andy steel

Big Sam threw in half a dozen youngsters against Nottingham Forest last Sunday...how did that go?

The highlighted 11 actually looks like Ally may be building a side 'under the radar'. You'd have to play Peralta at DM and fit in Mitchell who I remain unconvinced about but you end up with a team all under 30, some well so, with resale value and the potential to achieve decent runs in Cups/win D1. Add some back up to replace the deadwood dB identified in the OP and I'd be reasonably happy with that.

Thanks for the replies, BH. To make my question a little clearer (i hope): I feel that the current majority shareholders are hindering, rather than helping, the revival of the club, so I'd like to see them go. But it seems plain that they are unlikely to go without getting a sizeable pay off from someone, somewhere, whether it be in sales in general or selling to soneone launching a takeover. That leaves us in the awkward position of having to pay off people I consider parasites; I am wondering whether such a payoff could be reduced to the absolute minimum amount without the club hitting the buffers again. Since you say that, were the share price to go low enough for this to happen, people would buy shares and thus elevate the price again, it seems like a no-win scenario for the club. Either someone pays off the hedge funds etc with an offer way above the market rate (unlikely and a bit mad) or we remain majority owned by groups who have no feeling for the club, only a return on their investment - and that could be done by any number of ways, not all of which spell 'happy days' for Rangers fans. Perhaps starving them out and encouraging them to take the money and run might not be such a bad option after all.

The phrase 'bite his hand off' springs to mind.

I think that's a wildly optimistic outlook, Rab. Downsizing, not investing, will be the order of the day for the foreseeable.

Brahim, you understand these financial dealings. Would it be possible for a scenario to unfold in which the share price is depressed as far as it will go, at which point it would actually be worth buying shares? What I mean is, since certain people got their shares for a penny, and I'd fain see them rewarded with a sale at say 50p, could it happen that their shares are eventually so worthless that we could get shot of them at a penny a go? Seems too good to be true, in one sense. I have a feeling that a share price of about 10p would probably mean another admin event but I confess to not really understanding this whole area.

I will admit I thought this was mere internet bollocks, but their response suggests someone, somewhere has hit a nerve. Look at the language: 'the highest standards'...'the utmost integrity'...'preposterous'...'ludicrous'. As usual, Shakespeare got there first: methinks they doth protest too much. Add to that the sneaky deflection of inquiry into celtc's activities into criticism of whatever it is they are doing for 'their' area ('the Club is committed to investing in and improving areas around Celtic Park'...'will not be deterred from our work to improve our local area'), so that anyone asking questions becomes a party to the retardation of Glasgow's regeneration. Stinks of the late R.M.Nixon's strategy over Watergate...let's hope it's about as successful. A most unconvincing and interesting response from the usually unflappable celtc press office. Quite frankly, if that hysterical hyperbole had come from Whyte or the Easdales no-one would have been surprised.

Sounds like the kind of thing Whyte used to come out with.

Schone. Danke, meine freund! Hope everyone had a great time.

Another spiv

What do you suggest? Rise up and overthrow the Capitalist System?

I'd take issue with the 'key player' bit - he didn't have much to do and did thrown the ball into the net at least once. If its in his contract I suppose he's as entitled as the rest of Crucible's pals to fill his pockets, but truthfully he has had a good living already out of a club on its uppers and it kind of leaves a bad taste to try to lever some more money out the door of Edmiston Drive. Not very classy, although that's easy for me to say...it's not my money, after all.

Alas poor Steely! I have amended my post accordingly to fit in with the spirit abroad this merry festive morn, so I shall avoid mentioning my sincere hope that, like you, we never find ourselves on the same level. We agree on something.

Oh pooey. Now I need to delete the last post.

Good old Crucible! Afaics he has persuaded hunners of people to move into his camp, which ought to tell me something both about his effective canvassing style and the level of debate needed to reach to deal with the cretinous, gullible saps who use Gersnet.

Rab, you're either ignoring stuff you don't like or missing a lot of posts! When Murray got his team together, the board named them as a concert party, a business term which apparently means that, once such a party gains a certain percentage of shares, they are legally obliged to offer to buy every other share there is. Which would cost a lot. And not just offer to buy them, but to buy them at the maximum price they had ever been at, meaning that if Murray/McColl wanted to buy shares today, they'd be paying about 90p for @40p shares. They would have to be insane to pay that much, especially to the mob who own the shares at the moment.

