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Everyone considered him the Coward of Ross County.....

... reporting live from Erskine Bridge.

He’ll be on Sportsound on Saturday or as soon thereafter as he feels up to it. PQ adore him.

He also inherited Brendan Rodgers team/squad. One of the best things to happen to us in the last decade was Leicester stealing Rodgers. Would have been fascinating to see this Gerrard-led Rangers team go up against Brendan's team, though I am absolutely delighted we went up against Lennon's version instead

we should chuck the two old firm games so he gets the job.

As it happens, this is the 55th day of the year and SG`s 1.000th day in the job ...

They may delay it until after 55 is secured. He would be the elephant in the room at the big PQ wake.?

He fits in well at PQ. An irritating alcoholic, with an over-inflated sense of self-importance and no sense of fair play or moral obligations.

I may be old school, but I would give them fuck all.

You may be correct. As stated on Lennon's resignation thread, Cosgrove was BIG on Lennon being named as Scotland's national coach after McLeish resigned. I wonder if Stuart and Tam would question Neil on his two well documented instances of threatening women?

Standards, and self discipline; both are essential for long term individual and collective success in modern professional sport, even in Scotland. We need only look, quickly, I add, across the city, at the guttersnipe outfit, run by guttersnipe, for guttersnipe, to see the truth of this.

I remember that. One of the most impressive things about the All Blacks is their desire for what they regard as "All Black culture" to extend beyond the field of play and cover all aspects of decent and reasonable conduct. You can be a great rugby player but unless you show good character you've no chance of making it through the system. I also had no idea why something like this isn't more in evidence at a club like Rangers. We seem to spend more time discussing what to do with dickheads when they transgress and not nearly enough on the need for a club ethos that excludes them in the first place.

How many went on to play for the ABs? I think that the NZ players instituted the rule effectively. Really, it's just an injunction to adhere to professional standards.

Whether someone is a dickhead or not is subjective but, having grown up in a town full of rugby players, I'd have to say a rugby team without dickheads is an impossibility. I'm glad Rangers have done the right thing here.

Some years ago, The NZ All Blacks -that is, the players- instituted a set of rules. The first rule was: No Dickheads. Simple to understand, it has done them no harm, whatsoever. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying that our own dickheads should be bagged, just that I am disappointed that Rangers' dressing room does not display the same rigour.

There's also a video (behind the paywall) with Bassey, Zungu and Patterson apologising. https://www.rangers.co.uk/tv#/categories/Interviews?videoId=0_ihzo6jbc It's awkward viewing but presumably the club see this as the final stage of the punishment with a view to everyone moving on.

There's a statement from Messrs Gerrard and Wilson up on the official website: https://www.rangers.co.uk/article/supporter-update-1/4KcxScvSgLO4bSMkKEvQLw

Well if that were to happen there will have to be a repentance on his part. Let's not forget the HUGE outpouring of angst and bitterness after his Killie side were pumped at Ibrox. He played the West of Scotland bigotry rant to the full. So glad he didn't live here, toxic atmosphere etc etc. Not forgetting his bye bye Rangers (and Celtic) jibe from the centre of the pitch when Killie secured European football on last day of season. That's some helluva heavy baggage to carry into an OF job!

You already know the answer to that

Time to close the topic. Their plan, like so much else celtic, has failed.

What a catch-22 situation. Chuck the games and get Kennedy in full-time, which I am sure none of us would complain about..... or go for that invincible season ? I would give them all the ball in the two OF's, tons of possession, but draw 0-0 - and hope that Kennedy gets it full time

Yes, but the difference is that Brendan is an actual manager and coach. Lennon isn't. There were already signs that Gerrard was catching Brendan's team with the 1-0 at Ibrox with the Jack goal. And to be fair to Rodgers, Celtic were always going to be downsizing due to European failures and a bloated wage bill. So I think you are right. My point was more that it would have been a fairly close contest. Right now, and for the last two years, have you honestly went into an OF game worried ? Nervous, yes, but I haven't been worried because I think Gerrard & Beale are tactically far superior to Lennon - and we have a far better squad.

i think we would have been fine. Rodgers teams always collapse and collapse hard as well. He wears them out.

One has to assume he was paid up - it was a rolling 12 month contract he was on and I heard yesterday he was on 30k a week - wow !

The revisionism has long since begun. Gerry McCulloch's declaration that our points lead was "fake news" was a prime example. They'll phase him in gradually via an Off The Ball appearance, I reckon.

