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amms

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Everything posted by amms

  1. amms
    I'm sorry, anyone who thinks any Scottish football club can be ran as a 'profit-making organisation' dominating Scottish football is naive in the extreme. Football clubs cannot be ran like 'normal' businesses, Scottish football clubs in particular. And before someone points at fuckin Celtic they are not owned by hedge funds and investment vehicles, good luck getting a dividend out of them. A section of our support seem to embrace these people, it stuns me. Laxey are a hedge fund, they care about money and nothing else. They'd close Rangers and open a supermarket on Ibrox tomorrow if it delivered a good return. How can anyone think these people will want to invest in youth system, they'll disband the youth system it's an overhead that's not guaranteed to deliver anything. It's not our club that depress me it's some of our support.
  2. amms
    Well now we know why the Waterstones event has been postponed! That's the first time I've properly looked at the 'logos' of the various groups. The Sons of Struth seem to have a Sabre Tooth Tiger, albeit a red, white and blue one, let's hope there's no analogy to be drawn. Union Bears does look angry, or perhaps doing a difficult shit, in the woods presumably. Anyway, look forward to the conflicting reports from this meeting and the inevitable discrediting from whoever hasn't been invited/doesn't like them.
  3. amms
    You might be right, I'm only surmising. If a law lord has already said we're not liable then I'm not sure even McKenzie would fancy his chances of getting that money though. It could be put out there to keep the Tims happy. Did I read they'd got bad news from the Advertising Standards Authority earlier? Perhaps they needed something to keep up the obsession.
  4. amms
    I can't decide if this is mischief making or a genuine attempt. The timing is odd, why now nearly 18 months later is this being pursued again? The organisation the SPFL didn't even exist when this 'agreement' was mooted so do they even have grounds to pursue it? I notice no quotes in the article and no comment from the SPFL which means it's been an off-the-record briefing. But who by? Could Rangers themselves have done this knowing it's one of the few things to unite the fans in anger. Perhaps even divert fans anger currently being directed closer to the club? Was it someone at the league or law firm who wanted to do a bit of stirring? Why, what's to be gained by going public other than the mass anger of the Rangers support? If they seriously wanted this money they'd do it by stealth and behind closed doors surely? Lastly perhaps it's bull-shit. A non-story on a quiet international week. It says something of the state of our club that I'm inclined to believe that the club themselves are behind this.
  5. amms
    An enjoyable article and one that makes a number good points. I agree entirely with Andy though. I do think there are sections in our support who don't want to be inclusive of all fans. There's a great article in When Saturday Comes this month about a Moldovan club side whose support is split along ethnic lines in the same way Moldova is. At one end of their ground their support speak Romanian (or the Moldovan version of it), carry banners and chant in that language. At the other end the support speak Russian and use that language to support the side. They support the same side I reiterate.
  6. amms
    Boyd deserves his call-up, realistically who would people choose in front of him? Scotland's lack of decent forwards isn't his fault. To be fair to Strachan he's at least made the Scotland side competitive, again the lack of genuine talent isn't his fault. He's a big improvement on his predecessor. Boyd's been cropping up on Radio Scotland a lot recently, he's much better than you expect him to be.
  7. amms
    I didn't realise he was a transvestite. :-)
  8. amms
    No, the point is they did care once. That they've moved their affections to Manchester, Liverpool and London is the point. Our cultures really weren't that different once upon a time. Many of our provincial clubs are in League of Ireland territory when it comes to crowds and local interest now. Switching to summer football won't make a blind bit of difference to them.
  9. amms
    That's a fallacy. Football (soccer) is the biggest sport in Ireland, bigger than Gaelic, both in terms of participation but also in terms of watching on TV. Gaelic attracts bigger attendances but only to the county matches and again only to the important games. There is tremendous interest in football in Ireland, just not in the local club sides now. The teams weren't always 'small' Shamrock Rovers regularly had attendances of 20,000 as late as the 1970s.
  10. amms
    I don't think you can compare Peter Lawwell stirring things with a tabloid journalist stirring things. Lawwell's stirring adds a veneer of official endorsement to the demented green hordes, that's far more dangerous than anything the Record or the Sun can ever write on the subject. I think the media have been fairly good on this, Lawwell has been publicly criticised, I've not read or heard anyone back him.
