UCF2008

OK, that made me laugh. ...and so did that. What about Lawrence Marlborough? He did afterall sell to Murray. Surely he must take his share of the blame.

Martin Bain's wages and bonuses were excessive and I would conceed that he was a bit of a slimeball. Not sure what you mean about lies and cheating though. David Murray had his faults and over the years he did tell his fair share of porkies, but again I don't think that I would call him a cheat.

I would hope you're referring to Lloyds, Muir and Whyte otherwise I would like you to clarify on the cheats comment

If we'd achieved a CVA and then agreed to pay certain creditors in full then yes it would be a problem, but I think as things stand the only way that any of the other creditors may still be able to effect the club would be if they were to object to the newco transfer of assets.

I'm not saying they are or aren't. Any other outsiders would likely have faced the same issues as Green & Co have. The man's mad as a fish, but my opinion is that Romanov's utterings about the OF mafia weren't completely unfounded ...just poorly put across. I don't think insolvency under SDM's board would have played out anything like it has done and I can say with some certainty that Charles Green's consortium wouln't even have got a sniff at the club.

Certain people within that regime had too much political clout within the football governing bodies. If we'd been forced to newco due to the EBT case under that regime our SPL status wouldn't have even gone to a vote and the SFA wouldn't have dared treating the club like it has done. Just my opinion.

I was never Martin Bain's biggest fan but he was suspended and accused of financial wrongdoing via an official club press release just to get rid of him. What exactly would you call that? I'm also of the opinion that our club would never have been bullied like it has been over the past few months under that previous board. They may have previously allowed the Rangers fans to be bullied up to a point over sectarian signing, but they wouldn't have allowed this to happen to the club.

Cowards and idiots like John Grieg and John McClelland? Or how about TBK's? More to the point do you think Ally would have been watching on as Martin Bain's name was dragged through the mud and not sensed the slightest bit of injustice?

No I can't actually. I would at the time have expected Ally to publically back his current boss, but I'm sure the manner in which the Rangers board full of people he knew and respected was wiped out had him more than slightly perturbed. However I'm sure your vivid imagination can conjure up whatever suits.

I'm not saying that Ally and the players knew the full extent of the financial problems, but even before the takeover the IBC expressed it's concerns about the due diligence and Whyte's ability to fund the club. These views were reiterated by AJ in October as part of the BBC's 'Rangers: The Inside Story' documentary where he pointed out "One of our problems was that we did not see Mr Whyte's ability to have that £9m or £10m you need to keep the club going so it could pay its bills on time." That and the accusations against Whyte must at least have had some folks at the club more than a little bit concerned. In case you need reminding we were 14pts clear at the beginning of the following month. Also, I think Ally would have been looking at the budget promised by Whyte and then Whytes claims regarding money the club had spent in the summer with some bemusement.

It was spelled out by AJ before Whyte even took over that administration was a possibility. When Whyte took over he said that he'd do all he could to avoid it but that the EBT case result could leave us with no option. He then tried to sell Jelavic on transfer deadline day only to be talked out of it by Ally and GS who has since said that from Whyte's reaction when we went out of Europe it was clear we were in serious financial trouble. In the lead up to Jelavic's transfer the player was quoted as saying that the club had severe money problems and needed to sell him. Even on here while we had the 15 point lead, we were all discussing how we could go into admin at that stage and still win the league. IIRC it was way back then that the newco option was initially proposed. All of this, yet you think Ally and the players didn't have a clue?

Well that decision would definitely be in keeping with his approach of playing up to the 'support' - yes I'm using that term loosely ...Might also sell a handful extra season tickets as a bonus. No, sorry. I don't believe even Charles Green could make a blunder of that magnitude

Did you actually watch the game? Your comment seems to suggest you simply deduced your line of attack from a match report.

I would tend to agree if that comment wasn't targeted at McCoist. The way I see it, it's all fine and well talking about playing some mythical beautiful game but that ideaology simply doesn't fit with Rangers. Any team no matter how good they are can't win them all. In our case that's simply unnacceptable for a sizable number of fans. Some of those fans may even claim they'd be happy to be 2nd / 3rd rate if we played exciting football 'the way it should be played' but I suspect they'd still be the first to call for heads to roll at the first dropped point.

