A Blog by James Forrest for TSFM
I am a socialist, and as a socialist I believe in the fundamental goodness of people. Some people find that hard to believe when they read the stuff I write.
I published my first novel recently, on politics and the corrupting nature of it, and it is a deeply cynical book, a book where no-one has clean hands come the end. What has surprised some of those who’ve read it is that I didn’t focus on the lies and smears of the right, but the hypocrisy and deceit of those who claim to be of the left.
Corruption, you see, doesn’t respect political boundaries or points of view. It’s like rainwater. It finds every crack, and gets in there.
My political beliefs revolve around two apparently paradoxical elements; the belief in the inherent decency of people and the need for a strong, and powerful, state. I believe the second underpins the first, and this brings me into conflict with a lot of people, some on the left and some on the right. Too many people see the state as inherently evil, as something that interferes too much in the lives of ordinary people. As something suffocating.
Yet the state exists to protect us. It exists to provide a safety net. It exists to regulate and to oversee. If the state is made up of bad people, if the gears of society are captured by those with malicious or selfish intent, the results are obvious; war, corruption, chaos.
The vast majority of our problems in the modern age can be neatly summed up in two lines from Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”, which I used to open my novel. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
We live in a time when those who are protecting their own interests have assumed such power that they’ve cowed the rest of us. They have become a law unto themselves. They have changed the nature of the game, because they have sapped our will to the extent some barely put up a fight anymore. The weak get weaker, and the strong use their strength to crush the rest even more. It is a vicious struggle, a downward spiral.
Society is held together not only by the endeavour and common interests of its citizens but by a collection of laws. We elect the people who make those laws. They do so in our name, and we can remove that right every four years. That is a powerful thing, and we do not appreciate it enough. The present corruption exists because we allow it to exist.
The people around me continue to puzzle over my uncommon interest in the affairs of a football club on the west of Glasgow. My own club plays in the east end. I tell those who ask that my primary interest in the goings-on at the club calling itself Rangers is no longer about football; how could it be, after all? With promotion this year they are still a full two divisions below us, emasculated, skint, weak and unstable. If we were fortunate enough to draw them in cup competition the match would be over, as a tie, by the halfway point … in the first half.
In footballing terms they are an utter irrelevance.
Rangers is more than a football club to me. They are a symbol. Their unfolding calamity is an on-going outrage. What is happening there, what is being allowed to happen, is an offense to decency. It is a stain on the face of our country.
In short, it is a scandal. It is a scandal without parallel in sport.
Yet it’s not just a sports story either. If it was, I might not be so focussed on it. What is happening at Rangers is a colossal failure of governance. It is a damning indictment against the very people who are supposed to oversee our game. It is a disgraceful abrogation of responsibility from those at the top, those who claim to be “running things.”
If this is not a failure of governance it is a result of corruption at the heart of our national sport. It says they are bought and paid for, and I will say no such thing here.
So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. We’ll say instead that what they are is weak, indecisive, inept and disconnected from reality.
It reminds me of our political class, which has become insular and ignorant about what the public wants, and what it needs. It’s not a wonder parties like UKIP can achieve national vote shares of 25% at local elections. Nigel Farage strikes me as a dog-whistle politician, the kind who knows how to appeal to a select group of voters. He is little different to Charles Green, the man who beguiled Rangers fans into handing over large amounts of money, because he was “standing up for the club.” It is easy to do what he did, easy to do what Farage is doing.
Real leadership requires toughness. Say what you like about the Tories, but they have that in spades. Yeats was right about the worst being full of passionate intensity. Green was. Farage is. Cameron and Osborne personify it in their political outlook.
It is easy to be cowed by blunt force politics, and by “tough talking Yorkshire men” and venomous speeches about “strivers and skivers.” The politics of divide and conquer is the oldest form of politics there is, and it’s no surprise to see it practiced by some of the vested interests in the game here in Scotland. Yet, lest we forget … something significant happened last year. The maligned and the ignored, the weak and the voiceless found something they never realised they had. They discovered that, in a very real sense, the power was in their hands.
Last year, the fans rose up when the governing bodies and the media went all-out to save Rangers from the self-inflicted wounds caused by a decade of cheating, malpractice and ineptitude. I have no problem calling that what it was.
What happened at Rangers seemed incredible, but it was all too predictable, and some of us had been talking about it for years before it hit. The Association seemed caught in the headlights but it would amaze me if they really were as insular and ignorant as they appeared. They must have known how bad the outlook was for Rangers. They just chose to ignore it.
They were aided and abetted by a thoroughly disreputable media, a collection of cowards and compromisers, charlatans and frauds, masquerading as journalists, but who long ago laid aside any claim to be bold investigators and settled for commenting on events as they unfolded. More often than not, with their ill-informed opinions, sometimes due to weaknesses in intellect and others wilfully ignorant, they failed even in that.
Entire newspapers became PR machines for crooks and swindlers. They aided in the scam because they didn’t do their jobs, some because they were lazy, some because they were incompetent and others because they wanted a seat at the table and were willing to sacrifice whatever integrity they once had in exchange for one.
That all of this was embraced by the Rangers fans is amazing to me. They trusted when they should have been asking questions. They closed their eyes, covered their ears and sang their battle tunes at the top of their voices so they wouldn’t have to hear anything they didn’t like. As incredible as I found it then, and still find it now – and now, even more so, when they have already seen the results of it once – I find it pathetic too, and I do feel pity for some of them.
A lot of these people are genuine football fans, and nothing more. They have no interest in the phony narrow nationalism, or the over-blown religion, or the notion of supremacy which manifested itself in a ludicrous statement from McCoist when interviewed recently on Sky.
Some of the Rangers fans look at their team of duds, kids and journeymen, they look at a boardroom of cowards and crooks, they look at a failing manager in his first (and last) job in the game and at a dark future and are not in the least bit impressed by, or interested in, the chest-out arrogance espoused in those ridiculous words “we are the people.” They know full well that their present crisis was made by men like McCoist, and they understand that pretentious posturing is not an act born of strength, but a scrambling around in the gutter, and a symptom of weakness.
They understand their position, and they hate it. And because they care about Rangers, because they value the club, because they cherish those things that made it a great Scottish institution, they want that back. They understand that before the Union Jack waving, Sash singing, poppy wearing, Nazi saluting, Orange element became the public face of their support Rangers meant something else, and that, above all things, is what pains them the most.
People do not hate Rangers. When the country appeared to turn its back last year, they were turning the back on favouritism and the bending of rules. Yet it would be a lie to say that there is not an element of dislike in the gleeful mockery of many rival fans.
But they don’t hate Rangers either. They hate the version of it around which a certain section of the support continues to dance. They hate the version which hates, and so too do many, many, many Rangers supporters, and they definitely deserve better.
David Murray chose not to openly challenge that version. Indeed, he encouraged certain strands of it to flourish and grow, with his “Britishness Days” and his effort to turn the club into the “team that supports the troops.” Other clubs have done as much, if not more, for the British Army than the one that plays out of Ibrox. Other clubs have given more money. Other clubs have lent their support to those on the front lines. They just chose to do it with respect, and with class, and with dignity. They chose to do it in private, understanding that there eventually comes a tipping point between looking after the ends of the soldiers and using them to promote your own.
The army has not battened on to Rangers. Rangers has battened on to them, and although it is unclear when an altruistic motive became darker, what started out as a gesture of solidarity is now used to entrench division and promote a notion of superiority.
Craig Whyte took over from Murray and immediately understood the lure of the “dog whistle.” He knew too that the media would accept whatever he told them, without question, and as he spoke up for “Rangers traditions” he made sure the lunatic fringe was well onside. He met face to face with the hard-core extremists in the support first and made them his praetorian guard. They spoke up for him until the day the club entered administration.
So, whereas Murray pandered to them and Whyte used them to further his own ends, it was only a matter of time before someone suggested to Charles Green that he could use the same tactics to win over the support. He went even further and blatantly promoted and encouraged this mind-set, and stoked the hate and nonsense to frightening new heights. The same people who cheered Whyte to the rafters jumped on board the Big Blue Bus and the results are clear.
Through all of it, the ordinary Rangers fan has seen his club buffered against the rocks, battered, broken, smashed to smithereens and sunk. Now there’s a big hole in the side of the lifeboat, and they are terrified that further tragedies await.
They are right to be concerned. Much of the media is still not telling them what they need to know. The people in charge of their club – the owners who have lied, the former hack who covered up the truth about Whyte and now acts as a mouthpiece for Green, the “club legends” who are content to sup with the devil and take his greasy coin when they should be standing toe-to-toe with the fans – are trying to silence those members of the press who do have facts to present.
How many times now have media outlets been banned from Ibrox for daring to report the truth? The manager who demanded the names of a committee last year defends those inside the walls who are desperate to keep secret the things that are going on. He is either an unprincipled coward, or he is, himself, bought and paid for. The fans suffer for it.
The “inconvenient truth” is still being kept from them, and this denies them any chance to play an active role in their club. Indeed, it is all too possible that they’ve passed a point of no return, and that their club is heading for a new liquidation event and it can no longer be stopped.
In either case, their power has been eroded to the point at which they must feel they have nothing left to do but stand back and watch what happens next.
