[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]
smallchange 27th February 2016 at 4:14 pm # Homunculus 27th February 2016 at 12:05 pm # JJ may well have attributed that to allyj however, was it not in fact posted by ‘easyjambo’?
____________________
Well it wisnae meee
causaludendi
27th February 2016 at 2:59 pm # The new johnjames post seems to me to be sailing close to the winds of contempt!
———————————–
I Don’t think so its merely a condensation of stuff that’s been on here for years. I Just read it.
goosygoosy 27th February 2016 at 1:05 pm
When a referee blows their whistle whilst the ball is in play it signals them stopping play.
As play has been stopped a goal cannot be scored, missed.
If the referee had taken a few seconds to decide if the attacking team had been disadvantaged by the earlier infringement before stopping play a goal could and should have been awarded.
A referee can caution or dismiss a player(s) [showing them a yellow or red card to communicate their decision to other players, coaches et., officials and spectators] for any infringement(s) occurring when the ball was in play and for dissent etc. after play had stopped.
These are reasons why it is difficult for referees to make split second decisions.
ianagain 27th February 2016 at 5:19 pm #causaludendi27th February 2016 at 2:59 pm # The new johnjames post seems to me to be sailing close to the winds of contempt! ———————————–I Don’t think so its merely a condensation of stuff that’s been on here for years. I Just read it.
————————————————
JJ claims that there was an outflow of players as “a direct result of a clause that they had inserted in their contracts in the administration process”.
Whilst there may well have been such clauses inserted – did the players not take wage cuts/deferrals and probably secured some quid pro quo? – I had thought that the key factor in players leaving was their ability to so do under TUPE regulations.
I like reading JJ’s posts but am always unsure what can be substantiated and what is speculation. Others too have pointed out the odd basic error that undermines confidence in the rest of the content.
I’d hate for him to be silenced and worry at times about how far he goes with both his rhetoric and apparent revelations.
Scottish Football needs more investigative and informative blogs.
Easy Jambo
Well wherever LNS lived he failed to respond to an e mail from TSFM sent around the time we told Harper MacLeod about the illegal nature of the DOS bets ?.
If anyone thinks I think LNS was duped or for that matter so were Harper MacLeod will also think my head buttons up the back.
Maybe I am more forgiving than others of the odd slip by johnjames, but anyone who posts about twice a day from all sorts of angles on what we mostly all agree with, and brings some new stuff to the table, gets my vote. My biggest worry if being honest, is he is taking a lot of audience from here. Not intentional, but it is more narrow focussed than SFM and appeals to a lot of supporters. He is quite tolerant but everything basically turns around Rangers. Which is his prerogative, it’s his blog.
We are supposed to be the ‘Scottish Football Monitor’. A bit wider than one or two clubs. Although it is difficult with the SMSM setting the agenda for us. Which unfortunately they still do. They give us a starting point.
I think it is about time that the SFM started a Saturday Evening newspaper like in the old days of the ‘Green’ Citizen and the ‘Pink’ Times.
Big Pink will be the editor of this neutral paper. EJ & JC court reporters, Stevie our foreign correspondent, Allyjambo talking about the Scottish Parliament, and me on all things Music, Opera, Drama and such like (cause Big Pink knows nothing about music
, only kidding).
Danish Pastry and Red Lichtie will cover the cookery column and Auldheid will report on Scottish, Euefa, Fifa football governance.
Smugas will provide the page 3 models.
It would be a lot better than the current crop!
27th February 2016 at 5:55 pm # ianagain 27th February 2016 at 5:19 pm #causaludendi27th February 2016 at 2:59 pm # The new johnjames post seems to me to be sailing close to the winds of contempt! ———————————–I Don’t think so its merely a condensation of stuff that’s been on here for years. I Just read it.————————————————
JJ claims that there was an outflow of players as “a direct result of a clause that they had inserted in their contracts in the administration process”.
Whilst there may well have been such clauses inserted – did the players not take wage cuts/deferrals and probably secured some quid pro quo? – I had thought that the key factor in players leaving was their ability to so do under TUPE regulations.
I like reading JJ’s posts but am always unsure what can be substantiated and what is speculation. Others too have pointed out the odd basic error that undermines confidence in the rest of the content.
I’d hate for him to be silenced and worry at times about how far he goes with both his rhetoric and apparent revelations.
Scottish Football needs more investigative and informative blogs.
——————————————————-
I know of no such clause and why would it be needed?
I ,and indeed know doubt, many of the folks on here have been TUPED. Me personally 3 times.
You change companies, the new guys takeover you get a new badge.
You don’t want to stay, fine you go do your own thing.
27th February 2016 at 7:28 pm # Maybe I am more forgiving than others of the odd slip by johnjames, but anyone who posts about twice a day from all sorts of angles on what we mostly all agree with, and brings some new stuff to the table, gets my vote. My biggest worry if being honest, is he is taking a lot of audience from here. Not intentional, but it is more narrow focussed than SFM and appeals to a lot of supporters. He is quite tolerant but everything basically turns around Rangers. Which is his prerogative, it’s his blog.
We are supposed to be the ‘Scottish Football Monitor’. A bit wider than one or two clubs. Although it is difficult with the SMSM setting the agenda for us. Which unfortunately they still do. They give us a starting point.
I think it is about time that the SFM started a Saturday Evening newspaper like in the old days of the ‘Green’ Citizen and the ‘Pink’ Times.
Big Pink will be the editor of this neutral paper. EJ & JC court reporters, Stevie our foreign correspondent, Allyjambo talking about the Scottish Parliament, and me on all things Music, Opera, Drama and such like (cause Big Pink knows nothing about music , only kidding).
Danish Pastry and Red Lichtie will cover the cookery column and Auldheid will report on Scottish, Euefa, Fifa football governance.
Smugas will provide the page 3 models.
It would be a lot better than the current crop!
__________________________________________
Jimbo Genius
Sorry
My brains going.
I wrote know doubt I meant to say No doubt.
Anyone finding this harder or do I just need a holiday ?
sannoffymesssoitizz 27th February 2016 at 5:43 pm
These are reasons why it is difficult for referees to make split second decisions
……………..and yet, almost without exception, they invariably blow first and think later.
I cannot think of a single referee who appears to have the slightest grasp of how to apply the concept of advantage and I’m sure we can all cite endless examples of the premature whistle actually penalising the team which suffered the infringement.
For reasons of house rules I won’t reveal any of my “favourites”
It was indeed me who posted the comment re the residences of a knight of the realm and one of our Lordships.
I have no issue if SDM stayed in Clarendon Crescent at some point. It was still two streets away from LNS and doesn’t make them neighbours, even if they both had access to private gardens (along with more than 100 homes). JJ’s metaphysical frisbee thrower would also have to be accurate over the length of a football pitch.
He might as well make the same argument about collusion within the Judiciary, where five lords lived in the same vicinity (at least they all did 7/8 years ago).
JJ’s latest blog, apart from possibly crossing the contempt line, is incorrect in his assertion as to the three who remain on the interdict. I’d give him marks of 2 out of 3 for effort, but I don’t have an issue with naming the third man as David Grier. Indictments are public documents. Charges against Whitehouse, Clark and Green were dropped earlier in the proceedings.
It even made the Daily Record earlier this week.
Note that the Crown Office issued an amended statement the following day saying that new charges were “being considered” rather than “will be brought”
Ian, I swear to God I was trying to include you in my earlier post. But I have 3 Motherwell mates ( pub mates) who would give me a doing for what I was going to say. Lets just leave it at I had a round of golf with Ian? Goldethorpe in the 70s.
jimbo 27th February 2016 at 8:00 pm # Ian, I swear to God I was trying to include you in my earlier post. But I have 3 Motherwell mates ( pub mates) who would give me a doing for what I was going to say. Lets just leave it at I had a round of golf with Ian? Goldethorpe in the 70s.
