alexscottislegend

No, not Rangers response, just the way the result was assumed to be in favour before actual closure. But thanks anyway.

I was emailed too, voted yes but then saw that the result had been announced, probably before everyone had the chance to vote. Not accusing anyone of anything but I would like to know how this was able to happen.

SFA in sensible decision shocker.

The modern game demands skilful players who are physically powerful too. Stark may have been a hopeless U21 coach but he is not wrong about small players having to be very good indeed to prosper. Look at England's young sensations, Barkley and Alli - they are not just skilful but good athletes as well. Where I differ from Stark is that if Holt is to be our no 10 can he and Law fit in the same team? Maybe one should be sacrificed for a defensive midfielder.

Oh, dear, dear.. because the world is composed of nation states. Time to put this thread to bed; it has been hijacked by Daily Mail editorial writers.

I'm sure he's been equally dismissive of the Tim fraternity too. A Falkirk supporter, he subscribes to the 'plague on both your houses' view.

Don't try and smear socialism with not very subtle allusions to Nazis. A real socialist is internationalist. As soon as you try to contain it within one country you get the kind of distortions found in stalinist Russia and China. Tony Forres, your best bet is to try to reclaim the Scottish Labour Party from the careerist types who have seized it, just as is now hopefully happening in England

It's a bit of an oxymoron isn't it? A dichotomy has by definition I think to be equal: if one classification is false then they cannot be equal!?

I usually have a lot of time for Waddell. He is not always against us, in fact he opposed the docking of titles but here he seems to be suggesting ground closures if I read between the lines correctly.

You are probably right about the mixed messages the SNP was sending about currency etc. But any future government would also include some MP's of Muslim origin amongst others; the names you mention do not set the agenda and maybe the problem with SNP is that it lacks at present any coherent ideology so that it has both right wing and left elements within.

All the more baffling when (some) Scotland fans seek to stereotype us as some kind of Churchill-worshipping, UKIP, monarchist reactionaries!

Maybe we can use the new legislation to our advantage. The so-called 'prevent' initiative makes it incumbent on authorities to prevent the promotion of terrorism. Couched under the term 'radicalisation' it is designed to limit the promotion of jihadis, but surely someone eulogising the IRA could fall into the same category? A two-pronged attack methinks: drop the 'f' word from TBB but at the same time think about legal challenges to the singing of songs which seemingly glorify terrorism.

If what you say is correct, then there is going to be one hell of a political bloodbath within the SNP at some point; to equate Scottish nationalism with Sinn Fein or Irish republicanism is to completely misunderstand the history of the two countries. I suspect that teacher lassie who posted that twitter rubbish (and is now being disciplined) comes into that category. A little learning is a dangerous thing.

Andy, my perception of the SNP was based around the perception of some of their detractors who simplify things by viewing them in some way as a kind of Scottish counterpart of Sinn Fein; since those people seem to think (without any real evidence IMO) that Celtic supporters are in the main those who have been signing up to the SNP in their droves. I think they have been attracting support simply because of the failure of Labour north and south of the border to provide an antidote to the Thatcherite model so unappealing in Scotland. Now that Corbyn has been turning Labour back to traditional labour values we may find that the SNP starts to lose its appeal as an alternative opposition.

I should know this but I'm scratching my head..?

You may just have saved me from a visit to my psychiatrist. Life is indeed full of contradictions. Take your username, Rousseau; I always thought he was certainly anti-conservative but I hope you don't show any of his gloomy later-life symptoms!Just to clarify my own position, I feel there is little point in an independent Scotland in or out of the EU if it is to be presided over by an SNP espousing free market capitalism; might just as well remain in the UK as a federal nation. Sturgeon et al have so far shown little inclination to renationalise for example Scotrail.

Think we've got a few Rubicons to cross. Sometimes I think I've got 2 heads looking in different directions!