If I was Daniel Levy I'd be asking Southampton to name their price for Pochettino (sp).

Alas, poor Keith. The people he needs to persuade are unlikely to be reading the Daily Record.

I hope you c&p'd from this thread and not the other one, which is riddled with spelling mistakes!

Where I would disagree, Hildy, is that the law is especially oppressive. It is certainly heavy handed, I have never disputed that, but my belief is that when we are dealing with the sort of people being targeted only a heavy hand will do. Asking the GB (Old Firm fans, really) nicely to shut up about their politics at the football won't work! Far from dropping the law and continuing to use football as the means by which these outdated, irrelevant and, bluntly, foreign agenda (agendum?) are kept on their life support machines, we need the commentating class to insist on their removal from the sports field completely, and their introduction into the Scottish body politic. Apparently, Mr Spiers tell us, the GB are astute political activists with a solid intellectual core. Fine, let them organise into a party and stand for election. Then they can do all the politicking they like. Mr Spiers has, to be fair, said that: but by God he has crawled on his belly to avoid actually standing up and pointing out what any decent minded person would do, that their whole ethos stinks to high heaven. He's more religious than me, he ought not need to have this pointed out.

Point 1 - Completely agree. I'm not going to stop banging the drum for the Progressive fan against the LUMP Tendency, but my point is that coverage of the GB which oohs and aahs over their intellectual prowess while ignoring their playing at terrorism from the safety of Scotland makes it that much harder to persuade said LUMPs to move on. Point 2 - I would normally agree but I am so frustrated with the effect this will have on our fans that if I didn't post something about it I would never have got to sleep!

Man, the list could go on and on! Peter O'Toole, the My Left Foot guy whose names escapes my aging memory, G.B. Shaw, thingy Doyle, even, if you like that sort of thing, Somerville & Ross. Flann O'Brien, Jim Farrell (I know he was English really but anyway), and so on. They don't call the 20th century 'The Irish Century' in literature for nothing, but in this cultural backwater we apparently require spotty adolescents breaking chairs to bring home to us the true meaning of Irishness. It's just totally demoralizing.

