BEARGER

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/rangers/fans-storm-hotel-hosting-rangers-player-of-the-year-ceremony-1-4732267?utm_campaign=The Scotsman - Daily RSS&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62532871&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--cosPKlKyPTMcWHQ0qG_FWEaTNcQpEFbrTk9CzxLIjPsVcYijWjUVauVumZtIC9Pe6pAcc0Hb8WMFo2I7mbEK7YbVqdg&_hsmi=62532871 Police were called to a Glasgow city centre hotel last night amid reports a group of football fans managed to get into the building where Rangers were holding their Player of the Year awards. Police Scotland confirmed that a number of officers were dispatched to the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel on Cambridge Street, at around 7pm on Sunday after reports of an “incident” but established no criminality had been committed. A spokesperson said: “Police were called at 7pm following reports of a disturbance at the Hilton Hotel on Cambridge Street, Glasgow. “Officers established no criminality has been committed. We provided advice to the hotel.” Video posted on social media appeared to show around 20-25 people attempting to gain access to the hotel just hours after Rangers had lost 5-0 to Celtic, with the home side securing their seventh successive league title. Rangers fans pictured at the 5-0 loss to Celtic. Picture: Getty images Claims were made on Rangers fans’ forums that those involved were members of the Union Bears supporters group, while comments ranged from critical to supportive. Unconfirmed reports suggested that a handful of supporters had managed to confront some players, with an eyewitness telling The Sun: “They were shouting at directors and gaining entry via fire exits. “They stormed the hotel via the front entrance and opened fire exits to allow more people in. They were shouting at club officials about the current situation and the scoreline today.” “They let off bangers at the front entrance of the hotel. The players and club officials were coming into the hotel when it was going on.” Fans had already criticised the club for going ahead with the event after another heavy defeat to their Old Firm rivals.Read more at: https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/rangers/fans-storm-hotel-hosting-rangers-player-of-the-year-ceremony-1-4732267?utm_campaign=The Scotsman - Daily RSS&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=62532871&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--cosPKlKyPTMcWHQ0qG_FWEaTNcQpEFbrTk9CzxLIjPsVcYijWjUVauVumZtIC9Pe6pAcc0Hb8WMFo2I7mbEK7YbVqdg&_hsmi=62532871

Hunners.

Great minds think alike, must be something to do with the school attended.

Chris Coleman has left Sunderland, experienced manager. Just saying.

I said after the cup game that we were lucky, today we were even luckier. Murty is just not up to the job, that’s been obvious for a good while. But what about the players? These guys get paid handsomely yet show no fight, no desire, don’t seem to have any individual professional standards.

Windass off get Docherty on, damage limitation from now on.

3-0 this is embarrassing. No tackles absolutely pathetic.

2-0 give the ball away. 2 defenders can’t get a tackle in. Shocking.

Now Haliday, have they no faith in the keeper?

Tavenier piss poor decision making.

Column Five !

It’s from FF, see post 622 in manager rumours thread.

Gerrard has agreed to take over for next season, GARY MCAlister as assistant.

