andy steel

I understand the media hyperbole, it's what they do. But 'Fight For Control Of Rangers Moves Toward Resolution' would, from what I can read on here, be a more accurate headline. Granted the two sides are fighting but afaics the club will survive no matter who is in charge, and this is more of a fight to control the club rather than last year's nightmare of trying to ensure it survived at all. I hope that's not too optimistic, time will tell.

I had heard that he was hell bent on being reappointed as director, though.

I detect a hint of mild chastisement & mockery but I'm too far into my Glenfiddich to quite get it...old age!

A question for those who understand the financials: With Charles inside the boardroom, does it make it easier or harder for whoever is eventually going to buy his group out to actually do so? It seems (from my position of ignorance) that if Charles & an ally of Paul Murray have that arena in which to get the deal thrashed out, it could actually push it along rather than hinder it. I mean, Charles/Zeus hold the shares whether he's inside or not, right?

I hate to be disloyal to Ally but I would love to see him heading north.

With regard to Britishness and expressions of the same, spookily enough I read this in bed last night. It's by Kipling, a chapter of Stalky & Co. called 'The Flag of Their Country.' A rotten politican is addressing the boys of a school about their future as rulers of the Empire & so on. "And so he worked towards his peroration—which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors—while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many many words, he reached for the cloth-wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. This—this was the concrete symbol of their land—worthy of all honour and reverence! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them—a large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort. They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before—down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton sands; above the roof of the Golf Club, and in Keyte’s window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it; it was no part of the scheme of their lives; the Head had never alluded to it; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eves? Happy thought! Perhaps he was drunk." The school's Army Cadet Force is broken up (by the kids), who recognise the horror behind the cheapening of the flag. "The volunteer cadet-corps is broke up—disbanded—dead— putrid—corrupt—stinkin’." Note the vehemence of Kipling's language here. I think this reflects the tenet of this whole argument: that if, at the height of Empire, people were put off by ostentatious flag waving and looked for an ulterior motive behind it, we can hardly be surprised when people do it nowadays. If quiet patriotism was good enough for K., it's good enough for me. Canny beat a bit of Kipling. And also spookily, I've just watched the Antonio Velasquez Company perform a staggeringly erotic dance routine to Ravel's 'Bolero' during the Proms on BBC3 or 4. Spaniards dancing to a Frenchman's tune, making an old Scotsman decidedly frisky! They ought to change its name to Last Night of the Porn at this rate. Point being it wasn't especially British, if at all.

His diving header v Aberdeen (?) is one of my earliest actual Rangers memories. Sad indeed.

Don't you feel European, with that history? Not trying to be nosy but that's a hell of an interesting family tale!

To the first couple of points: That's a poor final sentence I've written. Iirc, it was supposed to be along the lines of (the virtues) 'are seen as absolutely central to, and furthermore exclusive to, Rangers.' I'm not sure what happened to the first bit...it was a big post. Anyhow, if they were not exclusive to Rangers, they have become so as the other walks of life in which they dominated have been reduced in importance. However, the dominant culture in a nation doesn't need a social identifier, such as a sports club, as the dominant culture IS its' identity: therefore there shouldn't have been any need for a reply to Celtic's Irish immigrant identity. As to exclusivity in a football context, I'd wager that the boardrooms of few Scots clubs before the 60s/70s featured many RC's. Of course, we are the only ones who are held up to opprobrium for this...ironically by many bodies such as BBC Scotland or The Herald who only stopped their restricted hiring practices about 15 years before us. When the SPL - not that one, the Scottish Protestant League - was formed in the 1920's, it only enjoyed minor popularity and was frowned upon not least by the Church of Scotland; the official bodies of state were well able to defend Britishness. My argument with Prof.Walker's thesis is that propelling Rangers up the list of defenders of Protestantism seems unlikely. The Protestant people of the West of Scotland had their church, their workplace, their monarch, their history...there just wasn't any need for a football club as well when the official bodies were there already. Of course I should need to read his work but it seems unconvincing at first glance. I'm not sure what context he said it in so I can't really answer fairly. To define quintessentially British is a futile waste of time - how long is a piece of string? To some, it may be the Mother of Democracies crossed with a nice cup of tea, to others a sfa ehaven from persecution for many minorities, for some it may be whatever the EDF believe in. To the present government apparently the Post Office is not quintessentially British and they will sell it off next month; it's one of the things I would list as being woven into the three centuries of Britain as quintessentially British. Of course I view the current government as quintessentially horrendous but even so. The point remains: short of imposing some kind of group think on the nation the expression is 'essentially' meaningless.

Tricky one because I certainly feel annoyed at the double standards but keen that we show the class these other clubs and SFA so sorely lacked last year.

I had thought the Mather statement was a bit Lennon-like, what with its 'clarification'. But when you put it like that, it becomes if anything a little too cautious.

Plainly not, but I maintain my sentence is an accurate reflection of what you wrote. Might not have been what you were thinking - hence my willingness to say the gist was wrong given your subsequent explanations- but its what appeared on my screen and I will can't in clear conscience shift my ground on that. I think we've both set out our stalls quite clearly and would again urge referring this to Frankie, Bluedell and the rest to make a decision, if (as I suspect you won't be!) you're not satisfied with this reply.

