Jump to content

 

 

andy steel

 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4,054

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by andy steel

  1. andy steel
    Easy on the Scotch mate, not Hogmanay yet.
  2. andy steel
    Probably just blank it.
  3. andy steel
    Brentford are a top Championship side, 5th at present. The saddest thing is I can't think of a single reason why he should stay.
  4. andy steel
    I'd would say his contribution has been trying his very best for Rangers, exactly. That it hasn't been good enough is beyond debate. But to go from that point to 'waste of a wage' and 'should be booted out' is not just a step too far for me, but a whole day's walk.
  5. andy steel
    Appalling way to talk about a person who's been Rangers man and boy.
  6. andy steel
    So what? How many times do the mods need to tell people they won't have this kind of comment about other sites on their board? Even allowing for the 'refugee' status of a good few posters, it's just rude. You wouldn't go into someone's house on Hogmanay and pish in the corner, would you? It's their board, it's their rules, don't like it, don't post.
  7. andy steel
    I have absolutely no doubt that, if a real board were in place and were attempting to revive the club, Ally McCoist would be happy to move upstairs or out the door completely and would waive his contractual pay off while doing so. I'd hope both he and Grieg could return as ambassadors on a retainer of some sort, when finances allowed.
  8. andy steel
    JohnMc will be standing for UKIP next May for the Gersnet constituency. The picture you paint is accurate and depressing, but if the very early signs at ground level are anything to go by, the newly engaged activist class who are burning with a desire to do something after last September's...eh...first round may very well see some of this ethos return - & although this movement is heavily female (not a problem afaic) there's no reason why football teams can't be part of it if they overcome their somewhat ingrained, ludicrous sexism. I can't promise a quoiting club, though.
  9. andy steel
    Excellent...no King, no Murray, just solid offer. I must say, I threaten to start a new club and all Hell breaks loose. At last! At last!!!
  10. andy steel
    Here you go mate, @10.40. Inch perfect pass out to Cooper on the left wing - where else? - and away they go.
  11. andy steel
    Many thought provoking replies. I think Durrant as a coach to young players could work. Primarily I'm thinking of what he could bring to a player like Barrie McKay, who in shape at least resembles Durrant closely. He'd also be pretty good at busting balloons and keeping feet on the ground. Added to that I really want a youth coach who isn't interested in the size of a player but his ability, and you'd have to believe Durrant would be one of those. Here's some clips to give a flavour of the man as a player, goal at 1:04. This will also give you an idea of what Ted McMinn could do on his day - there's a level of skill on show here which puts today's drivel into context: Cooper, McMinn, Derek Ferguson, Burns, McStay and MacLeod. Luckily for us they thought Whyte & McGuigan were defenders. What an outburst of energy after nigh on a decade being humped by them. Man, how I miss those days. The third goal, at 1.30. Another assault on Durrant at 2.34, btw. One touch football! Terraces! Walter yelling 'ya fucking beauty!' Even after being crippled, check out this one against Marseille.
  12. andy steel
    Never thought I would see the day I posted on a football site on Xmas morning. However, morose at a houseful of snoring teenagers who refuse to get up at 6 am and behave like they did when they were wee, I have done a tribute to Ian Durrant. Merry Christmas everyone, may your mince pie forever be moist. Winter can be the cruelest season. Among footballers, Ian Durrant could certainly testify to that. This most gifted of Scottish players, an attacking midfielder some decades ahead of his time, was cut down in his prime in early winter, October 1988. A 'tackle' from an Aberdeen player (mentioning the name of the individual concerned would only confer a gravitas upon him which he doesn't deserve) saw the usual welcome for grace and skill in Scottish football: physical assault. Both as player and coach Durrant suffered torment on Rangers behalf; there can be few circles of Hell he is unfamiliar with after his more than 30 years at Ibrox. Just as that early winter 26 years ago saw the only real world class talent this country has produced for two generations crippled by the mediocrity which dominates then as now, the long delayed winter of 2014 has seen him unceremoniously dumped from his job as assistant manager to Ally McCoist to a role in charge of the club's under-20's. Winter can be the cruelest season. This demotion might not prove to be a bad thing, if Durrant is minded to accept the role. Always a larrikin, the performances of the first team over the last few years certainly suggest he, along with McCoist and McDowall, wasn't suited to training experienced pros. A big kid himself, he could conceivably be more effective at working with other kids. Even so, this demotion is not a classy way to treat a man who, had things been different, would almost certainly have moved to England and thence on to Europe - he was that good - and who was and is a Rangers fanatic. But if Durrant deserved better from the club, he also deserved better from the fans. No-one can argue that the team he helped create was rubbish, but some of the criticism was ridiculous. Durrant, like McCoist, only ever wanted to do the best by Rangers. Those who posted dark hints about money grabbing, uselessness and standing with arms folded did the man a huge disservice: when Ian Black puts yet another pass straight out of play, what coach on earth can teach him how to pass? A crap player is a crap player. Of course, the solution would be not to pick such dreck, which the management team singularly failed to do, but that wasn't Durrant's decision to make. Even so, a fan base which regularly slates Steven Naismith for betraying the club which 'stood by him' during injury - a spurious argument indeed, given the legally binding contract both sides signed - but which then turns around