Borrowed from FF 22pmWritten by: Follow Follow The Gerrard Express has not yet left Lime Street. Rangers are still negotiating with Steven Gerrard, the deal is live and at an advance stage. Unlike previous recent managerial appointments at Ibrox the process is almost wholly in the hands of Director of Football Mark Allen. Until the contract is signed things can still hit the buffers – but the timing of the Old Firm match tomorrow means it was never likely to be announced before next week – and would have been kept under wraps had it not been for a leak from a source down south. If he comes expect a tight group of staff to accompany him. Another vital figure in the process, largely overlooked by journalists, has been the Rangers chief scout Andy Scoulding, who previously worked at Liverpool FC and is a personal friend of Gerrard’s. My personal thoughts are mixed but considering the shambles the club is it’s been remarkable this deal was so far advanced before leaking. Personally, I’d have preferred to push the boat out and get in an experienced manger with a proven track record. Gerrard will be gamble. It won’t be a gamble like the iconic Souness who came in at a very opportune time and exploded like a neutron bomb on the Scottish scene – able to use his own prestige to attract players at a time when the English game was rocked – remember we bought the England captain and goalkeeper at the time! Gerrard, if he signs on, will however have advantages gained from his years of experience and his high profile – those will enable him, if he works at it, to draw in a higher calibre of recruit than we would normally be able to attract simply on a financial basis. But we cannot rely on that alone. It will need hard cash. From studying the club accounts and bits and pieces of info picked up in my travels I expect (although I could be wrong) the forthcoming share issue and conversation of loans to bring in anywhere between £15m and £20m depending on the exact structure of the issue (some shareholders may, for instance convert loans to shares of keep their money as loans). That will be decent money but not transformative. It will be a welcome boost to the regular income of the club. When trying to recruit Derek McInnes the club gave Mark Allen a budget to work to – and he selected targets in that price range. Due to a combination of McInnes’s behaviour and the Board making extra cash available I believe the final package he was offered was just over £600,000 a year as things developed and Aberdeen piled on more cash to keep him at Pittodrie. That gives you an idea of the sums involved, Gerrard will not be so cheap. If we do get Gerrard in as a manager it will be a gamble but it could also be a chance for the club to kickstart itself out of the mess it is in and spark necessary changes in other departments. One won’t work without the other. 30 plus years since the Souness Revolution this is a bold move – if it comes off we all have to grab the opportunities by the scruff of the neck.

#Rangers chairman Dave King has been told he has breached takeover rules by failing to make an £11 million bid for 70 per cent of the club's shares he was forced by a court to make by Thursday because he has not yet got confirmed funds in the UK.