While I would rather not argue I have to stick to my guns - if my interpretation of your piece is erroneous I am bound to reply by saying in that case its your writing and not my interpretation which is causing the fault, because for the life of me I can't see how your piece can be interpreted in other any way. I'm happy to say OK, I got the gist wrong but expecting me to read your mind rather than your words is going a bit far. As to BD's comment, as you said in this very thread you can comment where and when you like - how do you not have right of reply? How about withdrawing the whole shebang? I'm clearly not going to retract so as a compromise what say we take the article down? In the end its only a post, read by maybe a couple of hundred people. Bin it? ps; if you had asked for your bit to be taken out, BD, I'd have said no. Why on earth would I?

Think he may be disappointed if he turns up expecting 40,000 to be there. Still, start of the season and all, it may be higher than I think.

The humanity!

Sorry, laptop crashed. I think we should refer this to board moderation tbh. I believe any inferences made were entirely justified in the context of your article and hardly required verbatim quotations, but if others agree with you then fine, I'll edit them out. I have to go out so for ease of decision making I'll abide by whatever decision is taken.

2nd para, 5th sentence: 'And they still do today, no matter how society moves on to other things.' The article opens by listing historical, Rangers associated virtues, states unequivocally that they still apply - 'and they still do today' - and goes on to express the hope that they will continue to do so. I can't see how that can be interpreted as anything other than expressing the hope the club stays the same, hence the paraphrasing. I'm sorry if I'm missing something really obvious here, but I don't see it. Is it the inference you object to? And could you please tell me what bit you 'never even said in the original article' because if it's the 'no matter how' etc you blinking well did!

A glance at the land holdings in the UK might suggest that very thing.

'Times change and so do attitudes and beliefs, often for the better. But for several generations, including my own, Rangers were not just a football club. They represented who we were, what we stood for and the things which we believed in. And it still does today, no matter how society moves on to other things.' I'm not getting where I've misrepresented you, D'Artagnan. The bit in bold seems pretty clear: that Rangers have NOT moved on with society, but retained the 'things which we believed in', which I took to mean the virtues you go on to discuss? I'm keen not to have screwed up but I can't see how the paragraph above does anything other than root Rangers firmly in a historical past irregardless of the present, even allowing for tolerance of Jon Daly! I'll be more than happy to admit an error if its there but I don't see misrepresentation as yet, I have to say. I will go back and re-read your post and see if I can get my head round it.

Sorry Frankie, I meant to address these points but have been busy building a wall. Even as footballing small fry, both halves of the Old Firm offer companies the chance to advertise to profitable markets - look at our TV figures from last year, and <grits teeth> looks at Celtic's European exposure also. I don't say we are a fallen Barca, but we can certainly sell a good return with our fanbase(s). The Rule Brittania thing is interesting and I'd like to address it at some length (cue for those already bored to scroll down fast). I was born in 1970. The Empire, knocked by the Boer War, hammered by the Great War, and more or less destroyed by the 2nd WW, was already a historical curiosity by the time I was in my teens and able to think about such things objectively. Thus I don't feel any great empathy with it, but I likewise don't feel any massive liberal guilt. Expecting all white people to feel guilty for the actions of historical white people seems about as racist as expecting all black people to be good dancers, or whatever stereotype you want. My family were all pretty strong Imperialists, being of that generation, and felt that the Empire was beneficial and benevolent. I can see that bringing the railways and banning suttee were good things, but when you put them on one side and set them against the death of one person, never mind tens or hundreds of thousands, they don't seem quite so fabby. Add to that the fact - might horrify liberals, can't help that - that people really object to being invaded at all and especially by peple of a different colour or creed than themselves. We see how much people resent Muslim expansion in Britain, imagine how we'd have felt if the Ottoman Empire had lurched into Britain in the 18th century and lorded it over us for a couple of centuries. You then get, I dunno, some Turkish team coming to Ibrox and singing the song that represented that invading force. Doubt we'd dig it. RB is the Hymn of Empire. The Empire, if one digs out books and looks at the nuts and bolts of it, was nasty and brutal. What Conrad called 'the idea at the back of it, something you can bow down before' isn't enough to save it from the nasty taste of violence and control it left in the mouths of many. While some songs can leave their associations behind I don't think you can say that of RB yet.

Quite right, I apologise. It was to be expected that the high level of the thread would falter at some point and I should have been more tolerant of less interesting posts.

I'm going out on a limb here TRPB...is it possible you're not a Monarchist?

I'm certain you're not. But there's been something of a 'perfect storm' in the last 30 years regarding football & behaviour, started by Mrs Thatcher's rather simplistic reaction to crowd trouble (fences, increased police, higher middle class interest in/refusal to cower before football crowds), and then fuelled by Sky's absolute determination to sell the game to those same previously excluded groups (middle classes, females, familes and so on). Add to that our position in Scotland with a first time Nationalist government which is likely to be hyper sensitive to anything which could portray the country in a bad light and there's precious little wiggle room for what you or I might see as ripping the pish out of rivals. I suppose the line will flex between tolerance and intolerance as the years go by but there's just nothing to be gained by refusing to accept that the present day is an intolerant one as regards things we may find not that bad. I may have come across in this thread as intolerant - I don't think so, mind you - but at bottom its simply a realisation that our room for expression has radically altered. A visit to any ground in Scotland will show that plenty of what I consider lousy behaviour is still tolerated - the idea that its just us is one of the most ludicrous recent years has thrown up. It's not a choice between twiddling your thumbs or screaming your head off until you get arrested - there's room between, just less than before. I feel we have to realise this and box clever accordingly.

It all seems very professional and successful, well done to all involved.

When derBerliner comes on in the morning I'll ask him to translate! Die Gehandsichwashen Loyal.