They are wrong. I am a socialist. I believe in the inherent good of people. I think the ordinary decent Rangers fans are the only people left who can save their club … and the means by which they will do it is as simple as it could be.
They must stand up for “big government.” They must embrace the need for a “strong state.” They must lobby the SFA, and they must trust the SFA and they must get the SFA to follow its own rules and thereby save them from any further harm.
There is a tendency amongst some Celtic fans to see our governing bodies as pro-Rangers. If it is true then those running our game are ruining Scottish football without benefiting the thing they love more. The incalculable harm that has been done to Rangers in the last 20 some months is a direct result of the subservient media and the willingness of the football authorities to be “deaf, dumb and blind.” Those who believe this has actually helped the Ibrox club have not been paying attention in class. It has irrevocably scarred them, and it may yet have played a hand in destroying them once and for all, as a force if not as a club entirely.
For years, the SFA sat and did nothing as a club in their association operated a sectarian signing policy. They did nothing whilst the fans sang sectarian songs. In their failure to act they strengthened those elements of the Rangers support, instead of isolating, alienating and eventually helping to eliminate those who saw that club as a totem pole of division and hate. Their failure over EBT’s, and their lack of scrutiny, led to one of the greatest scandals in the history of sport, and I say that with no equivocation at all. The testimony of their registrations officer in the Lord Nimmo Smith investigation was a disgrace and in years to come it will rank as one of the most disreputable and damaging moments in the association’s history.
The most egregious failures of all were the failures in the so-called “fit and proper person” tests, which allowed first Whyte and then Charles Green to assume controlling positions at Ibrox. They will pass the buck and say the responsibility lies with the club itself, in much the same way as they are content to let the club investigate itself at the present time, but any neutral who looks at this stance knows it is unprincipled and spineless. It’s like letting the defence set the terms at a trial. It is foxes investigating the chicken coop.
It is a blueprint for corruption, and a recipe for disaster.
It is now too late for the SFA to declare Green “unfit”, as it was too late when they finally slapped that title on Craig Whyte. He and his allies own Rangers, and they control its destiny. They can push the club to the wall if they choose, in the final extremity, if that gets them what they want. The time for changing that is past. The damage has already been done. The barbarians are not at the gates. They are inside the walls, and sacking the city.
The SFA will be forced to punish Rangers for the sins of the owners, for the second time in as many years, and whilst it is right that the club face up to that, all the better to send a message to other clubs and other owners, the SFA cannot be allowed to slither off the hook here as though this was none of their doing. Green will skip off into the sunset. Craig Whyte has yet to pay his fine. These people never cared about Scottish football and they don’t care now.
The SFA are supposed to. Our governing body is supposed to govern, for the good of the whole game, and not as a support system for a single club. What they have allowed to happen on their watch is absolutely shameful and if the people responsible were men at all, with any sense of accountability, they would resign en masse.
They can pretend ignorance, but only the truly ignorant would accept that. Craig Whyte was not inside Ibrox a week before RTC and other sites were dismantling his entire business history, with some of the people here doing the work the SFA would not. Whyte himself claims to have made the governing bodies aware of the scale of what was facing the club, and they did nothing at all. Heads should have rolled a year ago.
In October of last year, on this very site, I posted an article in which I wrote:
“Which isn’t to say the due diligence matter isn’t worrying, because, of course, it is. Again, no-one is going to convince me that the SFA has conducted proper due diligence on Charles Green and his backers. No-one will convince me they are satisfied that this club is in safe hands, and that the game in this country will not be rocked by a further implosion at Ibrox. They failed to properly investigate Craig Whyte, because of lax regulations requiring disclosure from the club itself, regulations which are just a joke, but they can be forgiven for that as the press was talking sheer nonsense about him having billions at his disposal, and a lot of people (but not everyone!) were either convinced or wanted to be convinced by him.
To have witnessed what Whyte did, to have witnessed the Duff & Phelps “process” of finding a buyer, and having Green essentially emerge from nowhere, with a hundred unanswered questions as to his background and financing, for the SFA to have given this guy the go ahead, only for it to blow up in their faces later, would annihilate the credibility of the governing body and necessitate resignations at every level. There would be no hiding place.”
There are times when it is fun to be right, but this is not one of them. It is dispiriting and disquieting to have been so on the nose. It scares the Hell out of me, as someone who loves football in this country, to have seen this matter clearly when the people running our game apparently either did not or chose to ignore very real, very obvious, concerns. The Internet Bampots had no special insight or access to information that was denied those at the SFA. We just weren’t prepared to ignore it and pretend that it wasn’t there. There was too much at stake.
I have become convinced that things will never change until the Rangers supporters join us in demanding the full and unabridged truth here. They need to come out from under the bed, and confront their fears. They need to be willing to take the consequences, so that their club can emerge clean from this, and start again, with all this behind them.
And it can all happen with one simple thing. The application of the rules.
The existence of laws comes down to a simple principle; they protect society from those elements within it who are interested only in their own selfish ends. We may cry out at those rules and regulations we see as “restrictive”, but the law was not made to restrict our freedoms but to protect them. Had the SFA years ago acted against Rangers sectarian signing policy, and the songs from the stands, the club would not have mutated to the point where there was no help on hand when they needed it the most. Let’s not kid ourselves about this; Whyte and Green were only able to grab control because the club itself has a dreadful image which put off respectable and responsible buyers. The SFA could have helped change that perception years ago and did nothing.
The SFA could have conducted its own investigation into who Craig Whyte was. They could have asked David Murray for full disclosure when he was running up £80 million of debt, a sum of money that is beyond belief for a single club in a small provincial backwater league. Had they had the guts to do that the club would never have spent itself into oblivion and forced the hand of Lloyds, which led indirectly to their ignominious end.
The SFA could have fully investigated Charles Green and the means by which he took control, instead of rushing through a license. His emergence at the last minute was transparently suspicious and designed to force them into a quick decision, but they did not have to bow to that pressure by making one, without being in possession of the facts, as it is now 100% clear they were not.
Had they asked for every document, had they insisted on legal affidavits and personal securities from investors (and this would have been perfectly legitimate and is common place in other licensing areas) none of this would have come to pass. After Craig Whyte they had a moral responsibility to the rest of the game to get this one right and their failure is without parallel in the history of Scottish football.
As the club hurtles towards a new abyss, names are cropping up which should send a shudder down the spines of every honest, genuine supporter of not only Rangers but every team in the land. The SFA claims that a strong Rangers is essential for the sake of Scottish football, but they have been extraordinarily lax in protecting that club, and therefore the game, from destructive elements. Craig Whyte and Charles Green had dubious personal histories, and the acquisition of the club itself was mired in controversy and scandal. Yet it was allowed.
Neither Green nor Whyte were known to have operated outside the law, yet neither was worthy of trust or stood up to scrutiny. Neither man should ever have been granted the status as fit and proper persons to assume a role in our national sport, and if it is true of them what can we say about the three men who are, presently, being touted as the Great White Hopes for a bright, new Rangers future; Dave King and the Easdale brothers?
King recently cut a deal with the South African government over an on-going dispute over taxes. In other words, he pled guilty and accepted the central plank of their argument; that for years he was engaged in wilfully with-holding vast revenues from their Treasury. The media does not like to put it like that, and the SFA seems willing to ignore it utterly, and this would be scandalous enough. But it does not stop there. HRMC rules – as well as the SFA’s own governance documents – actually bar him from serving on the board of the new club.
Last but not least, aside from being an admitted tax cheat, King is also awaiting trial in South Africa, having been indicted for corruption, forgery and fraud – 300 charges in total. Yet as recently as last week, we were told that the Association was willing to look at him and consider representations from his lawyers. This is almost beyond belief.
If Dave King’s position is untenable, and he is yet to be convicted of a crime, what can we say about the position of the Easdale’s? One of the two brothers, Sandy, has already served jail time. He is a convicted criminal, a fraudster nonetheless, who’s “victim” was the same Treasury who are appealing one case involving the old club and liquidated it entirely over another. This is precisely the kind of “businessman” the fit and proper person test was supposed to weed out, and if the SFA holds its nose here the reek will stink out the halls at Hampden for decades. If King or the Easdale’s are judged fit and proper, then who exactly is the test for? What exactly do you have to do to fail it? How do we explain the existence of laws, when these are not applied?
Pascal says “Law without force is impotent.” The SFA’s weakness has allowed one version of Rangers to destroy itself, and has allowed an existential risk to another. If the next power at Rangers resides in South Africa or Greenock I can say with some certainty that the Association is engaged in an even more dangerous roll of the dice, because the surfacing of fresh scandal will be an ever present risk, and will be of the sort no-one will survive.
The damage to Scottish football will take years to heal. The Scottish game has been through enough trauma. It does not need more. It barely survived the last calamity to hit Rangers. The rest of us should not be forced to pay the price of the next one.
The greater damage will be done to Rangers itself. If the Green crisis ends in another collapse – as it well might; another administration event is a certainty, and another liquidation is a much more likely prospect than it was before 14 February 2012 – the club will once again have to start from the bottom, and this time the reputational damage will be impossible to repair. The club faces internal strife, sporting sanctions, and criminal investigations. The last takeover might be declared a fraud. the Whyte takeover will almost certainly be. The share issue might be invalid, as well as criminal, and the people involved may well end up in jail. Lawsuits could follow from investors, there could be as yet unknown consequences from the Upper Tier Tax Tribunal (thank you Brogan Rogan for pointing out what those might be) and a host of other issues.