Just a Wednesday morning thought. Neil has resigned as Manager of ra Sellik. How long before Neil enters the PQ Gang Hut? The open, welcoming arms of the Blarney Bhoys, Chris McLaughlin, Cosgrove, ....... etc await. When will the revisionism begin?

He's resigned. Coward.

i took him 18 months to ruin everything Brendan had a achieved. That is fast really fast and we should be grateful.

he did yes. then it was covid 3/4.

Never thought I would see the creature being canned, because he lost his bottle. While cowards flinch, and traitor's sneer, We'll keep the Blue Flag flying here. It must have been a long, long, journey from Dingwall, right enough. I wonder if he had a booze on the coach, which would be illegal, of course, and, possibly,therefore, a dismissable offence. As for his 'record' , it has been put to me : Lennon has won League titles as manager, when- Rangers were docked points Rangers were not in the League the title was awarded by zoom call cabalists. (I thought that he might have won one legitimately, myself, but I'm not sure, and can't be arsed checkng back.)

We are all Keith Lemon.

Only a kid, with a tremendous future. Lets not punish ourselves and him for his one mistake, everyone deserves a second chance.

? signed front! Good job Frankie! ?

Although they are in a different situation to us, they are also generally different from us. We, as middle aged men (or in some cases OAPs) are telling teenagers how to act. I'd guess that there would be few of us who could say, hand on heart, that our teenage selves wouldn't have done something similar. There may be some who would say that they wouldn't because they were playing for Rangers, but that's an easy thing to say when you've no chance of doing it. Once you are there, it's just an everyday thing to them. I do however, have a lot of sympathy for the opposing argument and can fully understand it. I just hope that management do what's best for the long term interests of the club.

Lennon is correct, Celtic have been treated differently. What other club have been handed title due to this pandemic? Or been allowed to bugger of to Dubia for a week long piss up? Or rearrange a game, without the opposition consent to accommodate said piss up? Yeah Neil, your club is continually treated differently by the authorities.

you wonder if he know how stupid he looks. Foster sure does.

