities.
Cygnus X-1 6th March 2016 at 10:11 am
‘…….. it stems from the boil not being lanced, to use an expressionUntil, all the trophies, cups & medals won under the DOS/EBT/Side letter years are stripped from RFC(IL), then I’m afraid an enormous debt is owed to teams like mine and others, indeed to the whole game at large…’
___________
I think it is useful to observe that, from my perspective at least, it is necessary to say ( speaking broadly and in the abstract) that the fact that it was RFC(IL) that committed the offences is neither here nor there.
If any club, under any regime, had so perverted the idea of sport and sporting achievement, the general run of football supporters would have reacted in exactly the same way: nail the cheats, strip them of anything ‘achieved’ by their cheating, and horsewhip the ‘Sporting Authorities’ who assisted in and by their words and actions, condoned the cheating.
(Of course,whether the authorities, or any other club, would ever have so corrupted themselves is, perhaps, a moot point, although the historical evidence suggests that no other club has quite the emotional hold on our various ‘establishments’, whether sporting, legal,governmental, or media, or been owned by an out-and-out cheating knight of the realm.)
I say this because we know that the dearest wish of the liars in our game is that they will be able to bury their lies as being merely a construct of rival fans who ‘hate’ ‘Rangers’. No doubt there are such.
But this blog simply asserts the truth: the new club is NOT entitled under any head whatsoever to the titles and honours earned (mostly legitimately) by RFC(IL). And the SFA was not entitled to strike the 5-Way agreement which spawned and fostered the idea that there was any kind of legal, commercial, or sporting continuity between Sevco or SevcoScotland ( whichever wins the lawsuit)/Rangers 2012/TRFC. And, of course, the SMSM are not entitled to lie.
The fact that the new club’s directors seem hell-bent (if not hell-bound!) on brazenly and bullyingly screaming hysterically, almost manically, that they are the same debt-laden club ( debts which they have no intention of paying, of course) removes any residual sympathy that might otherwise exist.
But, of course, all the sympathy in the world cannot change the basic truths. They preside over a new club, and Scottish Football is governed by men who know they speak untruth and run a rigged sport.
The fact that Rangers were offered a deal (by the football authorities) of 15 titles being stripped, if they were shoehorned into the SPL or second tier, tells you everything. Thanks to fan pressure that never happened – the shoehorning bit.
What happened to the title stripping bit? If it was correct, it was correct.
Regan & Doncaster knew, and still know, that the punishment should fit the crime.
How they can sleep at night after gifting ‘The History’ to the new club is astonishing.
5 stars on my shirt? What a joke.
And there’s that bloody wee Chick, asking Deila about the possibility of meeting TRFC.
What a scunnersome wee nyaff that wee misrepresenter of King’s criminality (on live radio) can be.
jimbo 6th March 2016 at 11:38 am
========================
I’m sorry but I don’t understand that.
Why would “stripping titles” from a club which is in liquidation allow a new club a place in the SPL (as was) or top division in the SFL (as was).
I can understand peoples wish to have results reversed in instances when ta club played player’s who did not have their full contractual obligation notified to the football authorities. That would only be right.
However that would have nothing to do with a different club starting anywhere other than at the bottom of football in Scotland, and that was not in the SFL, at any level. Unless of course no-one else wanted the place freed up in senior football when Rangers ceased to exist.
I see that the ‘Scotsman’ is shedding yet another columnist, this time Andrew J Wilson.
This Wilson seems to have been the source drawn upon by the QC with ‘medium’ talents, for here is what Wilson wrote:
“..One canard that needs put to rest though is the silly obsession of some of insisting that Rangers isn’t Rangers because the legal entity changed. For me this is not an adult response or position. It is a laugh of course to wind our Rangers pals up – “who is Rangers all time top goalscorer – Lee McCulloch” ho ho etc. But in reality this is not on.
A club is not its Board or its legal registration. A club is the combination of the passions and hopes of all of the kids and their grampas who care about it. The club is the story, the badge, the way of life. So any suggestion that Rangers is not Rangers but is SEVCO is worthy of a gag but not serious…”
May I hope that this ‘journalist’ does not find another ‘journalistic’ berth in this or any other country? Such a perversion of the truth quite simply epitomises all that has been deficient in the SMSM’s reporting of a seismic act of Sporting cheating and an even more significant act of duplicity and deceit by the Football authorities.