Rangers fans must be the loudest voices here. How do you want the world to view your club in years to come? Do you want one to be proud of, or one forever associated with the shame and disgrace of these days gone by? The one which bailed out on its tax obligations. The one with supporters who disgrace your very name. The one which allowed Whyte and Green to take you to the cleaners and send you to the wall. The one which handed over control to one convicted criminal and another awaiting trial. Do you want to be reborn clean, or mired in the muck?
David Murray destroyed your financial stability. He made it so no bank would issue you a line of credit and no investor of note wanted to buy. Craig Whyte liquidated you. Charles Green has cast the future of the Newco into doubt and acted in a manner which has annihilated your credibility with the financial markets for decades to come.
Between these three men, they have taken everything from you, and the press and the people who run the game here, as well as some of your own blindly ignorant fans, have allowed them to do all this and more. Now they conspire to hand the keys to Ibrox to other men of questionable character, who will wreck further havoc on the reputation of the club.
The Scottish Football Association has damaged the game it was supposed to protect, but above all else their greatest failure of governance was a failure to protect one of its biggest clubs from its own excesses and those of its owners.
Rangers fans, the SFA have betrayed your trust, more than the trust of any other club. What you must insist on now is full disclosure and transparency from the powers that be in Hampden. The SFA has to end the charade of allowing your club to handle this in-house. They must hand everything over to an outside agency – whether a legal one, or a footballing body like UEFA – and they must demand co-operation and answers, and threaten to withhold the license if they don’t get them.
You must not be afraid of that. You must embrace it. The men with their hands on the gears at Ibrox are motivated by money, and nothing more. If the license is withdrawn their “investments” are worthless. They cannot risk that.
You must demand that the rules on fit and proper persons are applied, and where necessary even made stronger, to prevent your club falling into unclean hands. You must demand that they protect your reputation from further damage, by getting this all out there and acting accordingly, even if that means your club does not play football for at least a year.
You must be willing to suck it all up, knowing that what will emerge is a Rangers which has been cleansed and moves forward with honour, and dignity, led by custodians who treasure it rather than those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
The Rangers Standard has recently emerged as a genuine voice for those in your support who are sick and tired of what Rangers has become, and want it restored to something that is worthy of the love and respect in which you hold it. On that website, there are discussions about the kind of club you seek to be and about whether the institution of Rangers is about more than just football.
If that’s how you feel about it then you know it is about more than how many titles the club can claim, about more than just results on the park, about more than just the game. Rangers, like Celtic, is an idea. It has to be something you are proud of.
I am a socialist, but one with a fevered imagination and a tendency to write very dark things. This piece won’t have been good reading for some of you (perhaps all of you haha!) but I think there’s more hope in here than in other things I’ve written.
In spite of everything that’s come to pass, I still believe. I believe in Scottish football. I believe in our system of football governance, even if those who are working in it are failing on some level.
In society, as much as we strain against them, laws exist for our protection. To fail to enforce them is to leave us at the mercy of those elements who would do us harm. The rules of football ensure the protection of all clubs, not just a few.
The failure to enforce the rules has never had graver consequences than here in Scotland. The irony is that bending and breaking them has hurt the one club those violations were designed to help. It cannot be allowed to happen again.
The rules must be applied without fear or favour.
The best must find their conviction, and their passionate intensity once more.
James is a co-editor of the On Fields of Green Blog http://www.onfieldsofgreen.com/
RTC-ADMINISTRATION-TSFM-LIQUIDATION-James Forrest post… & now Leonard Cohen !!
Canny beat it ..absolutely soooperb….my circle is (almost) complete !!
For fans of brevity – I will attempt to summarise…
There are socio-political factors that determine the relationship between the Ibrox club and the SFA and other elements of, for lack of a better word, ‘The Establishment’.
It is unreasonable to believe that the current problems affecting Scottish football can be resolved without addressing these socio-political factors.
I am not bringing politics into football – merely recognising it is already there.
Terrific article JF!
I enjoyed JF’s post, but I wouldn’t know Tolstoy from Toystory, and I certainly don’t want to see that Animal farm again, where is PBW these days anyway, new bus required.
I wonder how many overpaid Div2 stars will be doing a Klos/Bobo, repetitive strain injuries caused by cash-line machine usage may be a thing of the past.
ptd1978 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:45
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Think I need a little time to digest what you are saying there as I am not sure of the point you intended making. I would however just like to make this comment before I leave for a bit. I have not mentioned “my” politics. What I was trying to state is that politics (not specifically political parties) have been in play throughout this whole debacle and in order to get to any true root cause, we need to ensure the politics are not just dismissed because this is a football blog. The reason for mentioning 2014 is due to previous involvement of the first minister and the need of political parties to reach out to a specific demographic.
James, another great read, and one I can relate to in so much of the content. For those who think it wrong to bring politics into the Rangers fiasco; it was the politicians who did that, not James!
madbhoy24941 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:23
‘…does this belong in a football blog?
My answer is yes! This is not about Rangers, it is about governance and how the politics of one club led to those authorities to ditch common sense and pander to one section of society while ignoring the wishes of all others….’
——–
I agree.
My politics , such as they are, might very well find quite a lot to disagree with in James Forrest’s excellent piece.
But, like him and you, I see the deeper problem to lie, not with a particular football club( heinous enough as were that club’s faults), but in the dirty deeds and intentions of those in authority in the game as they shamefully misused and abused their power, and in the ready compliance of the media in what could only be described as a conspiracy of silence and black propaganda which does not challenge those authorities to account for their actions.
For those saying James Forrest’s bit is too long.
Look,
there’s a squirrel.
Outstanding blog James, articulates how a lot of people feel about the Govan team and about the governance, or lack of, in our game. I understand people do not want to be bounced into political discussions, but very little of substance can be separated from politics…not for very long anyway. Sport is profoundly political, in its origins and in its continued functions, and any inquiry into sport, beyond the often ridiculousness of its practice, will bleed into politics very quickly.
Meantime here is another classic from the ‘Man’;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDj5T8-H2R8
smugas says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:33
Zero,
I guess the flip side is this. I don’t have a problem with Celtic turning up with a Larson or a insert7figureplayer here as long as they do so sustainably. I don’t, at least didn’t, actually have a problem with Hearts turning up with the Lithuanian national team as long as they had some mug able to fund it, as long as he didn’t simply welch on it the second it went pear shaped. So in the entirely footballing context no I don’t hate the 11 men in blue that take the field, indeed I agree that wiithin this very narrow definition that their financial and sporting clout is being missed.
But that impact doesn’t need to come with all the unnessecary baggage with it. Unless of course it is actually built on the baggage, if it has its very foundations secured to the baggage. I believe James article is trying to weed out whether anyone has the balls to find out if that is the case.
Lions or Lemmings peepil (quite chuffed with that one!)
_________________________________________________________________________
In relation to the funding of football clubs I could go on at length. Fundamentally I don’t have a problem with there being “big clubs” and “small clubs”. That’s just the way it is. If billionaires want to buy clubs and put money in then fine – but make them actually put the money in rather than loading a club with debt.
I do have a problem with is when the big clubs, unfairly and sometimes illegally, stack the odds in their own favour and this is just as rife in football outside of Scotland as it is within Scotland.
For a change, rather than harping on about Rangers, consider the Champions League a perfect example of this. A competition that has it’s roots in a cup competition for national champions is now seeded (or rigged if you like) to within an inch of it’s life to ensure that the same group of rich Clubs share the lucrative spoils – and thus increase the liklihood of them retaining their status. This is probably the main reason that I am largely bored of it.
Consider that this a tournament where the fight for England’s fourth slot in the competition is between Arsenal, a team that have not won their national league for 9 years, and Tottenham, a team that have not been Champions for 52 years! Exciting as watching Arsenal and Tottenham may be a “Champions” League that values a team that hasn’t won it’s domestic title in over 50 years ahead of the actual champions of “lesser” nations that will be fairly unlikely to get past even the second qualifying round is morally bankrupt.
22 teams pre-qualify for the group stages but only 13 of them are Champions. There are 36 national Champions that rank behind the fourth placed team from England, Spain or Germany or even the runner-up from Austria.
And we somehow expected UEFA to give a rats ar*e about the corruption in the Scottish game.
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:12
Well said ZT, you echo my sentiments exactly and although I probably “dislike” Celtic more than you do ( I go back to Lennox punching the ball out of Bobby Clark’s hands) I’ve learned from this blog that they have some very decent supporters who can think seriously about Scottish football.
Frankly I’ve got to the point with this entire saga, all the rubbish spouted in the media, the secret deals and the ineptitude of our governing bodies that I really do hope that the current Rangers go completely bust and never rise again. I’m not even bothered if they start again in the North Lanarkshire Wednesday Welfare Amateur League or whatever. Preferably, they’ll be dead and buried, Ibrox a Tesco, and Murray Park a golf course. Nothing for the obnoxious element of their support or their apologists in the mainstream media ever to identify with again.