  11. amms
    Well what is it we're trying to achieve here? If you figure out what question you are actually asking it's easier to find an answer. If we're trying to improve the quality of player and style of play then the answer is a larger league with clubs playing twice a season only. That removes the negativity, the constant threat of relegation for a core of clubs and allows for younger players to be introduced instead of sticking with journeymen. If your focus is on a spectacle for TV then have a league six sides, each playing each other 8 times a season, with a Rangers v Celtic, Hearts v Hibs and Aberdeen v Dundee Utd super sunday/friday evening/monday evening playoff at the end. Make all the other Scottish sides feeders for the 'big six'. It'll be hideous but the TV companies will love it and it'll draw big audiences. Rugby Union in Scotland, Ireland and Wales did away with their clubs and created 'district' sides. Two from Scotland, four from Ireland and Wales and they've added a couple of Italian sides now too. The existing 'clubs' now act as feeders for the district sides. This has proved fairly successful if success is measured by attendances and results on a European tournament basis. Whether we like it or not sport is going that way. The 'franchising' of clubs is already underway in football and we'd be foolish to think it couldn't happen here. It will, eventually. Eventually a club south of the border is going to look at Scotland, see 5 million football daft people and fancy some of that. If we don't become competitive again, and soon, we'll be left behind. This is already happening in other smaller European countries with bigger neighbours. Austrian club football is in a terrible state, Belgium are producing some of the best players in the world just now but their club sides are basket cases, Swiss club sides are also in a very bad way. What is unarguable is that the status quo can't remain. Fans are disinterested, media are disinterested and something will eventually fill that vacuum.
  12. amms
    Eh? I didn't suggest we should look to the LOI for anything other than what not to do. That the quality in Scotland has fallen to LOI levels is no endorsement of the League of Ireland.
  13. amms
    Times change RPB. Stadia were a disgrace, violence was rife, indeed it was expected and great players were plentiful. None of those things applies today. Familiarity has bred contempt.
  14. amms
    The top flight in Scotland started the season knowing who had won the league and who was getting relegated, stretching it to February sounds like a dream. Plus that didn't happen every season, often the championship was still being being contested right up until the end. You make my point for me with regard LOI attendances. The standard of their league is on a par with any Scottish side outside Celtic currently, yet interest remains sparse.
  15. amms
    I'm not sure that summer football will increase interest, particularly from England. The League of Ireland switched to summer football a decade or so ago without any discernible increase in interest locally far less from further afield. We could improve our football fairly easily if their was any appetite to do it. Increase the size of the league and reduce the number of times clubs play each other would result in a marked improvement within a couple of years.
  16. amms
    In what way is he an underachiever? Stark seems to be well thought of as a coach.
  17. amms
    Hah! So it is, I'm a fuckin idiot.
  18. amms
    Bayern are one of the 'superclubs' of world football, from my perspective I was comparing them to Man U/City, Real and Barca rather than us. I accept they aren't some underdog but they are a good example of a well run, solvent, fan-connected football club who are successful. Unlike many of their genuine competitors on a European basis they generate their own income. Sponsorship is a fairly well established part of income for all football clubs, from the smallest to the largest. My point was they aren't a Sheik or Oligarch's plaything or carrying more debt than Greece. I think the Bundesliga would still have the support, obviously success does attract more fans but German clubs have tremendous connections with their fanbase. That breeds loyalty and engagement, throw in world class players and genuine competition and you've a pretty decent recipe for success. Well, until Andy's dystopia comes to pass at least...
  19. amms
    I just watched two episodes of Borgen and was filled with European idealism and hope. Your post has just brought me plummeting back to earth. Bastard. Your grasp of German politics if far better than mine, I'm unaware of the changes there. Ho hum. I never thought I'd see Rangers described as the 'Islamic Bank', that's brilliant. There are posters I've come across over the years who'll combust spectacularly at that. Almost makes up for bursting my German bubble.
  20. amms
    That's an interesting list. An Iraqi is the highest rated young player in the world, how times change.
  21. amms
    Interesting. I agree morality has been absent since the days of the Corinthians however I'd maybe question some of your views. The best club side in Europe and arguably the world currently are Bayern Munich, wealthy certainly, but not bankrolled or debt laden, indeed run by the archetypal 'committee' in many ways. The runners up were Dortmund, a club with a genuine connection with their support and again no debt or sugar daddy. Quite possibly Germany is the exception that makes the rule, however it does still offer hope to us who remain stuck-in-the-past when it comes to how we (well, me basically) view football and its clubs. It's not all that long ago when RBS were being lionised by all the business press and Fred Goodwin was thought of as some sort of genius. Circumstances change, sometimes quickly and totally out with your control. Football is no different, it comes in cycles and always has done. We should develop certain fiscal, sporting and indeed moral principals and we should stick to them, I firmly believe they will serve us well in the future.
  22. amms
    I struggled to hear it all over my squabbling offspring, however it sounded like all of the people on the show were critical of Lawwell, not just for his inaccuracy but also his inappropriateness. English, who gets a lot of stick on here, was brilliant when speaking about Celtic's obsession (his word) with us.
  23. amms
    I'm with D'Art on this one. King seems to get a bye from many simply because he appears to be very rich. I don't think the club being in the hands of a billionaire is in its best interests. I seem to be in a minority on that though.
  24. amms
    What odds McMurdo has a blog on this tomorrow about how the board intend to pursue this all the way and unleash the hounds of hell on all enemies of the club? We've been fed so much shite we're starting to enjoy it.
  25. amms
    He could have had tattooed to his forearm he's still not going to resign and no one is going to sack him for it. If you don't think the Easdales have other things to concentrate on you've not been paying attention.
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