You will find his pernicious nonsense at http://andrewjwilson.co.uk/sevco-v-rangers-time-move/#.VtwyAtDM2uA
John Clark 6th March 2016 at 1:46 pm #I see that the ‘Scotsman’ is shedding yet another columnist, this time Andrew J Wilson. This Wilson seems to have been the source drawn upon by the QC with ‘medium’ talents, for here is what Wilson wrote: “..One canard that needs put to rest though is the silly obsession of some of insisting that Rangers isn’t Rangers because the legal entity changed. For me this is not an adult response or position. It is a laugh of course to wind our Rangers pals up – “who is Rangers all time top goalscorer – Lee McCulloch” ho ho etc. But in reality this is not on. A club is not its Board or its legal registration. A club is the combination of the passions and hopes of all of the kids and their grampas who care about it. The club is the story, the badge, the way of life. So any suggestion that Rangers is not Rangers but is SEVCO is worthy of a gag but not serious…” May I hope that this ‘journalist’ does not find another ‘journalistic’ berth in this or any other country? Such a perversion of the truth quite simply epitomises all that has been deficient in the SMSM’s reporting of a seismic act of Sporting cheating and an even more significant act of duplicity and deceit by the Football authorities.
You will find his pernicious nonsense at http://andrewjwilson.co.uk/sevco-v-rangers-time-move/#.VtwyAtDM2uA
================
If I write that the earth is flat and those that disagree are wrong, does that mean that everyone else has to then agree that the earth is flat?
That seems to be the tenet of Mr Wilson’s wee screed.
The Cat NR1 6th March 2016 at 5:08 pm
===========================
Just remember to use phrases like “silly obsession” when describing the opinion of those who disagree with you.
Never get involved a proper debate about the subject, it’s so much easier to insult others than to actually provide some sort of evidence that your position is correct and theirs is wrong.
A correction to my post of 1.46 pm: it is the ‘Scotland on Sunday’ who are getting shot of Andrew Wilson, not the ‘Scotsman’.
Homunculus 6th March 2016 at 5:15 pm #The Cat NR1 6th March 2016 at 5:08 pm ===========================
Just remember to use phrases like “silly obsession” when describing the opinion of those who disagree with you.
Never get involved a proper debate about the subject, it’s so much easier to insult others than to actually provide some sort of evidence that your position is correct and theirs is wrong.
=====================
It’s time we all moved on.
Not that the question is now likely to arise (Celtic’s 10 man battle at Hampden in forthcoming Semi Final notwithstanding) here are the UEFA rules for a club not in the top tier gaining a special licence to play in Europe.
Article 15 – Special permission
1 If a club qualifies for a UEFA club competition on sporting merit but has not
undergone any licensing process at all or has undergone a licensing process
which is lesser/not equivalent to the one applicable for top division clubs,
because it belongs to a division other than the top division, the UEFA member
association of the club concerned may – on behalf of such a club – request an
extraordinary application of the club licensing system in accordance with
Annex IV.
2 Based on such an extraordinary application, UEFA may grant special permission
to the club to enter the corresponding UEFA club competition subject to the
relevant UEFA club competition regulations. Such an extraordinary application
applies only to the specific club and for the season in question.
ANNEX IV: Extraordinary application of the club licensing system
1. The UEFA administration defines the necessary deadlines and the minimum
criteria for the extraordinary application of the club licensing system as specified
in Article 15(1) and communicates them to the UEFA member associations at
the latest by 31 August of the year preceding the licence season.
2. UEFA member associations must notify the UEFA administration of such
extraordinary application requests in writing and stating the name of the club
concerned by the deadline communicated by the UEFA administration.
3. The UEFA member associations are responsible for submitting the criteria to the
club concerned for the assessment for the extraordinary procedure at national
level. They must also take immediate action with the club concerned to prepare
for the extraordinary procedure.
4. The club concerned must provide the necessary documentary proof to the
licensor that will assess the club against the fixed minimum standards and
forward the following documentation in one of the UEFA official languages to the
UEFA administration by the deadline communicated by the latter:
a) a written request to apply for special permission to enter the corresponding
UEFA club competition;
b) a recommendation by the licensor based on its assessment (including the
dates and names of the persons having assessed the club);
c) all documentary evidence provided by the club and the licensor as requested
by the UEFA administration;
d) any other documents requested by the UEFA administration during the
extraordinary procedure.
5. The UEFA administration bases its decision on the documentation received and
grants special permission to enter the UEFA club competitions if all the set
criteria are fulfilled and if the club ultimately qualifies on sporting merit. The
decision will be communicated to the UEFA member association, which has to
forward it to the club concerned.