————————————————-
No worries jimbo and Ian yes John was part of a great squad: There are 3 CAPPED players in that squad including a Scotland captain . see if you can get them.
Motherwell FC football team squad in his eraBobby McGuiness
John Mills
John French
Keith McRae
Willie Pettigrew
Tommy Burns
Davie Main
Alastair Ross
John GrayBobby Watson
Davie Whiteford
John Goldthorpe
Jim Muir
Sam Goodwin
Willie McCallum
Kirkie Lawson
John MuirWillie leishman
Billy Campbell
Alex Martin
Peter Millar
Joe Wark
Willie McClymont
Jim McCabe
Ian Kennedy
jimbo 27th February 2016 at 7:28 pm #
==============
Jimbo you’re showing your age if you remember the green citizen lol.
I sold them as a lad they went like hotcakes on a Saturday night was a sad day when they stopped the pink times never sold as well.
Great fight ,both sides put differences aside,lesson for all to be learned,if only the rest of sport can box intelligently ,well maybe not in Scotland ,not with what we have now,sad.
An enjoyable but touching the cloth type game at Tynie today. Thanks to both teams.
Disappointed to see reports of Josh Magennis allegedly getting some racist abuse.
If confirmed, Ms Budge has my full support for getting these sad fi_icks identified and booted down the road and as far away from my club as possible.
No messing about please Ann, get it sorted ASAP .
wottpi 28th February 2016 at 1:06 am #
—————————————
It will be interesting to see how this story pans out.
Hearts issued a statement that some will see as being responsive while others will see it a condoning casual racism.
It would appear that the club will already have a good idea of the identity the miscreant, (Section E, Row 2), and will no doubt take action against him.
I understand that Magennis reacted to the comment and shouted back to the fan that he was “Northern Irish”.
I am reminded of a previous instance at Celtic Park in 2005 when a Hearts fan, Kevin Bonar, was fined £250 for calling Craig Bellamy a “wee Welsh b******”. The problem wasn’t calling Bellamy a b******, it was calling him Welsh. The consequence of the fine was that Hearts banned him for life from Tynecastle as the ban was automatic from Hearts following a conviction for an offence at an away ground.
I suspect that similar comments are made every week at many grounds, with no complaints made. I am uneasy both with the fact that Magennis was abused in this way, but also the knock on effect if all such comments are deemed unacceptable or unlawful and lead to criminal prosecutions. I fear that half the Tartan Army will fall foul of making similar comments when England play Scotland in the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers.
You wouldn’t expect football supporters to react in the same way as opera goers at the Theatre Royal. But there are limits. And the lines which are crossed move all the time. Think of the times when bananas were thrown on to the pitch when black players started appearing in the game, much to the amusement of some onlookers. Then there was some very popular comedians in the 70s & 80s who wouldn’t get air time now. Society has moved on. I used to be one of those people who thought ‘PC Gone mad’. Not now.
I have said on here several times that I wish my own supporters would never sing songs about Ireland’s history. I very much condemn the sectarian songs and chants from the Ibrox support. As society moves on so should football. A persons nationality, colour, religion, gender should have nothing to do with what they do on the pitch. Most people get that but you always have the idiots. They deserve to be dealt with.
Finally, for those of you who have been watching The Clumpany’s voting poll, I am going for – Charles Green Bought The History – as the greatest lie told about the liquidation.
easyJambo 28th February 2016 at 2:18 am
————————————————–
There’s a strange one.
From what I am reading someone in the crowd described him as being Irish however he shouted back that he was Northern Irish.
He then reported the person in the crowd for abusing him, by calling him Irish.
It seems that he believes that being called Irish is somehow abuse, however being called Northern Irish is OK.
If that is the story, and I have read it correctly, then he is every bit as bad as the other person. However let me make this entirely clear. I don’t think calling someone Irish or Northern Irish is abuse.
Neither is calling someone Welsh particularly if they are in fact Welsh. I am Scottish, I have never objected to being called Scottish. Maybe I am just particularly thick skinned.
Bottom line, if the player has the problem as described then he might just want to look at his own attitude.
What if he was called a Paddy B……! would that be OK?
It’s easy, keep the tags about nationality, colour, religion & gender out of it.
jimbo 28th February 2016 at 4:12 am
‘..You wouldn’t expect football supporters to react in the same way as opera goers at the Theatre Royal. ‘
_______
Rather, jimbo, you wouldn’t expect opera goers to react in the same way as football fans!
Here’s a wee extract about the Astor Opera House riot which is quite coincidentally amusing in its reference to the shortened version of the name of certain boys!
“The venue for Macready’s performance, the Astor Opera House, had been designated as a theater for the upper class. And the pretensions of its moneyed patrons had become offensive to an emerging street culture embodied by “B’hoys,” or “Bowery Boys.”
And when the rioting crowd throw stones at members of the Seventh Regiment and received gunfire in return, there was more happening below the surface than any disagreement over who best could perform the role of Macbeth.”
The full story is at http://history1800s.about.com/od/crimesanddisasters/ss/Astor-Place-Riot.htm
Homunculus 28th February 2016 at 9:41 am
Agree with Jimbo, in the context of a club game a players nationality has nowt to do with anything.
He was wearing the blue and white of Kilmarnock at Tynecastle so to the home fans he should be nothing more than a ‘Killie so and so’ (add you own expletive).
Dauda missed a penalty and Juanma squandered a late breakaway chance to put the game beyond reach and while I thought at those moments they were both useless so and sos’ their respective Nigerian and Spanish nationalities did not enter my mind as I muttered FFS internally – kids present, common decency etc.
If Magennis was playing for his country then calling him an Irish / Northern Irish so and so would seem more appropriate and acceptable.
If Magennis’ nationality is of such importance or causing consternation to a fellow Jambo that it needs to be shouted out in public during a Scottish club fixture then I would suggest the problem lies with the fan, not the player.
Good chance the alleged offender was bevvied and/or has a deeper problem with certain people who originate from across the Irish sea.
Either way happy to see the club deal with it as they have tried to do with similar incidents and maintain the stance shown so far re a zero tolerance type approach to such nonsense.
PS
easyJambo 28th February 2016 at 2:18 am
Can’t stick all the constant references to the English from elements of the TA either and have never questioned Jimmy Hill’s sexuality. If Maradonna had been Scottish and knocked the English Out-Out-Out then I could see the connection but he wasn’t so such matters have no relevance to supporting the national team whatsoever.
JC, once again I stand corrected!
Wottpi, You don’t mess with Ann Budge. Which Is why I would love to see her on the board of the SFA and or SPFL.
Gordon Parks talking about Gary Harkins banter re. oldco/newco:
“Making a pitch to become patron saint of the “Rangers are dead brigade” amongst Celtic followers wasn’t the intention .
The last thing he would have wanted is to become the poster boy for Hoops fans who obsess with the Ibrox minutiae.”
So it’s just Celtic fans?
Minutiae? The biggest bit of racketeering in Scottish football history.
“Sports writers are no different when it comes to telling it like it is. Some do, others shirk the big talking points and prefer to adopt a sycophantic approach…….. sometimes straight talking is not worth the hassle.”
Well at least there is a bit of honesty in there for a change.
I’ve just finished eating the rather nice but rather late Sunday brunch. I turn to the ‘Scotland on Sunday Sport’, and in particular to Aidan Smith.
This ‘sports feature writer of the year read ‘ is an art and part participant in the propagation by the SMSM of the myth that RFC is alive and well, and that it was nothing more than ‘mismanagement’ on SDM’s part that caused something of an ‘interregnum’, a mere ‘hiatus’ .
He seems to be quite content to ignore the despicable cheating of SDM and the many-layered protecive screen erected by a devious , unprincipled body of men who abandoned their duty to maintain any notion of Sporting Integrity in the interests of filthy lucre.
He mentions ‘The Old Firm’ Sturm und Drang as being ‘how it will be again’, when ‘normal service’ resumes.