http://club1872.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Member-Report-260418.pdf SHARE ISSUE CAMPAIGN Our share issue campaign continues and presents a huge opportunity for the organisation and the Rangers support in general. After excellent early progress and increases in both membership and funds available for shares, we have seen a slow down in recent weeks as issues affecting Rangers have come to the fore. At the time of writing our membership sits at 7430 - a net increase of 380 members since the campaign began. We also have £520,000 available for shares. This is slight decrease on our last publicised estimate, due to a manual reconciliation done for the submission of the annual accounts. Our target for shares remains at £1m and remains achievable depending on the reaction of the Rangers support in the coming weeks. Club 1872 will represent the only way for supporters to take part in the upcoming share issue. We will continue with our online marketing, RSC engagement and podcast and media work in an effort to encourage as many Rangers fans as possible to participate. BOARD Iain Mullholland has stepped down from the Club 1872 Board. We thank Iain for his work and the contribution he has made to the organisation, particularly his progress on bringing two projects to the point of being put to members. These projects are detailed later in this document. Joanne Percival will take over the Projects Working Group and Euan MacFarlane will take on the Events Working Group. All current board member biographies are on the Club 1872 website. WORKING GROUPS Six working groups are in place to support the organisation (Membership & Engagement, RSCs, Comms, Campaigns, Events and Projects). The members who volunteer to take part in these groups meet regularly and have been involved in the following areas of Club 1872’s functioning over the last few months: Our Comms and Campaigns groups are working together to focus on our share issue campaign. Regular, concise updates on this campaign have gone out via email and social media. We have also been providing video content and have taken part in Q&As and podcasts on various platforms within the Rangers community. Board meeting summaries, as well as other news items, are on our website for members to view. In the presentation we delivered in January, we indicated that the organisation would be moving away from reactionary statements to more inclusive and wide-reaching forms of communication. While we have endeavoured to maintain this commitment, we value feedback from members on how we are communicating and are always seeking to improve, so we would encourage members to contact us with ideas or comments on this aspect of the organisation. Our campaigns group has also written directly to a number of politicians seeking an explanation for false comments made by them on social media about the Rangers support. We also wrote to two Scottish political party leaders seeking explanations for the behaviour of their elected representatives. We can confirm that we wrote to Peter Grant MP, Cllr Julie McKenzie, Patrick Harvie MSP and Nicola Sturgeon FM. To date, we have received replies from Patrick Harvie MSP and Peter Grant MP and will remain in correspondence with them. We have not heard back from Cllr McKenzie or Nicola Sturgeon FM. In addition to this, we informed members that the Scottish Government, in the aftermath of the repeal of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, has set up a working party to examine the subject of sectarianism and make recommendations on how it should be defined in Scots law. We are extremely concerned that this process should not be a repeat of the ill-fated consultation on the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act, during which a number of discredited politicians and journalists were successful in pushing for unworkable and illiberal laws targeting football supporters. With that in mind we wrote to the chair of this group to ask about the makeup of the working party, the scope of their work and how organisations like Club 1872 can feed into the process. If positive progress is to be made then it is essential that a common sense approach is taken on this topic and as part of our ongoing efforts to defend Rangers fans and support constructive approaches to dealing with sectarianism, we look forward to engaging with the working group in the coming months. Around the same time that we updated members on our contact with politicians, we also wrote to the Editor of the Scottish Sun, Alan Muir, seeking an explanation and retraction for a false story written by Blair Meikle which appeared online on 9th April 2018. In his haste to paint Rangers supporters in a bad light, Mr Meikle failed to carry out even the most basic of fact checks before claiming a Rangers supporter had made abusive online comments about our charity partner Autism Scotland. The Twitter account in question was not that of a Rangers supporter and it had in fact made offensive comments about the Ibrox disaster. Club 1872 called for the Editor to retract the story. We received a prompt response from The Sun and the story was removed. Following the Scottish Cup semi-final, we had contact from members asking us to convey their concerns to Rangers about the manner in which we were defeated and the decisions at board level that led to our current situation. We communicated to the club in clear terms the serious concerns which members hold, and which we believe are reflected within the majority of the support, about what we have seen this season and the requirement for things to improve. Club 1872 met with Stewart Robertson in the past few days to discuss the current situation at the club. We once again made clear how unacceptable it is to our support that there has been very little progress on the park this year and that we once again find ourselves in a position of major uncertainty regarding the managerial situation. We also stressed the need for Rangers to communicate with supporters. The only senior member of the club to address the situation since the Scottish Cup Semi Final has been Alastair Johnston and we expressed serious concern that his comments were not only at odds with what we had heard from Rangers in previous discussions but also that they seemed to contradict the comments made by the Chairman in his season ticket letter. This caused alarm within the support and further concern that the board is out of touch with Rangers fans. Stewart indicated that plans are in place for next season but we stressed the point that this had to be communicated to supporters as a matter of urgency. This also led to a discussion of how Rangers need to find better ways to communicate with the support. Despite the legal and commercial restrictions that often prevent the club from communicating fully on matters that are of concern to the support, it is our belief that they could and indeed should be doing better in this regard. We expect the club to take our points on board and that they will reassure supporters of their plans to improve Rangers’ fortunes on the pitch at the earliest possible opportunity. We also took the opportunity to reiterate to Stewart Robertson that it remains a main aim of Club 1872 to secure a place on the RIFC board and that we are making progress internally on how to address that situation. Further discussion will be