Tannochsidebear

Friday bump for the predictor. I must do better this week after a poor week last time. What do we think this week, the seemingly usual scoring draw in Edinburgh? Can the Bairns bugger up the Bhoys chances? Can us bears take out our Euro frustrations on the buddies ?

I have emailed it to Rangers, UEFA and Real Radio, never thought about the politicians. Will try to do that when I come back in this afternoon. As for putting it up on the site, no problem.

The following is my story of what happened in Bucharest, as emailed to the club this morning. I was in Bucharest and thought I would send you my story on how things unfolded. On arrival to the stadium a full hour before kick off, the first signs of lack of proper stewarding was already clear, as there were no signs up telling visiting supporters where our turnstiles were located, and then when we did find out where they were, the only way to get to it was along a very muddy pathway with no lighting, and then walk along a narrow road with no pavement which was also being used by Unirea fans arriving by car nearly killing us as we tried to head towards our end. About 50 yards from the turnstiles, with about 25/30 minutes to go to kick off now, we are presented in the middle of a muddy, flooded field with a barrier control point with no lighting or any police or Rangers stewards, where around 6 Romanian stewards were attempting to do a search on each supporter. At this time there was about 30 bears in front of us. Nothing too unusual there, you might think, but they were taking around a minute to do each fan, and there was only one steward doing the searches, so it became quickly clear that we were going to struggle to get into the game on time at this rate, coupled with the fact that the 30 or so waiting had quickly grown to around 3 times that number. In the dark, and without any communications from the stewards, we were understandably wanting them to hurry up, and inevitably, some pushing from the back of the crowd meant that the stewards were starting to struggle to control the crowd. Instead of making any kind of announcement to the crowd, after a couple of move back gestures went mainly unseen, their decision was to pop out the spray cans (I am assuming CS gas but don�t know what it was) and then went on to spray this in the faces of the fans in front of them, causing much distress to them and to myself as I was around 6 rows from the front and got a small amount of this in my eyes and throat. At this point the control point was breached due to the stewards moving back, and many fans got through, coughing and spluttering towards the turnstiles. There was only two turnstiles and a gate, and again it was very badly lit and organised, and I was a little surprised not to see the usual Rangers stewards who have been helpful on other trips to assist us with the local stewards and police. Again, it was very slow, with no real reason for the delays. It seemed that they wanted to let in perhaps 6 fans at a time, wait until they got to the top of the stairs, and then let another few in. The turnstiles to the side of the gate was letting in one at a time and was slightly better organised, but the way we were directed towards the gate meant that you could not get easy access to the turnstile itself, you had to step through a barrier, but I think this went mostly unseen by most fans. Again, the pressure of a build up of fans outside, now conscious of it being kick off time and not wanting to miss the game, seen some inevitable pushing from the back of the crowd, and again the stewards response was to get out the spray cans and blast it at the fans in front of them. Eventually I got into the ground around a couple of minutes after kick off, and found a space to stand around 8 rows back from the gate which was to cause the problems later on, and around 10 seats to the centre from there. I say seats as there were seats arranged in rows, but many of them were not fixed to the bases, were broken, covered in dirt and droppings and generally unusable. There were no catering facilities, and no toilet facilities in our section of the stadium, clearly contrary to UEFA ground regulations, and totally unacceptable. Around 15 minutes from half time, I noticed 2 men approach a few stewards at the gate in question and get into a heated debate with them, I couldn�t tell what it was about, but the stewards were aggressively gesturing to them to move away. One steward in particular was the main antagonist, and he was to set in place a series of events that rightly has no place at a football match. At around half time, the steward decided to open the gate and move inside to try to forcibly move the 2 men back away from the gate. On seeing this, around a dozen more men moved towards this situation, and some pushing and shoving started. The steward was joined by several other stewards, and the pushing and shoving continued for a couple of minutes. At this time nothing had been thrown towards the gate by anyone. It was when the stewards decided to bring out their metal truncheons and spray canisters and start to lash out at the small group that things escalated. The stewards grabbed one of the group and dragged him away, dropped him to the ground, and several of them started kicking, punching, lashing and spraying the guy. It was this incident alone that resulted in some loose seats being thrown towards the stewards, and some seats were broken and thrown also. When the seats started to be thrown at the stewards, they decided to back off behind the gate, close the gate behind them and maintain a monitoring situation again. After they done this, it appeared that this was enough for the Rangers fans to refrain from any further disturbance. At this point the match was about to start again, and there was no further disturbances I seen throughout the rest of the match. It can be clearly identified that the trouble was caused by that one steward deciding to open the gate and come to confront the 2 men who were arguing with him. That one incident alone was the root cause of all the trouble, and it can be backed up with the fact that there was no further trouble after the stewards returned back behind the gate, or any trouble at full time on leaving the ground. The seats were only thrown once a group of stewards were beating up one man who they had isolated. Of course, much has been written and tv pictures show a nasty scene of unrest which does us no favours at all, and I am not for one moment condoning the actions of those who went to confront the stewards, those who joined in when it all started, and those who threw seats towards the incident, but the true picture, seen by my own eyes from a perfect vantage point, tells a very different story. I am in no doubt whatsoever that if that one steward had remained behind the gate and either ignored the 2 men or got someone from Rangers to come to hear what their problem was, the whole situation could have been avoided, and that is the really sad part of the whole story. I am an experienced European traveller with Rangers, with 34 trips now completed, I was on the official travel club day trip package, had a lovely day in Bucharest in a local restaurant chatting to the local people, and it was again spoiled by aggressive, over-zealous thugs who were supposedly there to assist us. When the local stewards do their job properly, they have nothing to fear from the Rangers travelling support, and our record of taking vast numbers all over Europe with only pleasant memories left behind with our hosts is a proud one, but when the local police and stewards get it wrong, they are all very quick to point the finger at us, and away from their own inadequacies. I hope the club now defends us in the most vigorous way against these UEFA charges, and I am more than happy to have my story used in our defence, and I am happy to swear as to its authenticity. Regards