Journalists like Smith have been, and remain, people whose opinions, based on a what can only be wilful and complete disregard of actual facts, will prevent the acknowledgment of the truth , and thus keep Scottish Football and Scottish Football administration propped up on a lie.
From Gordon Parks in today’s Sunday Mail re his advice to Gary Harkins calling Rangers a new club.
My advice was this: “I’ve heard players accused of racism, unadulterated sexism and seen them scrape the boundaries of poor taste but there’s one big no-no. Never call Rangers a new club.”
The lunatic fringe reacted to Harkins’ words with predicable outrage on social media.
Jeebs, as he’s better known, committed the cardinal sin of forgetting that Scottish football has long since lost its sense of humour.
Making a pitch to become patron saint of the “Rangers are dead brigade” amongst Celtic followers wasn’t the intention .
The last thing he would have wanted is to become the poster boy for Hoops fans who obsess with the Ibrox minutia.
He then follows this nonsense up later on declaring……
“Sports writers are no different when it comes to telling it like it is. Some do, others shirk the big talking points and some prefer to adopt a sycophantic approach.”
So it appears only Celtic fans believe Rangers are a new club and those of the other 40 have no problem in thinking New Rangers are Old Rangers.
Seriously, what kind on newspaper editor allow such nonsense to be published? Truly unbelievable, even by SMSM standards.
John Clark 28th February 2016 at 2:18 pm
===========================
I used to be an avid reader of Scotland on Sunday. Until that is in 2012 a certain Rangers blogger who had a very short spell in the Ibrox boardroom was handed a column three weeks in a row. I was appalled at what he was allowed to write and that was it for me. It ceased to have any semblance of neutrality from that point onwards.
jimmci 28th February 2016 at 2:43 pm
I note that you failed to pass on the section of Gordon Parks’ article where he mentions
The ‘irrelevant oldco, newco debate’.
Until the folks in the SMSM and others can verbalise why the debate is ‘irrelevant’ we may get somewhere.
Are we to believe their stance is the one seen in 2012 where Rangers being declared as pushing up the daisies, history gone etc was splashed across all outlets or today’s apparent stance that the rewritten history and ‘continuity model’ is correct.
For journalists trying to get to the bottom of things it cant surely be both?
Dismissing rational debate by declaring something is irrelevant without explanation doesn’t seem to be the most intelligent of positions.
wottpi 28th February 2016 at 12:45 pm
==========================
I totllly agree, his nationality is irrelevant, as is his colour, religion, sexual orientation and any number of thing.
It is entirely possible for both sides to be in the wrong, which it sounds like to me in this situation.
The person in the crowd calling him Irish had absolutely no need to, of what relevance is it during a game of football.
He is so offended by being called Irish rather than Northern Irish that he reports the matter to the authorities. What’s so wrong about being called Irish.
The half-wit in the crowd meant it as an insult and the player took it as an insult. They are both in the wrong in my opinion.
Homunculus
Isn’t it a bit of a stretch to assume Magennis’s reasons for reporting it to the authorities. Can’t see how the victim becomes the offender in situations like this. The adjective allegedly used in the fan’s remark implies insult no matter the fine detail.
I don’t think Magennis’s motives are relevant and he is totally blameless.
Big Pink 28th February 2016 at 5:33 pm
============================
I disagree, however if you can tell me what is insulting in being called Irish I am more than happy to listen.
If someone called me English (I am not btw) would I be entitled to be insulted by it. On what basis. Similarly if a Canadian is described as American, are they entitled to be insulted.
Like I said, there was no need to call him it in the first place, absolutely none. However why would he find it insulting enough to report it to the authorities. Presumably he will also give evidence to the Police as they are now investigating the matter apparently.
Here’s another way of looking at it. If someone called me gay I may point out to them that I wasn’t, that I am a heterosexual. However I don’t find the notion of being gay an insulting one.
jimbo 27th February 2016 at 11:17 am #Gunnerb, Just caught up with your post from yesterday 6.50pm. “Given your adamant “sevco..end of” statement I presumed that anything less than official support for this opinion would be difficult for you Jimbo .Just exactly what would be the ‘diplomatic’ skirting around the issue notes that would give you comfort?”
The short answer is none. I would love to read the programme notes saying ‘welcome to The Rangers the new club founded in 2012 following the demise of Rangers FC’.
——————————————————————————————–
Doesn’t really answer my question Jimbo. I don’t wish to appear hectoring but I have many friends in football who express the same tut-tut mindset but refuse to commit either way. I accept it is a choice coloured by loyalty and emotion but those feelings are being manipulated in a cynical and arrogant manner and people need to open their eyes to what is happening. Below is the kind of Celtic programme notes you might be alluding to..it’s a restrained and mild version of what might actually be printed and assumes a first meeting at Celtic Park rather than Ibrox..ha! nae chance of that happening.
Celtic are happy to be once again facing a team from Govan in the SPFL. In the past such meetings have always proved competitive affairs.The last time these teams met Celtic cruised to a comfortable two nil win and a similar performance from the Bhoys should be good enough again. Lets have a look at the team lineups and their recent results……for Celtic today it’s Anodyne in goal,Non-committal at lb,Didnaeseeit and Shirtsales at the centre, Tiresome at RB, a midfield of Auldfirm, TeninaRow , (Resolution 12 injured) ,Harper-Mcleod and Nimmo-Smith, up front who else but Reagan and Doncaster.
Good Evening.
I haven’t done this in ages, but here is my latest blog in full. I suspect the content may be of interest to TSFM members. As always, I can be found at https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/ Do feel free to stop by!
Cheers!
TC
>>>>>>>>>
Are you a moron?
Yes. YOU.
If you are a ‘Bampot’, ‘Clumpaneer’, or another sort of fair-minded person with critical faculties, there are some (but not all) writing and broadcasting about Scottish football who I suspect think you came down in the last shower. And I can’t help but wonder whether they care if you notice their dim view of you.
An excellent new Twitter account @mintys_lamb has appeared in the past few days, and it has undertaken a single straightforward task with gusto and admirable comprehensiveness.
It has identified and retweeted a large number of tweets and articles about the events of 2012. Specifically the slide into administration and liquidation of Rangers Football Club, and the fraught activity which was undertaken to admit Sevco Scotland into Scottish football via some innovative acts of governance.
The story is all there in… errr… Green and Whyte. Rangers fans, other fans, journalists, Real Rangers Men, and insolvency commentators etc all knew what was at stake. In fact they described it as it happened.
And an incorporated football club duly went into the abyss of liquidation before Mr Green et al bought the assets and applied to join the league and SFA. His new outfit were eventually admitted and started life in the bottom tier of Scottish football mainly using the players who were still left handing around Ibrox.
Finally, Rangers’ old SFA membership was transferred to them in a heartwarming bit of window dressing.
There was no relegation, no prize money or European football for Rangers’ second place finish in the 2011-12 season, and absolutely no separate holding company.
The ‘new Rangers’, as it was commonly known, started life against Brechin on 29 Juky 2012 in a strange twilight condition before permission to use the name ‘Rangers’ was granted to them, and under cover of a ‘Conditional Membership’ of the SFA.
The one thing that this entity simply couldn’t be was Rangers FC. Its last input into Scottish football had been to back Sevco Scotland’s doomed application to join the SPL. And then BOOM! It was gone.
Everyone knew it at the time and the evidence of that knowledge is all still out there. But since then, the truth – a very simple truth – has (variously) been warped, rewritten, ignored, and imposed upon a footballing public who simply look on with incredulity.