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:12
I’ve just had a Manchester United supporting friend tell me, when I asked how he’d enjoyed the victory parade last night, that he hates f’ing Rangers. The security was so tight, with large areas blocked of, and a huge police presence, that he didn’t see any of it. He tells me it’s been the same ever since ‘The Gers’ visited Manchester with the police being over-cautious, even at an oft repeated event where no major problems have occurred before. Even the supermarkets in town were banned from selling alcohol. Yes, they do have a ‘positive’ effect wherever they go: everybody positively hates them 😉
Of course, he had a pretty unpleasant experience on the night they came to town, having been working in a hospitality tent at the City Ground, that night, so maybe he is over-ready to ‘blame’ them for this uber-security. His work didn’t bring him directly in contact with the rabble, but he had to try to get through them to get to work, and it was worse afterwards, unable to get near the station to get home, he had to take shelter in a pub! I know, sounds great, but even now he doesn’t see the funny side, and was lucky that he was friends with the pub manager, or he wouldn’t have got in. They have definitely left a lasting impression on my mate, as well as the city of Manchester!
BTW first post since Lord Nimmo Smith missed that sitter in front of goal, however I have been lurking for a while
timtim says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:22
TSFM Edit Sorry Timtim. Absolutely on the same page as you here, except not for this place.
————
no problem
thanks for the explanation ,apologies for the off topic rant
Been on a bit of a rant this morning, which I’ll put down to my train arriving at the station this morning unacceptably late and a couple of carriages short giving a commute to London that resembled transportation of cattle even more than normal!
I should have started with some recognition to James for an interesting and thought provoking post which I, by in large, agreed with. The only thing I disagreed with was the suggestion that people don’t hate Rangers – hence my first rant of the day 😉
Trying to draw a distinction between hating Rangers and hating “the version of it around which a certain section of the support continues to dance.” is IMHO like trying to claim that the Club is somehow a distinct entinty from it’s legal persona (i.e. the company that owns it).
Re the James Forrest article. My son has just completed his first year at University studying journalism.Considering I couldn’t get him to read a newspaper for years he is doing well.(maybe he was more astute than I gave him credit for!)He now has a voracious appetite for the printed word. He enjoys the work of James Forrest.He is embarrassed by the work of some others who purport to be journalists.
thebasharmilesteg says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 11:15
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:12
Well said ZT, you echo my sentiments exactly and although I probably “dislike” Celtic more than you do ( I go back to Lennox punching the ball out of Bobby Clark’s hands) I’ve learned from this blog that they have some very decent supporters who can think seriously about Scottish football.
Frankly I’ve got to the point with this entire saga, all the rubbish spouted in the media, the secret deals and the ineptitude of our governing bodies that I really do hope that the current Rangers go completely bust and never rise again. I’m not even bothered if they start again in the North Lanarkshire Wednesday Welfare Amateur League or whatever. Preferably, they’ll be dead and buried, Ibrox a Tesco, and Murray Park a golf course. Nothing for the obnoxious element of their support or their apologists in the mainstream media ever to identify with again.
_____________________________________________________________________
The thing with Celtic is that it’s much harder to pull together a catolgue of sins in the same way that you can with Rangers – at least from an Aberdeen fan perspective.
Celtic do have an odious element to their support as well, but in my experience, never quite as bad as Rangers. Visiting Celtic Park has never been as intimidating as visiting Ibrox. However, I must not forget that Aberdeen have an odious element to our support as well, the whole casual thing is a chapter I’d rather forget, as do most clubs.
Celtic humiliated us in the Skovdahl/Paterson years but it was hard to hate them for it given the flair with which they played at that time. Sure they had then, and before, and now, players that opposition fans would love to hate [from Aitken to Lennon, McNeil to Balde] but we’ve never had the same degree of bitterness and nastiness surfacing in games with Celtic as we have had, for decades, with Rangers.
What I do hold against Celtic is their actions as an active partner in a duopoly that has damaged our game. By looking after their short-term interests I believe that both of the Old Firm have damaged the Scottish game AND their own long-term interests – the latter point being that in that dominating the resources and by making the league less competitive they benefit in the short term but then decline in the longer term through lack of meaningful competition domestically.
We have a short window of opportunity to rebalance whilst Rangers are in disarray but unfortunately the “leaders” in our game do not seem to have grasped this concept yet.
Zero
Don’t get me wrong, I agree 100% with your analysis of the ‘Champions’ Orgy. Indeed I’m a long time supporter of some kind of modest handicapping system to make leagues, and hence true CL participation (ie. as champions – novel idea eh!) fairer.
But I genuinely hate the MSM for the continuing propoganda to get us back to the mid noughties position, where one mainstay of that position was entirely funded by one-way debt and taxes, MY taxes!
I genuinely hate the authorities for the willful blindness in trying to recreate the above.
I genuinely hate the players in this saga who have deliberately played the Oranje card and all that comes with it.
The spivs? They’ve just been doing what comes naturally to them.
The club formerly known as Rangers? Like carriages on a train. They’ve climbed a mountain and now the engine drivers are telling them they haven’t invested the ticket money in brakes but here’s a flag to hold instead.
I saw on an episode of QI, that in ancient Greece, politicians weren’t elected but rather chosen from the people, in much the same way we can be picked for jury duty nowadays. Those chosen would complete their term in office then be replaced in the same manner.
If the office bearers of our national game were to be picked in the same way from each member club’s officials would that make our game less corrupt?
The only downside I can see is that the world’s greatest administrator will have shuffled off this mortal coil before his turn came round again.
Zerotolerance1903
Never a truer word was said …. Unfortunately, our leaders have no vision, integrity, or deep understanding of sport or people, ie: they’re managers, paper shufflers, definitely not leaders and unfortunately, as club chairmen are the SPL/SFA/SFL – the same goes for them also (in the main).
Plus Zerotolerance1903 …. their duopoly in the eyes of the law had/is/was probably illegal. The government impose remedies on every other market. Time for them to impose remedies on this one to level the playing field, to ensure we can’t go back those dark days …. Only problem is Celtic know this is a substantial part of their business model, so they’ll never agree. Celtic are secretly very keen for Sevco to return.
What I do hold against Celtic is their actions as an active partner in a duopoly that has damaged our game. By looking after their short-term interests I believe that both of the Old Firm have damaged the Scottish game AND their own long-term interests – the latter point being that in that dominating the resources and by making the league less competitive they benefit in the short term but then decline in the longer term through lack of meaningful competition domestically.
We have a short window of opportunity to rebalance whilst Rangers are in disarray but unfortunately the “leaders” in our game do not seem to have grasped this concept yet.
Zero again
My choosing the train analogy and your experience this morning are co-incidental so apologies for that. More a function of how long it takes me to type my posts on this spectrum 48 thing.
Hi ZT
A fairly reasonable view from the Northeast I guess.
Like many Celtic fans, I have never been comfortable with certain aspects of the business dealings of the club. Shared sponsorships with Rangers being one, and to some extent the voting arrangements.
The latter is only to some extent however. I think it is fair to say that what was previously known as ‘Celtic Paranoia’ has largely been shown to be pretty much on the money.
Is it any wonder then that Celtic boards past and present have sought to establish as secure a position as they have. I imagine that many understood the negative consequences, but realised that the alternative was a Rangers hegemony.
I agree that there could be a window of opportunity to rebalance, but I am not convinced we are there yet. Until there is a root and branch clear out of EBT-tainted officials at the SFA and removal of all those who pushed for the bending / rewriting of rules to facilitate the unnatural rebirth of the Ibrox club last year – well I’m afraid I have no faith in the governance of Scottish football and I doubt we will see the sort of progress that both you and I would like to see.
In general, it is not enough to simply love your club – you have to care for it too. Sometimes that means you have to be prepared to criticise it when it gets something wrong. A lesson for all of us from the Ibrox omnishambles perhaps?
Teaser for the day. In the 1990 Cup Final Charlie Nicholas stepped up to take a penalty against his boyhood team and the team to which he was about to return, yet he nailed it anyway. If it was Coisty against Rangers in similar circumstances ……..
TD if you think he’d have done his best and scored and TU if you think he’d have blasted it over the bar!
IMHO UEFA destroyed the Honesty in football when they changed the Champions Cup from a Knockout comp to an League setup.. we only have to see the Winners of the FA Cup and the SFA cup this season to see that in a Cup Competition the Diddy Team as a Chance against the Big Boys, which they do not have in a League competition..
Has = as
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:30
0 3 i Rate This
Teaser for the day. In the 1990 Cup Final Charlie Nicholas stepped up to take a penalty against his boyhood team and the team to which he was about to return, yet he nailed it anyway. If it was Coisty against Rangers in similar circumstances ……..
TD if you think he’d have done his best and scored and TU if you think he’d have blasted it over the bar!
=================================================
ZT he’d have done the same as Conn and Johnston – tried his best to score.
TSFM says:Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 08:44
On the CharlotteFakeover issue, I tweeted last night that we should be extremely careful about the information being offered up – and here’s why.
CF mailed me in confidence with some information. A couple of anomalies, one in particular, arose which called into question the provenance if not the veracity of the information. I have asked CF to clear that up.
