andy steel

Note to director: close ups of big unshaven baw faces are not attractive.

Great read. I, too, find myself constantly returning to The Rangers when I ought to be getting on with other things. Obsession! I would quibble with that line, though - the no-Catholics signing policy was a blot on our history which we ought not be afraid to admit, and being behind the SPL is something both we & Scottish football in general have great cause to regret. Sorry to be picky.

I don't think I've slagged a fellow writer before, but that's absolutely terrible.

I don't agree, they can have whoever they like as editor. It's up to us as fans to grow a backbone and stop funding people who hate us.

Bit rich coming from the media, though.

Its a fair enough piece as far as it goes, but it misses out one crucial perspective, that of the fan. Understandable since I assume Mr Grant is not a Bluenose. The people running the club, who must develop a revenue stream to keep the club solvent, understand that in order to retain the fanbase they need either trophies or at least a decent team. Another two years of last years' dross would see many Bears disappear - it happened before &there's no point pretending it wouldn't happen again. They're faced with a Janus problem - they can spend low and keep solvent, but it will impact on the overall income to the point where it risks financial trouble, or they can spend higher, keep the income coming in but risk financial trouble. Its not as simple as 'Rangers should not spend money on players' - that thesis will also lead to trouble.

We came horribly close to ceasing to exist, so walking around bumming our load would be a bit rich. Granted, when arses on the radio or papers put the boot in you or I are going to react, but the people with the blazers ought to be able to avoid that, and by showing a level of awareness perhaps engender a lessening in the hatred. I doubt if it'll work, but he has to at least try.

Cause the rest of the game had (still has) us by the balls, that's why.

Aye, but we've had some weird old strips and 1000's buy it anyway. Tbh we could come out with some kind of Harlequin nonsense and it would still sell. It's the dislike for a fairly basic blue strip I find surprising.

A genuine question, although it may not be Rangers Chat exactly. Apparently, they don't have the tools to exclude anyone who may not be, in the time honoured but generally ignored expression, fit and proper. We should know! They may enforce discipline after the fact, but as Hearts, Rangers, Dunfermline et al have shown, this is generally little more than an expression of gleeful revenge by rival fans than any meaningful deterrent to like behaviour by others. Apparently, they were no more than a bystander during the merger/takeover/final fuck up of the game we saw over the summer, despite offering to act as honest broker. They cannot enforce any form of coaching on the game which might drive clubs and national team forward. They cannot create facilities in any meaningful numbers which might encourage participation, nor strike sponsorship deals with companies which might send out a genuinely health-conscious message. MacDonalds or a Mars Bar, anyone? Other than providing office space for various warring factions to haggle and barter like old women at the fish market, they don't seem to do much at all, and I expect any number of office solution companies could do that without requiring the sort of wage Stewart Regan is paid. In a time when every penny is a prisoner, I don't see why we need to hold on to this relic of the past at all. If you think they are incompetent or absolutely trustworthy doesn't really matter: if they don't actually DO anything, why keep them on?

A little bewildered at the heat the top is causing. Is it really that big a deal to anyone over 20?

Absolutely superb. Forensic, calm and reasoned, everything Tom's article was not. Pointless to expect anything will change, though.

We seem to have attracted every wide boy in the UK these last few years. Nothing much to be done but wait for the system to shudder and vomit them out at some point down the line. Btw, looks great having 'retard' in the top topic title. Very classy, reflects well on the club and its fans.

The suspension of normal rules which following a sports team engenders, I suppose. We are as guilty of this when considering matters Rangers related, but at least we know it. Either that or they are just fuds.

To be fair, CalScot, that's been the ethos of the society since the Evil One emerged from the fell pit back in '79. <shrug> 'I hate Rangers and wish they were dead, that's why my club going into meltdown prompts me to talk about Rangers.' Get a life.

You can't build without a foundation. If you want to see something good in the future you need to lay the groundwork first. Anyone who thinks last season's showing were anything to build on...well, I only hope they don't work in construction. I doubt if anyone wants to see a Rangers team featuring the likes of Ricky Foster in 3-4 years time, but he can certainly play a part in steadying the ship - a ship which wobbled dangerously time and again last season. We've no way of knowing whether the club will drive on and become a modern, footballing side, but without some stability for 18-24 months we can guarantee it won't. Hence these signings.