I have never really understood why parts of the Scottish sports media have done this. I don’t know whether the reason is
fear of threats and intimidation from Sevco fans who can’t handle the truth,a deluded conclusion that a feel-good Ibrox narrative is the ONLY way to make their ‘old media’ sell these days; or because they don’t like what Rangers did to itself, and think they can get away with peddling an alternative narrative.I have heard the argument from some journalists that “the SFA and SPFL treat Rangers* like the same club, so we go with that”. That might have a measure of credibility if they
actually got the authorities to state their position (with reasons) on the record – something which even seemed beyond the SFA’s Counsel in recent court hearings; and if they didn’t persist in using the lexicon of fantasy which speaks of ‘holding companies’ and ’emerging from administration’.A good starting point would be for someone to follow up John James’ excellent question of how the SPL/SFL/SFA actually assigned all Rangers’ trophies to Sevco Scotland. Asking precise questions about when, how and on whose authority this happened. They might then ask why the current Aidrieonians hasn’t been reassigned Aidrieonieans’ history given the great lengths that were gone to to replicate the club which everyone agrees died…
I won’t hold my breath.
The truth of the matter is that we are being taken for a ride. Everyone knows this, and yes parts of the media seem content to brazen it out. Day after day.
Occasionally some in the traditional media do react to these ‘new club’ issues being thrust in their face. Sometimes a full-on ‘wibble’ ensues (see for example the outbursts of Adrian Durham and Michael Hannan). But on other occasions, something more gentle occurs.
And so it is that in the last few days we have seen the ‘wee joke’ card being played in response to the ‘new club’ comments of Dundee’s Gary Harkins, which I discussed in this recent blog.
First of all the latest Evening Shark-Jump column from multiple Pulitzer-winner Derek Johnstone had this to say:
“THERE has been a bit of a storm over Gary Harkins’ comments about Rangers but I don’t think the Ibrox crowd will bother too much when Dundee visit in the Scottish Cup next Saturday.
When he said what he said, he was making a joke. It was stupid and he shouldn’t have said it, but I think it was a joke and he was smiling.”
DJ is entitled to his opinion, and Michael ‘Mr’ Gannon who first reported on the comments made it clear that Harkins was engaging in a bit of banter. But I don’t agree with DJ one little bit when he says that Harkins shouldn’t have made his “stupid” comment. Harkins wasn’t stupid, and he should have said it if he wanted to. Because it’s the truth. Plain and simple.
Thankfully DJ’s view was counterbalanced by other opinion pieces in the Evening Shark-Jump which went full throttle on the truth about the ‘new club’…
[*Pause for tumbleweed*]
Today’s Sunday Mail went into similar territory as DJ with this piece from Gordon Parks:
Gordon Parks: Scottish football has lost its sense of humour as players are gagged in fear of upsetting social media mobs
“During a chat with the Dundee midfielder last week he voiced his reasoning for an impromptu reopening of the debate as to whether Rangers are oldco, newco or going loco in Acapulco.
An off-the-cuff remark, only designed to raise a giggle.
My advice was this: ‘I’ve heard players accused of racism, unadulterated sexism and seen them scrape the boundaries of poor taste but there’s one big no-no. Never call Rangers a new club.’
The lunatic fringe reacted to Harkins’ words with predicable outrage on social media.
Jeebs, as he’s better known, committed the cardinal sin of forgetting that Scottish football has long since lost its sense of humour. Making a pitch to become patron saint of the “Rangers are dead brigade” amongst Celtic followers wasn’t the intention .
The last thing he would have wanted is to become the poster boy for Hoops fans who obsess with the Ibrox minutiae.
They’ll have finished painting the Forth Road Bridge well before there is any agreement reached over the irrelevant oldco, newco debate. But it also raises a bigger point over the issue of footballers using free speech to indulge in a bit of banter.
Harkins will now be put into cold storage in terms of press outings until the heat dies down – and more’s the pity.”
Oh dear! Where do you even begin with that? Perhaps by noting the glaring omission in Parks’ piece, which is the part which some in the MSM has played by simply failing to continue to tell the truth about 2012. In my opinion they have helped to make the ‘new club issue’ the ‘taboo’ it is asserted to be.
If Mr Parks thinks that I am part of a lunatic fringe for asking for the truth to be spoken without fear of favour then I plead guilty! Better that than being part of the other sort of lunatic fringe that threatens journalists and wants them sacked simply for pointing out that a football club was liquidated.
A quick look at my timeline confirms that Mr Parks’ assertions about Celtic followers forming the “Rangers are dead brigade” is as incorrect as it is cheap. This issue (which most certainly ISN’T irrelevant) goes to the heart of the way the entire sport is run in Scotland. And guess what Sunday Mail?! There are more than two ‘clubs’ in that sport! Fans of Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs , United etc share the sorts of concerns which are expressed in this blog.
And look! There’s that word ‘obsess’! Possibly the laziest of all ‘insults’ that can be directed towards those who remain deeply suspicious of the attempted recreation of an entity which engaged in financial doping and rule-breaking for years.
Mr Parks’ piece makes a very valid point about football – and footballers – not having a great sense of humour these days. We need more personalities to enliven things. And I certainly agree with his point that “Sports writers are no different when it comes to telling it like it is. Some do, others shirk the big talking points and some prefer to adopt a sycophantic approach.”
However, I find the content of the piece to be laughable in its breezy dismissal of so important an issue as Rangers’ demise and the untruths surrounding it which now masquerade as ‘facts’.
Whatever media commentators may think, that is most certainly no laughing matter.
#KeepOnClumping
It’s the last 4 of the Clumpany’s competition. So here are my advice notes.
1. Rangers were demoted.
Now we all know that is silly. When you are a new club you can’t be demoted. If anything they were promoted from nowhere to somewhere. 1/10
2. Charles Green bought the history.
A bit tricky this one, he bought ‘goodwill’ for a pound or two but no accountant would feel comfortable with saying that goodwill includes history even if it includes Kit Kats. Sorry, 1/10
3. The holding company was liquidated
Whit? an incorporated marriage between club & company? 0/10
4. No sporting advantage was gained.
A doting old retired judge was paid to come up with the answers they wanted. 0/10
I’m going for Charles Green bought the history. He is the only honest Yorkshire broker in all of this. Besides, big hands are a god given sign of trustworthyness.
Homunculus 28th February 2016 at 5:41 pm # Edit
Big Pink 28th February 2016 at 5:33 pm
============================
I disagree, however if you can tell me what is insulting in being called Irish I am more than happy to listen.
_________________________________________________________________________________
My ability to answer that isn’t relevant. Two things;
1. How do you know he was insulted by being referred to as Irish? As far as I can see there is a suggestion that he corrected the moron who insulted him. Even if true, you don’t know the context of that remark. if for example somebody called me a fat, old and smelly, I’d be inclined to answer; “less of the old!” which is the least insulting of all three. It’s called a smartass comeback.
2. Doesn’t matter a bit even if he was insulted by being called Irish. The moron who shouted at him used his race as the adjectival part of the insult. Case closed in my book.
What troubles me here is that you have extrapolated a “fact” from hearsay, assumed a context based on (perhaps) your knowledge of his background (?), and then used that to condemn the guy.
That’s the kind of thing we complain about when it happens (almost daily) in the press. It makes a story about nothing from nothing and we are determined to avoid that here.
If of course you actually heard Magennis’s answer and the context then accept my apologies.
Homunculus 28th February 2016 at 5:41 pm #Big Pink 28th February 2016 at 5:33 pm
============================
I disagree, however if you can tell me what is insulting in being called Irish I am more than happy to listen.
If someone called me English (I am not btw) would I be entitled to be insulted by it. On what basis. Similarly if a Canadian is described as American, are they entitled to be insulted.
Like I said, there was no need to call him it in the first place, absolutely none. However why would he find it insulting enough to report it to the authorities. Presumably he will also give evidence to the Police as they are now investigating the matter apparently.
Here’s another way of looking at it. If someone called me gay I may point out to them that I wasn’t, that I am a heterosexual. However I don’t find the notion of being gay an insulting one.
==================
Context is everything Homunculus and I find it hard to see your point without being present to understand the full context. Do you have this sort of accurate information?
Was Magennis called Irish? or was he called an Irish <somethingelse> which of coruse changes the context and intention completely.