required with the RIFC board and we will also be putting some proposals to members in the coming weeks. Last week we also took the opportunity to remind people once again that Club 1872 can play a major role in taking Rangers back to the top of Scottish football. That is not to say that the current board should not take responsibility for where we are now; it is absolutely right that the people who are making decisions about our club should be held responsible for those decisions and held to account when supporters have concerns. Again, we have made this point directly to the club as it is our responsibility to do on members’ behalf. In January, Club 1872 members voted overwhelmingly that Club 1872 should have a place on the RIFC board. This is now a stated aim of this organisation, and we believe that a strong Club 1872 with the support of the Rangers fan base, can and should be part of the decision-making process at Rangers. We previously told members that we would be moving away from reactionary statements and Q&A type interactions with the club, which have proved to be ineffective. As the second largest shareholder in the club, we believe that we should be in a position to influence decision-making rather than just seek explanations for decisions that have already been taken. With our current shareholding Club 1872 is in a position that no previous fans groups have achieved, which means that we shouldn’t need to operate as a pressure group operating from the outside looking in. While we have a responsibility to update members on how we are communicating with the club, we also have a duty to push for what we believe is a more constructive and effective dialogue than the Rangers support has been used to in the past. Club 1872 directors are Rangers fans first and foremost, and offer our personal assurances to members that as a matter of priority, we have communicated their and our own concerns directly to the club. Our Membership & Engagement group has been working with our RSCs group to engage potential members and develop stronger links with Rangers Supporters Clubs. Over the last few weeks we have delivered presentations to various RSCs across the UK, including Greenock Britannia Loyal, London Branch and Surrey True Blues, Grapes Bar Loyal and Granite City. A number of the RSCs we’ve been in contact with have donated generously to our share issue campaign and are now taking part in spreading the word about Club 1872 by sharing sign-up forms with their members and contacts. We have other events planned for the coming weeks, and are always looking for more contacts within the RSC community. If your RSC would like to speak to us about getting involved or to organise a presentation, please email us at engagement@club1872.co.uk. EVENTS In December we hosted a Christmas Fayre that was attended by Rangers Supporters Erskine Association (RSEA) and RYDC representatives. A Club 1872 sign-up stall was also in place. Since then Club 1872 has maintained a match-day presence. Our volunteers have been getting out around the stadium on match days to hand our sign-up forms and speak to supporter about Club 1872. PROJECTS Our projects group has been investigating a number of potential projects. Iain Mulholland, the director who has been co-ordinating our projects group has stepped down from the Club 1872 board but not before completing a walking football proposal on which members will shortly be asked to vote. Walking Football provides the opportunity for fans aged 50 + to take part in the sport that they love. It targets socially isolated individuals using the hook of the club to bring people together for some physical exercise and the chance to build their network of people in the local community. The session lasts 2 hours, the first hour is activity helping with participant’s well-being both physical and mental through enjoyable structured walking football, whilst the second hour is for socialising and building positive relationships which can be carried forward out with the sessions. Walking Football would take place at the Ibrox Complex with the social time taking place in the Ibrox Community Hub. Our projects group has also been working on a proposal to fund a vehicle to transport disabled supporters to the stadium on match days. Details of this proposal will be sent to members in the next few weeks, with a view to this project potentially being delivered for the beginning of next season. ACCOUNTS Accounts for the Club 1872 Shares CIC were submitted to Companies House by The Houston Partnership in March. At the time of writing this update, those accounts have not been updated on the Companies House website, but they should be available to view in due course. Accounts for the Projects CIC are due at the end of May. ADMIN/SOCIAL MEDIA Our admin team has replied to 820 emails (114 per week) since the beginning of this year. Our social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram) are managed by Club 1872 volunteers and collectively are reaching over 100,000 people. You can follow us here Twitter - @club1872rfc Facebook - www.facebook.com/club1872rfc/ YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKx9wlrUO3QWyg_y95HOrKA Instagram - instagram.com/club1872rfc/ FANSBET In March, we polled members on the following questions: Do you: 1) agree that the Board of Club 1872 Limited should pursue the negotiations with FansBet outlined to members and seek to conclude a deal between Club 1872 Limited and the companies trading under the FansBet name 2) authorise the Board of Club 1872 Limited to finalise and conclude the terms of an agreement or agreements with the companies trading as FansBet? 75.2% of members voted in favour and 24.8% against. The Club 1872 board will now progress discussions and seek to conclude a deal between Club 1872 Limited and the companies trading under the FansBet name, and will update members of any progress on this. POLICE SCOTLAND Club 1872 remains in discussions with Police Scotland regarding the treatment of Rangers supporters and are seeking changes in the way we have been policed in certain circumstances. This has so far been a healthy dialogue and we hope that it will lead to some substantive changes in approach. We will meet Police Scotland again following the Celtic v Rangers game on Sunday 29th April. SLO We have met a number of times with Greg Marshall, the club’s Supporters Laision Officer to discuss various topics including match day experience and communication between supporters and the club. RANGERS CHARITY FOUNDATION Club 1872’s relationship with the Rangers Charity Foundation remains very positive. We have met with them a number of times to discuss potential projects, and are pleased to be at the point of asking members to vote on the walking football project mentioned above. Further details on how to vote will be sent to members following this update.

Thanks, it’s not normal on here for threads to disappear.

What happened to my post regarding daviesleftpeg blog? Did I do something wrong?

Scan tomorrow. Can’t comment on severity. Asked why he is leaving, answered. I’m not.

Me too.

Quote from Barry Ferguson in the Herald. “He’s probably the best goalkeeper I’ve played with, and I’ve played with some top ones like The Goalie Andy Goram, Stefan Klos, Joe Hart, Ben Foster, Brad Friedel, and for me he is up there with the best.” Ferguson has lost it.