If wrong I am happy to admit it, and I will if necessary, however at the moment, I think the information should be treated with extreme scepticism.
___________________________________________________________________________
You jumped the gun big time. I established communications with you and gave you additional information with regards to where I was coming from. I was nothing but honest and upfront.
There were no anomalies, just a lack of understanding on your part on how things really work. Probing is fine, indeed it should be the norm that information is challenged, especially from a ‘new’ source. If you’re going to fire off in the way that you did, do realise the consequences next time an unexpected visitor drops by offering you the crown jewels. If, for example, you thought I was Craig Whyte, then a) it’s a bad miscalculation and b) you could/should have used that to your advantage one way or another.
I had hoped this was a suitable replacement for RangersTaxCase, sadly only some familiar names (reassuring as it was) and the layout bear any resemblance to the former.
With that, I bid you farewell and shall take this information elsewhere. Apologies if I sound a bit like it’s ‘ma baw’ – but admin here doesn’t deserve the audience.
The truth will out, just that it will be posted elsewhere.
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes)
Will you at least let us know where you are posting the info via twitter?
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
===============================================
CF, ‘Ma baw’ indeed. There’s a phrase I’ve heard used in recent times along the lines of, “That’s 100% crap.” You’re either at it or you’re too thin-skinned.
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:05
‘What I do hold against Celtic is their actions as an active partner in a duopoly that has damaged our game. By looking after their short-term interests I believe that both of the Old Firm have damaged the Scottish game AND their own long-term interests – the latter point being that in that dominating the resources and by making the league less competitive they benefit in the short term but then decline in the longer term through lack of meaningful competition domestically.’
_____________________
Nail hit squarely on the head, zero. I think, too, that the way the media overhyped the ‘Old Firm’ led both sides to believe they were a bigger, joint, entity than they actually were (they were, and Celtic still are, even in British terms, bloody huge), and that other, bigger, leagues beckoned. Celtic, to their credit, handled it much better, ensuring, since Fergus McCann, that they budgeted on known certainties; but I believe that Rangers, and Murray in particular, genuinely believed that the English League would, one day, welcome ‘The Old Firm’ with open arms. Murray gambled, where Celtic didn’t, and, I think, this was the ‘Holy Grail’, rather than the Champions League, that would one day, but before now, have provided the finance to clear their debts (or make them more manageable) – and even the fall-out from the EBTs. Another example, perhaps, of how the media have helped create the problems for Rangers.
It was a dangerous mix. Murray thought he was infallible, the media thought he was infallible and that Rangers (as part of a very saleable entity, the Old Firm), were desirable, and Murray – he believed what he read about Rangers and their ‘Worldwide appeal’. All involved at Ibrox would accept no note of caution. On the other hand, while Celtic accepted the advantages of being half of the Old Firm, they seemed more aware that that ‘Holy Grail’ might (probably) never come to pass and so ‘cut their cloth’ accordingly.
In the meantime, the rest of Scottish football lost out, as witnessed by the new found desire to provide a fairer division of the spoils, which wouldn’t be happening if there still existed an ‘Old Firm’.
Charlotte,
RTC at the outset clearly stated what his/her objective was. I would perhaps be helpful if you could tell us yours.
ZT – you’re on a roll. Let’s hope you have more bad commutes if this is what we will be treated to.
As for the JF post I thought it was excellent. Some have posted that he brought politics into it and they have no place in football/sport. That’s not really an argument and is probably aimed more at JF declaring himself to be a socialist than anything else.
I found the idea that there was a movement within the fan base for the decent ones to coalesce around the Rangers Standard etc interesting. It may be a small movement among the fans so far but it has the ability to appeal to the wider support and isolate the maggots like Dingbats et al. I would like to see more of this and believe we should support it. You never know maybe one day the fans will run the club.
TSFM says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 08:44
On the CharlotteFakeover issue, I tweeted last night that we should be extremely careful about the information being offered up – and here’s why.
CF mailed me in confidence with some information. A couple of anomalies, one in particular, arose which called into question the provenance if not the veracity of the information. I have asked CF to clear that up.
If wrong I am happy to admit it, and I will if necessary, however at the moment, I think the information should be treated with extreme scepticism.
___________________________________________________________________________
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
You jumped the gun big time. I established communications with you and gave you additional information with regards to where I was coming from. I was nothing but honest and upfront.
There were no anomalies, just a lack of understanding on your part on how things really work. Probing is fine, indeed it should be the norm that information is challenged, especially from a ‘new’ source. If you’re going to fire off in the way that you did, do realise the consequences next time an unexpected visitor drops by offering you the crown jewels. If, for example, you thought I was Craig Whyte, then a) it’s a bad miscalculation and b) you could/should have used that to your advantage one way or another.
I had hoped this was a suitable replacement for RangersTaxCase, sadly only some familiar names (reassuring as it was) and the layout bear any resemblance to the former.
With that, I bid you farewell and shall take this information elsewhere. Apologies if I sound a bit like it’s ‘ma baw’ – but admin here doesn’t deserve the audience.
The truth will out, just that it will be posted elsewhere.
________________________________________________________________
@TSFM – you may have, indeed, jumped the gun. If you asked CF to clear something up you should have at least waited on a reply before posting the above.
@CF – not really sure there’s a better outlet for the information than this.
Excellent post by James Forrest. He moves the debate onto higher ground.
I am a Dundee FC supporter, but like most Scottish supporters have a preference for one of the Glasgow giants over the (former) other. Despite my protestant upbringing and football baptism at Dens Park, I always preferred Celtic, and this was for football reasons (Charlie Nicholas, Paul McStay), as, in my youthful innocence, and not being from Glasgow, I was simply unaware of the religious underpinnings of the “old firm”.
I have always enjoyed seeing any other Scottish team (even the tangerine terrors) putting one over on either Celtic or Rangers – that used to be a rare pleasure, and it is simply a case of supporting the underdog. But I always supported any Scottish team playing in Europe, including Rangers.
I have been to Celtic Park several times (in the old jungle) with a Celtic minded friend, enjoying some classy football. And I have done likewise in Ibrox a couple of times (on freebie passes) with a Ranger’s supporting relative. In each case I supported the home team, as I was in with the home support, and I had no problems doing so (neither was playing Dundee!), and enjoyed the experience. I did prefer the atmosphere at Celtic Park, but did not find the “bear pit” I expected at Ibrox, and indeed felt some empathy with them.
I mention all this because my attitude towards Rangers has changed enormously in the past couple of years. As each revelation comes out, my disgust grows. We now see endemic corruption devouring the soul of Scottish Football, and spreading wider than that. Rangers have for some time now been a disgrace to Scotland – that is, the club and their hardcore support. And their behaviour, which seems to spiral into greater darkness and plain evil with each passing day,
The darker undercurrents beneath that club and support, which I was formerly unaware of, are now in plain open view, and creating an unwholesome stench. Where once there appeared to be values of loyalty and decency, now we have open corruption and greed and triumphism – a sense of entitlement gone cancerous – with hate-filled threats being scattered in every direction, and a corrupt MSM and SFA/SPL weakly cow-towing to every monstrous whim of the beast…
I would like to believe that a large proportion of the Rangers support are still decent people, as James Forrest suggests they might be, and that they could find a focus amongst themselves to bring about New Rangers cleansed of their sectarian baggage, masonic ties, and rampant unionism. But I can’t see it happening. I hope I am wrong, as I would like to see renewed decency and integrity arise out of the ruins caused by the loss of these values.
But fear seems to have the upper hand, along with chaos. Most of the Rangers support, like the MSM and the football authorities, seem blinded by their prejudices and the fear they cause, and it will take more than a few lone voices of reason on the Ranger’s Standard to patch up the Sevco lifeboat, or (more realistically) build a new one that is free of leaks. Certainly the old garbage has to be torched and cleared out of the way first. But they have already set fire to themselves…
Fear is the key to all of this IMO. The financial focus of Regan and Doncaster comes from fear. The ravings of the Ibrox beast also come from fear. And both attempt to get their way by instilling even greater fear in others. Luckily the support of other teams in general (unlike many of the craven chairmen) are standing up to this, and this, fueled by the intelligence, dedication, and integrity of the more elevated class of internet bampot – is the only light I see on the horizon. Punter-power allied with the internet. It can be a powerful light – it was last summer – and it will be aided by the demons around Ibrox and Hampden devouring each other, as is their nature.
Interesting times indeed.
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
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Oh FFS get over yourself and get on with posting the info. Ignore admin – they banned me once too and I know nothing.
lu says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:52
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Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
===============================================
CF, ‘Ma baw’ indeed. There’s a phrase I’ve heard used in recent times along the lines of, “That’s 100% crap.” You’re either at it or you’re too thin-skinned.
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…or should that be 99% crap? 😉
If TRFC were to be liquidated would the appropriate name for the next Club be Third Rangers?
Re CF
There was absolutely no misunderstanding on my part at all. I have no way of knowing whether his info is good or bad, but I do know that how CF claimed to come about it was well nigh impossible, not credible, unverifiable, and in my opinion just not true.
In other words I don’t believe that CF is who he says he is.
Looking at it another way. If true, then who benefits from CF’s revelations? Or if false, who suffers?