I saw this in The Guardian, and thought that I should post it here. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/18/burton-kane-hemmings-i-get-scared-before-games-im-not-embarrassed-saying-that Interview Burton's Kane Hemmings: 'I get scared before games. I’m not embarrassed saying that' Ben Fisher After years of suffering in silence the former Rangers forward is able to open up about fear of failure and mental health problems Thu 18 Feb 2021 14.47 GMT It is a couple of years since Kane Hemmings put his feelings down in words. A professional footballer, he wrote Scared, almost 900 words detailing a medley of emotions born of the fear of failure in which he talks about being petrified before a game of letting people down and weary of putting on a brave face to mask anxiety and suicidal thoughts. “When you feel that way, physically you feel tired and maybe a yard off it sometimes because you have all these emotions running through your body,” he says now. The piece begins with a dictionary definition of “play” which no longer resonates. “We don’t ‘play’ football,” the striker, who joined hometown club Burton Albion last summer, says now. “There is so much more riding on it, you can’t just go out there and ‘play’. There is a structure to it, there’s a gameplan, you have to do this, you have to run this way and that way, and you can’t just run about like you did with your mates. Having a good game only makes me feel like, ‘I need to do that again next week now’, but when you’re just playing for the fun of it, there are no expectations.” He accepts pressure comes with the territory but it is something he has grappled with since the beginning of his career. Going from Rangers, for whom he made 10 appearances, including in the Champions League at Malmö, to playing part-time for Cowdenbeath, training twice a week and washing his kit after games following his release at 21, was a shock. “It was a kick in the teeth, a kick to the ego. I loved my year at Cowdenbeath … but it’s not Rangers. I had to get rid of my car and I had to move in with a friend because it was the only place I could afford to live. I started a college course in sports coaching and I was going to college more than I was playing football. I held on to that for many years, thinking, ‘I could get this taken away from me at any point’, and that really, really scared me. It still scares me but I’m in a better place to deal with it now.” Five years ago, Hemmings was suffering in silence. He felt alienated living alone in Glasgow and was “drinking a lot during midweek, drinking on a Sunday and I would go out on a Saturday after most games”. At the end of a season in which he scored 26 goals for Dundee, he pulled on to the hard shoulder of the southbound M6 and spent 15 minutes crying, wondering why he was so low. Hemmings alludes to that moment in his writing – “I’ve just had the best season of my life and I hate it?” – but last year, after a “meltdown” at a friend’s partner’s 30th birthday party, came the realisation that he needed professional support. “I had a few drinks and I was just running about telling people I wanted to kill myself. I got took home, passed out, woke up in the morning, got picked up and took to training and I remember I went and sat in the kit women’s room and just broke down to her. She went and got the manager [James McPake] and he was brilliant. He said: ‘Listen, just go home and get your head right.’ That was a Monday and he said to come back in on the Friday … In a way, it was the best thing that happened to me because I got the help I needed.” Hemmings’ partner, Sophie, reached out to Mark Fleming at Positive Mental Health Scotland and he had a dozen sessions with Fleming’s wife, Aileen. The biggest takeaway, Hemmings says, was recognising the value of being open and expressing emotions. Scared was published anonymously in Mark Fleming’s book, Confessions of a Football Chaplain. “I would never have had these conversations two or three years ago. Never. I didn’t understand why I felt like I did so if I couldn’t figure it out, what was I meant to say to someone? Now I’m happy to talk to anyone about it. People are going to have bad days and bad weeks but it shouldn’t fester for years and years to the point where you’re saying the stuff I was saying.” If you speak to someone to get help, I can’t tell you how good it feels after He talks candidly about the impact of online abuse. “How’s it right that people can just go on to social media and say what they want?” Hemmings asks. “What are people getting from racially abusing someone? Or from abusing someone after a game? When I was at Barnsley, I didn’t play particularly great. I used to open up my phone on a Saturday evening and I didn’t know how to deal with these people telling me I’m terrible.” He turned to writing while at Notts County, during a season that culminated in the club dropping out of the Football League for the first time. “There’s people’s jobs at stake, money on the line, people’s careers … you have to be mentally strong to be able to deal with all that. Having to be like that all the time … it can take its toll. I get scared before every game. I’m not embarrassed saying that. I’ve tried to flip it on its head and turn it into a positive. ‘All right, I’m up for it,’ and embrace it. I feel I’m much more ready to deal with that pressure now.” Hemmings prepares a free lunch in the kitchen at the Burton’s Pirelli Stadium. Photograph: Matt West/Rex/Shutterstock Burton are bottom of League One but have won three of their past four matches under Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and could move out of the relegation zone if they beat Sunderland on Saturday. Hemmings has scored eight goals in his past 13 league games but, away from matchday, he has prepared meals at a local food bank and attended vaccination rollouts at Burton’s Pirelli Stadium. The club have made Hemmings aware of the support available to him from the club and the wider community should he feel he needs it. The club and the Burton Albion Community Trust are signed up to the mental health wellbeing charter. As a kid, Hemmings went to the half-term camps laid on by the Trust he has since helped at as a player. “If I left the club, I’d like people to think I was out in the community and tried to make some sort of difference. One thing that became evident when I spoke to Aileen was that I feel like I need community around me. Moving home to Burton has been a massive weight off my shoulders. I moved away from home when I was 16 to go to Rangers so I was not at home for the first 10 years of my career.” Billy Kee, Marvin Sordell and Kevin Ellison have spoken powerfully on depression and Hemmings knows his story will resonate with many. “If you speak to someone to get help … I can’t tell you how good it feels after,” he says. “It makes you feel unbelievable, once you delve into how you feel and openly speak to someone without feeling judgment. You walk out feeling like a totally different person. It feels like you are floating.” Book extract: Scared, by Kane Hemmings I LOVE “playing” football. Football is all I know and all I’ve ever really been “good” at. But the problem is I don’t “play” football, I’m in the industry that is football. Where is the enjoyment in sitting in the changing room before a game petrified as to what could happen in the next few hours? I don’t want to let myself down, my teammates, my family or friends that have come to watch all expecting me to do well. But I can't turn round to a teammate and say “I’m scared about going out here”. No, I sit there and do what everyone knows I’m good at, PRETENDING I'M NOT ARSED. And I almost convince myself I’m not. When I’m having a bad game people will say you just didn’t look interested. But deep down it's killing me inside, and I look like I’m not trying but I’m trying even harder. I feel physically embarrassed, because I know I’m better than most players at this level but for some reason I can't bring myself to be better than them, and its all in my own head because I know I’m petrified to let anyone down. I scored 26 goals in a season for Dundee and emotionally that was the worst season I had. I hated it. At the end of that season I broke down crying on the side of the M6 on my way home ... I was thinking 'wtf is wrong with me. I’ve just had the best season of my life and I hate it?' The problem for me is that with all the highs comes a horrible feeling of anxiety. I'm anxious of people’s expectations and then them I put on myself. People say when you score it gives you confidence and I understand what they’re saying, but the overwhelming emotion for me is anxiety. I just feel its even more pressure and I just don’t like it really but that’s just the territory I’m in I guess ... I think the biggest reason I get so scared at times is because football is all I’ve known for so long. I’ve seen so many people better than me fall away and not be able to play any more. It scares me to think everything that comes with “playing” football can be taken away from you at any time and that I could be left with nothing, especially now I have a son to take care of in the world as well. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