6. If such a club is eliminated on sporting merit during this extraordinary procedure,
the UEFA member association concerned has to notify the UEFA administration
immediately, and this procedure is immediately terminated, without further
decision. Such a terminated procedure cannot be restarted at a later stage.
7. Appeals can be lodged against decisions made by the UEFA administration in
writing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in accordance with the
relevant provisions laid down in the UEFA Statutes.
There are two distinct themes being churned out by the propaganda machine just now – one that John Clark referred to above whereby an alleged journalist promotes the notion that because fans of the current club playing out of Ibrox in blue are the same as those who followed the previous club playing out of Ibrox in blue, they must be the self-same club. Except that nobody gave any credence to this argument when it only involved ‘diddy teams’ such as Gretna FC, who existed between 1946 and their demise in 2008. Gretna 2008 play in the same colours as their deceased predecessors, in front of the same fans, at the same stadium, Raydale Park. They do not claim the titles and trophies of the club that died in 2008, nor do they claim to be them, and rightly so. Rangers Football club died in 2012 and a number of its titles and trophies deserve to be voided, the only question being, how many? Charles Green’s new club took its first breath in 2012 and that must inexorably have involved inhaling the stench of death of its predecessor.
Secondly, in the recent official statement issued in response to Gary Harkins ‘new club’ jibe, TRFC/RIFC said
Now I’m no legal beagle but I can tell you with a degree of certainty that nobody has ever provided evidence of a legal judgement that proved unequivocally that the new club is the same club as the old club. Any such ‘judgement’ was distinctly non-legal and was the nefarious result of an agreement between five parties that I can’t even describe adequately here because most of them are due in court shortly on a variety of charges! Football inquiries and commissions such as LNS do not produce legal judgements, regardless of the fact that their members may comprise of the judiciary, and regardless of whether they were seriously flawed by the restricted parameters and predetermined outcome imposed on them by the very parcel of rogues who commissioned them!
Jim Traynor did a massive u-turn after declaring that “Rangers were dead no matter how you dress it up”, because, he later assured us, he’d “seen the legal proof.”
So just where is this legal proof that could put the entire matter to bed? No more speculation by supporters of the other 41 ‘hater clubs’, no more guilt trips or other doubts in the minds of the 90% intelligent, reasonable TRFC fans. Isn’t it funny that nobody else has seen this mythical proof? Not a single person has seen the legal judgement referred to in TRFC/RIFC’s official website. I for one do not believe for a second that the football authorities and TRFC would not provide unambiguous proof of the same club argument if they had such legally watertight proof available, regardless of piffling concerns about maintaining corporate confidentiality at the same time, which is just a feeble excuse.
Meanwhile, nobody who has had the gall to question the veracity of TRFC/RIFC’s phantasy judgement has ever been charged, either by the football authorities or the club itself, or the police/judiciary for calling the current entity a new club. For a club renowned for taking legal action on relatively minor matters such as a signing embargo, they’re very passive on this one, not to mention the lack of legal action when they were unjustifiably relegated to the fourth tier! Aye, right! You really couldn’t make it up! But you could easily be forgiven for thinking the Big Lie was being perpetuated by someone partial to making things up, glibly and shamelessly.
Homonculus,
The dirty deeds:
”
The bluff prevailed. To offset an expected backlash, the results of this game were not released to the media. Neil Doncaster acquired David Longmuir’s 27 league cup titles when he created the SPFL. After the LNS whitewash he settled his bets with 54 league titles and 27 league cups. Stewart Regan who appointed himself as Chair of the commission’s three man supervisory panel, transferred his 33 historical titles to the phoenix operation at the precise time when Neil Doncaster had gone out of his way to brief the press that Rangers were the same club with an unbroken history. Suddenly the phoenix operation that had only held a licence to play Scottish Professional football since 1st August 2012 had 114 titles bestowed by its benefactors at the SPFL and SFA.
To add insult to injury, we are made aware that Neil Doncaster, Stewart Regan and David Longmuir considered that fifteen of these titles should have been withdrawn due to systemic tax evasion and illegal registrations. We are then fed Sandy Bryson’s metaphysical response that the players were imperfectly registered but eligible.
So to summarise, Rangers crashed with £168.6m of debts; ran two illegal tax avoidance schemes that crossed the line into tax evasion when they denied the existence of side letters; reformed, shed the debt, and were awarded 114 titles by way of compensation for the inconvenience of playing in SFL 2. They were also allowed to play in Europe with £4.2m of social taxes (£2.8m plus a 50% penalty).”