Can you point me in the direction of your source, it might help me understand what point you are labouring?
On the theme of lazy/ complicit/ partisan/ frightened/free-loading fawning lamb-eating ‘journalists, I was made extremely wistful earlier this evening as the heroic efforts of Times journalist Andrew Norfolk were described on ‘Pick of the Week’ on radio 4.( I had not heard his name in connection with the exposure of the Rotherham scandal)
Norfolk took on very powerful and evil ‘establishment’ forces in order to break and expose the dreadful crimes that the authorities KNEW were being perpetrated by creatures scarcely deserving of being called human.
Our SMSM, by contrast, have not only shrunk from questioning the governing bodies of a sport ( a Sport!!) but have actively helped those bodies to foster and propagate an untruth.
Can a ‘journalist’ fall to any deeper depth than to work to keep truth hidden rather than bust a gut to get it all out there?
If Norfolk could get information out of tight-faced very senior police officers and local and national government politicians , how can it be that journalists in the SMSM do not even make an attempt to call out the Football Authorities on their absurd position vis-a-vis TRFC /RIFC, but are content to go with the Flo over the moores, as the propagandists on Streicher’s “Der Sturmer” were content to go with Streicher’s views.
We could do with a few Andrew Norfolks and Alex Thomsons in this neck of the woods.
(And will a BBC ‘Scottish 6’ produce anyone like Paxman, or BBC Radio 4’s Eddie Mair, each of whom would make mincemeat of any Football Authority’s CEO? I rather think not)
TheClumpany 28th February 2016 at 6:28 pm #Good Evening. I haven’t done this in ages, but here is my latest blog in full. I suspect the content may be of interest to TSFM members. As always, I can be found at https://theclumpany.wordpress.com/ Do feel free to stop by! Cheers! TC
===========
Hi Clumpany.
Thats an interesting twitter account whoever is behind it.
One thing I have often wondered is how often will bampots be able to link to and refer to these sort of 2012 articles before the fine establishments that published them simply remove them from the record to save themselves the embarassment.
I’m certain it is coming and all the major scottish press will quietly remove all reference to the liquidation back in 2012, so as to fit their current agenda and save themselves much ridicule.
I don’t think its a particularly large step from the complete about turn and blatant lies they report now anyway.
Time will tell, but in the meantime we should capture what we can and of course, there are plenty of hard copy record they simply cannot massage.
Big Pink 28th February 2016 at 7:50 pm
===========================
What troubles me here is that you have extrapolated a “fact” from hearsay, assumed a context based on (perhaps) your knowledge of his background (?), and then used that to condemn the guy.
If of course you actually heard Magennis’s answer and the context then accept my apologies.
=================================
My original post showed that it was in response to easyjambo’s original reporting of the events and has to be taken in that context. I even started with “There’s a strange one. From what I am reading …” So I think it is perfectly clear I did not hear him, why you would think otherwise, or pretend to do so escapes me.
It was entirely clear at the time I was basing what I said on nothing more than the post I was responding to. The official Hearts statement and easyjambo’s “I understand that Magennis reacted to the comment and shouted back to the fan that he was “Northern Irish”.”
I take the source I used as likely to have reported the matter accurately, based on his past record and responded as if it was. I suspect there are very few people who actually heard him and even less who post here.
If you think people should only express an opinion when they have first hand knowledge of the subject then it is unlikely you would have as many comments here.
In deference to others here I will leave it at that. No-one wants to see another pointless circular argument.
Homunculus 28th February 2016 at 5:41 pm
As discussed earlier the context is everything.
If I, as heterosexual, was hanging out with gay friends in a known gay bar and someone was maybe interested in me and asked if I was gay, then there would be no abuse. The place, circumstance etc would explain why there could be confusion with regard to my sexuality and no offense would have been intended or received.
If however I am walking down the street going about my business and someone stops me and shouts in my face “Are you fecking Gay?” then there is a high probability the use of ‘gay’ in combination with swearing is intended as abuse and an insult. Whether I am gay or not, or offended or not by having my sexuality questioned does not matter one jot, the issue is that the person in may face is being abusive and seeking to use sexuality as a focus of that abuse.
If I walk away and do nothing then the next person coming along the street may be subjected to the same abuse, even worse if they abuser thinks they can get away with it.
Who knows what Magennis has had to put up with over the years. Maybe yesterday was just the tipping point?
Petty, well may be to some folks but the lad may well have just had enough.
I agree that I am probably being a bit hypocritical by saying it would be ‘OK’ for an opposing fan to call him a ‘Killie so and so’ but once again the context of such a shout tends to keep it purely to simple football rivalry as opposed to bringing in wider issues of discrimination.
Penalty saver Jamie MacDonald, McHattie and bench warmer Carrick were all Killie so and sos yesterday but they all got a wee cheer from the home fans for being ex Jambos.
EDIT
Matty Roth 28th February 2016 at 8:20 pm
Sorry Matty if I had read your post before posting I could have saved my fingers from five minutes of typing 🙂
Homunculus 28th February 2016 at 8:36 pm #Big Pink 28th February 2016 at 7:50 pm ===========================
What troubles me here is that you have extrapolated a “fact” from hearsay, assumed a context based on (perhaps) your knowledge of his background (?), and then used that to condemn the guy.
If of course you actually heard Magennis’s answer and the context then accept my apologies.
=================================
My original post showed that it was in response to easyjambo’s original reporting of the events and has to be taken in that context. I even started with “There’s a strange one. From what I am reading …” So I think it is perfectly clear I did not hear him, why you would think otherwise, or pretend to do so escapes me.
It was entirely clear at the time I was basing what I said on nothing more than the post I was responding to. The official Hearts statement and easyjambo’s “I understand that Magennis reacted to the comment and shouted back to the fan that he was “Northern Irish”.”
I take the source I used as likely to have reported the matter accurately, based on his past record and responded as if it was. I suspect there are very few people who actually heard him and even less who post here.
If you think people should only express an opinion when they have first hand knowledge of the subject then it is unlikely you would have as many comments here.
In deference to others here I will leave it at that. No-one wants to see another pointless circular argument.
0 0 Rate This View Comment
==============
Homunculus.
I’d suggest you read the Hearts statement on their website.
It makes no suggestion the player was upset because he was called Irish but is actually Northern Irish and I think you are in danger of making several posts based on a misunderstanding of the incident.
The Hearts statement simply says the player alleges he received abuse related to being Irish and then the article comments that he is Northern Irish.
It does not connect these two statements in the way that you have inferred.
I don’t know if anyone on here has heard that the abuse towards MaGennis was a lot worse than previously mentioned. I would rather not repeat it in case it is second hand rubbish. But in any case,
I really don’t care about the players background. Whether he’s from an Orange background or a Republican one. The argument stands alone. Keep nationalities, religion, colour and gender away from our sport.
Maybe I’m getting old. But I now can’t feel easy calling referees Blind B…….ds. I worked for a wee while with Glasgow & the West of Scotland Society for the blind. We called our folk VIPs (Visually Impared People). We used to go walkabout around Charing Cross with people with white sticks to understand what it was like.
A bit off topic I know. But there is a young footballer I know who is profoundly deaf. He has been that way since birth. He has 80% hearing at the moment. By the time he is 40 years old, it will be nil.
I suppose the point I am trying to make is, there are worse things in the world than a player or manager’s background? Of course they have to move on too.
From the BBC website re the Magennis comment.
Here are some quotes from the Jambos Kickback message board, made in the hour or so after the match, which would appear to corroborate the location, identity and what was said.
I imagine with that information, the police will at least be having a word with the individual.
Well done EJ.
Now get to bed and get ready for court.! You have work to do.!
jimbo 28th February 2016 at 10:49 pm #
Well done EJ.
Now get to bed and get ready for court.! You have work to do.!
======================
I won’t be back in court until 8th March when BDO seek leave to appeal the CoS EBT decision.