I don't care if I'm too late: Boz to that!

To be honest mate, I think the most pathetic thing is that people could resort to stabbing each other over football. Not the best light on our town.

& btw, devoting a column to the VB's victory over the BBC when Hearts are in crisis points to a pretty shit comprehension of Scottish football.

Meh, its just the cosy club closing ranks against the disgusting horde from the streets who pay their salaries. For all their whining they have little choice but to take the judgement on board. Let them bleat.

Lifted from the BBC's cycling page today. We may be the People, but we are far from alone on this one. The context is that, when asked if he was relieved that Wiggo was out of Le Tour, Froome replied 'I wouldn't say relieved is the right word". Headline: Froome Relieved at Wiggins Absence. There are plenty more pissed off comments at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/22957697 It's possible that they are just plain shite rather than at it, I suppose. "This is tabloid journalism. Seems to have increased more and more lately at BBC Sport." "Headline does not correspond to the video at all. Very cheap journalism." You know why Froome doesn't like these Q&As? Because petty pot-stirrers twist his words out of context. Your counterparts at Sky have headlined this interview "Froome: Wiggins absence a blow"; and you know what, you lot could take some journalistic lessons from them." "What a sensationalist, cheap piece of journalism. There was a time when the BBC was something to be pride of. Now they've been reduced to this: encouraging Froome to say bad things about Wiggins. If (British) Team Sky implodes we'll only have (British) hacks to blame..." "I normally get a bit peeved by all the BBC haters that comment on these pages, I mean why read the BBC if all you are going to do is slate them. Then we get an article like this and its just embarrassing. If I made a twist on words like that in my job I'd have been sacked long ago." "BBC Journalists, this our GB backed team. Impartiality is the least they deserve, pathetic!"

With great difficulty! British public opinion is the same body that rushed to facebook with mock ups of Stuart Hall captioned 'It's a Cock Out' when he was convicted, so we ought to be careful of assuming 'Britain' shares the kind of values you or I might. I suppose the best - probably only - way to deal with it is to expose it, continually and relentlessly. Given the track record of the body involved this does not take much doing, but bringing it to higher exposure than Rangers forums is the tricky bit. Perhaps a modification of your anti-fee plan might work, which would be to use like minded media bodies to highlight the crass waste of tax payers money Pacific Quay is fast becoming a synonym for. The Daily Mail would probably be one such body, Sky might be another and so on. I'd not keen on such moves because I think over the piece the BBC as a whole is superb and needs protecting, not kicking - but that's why the idiots in Glasgow are so dangerous, because with every doctored report, every inaccurate statement, and every programme which disnae bother with boring old facts and just belts out whatever they feel like, they make the BBC as a whole easier to target for those who despise it. It's a body which is based on a public service ethos, an ethos which a certain recently deceased person ground into the dirt in Britain. Since that revolution, it has tried to find a way to reconcile free market production methods with that ethos; as yet, it hasn't managed it, and appears bizarrely schizo at times. But again, that's Britain in 2013 - these market forces mean Wonga are still allowed to use said convicted rapist & child molester Stuart Hall to voice over their extortionate loan business. At the pictures last Saturday night, one advert had the tag line 'Straight talking money - without the hanky panky!' Without wishing to be offended every time I leave the house I did wonder how one of his victims, who had just gone to see Superman or something, would have felt if they heard that. But it seems they don't matter. For all its faults, on any week you can turn on the BBC and see Iain Stewart teach you geology; Dallas Cambell (yes, really) do astronomy; Andrew Graham-Dixon on art; Dan Cruikshank on architecture; crap social drama/soaps if you like that sort of thing; Ray Mears teach bushcraft and self sufficiency; mostly Oxbridge but still some funny comedies; and that's to say nothing of the radio output. I just fear throwing out the baby with the bathwater, no matter how hard Pacific Quay are making it to be sane on this subject!

I think the loss of a publicly funded broadcaster would be a real blow to my idea of Britishness, and put another dunt in what's left of our society. Even considering the actions of Celtic's broadcasting wing over the last few years, that would to be far a step for me.

The player Falkirk have just now, Blair someone, looks like a real prospect to me.