Can I also make it clear that when I sent the email to CF expressing my concerns and doubts, I was careful to be courteous at all times and told him I would be happy to be proved wrong. That is still the case.
CF is of course still welcome to post on here, but this is way to fishy for the mods.
A good post JF. I’m a bit uneasy with the political thing though. I don’t mind you making it known your socialist stance but taking a swipe at another party in the same piece as you did with UKIP spoils it for me.
Spoiled not because it was socialism vs UKIP it could have been any party political body vs any other.
Like religion you are welcome to whichever faith you please, I just don’t like it when the oppossing faction get slagged off in the sermon. Makes it a bit dogmatic for my liking.
Charlotte
Two things – “lack of understanding on your part on how things really work” Care to expand?
Secondly “The truth will out.” Thats all we ask on here.
Without putting words in TSFM’s mouth though we need to be sure that the two statements correlate. Was the ‘reality’ to which you refer set in an atmosphere of developing, broadening or distributing of the truth (the whole truth), or was it an attempt to get a version of the truth out to a hungry audience for purposes unexplained.
I agree with ZT this is the best forum I can find for the topic, warts and all.
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
——————————-
Boo! That was fun as well. 🙁 See you on twitter hopefully.
@JohnMcLean_HS67
arabest1 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 13:04
=================================
arabest, I meant 100% in this case i.e. that particular post was even more crap than the 99% that CW referred to. I’ve enjoyed the CF posts as much as any and like most am interested in seeing how they play out but if the ‘I’m off’ view expressed is genuine then it’s truly the sentiment of a primadonna. I disagreed with some bits of James’ blog but it’s on a public board and he’ll have taken some pleasure in the positive response to his piece and accepted the brickbats. Charlotte should either do the same or move on. If it’s the latter, I’d suspect that TSFM’s caution has been well placed.
smugas says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 13:11
Without putting words in TSFM’s mouth though we need to be sure that the two statements correlate. Was the ‘reality’ to which you refer set in an atmosphere of developing, broadening or distributing of the truth (the whole truth), or was it an attempt to get a version of the truth out to a hungry audience for purposes unexplained.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m not convinced that matters. This forum is more than capable of testing information and making up it’s mind about the motives behind the revelations. After all we’ve had plenty of practice.
@TSFM – in the interests of transparency can you say more about how CF claimed to have obtained the info and what you believe his/her agenda to be? It’s not our old pal Jack again is it?
Charlotte fake over
Big Wayne !
CF’s posts were the most interesting thing to happen to this site in eons.
Charlotte 18
Posted on March 18, 2013 by forweonlyknow This is a paragraph lifted from A Scottish Media Monitor article. The whole document is pretty long. Now Stuart Cosgroves wee cryptic clues make sense!
“The Bank of Scotland found itself in the news once again after The Sunday Times claimed it had obtained papers showing that the Bank of Scotland’s treasurer and managing director, Gavin Masterton CBE had arranged, between 1999 and 2000, a loan for an associate to buy shares in Dunfermline Athletic Football Club of which Masterton was also a director. It was claimed Masterton gave a guarantee that the shares would be bought off him before the loan had to be repaid; then, in 2001 – after Masterton had retired – the shares were later acquired by Stadia, a company Masterton owned. The Stadia group later collapsed with reported debts of £25m. A man in charge of corporate lending racking up losses of millions of pounds in his own private ventures in four years would’ve been a major embarrassment had it not been for the Scarborough Development Group – a company that used Jack Irvine’s Media House for its PR – setting up a new company: SDG Caledonia to take over Masterton’s stake and a share held by venture capitalist company, 3i for a nominal sum. The Bank of Scotland was then able to recycle the debt. The associate’s loan application from the Bank of Scotland Corporate Banking offered £69,250 at 1½% above base rate, with no security, no arrangement fees and interest payments deferred until the end of the three-year loan period. After two years, a letter from solicitors for Wood Investments (Masterton was a director) declared they would arrange with the Bank of Scotland to have the loan account cleared using funds from Stadia which left them in control of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club. The Sunday Times claimed that a letter from Masterton discussed with his associate a realignment of shares in Stadia on the basis of a firm called Charlotte 18 holding 75%. Charlotte 18 appeared on paper to be a director-less offshore company in the British Virgin Islands.”
October 2008
Crooks!
Apologies,but I’ve been away.Can someone give me a brief appraisal of the Charlotte fake over posts?
Thanks
TSFM
Re.CF
Has this saga not taught us that often the unbelievable turns out to be closer to the truth than the logical ?
zerotolerance1903 says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:05
That is very important. In the long term, the current window is crucial to making Scottish football better. Delay, indecision and argument benefits Celtic initially and the Ibrox club ultimately.
Plenty of Celtic fans on here are understandably delighted that the focus is primarily on their city-mates woes, but should not let that be an excuse to block or disrupt proper reform, even if leading reform might be too much to ask. I do, however, tip my hat to some of Auldheid’s efforts in this area.
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:45
————————————————-
TSFM has every right to be ultra cautious of any stranger bearing gifts. In the early days of RTC attempts were made by certain factions (Media House perhaps?) to discredit that blog and the vital revelations it was making. We had multi monikers and Berlin IP addresses etc if you recall.
CharlotteFakeover has gone off in a huff but, nevertheless, he/she is still eager to get damning information into the public domain. It will be a lot more difficult doing this through a football club message board and I just can’t see any MSM journo obliging without first of all verifying the facts to the Nth degree.
I do hope that CF calms down and continues to post on here. We will continue to respect his/her anonimity but he/she cannot expect us to simply swallow the information as if it came down from the mountain in tablets of stone.
Bit of a pity CF has withdrawn their future contributions from here – they were really interesting.
I’m not sure TSFM should really give a toss about the agenda of any contributor if their posts are neither libellous nor untrue.
With a reader beware disclaimer, which let’s face it applies to everyone else on here too, I don;t see a problem. I was surprised and disappointed by the tone with which many greeted CF.
Do you want info or not?
rantinrobin says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 13:38
It’s only a coup;le of pages back that you would need to scan. It would probably take longer for someone else to summarise it for you than for you to just read it yourself.
You’re welcome.
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 00:44
16 2 i Rate This
Craig Whyte & partners were looking to takeover Pearl & Dean, owned by STV. I guess discussions then turned to the parent company. A pension pot with a deficit would have been of no interest to CW whatsoever.
Craig asked Jack to do a background check on him in August of 2009 – Many press cuttings followed, all with reference to McLeod, Sykes, Pensions and previous business failures.
http://i.imgur.com/VwYGGmd.jpg
I do not infer any dodgy goings on however I’mt curious as to how persons ‘in the know’ interact with each other
=====================================================
Might be worth checking the sequence of date/time on the ‘original’ email from Lexisnexis – JI and the one ‘forwarded’ to CW.
blu says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:11
0 0 Rate This
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 00:44
16 2 i Rate This
Craig Whyte & partners were looking to takeover Pearl & Dean, owned by STV. I guess discussions then turned to the parent company. A pension pot with a deficit would have been of no interest to CW whatsoever.
Craig asked Jack to do a background check on him in August of 2009 – Many press cuttings followed, all with reference to McLeod, Sykes, Pensions and previous business failures.
http://i.imgur.com/VwYGGmd.jpg
I do not infer any dodgy goings on however I’mt curious as to how persons ‘in the know’ interact with each other
=====================================================
Might be worth checking the sequence of date/time on the ‘original’ email from Lexisnexis – JI and the one ‘forwarded’ to CW.
===========================================
I can see what you are saying, but is it possible that the two mail servers could be in different time zones?
bogsdollox says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 13:02
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I’m sure you know some things BD, they were just not interesting enough to prevent the ban.
I cannot remember why you were sin-binned but you should have known we have standards and don’t allow the breaking, bending, rewriting or ignoring of rules here, you must have got TSFM mixed up with TSFA 😮
Forres Dee (@ForresDee) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:18
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FD – I’m no techie, just pointing out an apparent inconsistency.
Thanks Night Terror.will have a read
zilch2 says: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:27
“Like many Celtic fans, I have never been comfortable with certain aspects of the business dealings of the club. Shared sponsorships with Rangers being one, and to some extent the voting arrangements.”
I am 100% comfortable with the shared sponsorships and that is because in a sense, they were forced by Celtic fans… from a 2006 Grauniad article on football fans boycotts:
Several of you, however, were quick to point out the unique situation with the Old Firm teams in Glasgow, who currently share the same sponsor: Carling. This all started in 1984, when a small glazing company called CR Smith decided to sponsor both teams, and did so with massive success. Three years later, however, Rangers switched to McEwan’s, causing large sections of Celtic’s support to stop drinking the beer – and several Celtic pubs to stop stocking it. The clubs eventually responded in 1999 by returning to shared sponsorship with NTL, and they have continued to stick with this system since.
Sponsors didn’t want to be associated with one half of the divide so the sponsors themselves were looking at the pair as a package. Now this means that there was a much smaller pool of potential sponsors (only those who could afford both teams) than if the two teams had gone it alone, so IMO the shared sponsorship was the only option available and if anything it probably depressed revenues for both teams….
BTW whilst the two teams have different brands on their shirts, there is one holding company (!) behind the pair… http://www.candcgroupplc.com/brands/ciders
I guess they feel they can maximise profit by segmenting the market. Celtic disclosed their deal I think, but did we ever discover how much they were paying for the NewGers sponsorship?