For those that are interested the BBC are running with a new Monday night show where fans can phone in. However a word of warning that the panel is Keith Jackson, Graham Spiers, and Michael Stewart. The host is Kenny Macintyre, so I expect it will be the same tired old nonsense.
1. Ronny Deila is hopeless.
2. Mark Warburton is a genius.
3. People in the Scottish game with previous links to Rangers will be held in higher esteem than others.
4. People in the Scottish game with previous links to Rangers may be referred to by friendly nicknames.
5. The top league will be so much better next year as long as Rangers win it.
6. No panelist will know a single Celtic fan who doesn’t miss Rangers.
7. No panelist will know a single non-Celtic fan who cares about how the SFA handled Rangers liquidation.
8. The Rangers board are all men of great dignity and integrity.
9. The Celtic board will never be spoken of in the same positive way as the Rangers board.
10. Directors of other clubs who say we need a strong Rangers will be spoken of as men of great vision and sense.
11. The SFA and those who run it will always be presented as an honourable organisation.
12. Resolution 12 is off limits.
13. An adult debate on whether Rangers are a new club is off limits.
14. Disclaimers will be issued if Spiers claims to speak the truth about The Rangers Director and the Billy Boys.
UTH,
That sounds like the agenda for Radio Clyde. If this new BBC programme is going to be similar, any proper football supporter who phones in should be sectioned. You couldn’t pay me to listen to Radio Clyde, haven’t done for years. I will listen in for a while to see how it pans out, but I’m not hopeful. The editors and producers of the SMSM run the show and it is all one way traffic regardless of who the writers or presenters/ panellists are.
upthehoops 29th February 2016 at 7:12 am
‘.Jackson, Spiers,and McIntyre…’
_____________________
Trust BBC Radio Scotland to pick perhaps the most discredited Rangers-oriented tabloid journalist, the most inconsistent ,sit-on-the-fence but Rangers-oriented broadsheet journalist, and the most eagerly Rangers-oriented sychophantic pee-hee of a radio presenter.
We are not surprised, and we quietly hope that the current senior BBC staff with control over football programmes are re-shuffled out of their jobs as being unfit for purpose due to pusillanimity and readiness to repress free and open investigation and debate.
Bad cess to them.
Michael Stewart thus far as a pundit has demonstrated a refreshing readiness to be independent, but has not yet found the courage to tell the whole truth.
We will see how he avoids being sucked into the culture of denial and propaganda.
TheClumpany 28th February 2016 at 6:28 pm
Something I’ve never read nor heard anyone say is something along the lines of, ‘prior to the event, I believed that failing to get the CVA passed would mean the death of Rangers, but once Charles Green, who had also said they would be dead, told us all that the club lived on, I realised that I, and everyone else, had been wrong. You see the reason the club didn’t die is…!’
No one, as far as I can recall, has told the public why they changed their opinion, revealed what evidence they’ve seen that proves RFC didn’t die, explained why they continue to believe the’same club’ claims of a man they all now accept as a liar and charlatan, and most tellingly, no one from the media has dared to analyse what has recently been said in court. Oh they’ve reported what was said, but despite the fact that it was said quite clearly, and that men of great legal knowledge saw fit to make jokes of the mere notion that a ‘club cannot die’, they have all steadfastly ignored the implications.
Lets assume for a moment that the ‘same club’ propagandists are correct, why then haven’t they produced one definitive article on why they ‘believe’ it to be true? Why has no one produced evidence to support their belief from company law or even the rules of the game? I believe that it would be very simple to produce this evidence, in a counter argument shattering way, if it existed. Instead the SFA say it’s up to the supporters to decide, like turkeys voting for Christmas, while Doncaster quotes a friendly passage from the LNS determination while ignoring other passages that fly in the face of his chosen result. Basically we are told by them that they are the same club, like it or lump it. The SMSM merely argue that we’re all just Celtic internet bampots so therefor we must be wrong, which means they must be right.
When those with the power and the facilities to provide a definitive answer to a vexed problem choose not to provide the definitive answer, there can only be one reason, and despite their well evidenced laziness, it’s not because they can’t be bothered! Not in this instance, it’s not.
I’d be even more direct than that AJ.
What is it that separates the debt from the club allowing it to magically continue unabated? Common belief pre 2012 was that it was a CVA. Get one and the creditors, those owed the debt because its one and the same thing, are giving their permission for the entity to carry on. Fail to get one and you don’t have that permission. Are the creditors strong armed in certain cases? Accept p:£ or get SFA. Yes. But the principle still stands regardless.
What the continuity myth is saying (badly, if for no other reason than it then fails to explain why the 4th div re-entry was necessary) is that continuity is more important than the debt. There has never been any justification given on that particular point. Secondly, that there is/was no link between the debt and the club continuing, fine right up to the point where the debt undoubtedly created a history and the continuing club get so hung up on treating it so preciously. And finally, there is the absolute failure to recognise why perhaps forgiving debt in a liquidation situation and then proposing a carry on, as you were scenario for the club in question is possibly just a little bit damaging, and setting an even more dangerous precedent for the game going forwards.
Re new BBC Radio Show – why dont they go the whole hog & give Chris Graham a slot too – who can forget “there are blue skies over Ibrox” on STV or “let’s see how it pans out” etc .
This phone-in , unless carefully controlled could end up , as Jimbo states , like the Radio Clyde propoganda vehicle with points raised by UTH deemed off limits .
Allyjambo 29th February 2016 at 9:28 am
‘….When those with the power and the facilities to provide a definitive answer to a vexed problem choose not to provide the definitive answer, there can only be one reason, and despite their well evidenced laziness, it’s not because they can’t be bothered! Not in this instance, it’s not.’
_______
Well expressed, Allyjambo.
And those, such as the BBC and erstwhile ‘respected’ newspapers ,who had and have the power to raise in the public forum both the stark reality of the despicable sporting deceit of the once ‘respected’ knight, and the readiness of the football authorities to prostitute their integrity rather than face up to the truth, have betrayed Scottish Football every bit as much as those ‘authorities.’
More importantly, they have betrayed their much-vaunted ‘public service integrity’ over a relatively ‘trivial’ matter of Sport.What can we expect them to do with really serious matters, except again to opt for expediency and protection of the guilty where it suits them, rather than strive for truth?
O/T I know we should restict comments on other sites to a minimum but I have to say Clumps “World Cup of Liquidation Lies” is very clever , witty & in its own way goes directly to the problem of the daily bullsh*t we get bombarded with by the SMSM .
It is worthy of wider exposure – why dont they announce the final result on the new BBC Radio Scotland show live !
Are the SFA following the following FFP rules?
Certainly not where Sevco are concerned.
http://www.uefa.com/community/news/newsid=2064391.html
I wonder how long this new phone in has been scheduled to run,there must be a very limited list of questions before the biggest issue to hit Scottish football has to be debated,seriously,do the BBC think they can stage manage this and if they do they will be guilty of wasting public money.I can imagine the first few stage managed shows
Hi first caller is from Govan,Billy what’s your question to the panel
2nd caller is from Bridgeton,Billy etc etc
3rd caller is from Larkhall,Billy etc etc
4th caller is from Coatbridge ,Liam what’s your question to the panel,Liam,Liam are you there,oh dear it seems he has hung up,next.
Since it’s a bit quiet on new info.
So if we do assume that TRFC achieves promotion to the top league – and putting all their ongoing financial difficulties to one side…
The consensus seems to be that promotion will not signal an influx of quality / paid for new players to the TRFC squad. The assumption could be that the majority of the current squad will be retained to play against SPL opposition each week: an undoubted step up in quality of opposition.
Football is a ‘funny old game’, and traditionally a newly promoted club is also typically a favourite for relegation at the end of the season.
So let’s hypothesise that TRFC finds itself firmly at the foot of the SPL come next February/March ?