You have just said what I have felt for a long time in these prediction threads!!

no problem Frankie, done.

I see we have that disgusting animal Brines in charge of our game this saturday against St Mirren. I really quite dislike the man and his abilities as a referee. The full list is here http://www.scotprem.co.uk/content/default.asp?page=s2&newsid=8354&back=home

It could mean that instead of wasting a shirt giving Kenny game time, we actually play a proper striker up beside Boyd, like Naismith or Lafferty.

If we go with the same team as yesterday, i think we will win 2-0 comfortably. If we go with one up front (Miller) we will get a draw at best.

I can see both sides or playing either Wilson or Papac at centre half beside Weir on wednesday, as I like Stevie Smith and feel he would do fine at left back if Papac was to move inside. The only way I will be really pissed off is if we play McCulloch beside Weir. There is no need for him, he is not good enough to play there at CL level (or SPL level IMO), and we have better alternatives. I voted to give the youngster the game, he looks to have a mature and cool outlook about him from the very little I have seen of him, and if we put him in and he has a good game, it will prove he is good enough to push for a regular place, and we will have brought through another good young player from the youth set-up that "doesnt work". Of course if he plays and has a mare, it could set him back a good bit in his development and knock his confidence, and Walter will know what kind of character he is and be able to judge if it is worth the risk, with Papac filling in well and Smith dependable at LB. Will be an interesting selection.

Normally one to chortle at such clearly made up garbage, I can only hope this is the 1 in 100 that has an element of truth in it. A distictly average player with a dreadful first touch, really poor finishing, and certainly one I believe we could do without and not seriously damage our chances. If we were to get our money back as well, all the better.

I wish he would have spouted off before our game and not his game with Timmy. Surely a large Timmy victory is now assured!

I wasn't having a go at your estimate Shroomz, just amazed at the sort of figures baned about by the media regarding this tosser's worth. I think you nailed it right on though in saying that if an EPL club was stupid enough to want him, it might be possible to get that sort of fee, more likely his only suitors would be in the Championship, and a fee of around �£1-2M, depending on the length of contract remaining at the Piggery. He could always go "home", for the first time, and play in a league where he might actually look half decent!!

In what possible way is McGeady worth �£3-4M. For a player whose final ball is so poor it usually ends up a goal kick, who doesn't even score 10 goals a season, has never played well in the CL or an OF game, and whose claim to fame is one wee dribble against an Aberdeen defender playing his first game in 9 months. I have often said McGeady is the equivalent of Burke, and without his rebel rousing decision to be Irish instead of Scottish, he would have been largely ignored by Timmy and probably have left by now. Brown wont be worth what Timmy paid for him, ever again. An agressive wee runt who mistimes tackles even more than our own KT, but runs about like Kenny Miller. Davis at least has a track record in the EPL and teams would be prepared to pay for him as he has already done reasonably well at that level. But of course, the press are full of nonsense anyway, so probably all these stories are untrue, and they are just filling out the paper to avoid discussing the real issues, as they require some proper journalistic qualities sadly lacking in todays tabloid journos.

I see the Euromillions jackpot tonight is �£71M. We should all ensure we buy a ticket for the draw tonight, and pledge right here and now to buy the club tomorrow when one of us wins the jackpot I, Tannochsidebear, pledge to buy Rangers FC, if and when I win the jackpot prize of �£71M on tonight's Euromillions draw. Simples.