First up guys, thank you for all the comments and kind words, and the criticisms too. I understand where you’re all coming from … in particular about the politics and the length. I understand why the first made some people uncomfortable (and doesn’t it always?) and why the second might have put some people off. If I may segue for a wee second into politics again, the lengthy nature is probably as a result of my experience in political campaigns. After all, everyone knows that the art of politics is to use 10,000 words to say … nothing at all!
Seriously though … next time I’ll moderate myself a bit more!
It seems I caused a wee minor stushie last night over the mention of poppies, and I was accused by some of writing a hate-filled rant. I would have thought you’d need to dig deep to find hate in there, but hey, with so many words to choose from I was always leaving a hostage to fortune. The poppies I mentioned as a commentary on a certain type of Rangers fans … the one who doesn’t know what his real identity is, only that it involves hating a lot of other people. The whole sentence refers to the “the Union Jack waving, Sash singing, poppy wearing, Nazi saluting, Orange element” … I think we all know the type I mean.
This blog has become a must-read for me in recent months. I know a couple of bloggers today have said not much goes on here anymore, but I’ve not found that to be the case. There’s still a great level of insight and intelligent discussion here, and a few posters who really know their stuff and are happy to share that insight with the rest of us.
This is why I’m disappointed at how Charlotte has chosen to respond in light of a little … criticism? Or maybe just caution.
These sites don’t (yet) have the “reach” of the mainstream press … although what’s especially good about this one is that it has fans from various different clubs, and not just the fans of one particular football team on it. (And I want to comment later on the “duopoly”, which I agree is the real problem. I always said, it wasn’t the spending at Rangers that destroyed Scottish football as a competitive sport … it was the resurrection of Celtic that did that). These sites depend on one thing above all … credibility. And whereas blogs like this one have led the way in exposing the truth about the situations at Ibrox and Hampden, the guys who run them have to be careful – always – that they are not the targets of disinformation.
If the blogs are discredited, and people stop listening, these guys have the floor all to themselves again. The media, certainly, will not dig too deep or ask questions to which their readers might not like the answers. We’re it. We’re the only show in town, and that means sites like this need to be beyond careful.
Charlotte certainly has an agenda. The information he/she brought here would have been of great interest to certain MSM outlets. The BBC would have run it in a minute. Thomson at Channel 4 would have used every bit. So, it’s interesting he/she would choose to bring that information to a blog, and noteable that he/she is now talking about taking it elsewhere. I’m sure that there ARE blogs which would run with it, and pin their reputations on it … but this isn’t one of them, and that should be applauded … and understood.
The mainstream media would check it and double check it, and lawyers would go over it … so they are harder to slip disinformation past, although it still happens.
Furthermore, let’s remember … a good disinformation campaign WOULD have credible “source material”, and it WOULD have established a “paper trail.” It would look, at first glance, like something official … because whoever put it together would BE on the inside of whatever organisation the material concerned itself with. In other words, if this WAS disinformation, it would have come from Ibrox itself or someone close to Ibrox … and this blog might actually not BE the target … merely collateral damage.
No-one, as far as I can see, has suggested this is the case. But bloggers must be careful at all times. If something looks to good to be true, it’s the responsibility of the guy who publishes this site to ask questions … and he’s done that.
I say fair play to him, and I say one other thing.
If this information is kosher, and there’s a lot of it, and it brings sanity, clarity and sense to this senseless situation, it is the RESPONSIBILITY of whoever holds it to see it is ALL put in the public domain where it can be fully explored.
Otherwise, it’s someone playing games and it doesn’t matter what the intent behind those games is. It’s certainly NOT being done for the benefit of ordinary football fans, who let’s face it, have been given enough of a using here.
A very good article from James Forrest. It articulates a specific and consideted perspective on where we are.
A couple of observations. On his declaration of his politics I personally find it useful. It’s far easier to contextualise a piece of prose when the agenda and perspective of the writer is explicitly stated and you can adjust your own response accordingly. It allows honesty and transparency which are in many ways much more useful than bogus pretences of neutrality.
On the substantial appeal to decent bears,I suspect he is being somewhat disingenuous rather than absurdly optimistic. Many o us back on RTC wished a new non sectarian successor club to emerge. The machinations of the rules and denial of reality which has led to the present situation now lends any such prospect utterly invalid. We either get a continuation of an embittered aggrieved hideous parody of the Old Club somehow emerging from the SFA’ s pits of Isengard or they die indeed.
Neiher prospect augurs well.
chap..chap !
Ehh..hello Mrs Fakeover…is eh Charlotte comin oot..?
James Forrest says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:38
______________________________________________________________________
That’s nearly as good as your post, James, well said – you certainly spoke on my behalf.
James Forrest says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:38
==============================
Excellent post James. Much longer than mine on the subject of Charlotte Fakeover but better and more cleverly written. TU.
spurtle says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 13:01
I would like to believe that a large proportion of the Rangers support are still decent people, as James Forrest suggests they might be, and that they could find a focus amongst themselves to bring about New Rangers cleansed of their sectarian baggage, masonic ties, and rampant unionism. But I can’t see it happening. I hope I am wrong, as I would like to see renewed decency and integrity arise out of the ruins caused by the loss of these values.
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I think we all have to be very careful of not falling into the trap of equating on-line bampots and manipulators with ordinary Rangers supporters.
I have a lot of face-to-face contact with Rangers fans many of whom are close friends that I’ve known for years.
They have nothing in common with the haters found on a number of vicious fan sites and just want to watch good football from their team. Nothing complex, no hidden agendas or allegiances just like the majority of supporters of other clubs including Celtic.
The internet can be a great place for a lot of things but it’s also a haven for spotty inadequates waging war and spouting bile and hatred from their bedroom-based keyboards.
I also don’t believe that Rangers fans are predominantly anti-Independence but are fairly mixed on the issue unless in one of the small factions which espouse retaining the ‘baggage’. I’m a Celtic supporter and will vote for retaining the Union and I make that decision based on economic grounds – it has nothing to do with religion, loyalism or anything else and I know Rangers fans who vote SNP and will be voting Yes on the referendum despite what the internet zealots would have us believe to the contrary.
James F’s introduction of politics into the sporting arena is not misplaced I believe. He was focussing on governance, an entity that exists on many levels.
The previously arcane goings on at the SFA are now under scrutiny in a way that they probably have never been before. Leaks may be intended to distort the picture but often the underlying scene is betrayed. The Blazers may soldier on as if they are unaffected by it all but they know they are in unfamiliar territory and so will be unable to set the agenda with impunity.
I muse that perhaps the SFA have a feeling of entitlement. It was a Scotland v England game that helped rebuild UEFA’s fund base (was is in the aftermath of WWII) and as a result the SFA to this day enjoy a priveleged position that far outweighs their superficial merit. History is history but the world changes and if you don’t change with it you will be left behind.
Where this spirals into the bigger political theme is where our current circumstances foereshadow the impending independece decision. Any future independent Scotland would be blighted forever if the establishment forces rushed to crowd the political seating plan. This would strike fear into the heart of many I beleive. What has been illustrated recently however is that the forces of darkness need not have their way. The light shone upon them will utterly wither their wellbeing. If there was an ongoing and lively political debate it is possible a Scottish constitution might be evolved that was durable and enabling.
For me personally, reading the RTC and TSFM blogs has been very enabling. In the past, if the MSM agenda had been forced down my throat by say, a ‘Rangers’ fan, I would have likely swallowed it, uncomfortably, with a garnish of paranoia and then slithered back under the rock from whence I had emerged. Recently I’ve had a couple of occasions where this was not the tried and tested scenario that was played out. I have been able to talk, apparently knowledgably, about the shenanigans and this has utterly altered the landscape. No rock was necessary for me to disguise my discomfort. That place was reserved by those that would have previously launched their taunts with impunity. It has been a game changer.
MSM can print what it wants but up and down this country in the main streets and country roads there are people who hold their own well formed opinions. It is as insidious as the establishment once was. It is becoming the truth that need not be spoken because it is written on the previous glass jaw of its bearers.
Perhaps Charlotte realises this and needs to cash in her chips before they become worthless. A lot of big institutions are waking up to the fact that the world has changed, most importantly to them, financially. There is no more succulent lamb and by the time it comes back onto the menu this generation of MSM and their business backers will not be around to savour it.
Blu’s pick up of Charlotte’s earlier snippets may be the right tactic. Previously even a wisp of information would have been raked over until its bones were clear for all to see. Perhaps even these morsels have within them clues that Charlotte is disappointed we have not recognised. IF she is sitting on a pile of info then we can help her salve her conscience and bring some good from the unfortunate.
Charlotte, if you are ‘in the know’, then you know we are largely in the dark but encroaching rapidly on a light at the end of the tunnel. It is not a train coming the other way. Be patient with us. You may not fully appreciate how measured our pace is. We will get there.
My bit on CF
I was never sure what he was suggesting because I never saw him even hint at how he was getting hold of the emails etc, though it was clear that somewhere in there there was dynamite – but only if verifiable. I’d have preferred to wait a while to see if verification followed but we’ve all built ourselves up in the past, only to find that the reality is not always what we would wish.