I don’t make these things up for effect!
If they thought fifteen titles should have been withdrawn, then regardless of them being shoehorned into the SPL, they should have been withdrawn. Not as a bargaining tool.
Highlander 6th March 2016 at 5:44 pm #
==========================
Show us ra proof, as Bomber Brown would say.
We demand to know the names of the people who have this proof, as someone I can’t remember would have said.
It was remiss of me to mention that my quote was from the excellent Johnjames site.
jimbo 6th March 2016 at 7:17 pm
=======================
That’s exactly the point. If the results should have been changed and if appropriate the titles removed from the club now being liquidated then that is exactly what should have happened.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the new club and as you say should not have been a discussion point with regards where that new club started in Scottish football.
The two things are and always have been totally separate issues.
They are men who would do deals with integrity and honesty and use them as bargaining chips.
Spot the difference in how the Celtic and Rangers websites are reporting the Scottish Cup draw. The Rangers one is trying awfully hard to make a particular statement.
==============================
CELTIC DISCOVER CUP SEMI-FINAL OPPONENTS
CELTIC have drawn Rangers in the semi final of the Scottish Cup after beating Morton 3-0 earlier today.The Glasgow club beat Dundee 4-0 in their quarter-final tie and the semi finals are scheduled to be played at Hampden Park on the weekend of April 16/17.Full ticket details will be published as soon as possible after the date and kick-off time have been confirmed.
==================================================
GERS TO FACE CELTIC IN CUP
RANGERS have been drawn against Celtic in the semi-final of the William Hill Scottish Cup.
Following ‘Gers outstanding 4-0 win over Dundee yesterday afternoon, Celtic defeated Morton 3-0 today to set-up the derby clash, with the tie to be played at Hampden Park on the weekend of April 16/17.
Rangers have played Celtic 48 times in the Scottish Cup, winning 16 times, drawing nine times and losing 23. In the 23 of those games played at a neutral venue, Rangers have won 10, drawn five and lost eight.
In total, the Gers have won 226 times from 543 games against Celtic, drawing 126 and losing 191. Rangers have also scored a total of 827 goals and conceded 761 times.
Revenge may be on the minds of some of the current squad of players at Ibrox given the manner of last season’s 2-0 League Cup semi-final defeat to the Parkhead club. Four Gers who played in that match are still at the club, those being Lee Wallace, Kenny Miller, Nicky Law and Nicky Clark.
Ticket information for this massive match will be communicated in due course.
upthehoops 6th March 2016 at 7:50 pm
===========================
That is one heck of a lot of meaningless, irrelevant statistics to try to make people believe a lie.
It’ll be interesting to see how Regan and Co spin things when Sevco eventually qualify for European competition.
By actually playing in it then as far as I’m aware it would prove that the continuity myth would be just that, what with UEFA only allowing non-ethereal clubs into it’s competitions and the old entity owing millions to the taxman.
How do they keep the charade going when faced with this conundrum?
Hope nobody notices?
Homonculus,
We are broadly in agreement. The thing I don’t get is why was it made so messy? When Rangers went into liquidation in 2012 everyone agreed – even Traynor – that the old club had died. It was a fact of life.
Being honest, from a fans point of view there was little shame in that. It wasn’t there fault. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes? Rangers fans knew it and could have moved on. As long as they played from Ibrox and wore the shirts things could have settled down to some degree.
No, what sickens me is the approach of the SFA & SPL to arrange a continuity mirage even after their doubts as I mentioned in my post above. And then some.
If Rangers were allowed to start back with a clean sheet I wouldn’t be on here just now. They would mean no more to me than Morton nor Dundee.
But the backhanded collusion of everyone in control makes me sick. And the reporting of. Don’t even get me started on the tacit approval by Celtic.
This whole issue is down to a few men. Regan & Doncaster, Peter Lawell and the press. There are other sinners but these are the people who could have sorted it out.
I apologise in advance to any members of the new club that plays at Ibrox as a football supporter. I will not be attending the semi final clash against Celtic (I attend all matches involving my team domestically) and the reason is due to sporting integrity as I hold it dearly. If it was accepted by the Ibrox club, their fans, the SFA the smsm that this was a new club I would attend. This at the moment is denied by all and makes a mockery of our game (and treats all creditors with sheer contempt) and that is unacceptable. The term old firm was one I dested when the old club existed, now it is just a tool the smsm use to help keep the lie alive. Old Firm died when Rangers FC went into liquidation and I am one that was grateful for that.
Scotland does not need a strong lie.