and berate someone who stood by the club for decades, has got some issues of consistency, to say the very least. Players need to stand by the club, they insist: but what about the other way, club to player? Or even more close to home, fan to player: what about that relationship? It only lasts as long as the times are good, does it? To suggest any player be immune from criticism would be ludicrous, but there's ways of criticising without forever destroying the special bond between fan and hero, especially when that hero was and remains a fan. Well, if the board is dysfunctional and at one remove from the fan base, I suppose it's hardly surprising that the support is dysfunctional and at one remove from club legends. On the whole I suppose this is a small matter, and there are far greater issues for Rangers fans to be thinking about, as the annual family pig out/fall out approaches. But we can't look back on Durranty's time at Ibrox with any great pride now, the way he's been treated. For some fans - not all - cutting one of our own a little slack and tempering criticism with respect was too much to ask, and that's deeply depressing. I hope anyone under say 40, who might not remember the slight, elusive midfielder with the huge mop of curly hair in action, will take to Youtube to see what the fuss was about. As much a reflection then of the national preference for hackers as he is a reflection now to our own failings, Durrant is something of an unlikely Alighieri, experiencing the various circles of Hell available to the Bluenose: McCoist an even more unlikely Virgil. But both have been through an inferno on our behalf, as players and then as staff. The least they deserve is our understanding.
  13. andy steel
    It's not that bad, although it reads poorly it's more a touch of loyalty to the previous manager than a concession of defeat before a ball is kicked. Badly expressed, I agree.
  14. andy steel
    Aye, fingers crossed it is a conduit via which legally embarrassing material from the board can be publicly distributed. At the very least it could be one way of fighting back, which I couldn't see even yesterday. Fingers crossed.
  15. andy steel
    It's possible to be too paranoid, but the convenience of the leak - added to the lack of confidence in Somers at the AGM - makes me mighty suspicious as to where this leak has come from.
  16. andy steel
    I don't agree with the repeated criticism of those looking for a 'sugar daddy' as you put it. If a trustworthy , megarich figure happened along tomorrow, I'd be right behind them, as it would be better than what we have now. Unfortunately they can't get in, and the ones who did try were found wanting on several fronts. But slagging off people in the other camp won't win many converts!
  17. andy steel
    It's understandable, then, the fans who have already been at the point the AGM fans got to yesterday for some time would become frustrated, and seek out a new solution. What a farce for Christmas. I think it's fair to say that if someone could come up with a practical plan to take on MASH and get the club run by Rangers fans or at least Rangers men 100% of us would be behind it. It's the despair brought on by seeing no way out that leads to the plainly unpopular new club scenario.
  18. andy steel
    Man, I can't stand this kind of pish.
  19. andy steel
    I'll believe that when I see it!
  20. andy steel
    Only saw North Rd's post after posting #86. Again, a suggestion that the new club idea is a result of losing the plot, whereas quite the reverse is true. After struggling to see any way forward or out of our present predicament, I sometimes see a fresh start as offering a way. Other times I wuss out and don't have the nerve for it. It's a tough time all around, and no mistake, although events elsewhere certainly offer some perspective.
  21. andy steel
    A somewhat hysterical reaction from some to what has only ever been a thought experiment. No doubt, should the best of all times comes along and the club find health, some would point the trembling finger of accusation and intone dire peregrinations against those who thought a little differently to them in the dark days. Perhaps an inquisition could be called, to root out 'new club' heretics and ensure all remain strictly orthodox. In reality, we all want the same thing, but have differing views as to how to achieve it. Hardly unexpected given the trouble we are in; were we all to uniformly follow some party line, dismally throwing away every intellectual freedom given us in the modern world, we would be truly worthy of contempt. So while Mountain Bear and Papa Bear's rejection of any consideration of the new club concept, preferring to continue to fight, is perfectly legitimate and worthy of support, I am left asking the same question I asked of Zappa on the same subject last Saturday: how?
  22. andy steel
    God, writing that once was bad enough.
  23. andy steel
    Strictly you're right about failing/failed. But it wouldn't take the doors being locked for the club to be accurately described as 'failed'. Average crowds of 10-15,000, perennial mid-table status (in God knows what league), in hock to the neck to MASH, village idiots in the boardroom. I call it failure. If Struth's words are a credo we have already failed to live by them, repeatedly, over a period of decades. From the reaction to Stein's celtc, through Grieg's tenure, through the end of Advocaat's time, PLG & now McCoist, I haven't seen any evidence of tolerance or overmuch sanity, especially in the internet age! To expect them to provide a light now, when we're in a bigger mess than ever before, is to be optimistic to a level I can't reach. To be clear, when I say we'd be better starting again I'm not calling for a single person to agree with me, nor do I think it will even happen. I think we're down and probably out, others won't. Given that, there will be different views of what continuing to fight entails.
  24. andy steel
    It's bloody depressing, just the same.
  25. andy steel
    If you think the day is done, there's little point in continuing to fight. I'm not sure I have completely convinced myself it is - probably still in denial - but I'm certainly leaning very much that way.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.