Staring relegation in the face…
Consistent with the the SMSM and the SFA/SPFL party-line, Scottish football would apparently ‘suffer’ if TRFC is not in the top league.
What to do ?
For the avoidance of doubt, there is no basis in fact that Magennis was ‘offended’ by the ‘Irish’ suffix appended to his parentage status.
Nor is there any evidence to show that it was an ‘issue’.
If people want to make an issue out an imaginary conversation in an imaginary context, they really need to bring it up somewhere else.
If I were called and English so and so, and corrected my accuser by saying I was Scottish, I hope that would not imply a hatred of English people, nor that I was insulted by being called English. I am however entitled to differentiate – especially if it takes the wind out of the sail of the moron who was heckling me.
The only issue here for us is that people are making assumptions about the boy’s state of mind based on no evidence whatsoever, and then rushing to be shocked by that.
I think some of us are getting two or three steps ahead of the facts in this one. Please call a halt to discussion based on an assumption of what went through Josh Magennis’s mind as he was being abused.
StevieBC 29th February 2016 at 4:20 pm
…So let’s hypothesise that TRFC finds itself firmly at the foot of the SPL come next February/March ? Staring relegation in the face…
Consistent with the the SMSM and the SFA/SPFL party-line, Scottish football would apparently ‘suffer’ if TRFC is not in the top league.
What to do ?
————————-
On the day that relegation became an arithmetical certainty, Neil Doncaster would lock himself in his office, take the super-secret key from around his neck & open the hidden drawer on his hitherto unused desk.
He’d take out the folder marked ‘Double Secret League Reconstruction Meeting Minutes: 01 May 2016’.
He’d call a presser & announce to the gathered succulenti that the plan had always been for a sixteen team top league in 2017/18 & that it had been kept on the down-low because of business confidentiality.
When the other forty-one teams complain (quietly, again for confidentiality reasons) that they don’t remember attending that specific meeting, they’ll be told that they have no avenue to complain, as that right was voted away from them at the self-same meeting. They don’t remember that either, of course.
A whispering campaign in the press starts against the few clubs who voice their displeasure.
Darryl ‘I am the SFA’ Broadfoot buys Neil ‘I am the SPFL’ Doncaster a celebratory orange squash.
In terms of Scottish football governance, it’s as likely a scenario as any other.
StevieBC,
The answer to your definitive question is a good old reconstruction safety net. The only saving grace would be if it turned out the supporting legs cost £7m per annum to operate and no-one else was willing to meet the bill. Safety nets are especially effective when unexpected events are required to happen. The only reason I can think of why said safety net wouldn’t be employed (see Jingo’s arithmetic certainty clause above) would be if certain parties took the view that the inevitable, miraculously improved, tv deal would be ahem “distributed excessively.”
My take on your wider hypothesis is that the current crop of Premiership managers, so enthralled to the two club model we all miss so much (apparently) will set up to play a club currently struggling to beat Alloa, Livingston and St Mirren (no offence meant) to play for the draw. Again, the only factor that might change this is if the operating model chosen continues to require large amounts of cash to run. I suspect the exposure available for any latest Knight (insert colour of choice) means there will be plenty – well maybe not plenty, but enough – gullible benefactors to see them through to 2nd, if not in the first season, I’ll say within three.
On the plus side, I’m hoping to see a direct correlation with my weekend golf handicap improving immensely, so every cloud…
BP, re Perth, I was going to get a ticket for a friend. Haven’t asked him yet though. Is there any guest speakers in the plans? Or anything to whet the appetite?
Re T’Rangers potential performance next season if in the premiership I would not be getting my hopes up re them being cellar dwellers.
Hearts had a solid 12/13 players who turned out for 20 or more games in the championship. Of those, this season, Gomis and King are out on loan, Sow if off the China and Eckersley was hanging about Hibs before trying to go to the US.
This season the same guys have put in the higher number of shifts (King & Gomis were on 20 & 21 games before going out on loan), the exceptions being Ozturk and Walker due to injuries and Pallardo (all 15) not getting as much game time. Rossi (28) and Augustyn (20) have filled the Danny Wilson slot and provided cover across the back four while Reilly and Juanma have been added up front.
With a handful of decent additions to the squad third place looks relatively secure and if a wee run can be had then second isn’t out of sight as yet.
T’Rangers look relatively settled at the back with Fotheringham, Tavernier, Wilson Keirnan and Wallace. Holt, Halliday, McKay and O’Halloran make up a decent attacking midfield and if they keep Law and Waghorn gets over his astro burns you have a pretty good first eleven. Miller is always there to come of the bench if required.
What happens to the likes of Law, Clark Shiels, Templeton is the question, given most people think they will be on decent money via a Charlie Green contract. Those salaries could be used to get one or two half decent signings.
Forrester looks nippy and we have yet to see what the Accrington lads have to offer. Poach a few good uns from premiership clubs and maybe get a few loans in and I would say you will have a competitive side.
I have no doubt it won’t be a breeze week in week out against better quality opposition but I have a feeling they could hold their own if they stay injury free and maybe uncover a wee diamond in the rough from somewhere.
I would however think from what I have seen to date is that without any significant over-investment T’Rangers will be hard pushed to get close to the more experienced Hearts and Aberdeen squads (who will be looking to beef up if at all possible financially), never mind Celtic. Added to that the remaining Premiership teams will not have the old style trepidation of playing against the team from Ibrox and managers will probably be telling their teams to give it a good go.
Mid table is my prediction for what it is worth.
For my mind the leccy bills down Govan still have to be paid year in year out and it is the ‘seven year Douglas Park recovery plan’ we are seeing as opposed to King’s all conquering bluster.
Big Pink 2nd March 2016 at 5:20 pm
‘..On the Perth front, things are not looking good I’m afraid folks…’
______
That is a bit disappointing.
It might be useful to check whether location was the primary problem, by asking posters whether they would be more likely to attend a venue in Glasgow or Edinburgh or Livingston or some such.
I think I am getting melancholic as I get older. Do you ever wish you could have lived in an alternative universe? I just read a post on jj site about the hatred of Celtic supporters for ‘Rangers’ old or new. The same applies in reverse of course.
Why did it need to be that way?
If we go back to the start with the Irish Famine – The Great Hunger. Ireland was a part of Britain at the time and Britain allowed One Million Irish people to starve to death. They left Ireland in droves. Some coming to Scotland. They were desperate people. Look at the news tonight and see the plight of the refugee mothers and children. It is heartbreaking.
In the mid nineteenth century workers were beginning to organise, in a very early shoots sort of way in the Industrial Revolution. Private pit owners were trying their best to drive down wages and conditions. Over come these pesky Irish immigrants prepared to work for less. That didn’t go down well with the Scottish workers. Understandable to a point. And there was the residual distrust of Catholicism since the reformation.
But in Glasgow Rangers were founded and later Celtic were founded.
According to some there was no love lost but no animosity between both sets of fans. Indeed friends of opposing sides would go to whoever was playing at home on a Saturday. I think the same thing happened over the years in Dundee.
It all seemed to change around the time of the First World War when many workers from NI came over to work in the Clyde shipyards. They brought with them a new mindset to Ibrox. Which we still see to this day. The Celtic response Esp. since the ‘Troubles’ has been to become more republican than their grandfathers. One fed of the other.
One thing I really don’t understand is why the anti-Catholic signing policy of Rangers? If anything caused more bother in Scottish football then I have yet to hear it.
In conclusion I have had many Rangers supporting work friends, pub friends over the years and family. You couldn’t meet nicer people.
When will it ever end.
Big Pink 2nd March 2016 at 5:20 pm #STICKY
On the Perth front, things are not looking good I’m afraid folks. Only ten tickets (and a couple of non-attendee briefs have been sold). Break even for this event is over double that amount.
It is disappointing, but I suppose we have to face it that a combination of dates, location, and the fact that we are just over the line on a fund-raising exercise have contributed to the low take-up.