The late Scottish poet, nationalist and socialist Hugh MacDiarmid referred to what he called the Scottish antisyzygy – that is, the ability to be able to hold apparently opposite views in the same psyche. I’m reminded of this while thinking about the possible future status of our great club, and this time of the year seems the appropriate time to do so. Given fairly recent polling evidence it is not without the bounds of possibility that in the not-too-distant, Scotland could be an independent state within the European Union while the rest of the UK could conceivably have voted to leave that same EU. Should that happen, then there seems to be strong evidence that the majority of Scots would vote to remain in Europe and therefore some separation would be inevitable. Given that possibility where would that leave the identity of our club? Would supporters still fly Union Jacks? Would we become the establishment club in Scotland, much like Real Madrid is perceived in Spain? Cards on table time here. I spent my formative years in the pebble-dashed environs of Penilee, thus I could reasonably claim my allegiance to Rangers on the basis simply that it was my local club. At the age of 7, I desperately wanted my Dad to take me to Ibrox but the old man wasn’t remotely interested in football and my grandpa would only take me to Firhill, citing the fact that he thought the big crowds would be too intimidating for me. Thus it fell to my uncle, a Labour-supporting Rangers enthusiast, and a freemason, to introduce me to the delights of that forward line whose names roll so easily off the tongue: Scott, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson. I recall trundling home from school in the pea-soup winter fogs, wary of walking past the catholic primary in case I was ambushed due to my being a ‘Proddy dog.’ Yet I never became bigoted; my cousins from the maternal side of the family supported Keltic (that is the correct pronunciation btw) as a result of my uncle’s mixed marriage. I digress only slightly. From some comments I’ve seen on Gersnet, a stranger might derive the impression that to be a bona fide Rangers supporter you must be a Protestant, a Unionist, a gung-ho militarist and probably not a Labour supporter. Never did I feel McDiarmid’s dilemma more than on one dark night in an English pub in the middle of nowhere following a particularly humiliating defeat in the Texaco Cup by Chesterfield; to an audience of bemused onlookers we belted out ‘God Save the Queen’ in defiant mode as if to bury our disappointment. On another occasion in that same Chesterfield I found myself campaigning for the late Tony Benn, my uncle’s Labour roots remaining firmly entrenched in me while my old man, to his brother’s horror, voted Tory for the first time in his life. In my mature years I’ve got into researching family history. I have a photo of my great-grandfather, one-time resident of Carmichael Street Govan, proudly bedecked in his Masonic uniform. In fact I have two branches of my tree with Northern Ireland roots, but no English bloodline at all which gives me no reason to ally myself to Queen Elizabeth 11 (who was the first Queen Elizabeth of Scotland?). And so to my current hypothetical dilemma. The question must be asked: can one be a Scottish Nationalist (not the same as being an SNP supporter) and a Rangers supporter at the same time? Or are the two mutually exclusive? Can one be a Socialist and Rangers supporter without being labelled as being in the ‘Yahoos’ camp? I’ve spent my whole adult life in deepest England so I think I can take an objective, dispassionate view. What gives me most unease is to see the facile way in which SNP support and Irish Nationalism are portrayed by some as both sides of the same coin. This is to deny the fact that the histories of Scotland and Ireland are not analogous: Ireland was a colonised nation; Scotland was never conquered by anyone. To deny that there is a Scottish nation is to somehow suggest that there is a tangible concept of a British nation, rather like the ‘North Britons’ of the Hanoverian period. To anyone holding such a perception I need only refer them to the comments of numerous Tory MPs on Scotland since the referendum, when they all loved us and wanted Scotland so badly to remain. The UK comprises four distinct nations and here is another conundrum – can one be a Rangers supporter and enthusiastically support the Scotland team? My uncle never saw any false dichotomy here – he supported both with enthusiasm long after he emigrated to Australia. I find it alarming that so many see support for the national team as a mirror image of the Keltic supporter who cheers for the Scottish club and for the Ireland side. Does that imply that the Rangers supporter should only support England? Both we and they are firmly Scottish clubs, albeit with divergent heritages. Those heritages need not and should not be forgotten, but what would be the scenario should an independent Scotland be created, whether by the will of the Scottish people, or by default because the rest of the UK decide to (erroneously in my view) leave the EU? During the Souness era when we were de facto the biggest club in Britain I was among those who fervently hoped for a British league, a dream which has now been firmly quashed by our English cousins to whom so many pay lip service. In fact, to my considerable distaste, the non-English teams of Cardiff and Swansea have become richer than we are. So the dyed-in-the-wool Unionist has to chew on the fact that our beloved club is just not wanted down south. In the event of an independent nation to whom should we show our allegiance? To a UK who show us consistent contempt or to the new Scotland? And whither the genuine Labour supporter who rejects nationalism? I have also this to say to those who yearn for an SNP in an independent Scotland: anti-austerity they may be but they are assuredly not Socialist. Rangers supporters may have more to gain from supporting the new Corbyn Labour than any anti-union party but we may find ourselves out-voted by the electoral power of the United Kingdom so many of us aspire to. A sobering thought and one which my late Uncle Rob, maybe fortunately, never had to wrestle with.

A poster on here recently said that but sorry can't remember who. Wilson was certainly one of the first signings and the groundwork must have been done before the appointment of MW was ratified. He could have rescinded it though. Think we really need to ask why has Wilson become so bad? He looked great with Weir next to him, can't he coach him now?

Don't think you can blame him for Wilson;think that was a done deal pre-W&W.

Good to hear but let's hope we don't have another John Fleck situation. We're terrible in this country at over-hyping youngsters and maybe it actually has hindered their development.

Thanks for that image Ian - I'll send it to my cousin in Oz.

The M& B partnership was great but Millar wasn't that big if IIRC; you could shoulder charge keepers then!

I lost my respect for Souness after he took the Liverpool job, claiming at the time that they were bigger than Rangers and felt he left us in the lurch. That claim was certainly not true at that time but I wish him nothing but a speedy recovery.

This is the kind of player and the kind of club and the kind of deal that we specialised in pre-Souness and Holmes. A good move, even though he's a midfielder and we need a central striker.