The Blarney Lament. Ra Brave Bhoys had just thrashed Aberdeen 1-0 and misty eyed Pat began the Blarney Lament. Surely, Steve Clarke will be interested in David Turnbull. "he's the first name on Neil Lennon's team sheet"? Last night's result had put Pat in a maudlin mood, he eulogised Sellik's February form, five wins in a row and wondered aloud, "why couldn't Neil get this reaction last month"?. Pat explained ra Sellik had dropped nine points in January and introduced ifs, buts, and maybes. If ra Sellik had only dropped three points, but circumstances like Dubai, and maybe pressure could have been put on Rangers. Uninterrupted and unchallenged, Pat concluded, "we know Rangers react badly to the pressure of a challenge, I mean there are still two remaining games against Rangers and if only, well it's a pity Celtic could not find this form earlier". Oh Pat, you're just saying what the Gang Hut are thinking. Sincerely, I hope the hope does not kill you. Herculean Effort? It began on Sunday evening, Rangers issued a Tweet stating awareness of a party involving players and fixed penalties. It ended promising an internal investigation. By Monday morning, BBC Scotland had the party as both their lead news and sports story. Further, the party featured as a news story on the BBC UK news and led the BBC UK sports. Similarly, BBC websites and CeeFax prominently reported the party. I do not know the machinations, but I suspect BBC has a bidding system ie one of the regions pitches a story and extrapolates on the probabilities of the story rapidly expanding to having national consequences. A Senior Editor at PQ went out on a limb to guarantee such UK coverage. By early Monday afternoon, BBC Scotland's Sports Correspondent, Chris McLaughlin was ready to add much needed momentum to the story. He told the Midday News Bulletin, previous transgressions by footballers during lockdown had seen the First Minister issue a yellow card, could a red card be forthcoming? Chris attended the FM's daily Covid briefing and asked the second question. Nicola's dozen second answer was a couple of lines about elite athletes and footballers, delivered by disdainful wave of a hand. All momentum had evaporated. Again, I do not know the machinations, but I suspect David Graham played the game extremely well. The Tweet seized the narrative, then the paucity of information only allowed speculation. We did not know all the names involved until Gerrard's Presser. PQ's Herculean efforts to bump Rangers into a statement failed and I suspect, has queered their relationship somewhat with Salford? Promising something they could not deliver. Out with PQ, hand picked usual suspects willingly lent their shoulders to the wheel. There were Monday morning articles/columns from Ewing Grahame, Alison McConnell, and Catriona Stewart(Gregor Cox). They all speculated(expected) the FM to shut down Scottish football because of Rangers players' actions. Dubai hardly merited a mention. They were sold the pup of false hope and it will be a little harder to convince their Editors of the newsworthyness of the next Rangers Bad story. Such effort should be recognised and acknowledged. We should remember Hercules expired because of acquired poison from Hydra's blood. The Gang Hut's poison pens will write their own demise. The Labours of Hercules. I am sure more than a few Gersnetters had to endure what used to be called, 'a classical education'? I cannot remember 99% of my school timetables, but I do still have the occasional nightmare over my third year, Every Monday morning began with triple Latin. It ruined my football playing weekends. These last several years I feel cheated by BBC Scotland, but also with my education. I was taught their were 12 Labours of Hercules, however it has become apparent that the Greek God(let's call him Chris) had a thirteenth. As well as slaying bulls, boars, lions, hydras, ....... etc, Chris scrupulously adheres to, 'putting the continuous boot into the H-u-ns'. It has been over five years since Chris attended Ibrox or Auchenhowie. In a show of solidarity, no BBC Scotland Journo attends Rangers Pressers. Providing information to Rangers supporters is not even an after thought. Our contract is with PQ, we pay our License Fee, they provide us with a service. Why are BBC Scotland Journos attending Royal Antwerp's Pressers? Not one of them has met and questioned Steven Gerrard, but they hang on every word uttered by Franky Vercauteren. I am sure this was just a bit of foresight in possibly exploiting the party story? I will need to recheck Hercules, what happened when his bird spent a month on the island of Lesbos? Did it end well Chris?