What a difference a year makes. About 12-18 months ago, new legislation was introduced in Scotland which sought to finally, once and for all, get Rangers fans in particular to shut up about Ireland and the Pope both at and going to or from football matches. Don't believe any nonsense about other club's fans, it was aimed at Bluenoses because Bluenoses were and are seen as the primary offenders. I had and have no problem with this: I was sick of such songs and chants at Ibrox and, since my fellow fans didn't show much sign of packing it in themselves, I agreed that they needed the threat of the law to encourage them to stagger into the 20th century, let alone the 21st. The law proved very controversial, but until this week I remained behind it, because Rangers could only benefit from it, even if some individual fans suffered. I am pleased to say that such songs are down to the absolute bare minimum and will, with the right approach, wither and die within a generation. So, the law is a success? Alas, things have become rather muddied. The spotlight has shifted from us to Celtic's fans, due to their repeated singing and flag waving about IRA people, disrupting Glasgow city with marches, singing about Orange Bastard managers from Ajax and generally being obnoxious. Curiously, this focus has been greeted not with societal opprobrium and condemnation, and certainly not legislation, but a willingness to engage with the reasoning behind such displays, deep thinking articles and much intelligentsia driven discussion. Legitimate displays of heritage are suddenly to include singing about terrorists, which unless I am mistaken is specifically illegal under the laws brought in after 7/7 and 9/11. You can dress it up as political activism all you like, terrorism is always wrong. But we have people celebrating it. This is frankly disgusting. As a long serving hand wringer and hater of all Orange ties to Rangers, this willingness to engage with Celtic's terrorist celebrating wing dismays me. Not just because newspaper articles which stroke their metaphorical chin and hmm, hmm, about the rights and wrongs of glorifying murder turns any sane person's stomach, but because it whips the ground out from beneath the feet of those Bluenoses who have argued for the club's fans to drop its baggage. How can I argue that Rangers should drop loyalist links when the rest of the country is falling over itself to analyse Celtic's Irish links? Whether I like it or not, and I don't, I cannot deny that such loyalist links existed. How can I argue that UVF songs are disgusting when the rest of the country has re-classified the IRA as merely a misunderstood political movement, who seem to have let off a few firecrackers by mistake? I am not subtle enough to distinguish between one murder gang and another; if one is allowed, it seems all must be. How can I urge Bluenoses to look to the future when the media in this country are hell bent on grovelling before Celtic's past? If fan A's heritage is so bloody important, surely so is fan B's? The case against sectarianism has taken a huge leap backwards in this country in the last few weeks, and all because some attention has been shone on Celtic's bigots. They are not politically active, they are not the cultural heirs of Finn MacCool, they are a parasitic leech on Scottish football which will do nothing for it but plenty to hold it back. But hey, we want some atmosphere at Celtic park, so that's OK. I imagine thousands of fans will be queuing up to enjoy said atmosphere. Mr Graham Spiers, on BBC Radio Scotland last night, calmly discussed the alleged terrorism-informed Irish heritage of Celtic as displayed by the Green Brigade group of fans - what an insult to both Ireland and Celtic, incidentally - then sounded like he was foaming at the mouth when discussing Mr Paul Murray, the wannabe Rangers director. This man's moral compass is not just broken, it is absolutely shattered. What a dispiriting and dismaying vista. An arch critic of Rangers' sectarian links, Mr Spiers has been at the forefront of pushing for engagement with these deeply misunderstood and intelligent, earnest young men and women, the better to understand why pictures of a 14th century Scottish killer, a 20th century Irish killer, and the suggestion that either are appropriate for the future of 21st century Scotland (or even Ireland), have become visible. The fairly obvious answer - that neither will do, and rather than banging on about centuries past both countries would be better served by looking to the future - is discarded, in favour of agonised intellectual examinations of political disengagement. Anyone who thinks we will revive the electorate by adding some more Irish history to football - this is the serious premise being put forward, by the way - ought to be debarred from even commenting on it on grounds of incipient cretinism. The avalanche of people who have attempted to legitimise utterly inappropriate behaviour by football fans as political has been staggering, but that doesn't make them right! As a paid up online intellectual chin stroker myself, it kind of pains me to say that people who actually have to live with this sort of crap are the ones who have given the best response to it. Mr Tom English and Mr Keith Jackson have given these people short shrift: self-obsessed and self-indulgent has been their judgement, and I would agree. Mr English is Irish, and presumably has an educated understanding of Irish history; Mr Jackson, to judge from his accent, grew up in the environment in which the realities of Old Firm sectarianism are well understood - i.e., broadly meaningless insults between people who go to different schools. Mr Spiers, we know from his insistence on providing us with details of his youth, did not. I won't be dragged into sectarianism just because I am a Rangers fanatic - sectarianism is such a waste of time and energy which embarrasses my club. Granted, any time you have a religion you will have people who oppose it; but it's got nothing to do with football. I'll argue against any Bluenose who wants a debate about our baggage, and have done for a decade. But it just got harder to justify that position (which I will not abandon) thanks to the pussy-footing around in the media, and it's mighty hard to persuade your fellow Bluenose that he out of order when his opposite number in green is molly-coddled to this degree. People like Mr Spiers do the game and the country no favours by indulging one side of this coin while castigating the other. Let's get this absolutely clear - terrorism is always wrong; sectarianism is always wrong; bleating about it at the football is always wrong. It really is that simple. Pandering to bigots will not cleanse Scotland of bigotry, and re-branding bigotry as political activism is about as cowardly and gutless as it gets, allowing those who have spent decades berating one class of bigots to avoid confronting another lot on the grounds of freedom of speech. Mr Spiers recently contacted Gersnet to complain about nine inaccuracies in one of our articles. I would be delighted to hear from him if he could point out the inaccuracies in this one...I won't hold my breath.

Blame the editor. One simile will do, you don't need five or six; one non-football comparison will do, you don't need eight. Though like you guys I would just have rejected it completely and asked for a total re-write.

In no way is this a criticism of yourself, Indiana, but it is most depressing to be a Rangers fan and be aware that virtually the only impact our club has on a global scale is this issue. You are about the fifth student who has been in touch seeking info for a thesis/dissertation or whatever. It really is sad. It's a very sad reflection on Scotland, too.