What CF had to offer did suggest that he was in possession of, or had a line on, some explosive stuff, but, so long as we didn’t act on it (and let’s face it, there’s not much we could have done with it other than debate it at length), I can’t see what he could have hoped to achieve, other than take our eyes off the ball that is, if it was all a spoof or orchestrated trolling. I hope CF returns and continues to post along the same lines, we are mostly long-term followers of RTC and TSFM so are capable of biding our time until the info is verified or debunked, but CF’s huff does seem to suggest merit in the mods stance, and is not the action of someone with information they want to get out there to as many people as he can. I hope CF comes back with more of the same, but perhaps takes the time to tell us, in as guarded terms as he requires, just how he, in particular, has come by this ‘dynamite’.
Is it out there in a form that anyone, with the knowledge or expertise, can find? Is he a hacker, and therefore more able than most to hide his trail, and so could he be more open with us? Or is he so close to the centre of things that to give up his source might put him at risk? Does it matter if he has an agenda? Does it matter if he’s a stooge of CG or CW? If his information is genuine, whether it sinks Rangers or saves them, it should be out there! From the posts I’ve read it doesn’t seem possible to tell if he’s a Rangers fan or not (I’d guess not) as he doesn’t really seem to make comment and he remains a bit of an enigma. I like enigmas, but only if I can understand them in the end 😉
Cheer up CF, come back into the fold, look back at what you’ve written and you will maybe understand why people might doubt you, or your information, for we’ve all learned that it maybe is a good idea to look a gift horse in the mouth. As others have said, if you have something, and you genuinely want to get it out there, this is the best place to do it.
Forres Dee (@ForresDee) says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:18
blu says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:11
0 0 Rate This
Charlotte Fakeovers (@CharlotteFakes) says:
Monday, May 13, 2013 at 00:44
16 2 i Rate This
Craig Whyte & partners were looking to takeover Pearl & Dean, owned by STV. I guess discussions then turned to the parent company. A pension pot with a deficit would have been of no interest to CW whatsoever.
Craig asked Jack to do a background check on him in August of 2009 – Many press cuttings followed, all with reference to McLeod, Sykes, Pensions and previous business failures.
http://i.imgur.com/VwYGGmd.jpg
I do not infer any dodgy goings on however I’mt curious as to how persons ‘in the know’ interact with each other
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Might be worth checking the sequence of date/time on the ‘original’ email from Lexisnexis – JI and the one ‘forwarded’ to CW.
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I can see what you are saying, but is it possible that the two mail servers could be in different time zones?
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Not sure if anyone picked up on this, but there were some comments yesterday that some journalists may not have had access to Lexis Nexis and therefore missed some of the stories about Craig Whyte. At first I thought fair enough, but looking at the email linked indicates that the first story is from the SUNDAY MIRROR a newspaper not unrelated to the Daily Record.
They might not have access to Lexis Nexis but surely they can search their own blooming archive!
with regard to the charlotte fakeovers posts, i found it all very odd all this stuff being posted here out of the blue (sic)…
and so took it all with a large pinch of salt…
now he/she has gone away in a huff, that seems to me to be even more suspect…
get in…drop a few morsels…get out!!!
IMHO, it was a huff desperately waiting to happen…
if, and it is a very large if, there is anything further to add he/she has said it will be posted elsewhere…
you’ll forgive me if i don’t hold my breath while we wait…
p.s. i also found the single post response from greenockjack “interesting” considering his usual
style which is to pepper the blog with posts in a frenzied attack much like a team losing 2-0
in a cup final starts launching “bombs” into the opposition penalty box in the last 5 minutes…
but, there can’t be any connection there…can there?
good while it lasted though!!!
tomtomaswell says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 12:57
Charlotte,
RTC at the outset clearly stated what his/her objective was. I would perhaps be helpful if you could tell us yours.
===============
Has CF not already achieved his/her objective ?
I trust TSFM’s judgement…and it’s their site… 🙄
For the last time – I hope – on CF.
I am aware of how he/she says he/she came across the information. I just do not believe it.
I am not at liberty to share this since CF made that request (for quite understandable reasons), and for the same reasons I cannot elaborate on why I did not believe him and urged caution.
Had CF been a hacker, I would have removed posts posting rights and took legal advice as I don’t want to be seen to be breaking the law.
As you can see, I have not removed the posts. If I had the same cause to believe that the information from CF was bogus, I would have said so – but I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the documents – only how they were acquired.
The mods see our first priority here as preserving the community that has been set up. We can leave the throwing of copious amounts of mud onto a wall in the hope that some will lodge there to the tabloids.
I’d rather be apologising to CF for doubting him (if I am proved incorrect) than saying sorry to the thousands of people who look upon blogs like us for at least a bit of truth.
CF is still welcome here, but he knows and should understand we need to have confidence that he is kosher.
TSFM says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 15:21
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TSFM – glad you’re not going the full Decca A&R (Mike Smith, Dick Rowe – look it up) and rejecting Charlotte Fakeover outright. Over to CF to prove Dupery or otherwise. Over to us to be sceptical.
James Forrest says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:38
……. The poppies I mentioned as a commentary on a certain type of Rangers fans … the one who doesn’t know what his real identity is, only that it involves hating a lot of other people. The whole sentence refers to the “the Union Jack waving, Sash singing, poppy wearing, Nazi saluting, Orange element” … I think we all know the type I mean.
__________________________________________________________________
James, the mention of poppies jarred with me at first read but because I knew what you meant I let it go. However, if anyone in Scottish Football has an issue in relation to poppies it is, in fact, (a minority element in) the Celtic support …………… but that’s a whole other can of worms!
The reason the mention of poppies jars is because, unlike the rest of the behaviour you mention, poppy wearing is something that the vast majority of the population do, or at least recognise, in the run up to November 11th.
ecobhoy says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:52
I think we all have to be very careful of not falling into the trap of equating on-line bampots and manipulators with ordinary Rangers supporters.
…
I also don’t believe that Rangers fans are predominantly anti-Independence but are fairly mixed on the issue unless in one of the small factions which espouse retaining the ‘baggage’. I’m a Celtic supporter and will vote for retaining the Union and I make that decision based on economic grounds – it has nothing to do with religion, loyalism or anything else and I know Rangers fans who vote SNP and will be voting Yes on the referendum despite what the internet zealots would have us believe to the contrary.
=======================================================
I agree that we should be careful blanket generalisations. But it is transparently obvious that there are quite a number of offline Rangers bampots also… and of course, the same is true of other clubs also. Hopefully they are a small and decreasing minority in each case.
But how would you expect your Rangers friends to feel when faced with some of the “I hate Rangers” posts on this very thread today?
Personally I gave most of these posts TU because I sympathise with their views that Rangers as an entity (though certainly not every individual that follows them, by any means) have become so toxic and damaging to Scottish football – and worse than that, through their obvious influence on the MSM and football authorities (and who knows what other spheres) they are becoming a plague on Scottish Society as well.
But I don’t think hate will get us anywhere. Level heads are required if anything positive is to be accomplished. Hate is the problem, not a solution. People are scared to go public with even the most factual and rational statements about Rangers, because of the emotional and violent and hate-filled reactions the truth will invoke. That is why I am posting under a pseudonym.
As for the political dimension, I should have left it out of my argument, but surely nobody can deny that Rangers are associated strongly with unionism? Personally I am for Scottish independence, but a debate on that is not for this site, and I cannot say I have much confidence in the SNP sorting out this Rangers/SFA mess – what have they done so far? I don’t expect anything much from any politicians of any persuasion… I think we have to take direct action ourselves, en masse.
I am very glad if there are a significant proportion of non-unionists in the Rangers support, not least because that indicates (as does other anecdotal evidence) that the factionalism is on the wane. If only it were just about football, and who your local team is, or was, or who your father supported…
TSFM says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 15:21
For the last time – I hope – on CF.
I am aware of how he/she says he/she came across the information. I just do not believe it.
——————————————————————————————————————
After your opening line there TSFM, you then refer to CF in the rest of your post as “him” or “he” – any reason why you dropped the “he/she? ”
Wot u hiding?
jockybhoy says:
Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 14:33
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“Three years later, however, Rangers switched to McEwan’s, causing large sections of Celtic’s support to stop drinking the beer – and several Celtic pubs to stop stocking it.”
—
To be fair jockybhoy, i stopped drinking McEwan’s lager about three seconds after I started drinking it. This was no protest against their sposorship of Rangers; it was merely a boycott on behalf of my tastebuds. That lager was (is?) as weak as p**s.
JF? An excellent blog post and an equally good take on Charlotte fakeover above. This blog relies on its credibility – it is one of the things that marks it from other sites. If CF really is sitting on something big then I urge him/her to post everything they have available rather than release piecemeal. I do find the timing of this a bit odd though…all in a week that big news is supposed to come out of Ibrox?
The important point about these Charlotte fakeover bits and bobs are that they are not developed around a clear objective,that is to present a coherent narrative.
I ,like many others,am of the view that RTC had information around which he/she developed a story which was important for others to read.His/her arguments developed in due course.
I personally am a little fed up of the rumour, titillation and innuendo which flows out of the Rangers debacle.
I