Again, I would ask that if anyone is planning to attend but have not yet obtained a ticket, could you please let me know?
I will give it another week before making a decision on whether to go ahead or cancel, so I can let St. Johnstone know in plenty of time.
……………………………………………………………………………
BP, I live in York. I would very much like to attend a getogether. However, a Glasgow or Edinburgh lunchtime would suit me best, assuming some nice person could steer me towards the train home late in the afternoon.
If it has to be a evening to suit the demographic, the weekend is better for me.
For those of you thinking about tuning into our new state sponsored phone in, Here is a wee taste of what to expect.
https://twitter.com/bbckennymac/status/704438984869613568
Apparently a corrupt club, replacing a corrupt club, backed by our corrupt governing bodies, whose founding fathers are all facing serious criminal charges, is a story that has, “Had its day!”
You have been warned !
I found the AR01 for Sevco 5088 Ltd lodged at Companies House on 21 February 2016 to be quite interesting. This is the Annual return made up to 17 February 2016 with full list of directors and shareholders.
The directors are given as :
Aidan Chan Edmund Earley
Douglas Ware
Law Financial Limited
Law Financial Limited are described as a ‘Corporate’ director of the company.
The shareholdings in the company are given as follows :
Shareholding 1 : 1 Ordinary Share held by Charles Alexander Green
Shareholding 2 : 10,000,000 Ordinary Shares held by Law Financial Limited
This information replicates the AR01 for 17 February 2015 which was lodged on 30 October 2015.
The AR01 dated 17 February 2014 and lodged on 18 February 2014 however gives a very different statement of directors and shareholdings :
Director : Charles Alexander Green
Shareholdings :
Shareholding 1 : 0 Ordinary Share held by 7Side Secretarial Limited
1 share transferred on 2012-05-03
Shareholding 2 : 0 Ordinary Shares held by Law Financial Limited
Shareholding 3 : 1 Ordinary Share held by Charles Alexander Green
Douglas Ware was appointed a director on 3 February 2014 though this does not appear to have been notified to Companies House until 12 October 2015. Law Financial Limited were also appointed a director on 3 February 2014 with this apparently notified to Companies House on 9 October 2015.
Charles Alexander Green was terminated as a director on 15 June 2012 with the notification to Companies House taking place on 9 October 2015.
Aidan Chad Earley was appointed as a director on 9 May 2012 with this also apparently notified to Companies House on 9 October 2015.
This activity obviously follows a number of other director appointments and terminations and striking off attempts.
Scottish Football needs a strong Arbroath.
We are currently revamping the site, and we hope to build in a searchable archive function in keeping with the Wiki idea.
Looking at some early posts, particularly from BRTH and stevensamp, there are some factual and analytical gems. Hopefully you will see it all laid bare in a day or two.
Kenny McIntyre and the BBC Scotland Sports Department can consider the oldco/newco debate over when they can successfully answer the following.
If Rangers are the same club why and on what grounds did the footballing authorities treat them so despicably by placing them in the lowest tier and denying them fairly won prize money, a place in Europe and appropriate entry points to domestic cup competitions.
If Rangers are a new club then why and on what grounds did the footballing authorities treat them so favourably by letting them join the professional ranks within weeks of being formed.
If the answer to both is the ‘Five Way Agreement’ then this seems to be to be just as big a scandal as the carry on at Fifa where a ruling body makes up rules and financial decisions on the cuff to the benefit of some in the game as opposed to others.
Surely that is something that cannot be left blowing in the wind by any serious journalist.
redlichtie 1st March 2016 at 9:07 am #I found the AR01 for Sevco 5088 Ltd lodged at Companies House on 21 February 2016 to be quite interesting. This is the Annual return made up to 17 February 2016 with full list of directors and shareholders.
===================
Thanks for that, Redlichtie, it is very interesting.
The share capital, fully pad up, mind, is now £10,000,001, with Green holding one share. This would imply that Law Financial put in £10m, some time between 17/2/14, when issued share capital was £1, and 17/2/15.
So on the face of it, this company has had £10m either in the bank, or on loan (presumably to Law Financial) for at least a year now. No accounts ever submitted for either company, of course.
I would imagine that there would be a nice chunk of stamp duty to pay on a £10m share issue, but then I’m no expert on stamp duty.
But how did Law Financial (apparently Whyte’s company) manage to push through a £10m share issue without Green’s input, since he (allegedly) held the only share at 17/2/14? Maybe the answer to that question takes us too close to current criminal proceedings?
I’m sure this has been discussed on here before, but I can’t trace the discussion.
neepheid 1st March 2016 at 10:07 am #
redlichtie 1st March 2016 at 9:07 am #I found the AR01 for Sevco 5088 Ltd lodged at Companies House on 21 February 2016 to be quite interesting. This is the Annual return made up to 17 February 2016 with full list of directors and shareholders. =================== Thanks for that, Redlichtie, it is very interesting. The share capital, fully pad up, mind, is now £10,000,001, with Green holding one share. This would imply that Law Financial put in £10m, some time between 17/2/14, when issued share capital was £1, and 17/2/15. So on the face of it, this company has had £10m either in the bank, or on loan (presumably to Law Financial) for at least a year now. No accounts ever submitted for either company, of course. I would imagine that there would be a nice chunk of stamp duty to pay on a £10m share issue, but then I’m no expert on stamp duty. But how did Law Financial (apparently Whyte’s company) manage to push through a £10m share issue without Green’s input, since he (allegedly) held the only share at 17/2/14? Maybe the answer to that question takes us too close to current criminal proceedings? I’m sure this has been discussed on here before, but I can’t trace the discussion.
=====================================
I thought that I’d better steer away from making much comment on this. I’m sure everything is well above board and all relevant tax paid.
The Green situation however is more and more intriguing. That’s a heck of a drop from 100% to tiny ownership of the company and one does wonder what the consideration (or other lever) may have been to prompt that.
And is Sevco 5088 Ltd now a cash-rich entity well able to enforce its’ legal rights whatever they may be?
Scottish Football needs a strong Arbroath.
Corrupt official 1st March 2016 at 8:44 am
‘.. Apparently a corrupt club, replacing a corrupt club, backed by our corrupt governing bodies…
……… is a story that has, “Had its day!”
_____
Just what McIntyre would say as a man as guilty as any of pushing the Ibrox propaganda.
Peter Jones, political journalist [ as far as I know, has not ever covered football]on the ‘Scotsman’ who apparently has been handed his jotters, writes in his last column today :
” This is my last column……… An iron reporting rule of mine has been that I present the relevant for and against facts and leave readers to form their own their own conclusions……….everything published under my name has met my own personal acid test-that I should be able to sleep with a clear conscience knowing that I have done an honest job. No evidence has been twisted and no dishonest conclusion reached.”
I suspect that there are precious few of our SMSM football hacks , and especially few of those who work for BBC Radio Scotland,who could contemplate making such a claim without deservedly inviting scorn and mockery upon themselves.
Re : Law Financial/Sevco 5088
Suggest you check out shareprophets.com (put Law Financial in search box) & you will get background info re LF & Mr Ware – quite a story in its own right ! Its amazing the “characters” that are engaged in matters “Rangers” related – all looking to make an honest penny I’m sure .
naegreetin 1st March 2016 at 10:43 am #Re : Law Financial/Sevco 5088Suggest you check out shareprophets.com (put Law Financial in search box) & you will get background info re LF & Mr Ware – quite a story in its own right ! Its amazing the “characters” that are engaged in matters “Rangers” related – all looking to make an honest penny I’m sure .
==================
Thanks for that, it’s certainly an interesting tale! I’ve now had all my reservations about the stock market totally confirmed.
I’m now pretty sure that the £10m I was worrying about is just the alleged value of the legal claim against Rangers, true value according to Winnifrith, precisely hee haw. There is no real money involved, just an allegedly made up valuation of an allegedly spurious claim. Amazing stuff.