Usual Friday bump for the predictor. Get those gueses in. Anyone going for a Killie victory? Will we win 3-0 at Tannadice again? The extra point this week is for the first scorer in our match, Boyd must be favourite, yes?

Exactly, trying to apportion blame to some and prevent criticism of others is not on. Clearly some are more to blame than others, but to try to excuse anybody of blame is fanciful. We must also include ourselves, as fans, as being partly to blame. We have allowed ourselves to be so split into different factions that we have no power in any of them. We have the Trust, Assembly, Association, Gersnet, RangersMedia, Followfollow website, VanguardBears, Followfollow fanzine, Number 1 fanzine, The Blue Order, Union Bears, all singing different songs in a different tune from the rest of them, and the result is a support so fractured and split we have no voice and nobody to take the club to task. Add to that a 92% shareholder who has the media in his pocket in exchange for refusing to defend the fans, and who is both untouchable and still much admired by a large number of the support, and it is easy to see how we got to where we are. The real debate is now that we are here, what do we, the fans, do to change things?

While I doubt this will all be done by today, my info is that due diligence has been completed, and the interested parties have already spent �£250K going through the books and due processes.

I did see it, and thought it was very funny how he told everyone that it must be him with a hearing problem now that he had been told that what he said wasn't "on message". By saying what he said today, he clearly implied that what he said was true, but that his bosses are furious that he has caused all this bother for them. Walter says f*ck them, and he is more of a bear than any of them, and only wants what is best for the club, which is looking more and more likely will not include him, unless the new buyers get the deal they are looking for and want Walter to stay. I hear Walter thinks he is history anyway, so doesn't give a toss what Muir and his cohorts want him to say, he wants the truth to come out, hence his "slip" on Saturday.

She was a complete nutter, I bet she posts online somewhere!! I thought David done well for the hour or so I heard it tonight, and things are now moving very fast it would seem. Well done Walter, for forcing the hand of everyone despite knowing you would have to backtrack and apologise. The club have left you out on a limb twice now, and still you are loyal and faithful for the cause.

Official text says Walter has announced that Danny Wilson will play against Dundee tomorrow, and that other youngsters may also get their chance. Do we actually have a league cup quarter final to play tomorrow night?

Correct, but no bear is really surprised at the club lying to us now are we?

It would seem that in the summer of 2008, Walter spent �£6M on Miller, Velicka, and Lafferty in the belief that we would be selling 3/4 players (Cousin Darcheville Cuellar) for about the same amount of money. We already had a decent number of players on the books, and this would have been fine if the �£10M from the CL had been forthcoming. Then Kaunas happened, and instead of then selling players, we spent more again, even allowing for the sale of Cousin and Cuellar. Our wage bill and squad size was way in excess of what was coming in without any Euro football, and therefore instead of us breaking even, we were probably about �£10-�£15M down on 2008-09. Coupled with a lower renewal rate of ST and no real income from player sales and the recession/banking crisis, the need to reduce debts to a more manageable level was always there. The push over the edge, however, appears to be Murray's other businesses, which have been very badly affected in the last year, and we are but a part of that whole structure.

Not quite sure if they are definately going into admin, but from what I have heard his portfolio revaluations have made his whole business paper insolvent, with debt exceeding asset worth, and he is in big doodoo (technical term!!)

Since the debt started to escalate around a decade ago, the previously successful chairmanship of David Murray has started to come under scrutiny from concerned bears. When the debt got to �£80M and the bank stepped in, he took a back seat while McLelland got things back under control. He came back when the debt was back down under some element of control, and in just a couple of short years, managed to blow it again. There has always been a lot of debate on the pros and cons of David Murray's reign as Rangers chairman, with the support split down the middle and very passionately defensive of their stance in either support of criticism of Murray. The jury has been out for some time, and today we have the result, and it is unanimous. David Murray has been a disaster for our club, as we stand today on the brink of bankruptcy, fighting with the bank for our very existence, there can be no other verdict. We can thank him for presiding over a very good decade of dominance, but ultimately he blew it big time and for the last decade it has been disaster after disaster after disaster. Not only has he lost his influence over the club to the bank, I understand he stands to lose everything due to his portfolio crashing and now owing more to the bank than his assets are worth. What a sorry way to go out, but his story at Rangers is now complete.

My info is that this story couldn't be further from the truth. Bain is heavily involved with the potential buyers, and will keep his job if the takeover is successful. The bank also realise that as Bain knows everything about the running of the club, it would be foolish to get rid of him at this time.