Which is exactly how he turned us around at international level and then led us to a european final with similarly limited resources

If any trait were to be inherited by our new owners from the SDM era, my wish would be to not give in to the Chicken Little's amongst our support regarding managerial change.

I could be mistaken but I think you'll find that it was claimed and confirmed that we did offer Beattie a contract before signing Sandaza & Kyle but that offer was rejected. McCoist then stated that he was still interested in Beattie and talks were ongoing. It was at this stage after we had already signed 2 CF's that the deal collapsed. Beattie might not have been bothered about the money, but at the end of the day if he'd agreed to what he was offered initially he'd be a Rangers player. He or his representative didn't (assuming that we'd have time to negaotiate) and he missed out. That's my take on it.

Has Beattie denied that we made him an offer which he declined?

Haven't seen any clarificarition on this but if the registration embargo still doesn't stop us from signing (and registering) under 18's, then I think it makes perfect sense to be focussing on senior players to compliment the youths we have and will be able to add to our squad.

Have to disagree. Clearly it's not all going to be for the benefit of Rangers and over the course, Newcastle may well benefit more financially than us from the tie-in. Afterall transfer fees are always going to be inflated in better leagues than Scotland. Even taking the example that I suggested previously where our u18's could be taken on loan by Newcastle, you might find one or two of those players are of a standard that Newcastle want to keep them. In that case we'd probably get a fee which by our normal standards would be reasonable, but it's obvious that the player's value on breaking into the Newcastle first team would be significantly higher. However, there are likely to be plenty instances where we get senior players on loan who are not in their plans for reasons other than playing ability. We might even get to hold on to some of them for reduced / no fees. It'll be a balancing act, but as long as it's mutually beneficial for both clubs then it can work.

There's different ways this tie-in could play out and with Ashley getting a stake in the club that might offer some assurance that it might not just be one way traffic. There are currently some big changes being made to the youth leagues down south where you have the Premier Academy League in which Newcastle United has been an ongoing participant and the newly formed Elite Player Performance Plan to which Newcastle appear to be one of the clubs in opposition. Nevertheless I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that the standard of player development at u18 level is far superior to the SPL nevermind SFL setup. One possible scenario could be an exchange whereby some of our best u18's are swapped on loan for young 19-21 year old fringe players. Their youngsters get first team experience and ours benefit from a higher standard of competition at that crucial early stage in their development.

The man is a coward as is Campbell Ogilvie. Both should resign imo

I don't think it was as much about revenge against the SPL for the SFL. I do think it was quite an easy decision to make though. The only difficulty and indeed only excuse for following suit on the SPL's insane decision of puting it to a vote was the league reconstruction carrot being dangled by the SPL. Other than that it was pretty straightforward for them. A team applying to join the SFL has to start at the bottom tier. In the end the carrot wasn't big enough to disuade them from doing the 'right thing' and seizing the opportunity to steal the cash cow with both hands. There was never any question of our acceptance into the SFL. That said it would have been interesting (for lack of a better word) to see how the SPL would have responded to that scenario.

I don't have any serious gripes against Longmuir and the SFL for the part they played in events this summer, but they did have the option to place us in whatever division they chose and they decided it was only right to put us in division three. If the SPL wasn't an independant body and instead still the top tier of the SFL, do you all think things would have worked out differently for us? Do you think we would all be talking about the honesty and integrity shown by the SFL or would we just despise the whole lot of them? Don't get me wrong, life's too short to hold grudges and worry about what if's. We don't have much option but to accept the cards we've been dealt and get on with it. I'm just not really sure where those in our support who choose to champion Longmuir and the SFL clubs as the benchmark for fairness, honesty and integrity are drawing this conclusion from.

Hypocritical nonsense as usual from Levein. It's like his policy of snubbing players who aren't getting a regular game, unless they're [not] playing regularly in the EPL a la Fletcher and Hutton. Not to worry as I wouldn't expect him to be in the job too much longer.