amms

I'm not sure I've a huge problem with what English is saying. There are differences between us and Hearts and Hearts should expect to be fined for non paying of PAYE and non paying of players and I'd say also for bringing the game into disrepute. At the same time I don't really see the point in levying a fine on a club who clearly can't pay it. His points about Whyte and the fines we received for his involvement with our club are unfortunately accurate.

I'm to old to make a useful contribution to the styling debate, nobody over the age of 30 should ever wear a football top unless actually playing and I passed that milestone long ago. In the end this should be getting aimed at those under 18, if they like it then fair enough, if 'old' blokes and lassies like them they've got it wrong. However the black and red socks are back so i'm fairly content.

To be fair to the Record it is a story.

Mmm, I didn't think you'd be able to show me where I'd put Ally above the club. "The riches of the Ibrox set-up" is an interesting turn of phrase to use, not very possessive, don't you mean 'us'? Anyway, no, it doesn't mean he's a crap manager. Did you know that Alex Ferguson's Manchester Utd were pumped out of every cup they entered in his first two seasons in charge, another crap manager no doubt. It's surprising what you can see even when your head is up your own arse.

That Hearts post is astonishing. With all that's going on at their club they still find time to lecture us. I'd love to take the time to try and understand this idea that we received 'aid'. Celtic fans of my acquaintance when feeling emboldened pedal that line too whilst harping on about our 'lack of punishment'. I'm always curious to understand the 'other' view. Anyone know what's behind it, why they think this, they must rationalise it somehow?

You'll be sure to show me where I've put Ally 'above the club' won't you? I took issue with your claim that Ally has damaged the club, he hasn't, he's done the exact opposite. It's a ridiculous thing for a Rangers supporter to say. To describe him as a 'crap manager' is unfair, there is no evidence to back that up at all. He's not a great manager either, he might become one in time, he might not, none of us can say for sure. That you can't divine what his signing strategy is isn't McCoist's fault, but it's fairly clear to anyone who bothers to look at it. I've no problem with criticism of McCoist, there are quite a few areas to do that. But to say he's damaging the club is hyperbolic bollocks.

There is a long, long list of people who have 'damaged' Rangers and Ally McCoist's name doesn't appear anywhere near it. To say Ally 'saved Ibrox' is overstating it but to downplay his role in keeping the identity of the club alive, acting as a focus and rallying point for the supporters and also his help and influence with the staff who run the club who were getting no information from anyone in control is very unfair. His 'strategy' seems fairly clear to me. He'd like a first choice 11 made up of players with experience the bulk of who have played in Scotland and know and understand the football played here. Add to that a couple of 'foreign' players who will add something a little different and then bolster the squad with young inexperienced players who will get their chance during the season. Some will flourish and some won't. He's doing this without actually being able to sign anyone under contract elsewhere which does severely limit his options. People can criticise this strategy if they want but it doesn't strike me as particularly daft or unreasonable in the circumstances. McCoist has done as much as arguably anyone in the history of the club to warrant the title 'legend'. In his two years as a club manager he's finished second whilst in administration and won the league he was playing in by a mile. I've no idea if he can become a great manager, neither do you, but to describe him as damaging the club is a fuckin disgrace, you should be ashamed of yourself.

To be fair he does a better job.

(This started off as a reply to the thread but turned into a rant. If you want to use it as a piece on the site feel free, but if it's just self-indulgent rubbish leave it where it is to be eviscerated by my fellow posters. Either works for me.) I'll be honest and say that when the CVA failed I too felt the 'club' had died. Something was lost, the unbroken line dating back to Glasgow Green had broken and things would never be the same again. It is hard for me to articulate why I felt that way now, disappointment, embarrassment, the impotence felt at what was going on perhaps all contributed to it. Even though it became clear very quickly after that there would still be a side wearing blue, playing at Ibrox and called Rangers I was still unsure they would be my 'Rangers' and that I'd feel the same way about them. It didn't take long for me to realise those old feelings hadn't gone though and a big part of that was the continuance of the reality of a football club. People talk about corporate bodies, ownership vehicles, limited companies, holding companies and corporate shells like they actually mean something in this whole saga; they don't, they really don't. To try and define Rangers as a limited liability company is like describing last night's Bruce Springsteen concert as a licence to hold public entertainment; it might be factually correct, but only if you don't possess a soul. To try and define a football club in those terms is to demonstrate how little you understand about football and that indeed might be part of the problem here. The gradual gentrification of football is far more firmly embedded in England than in Scotland, however it does still exist here. There was a time, not that long ago, when a certain type of person in Scotland could openly admit to not following football, indeed to actively disliking it. The social dividing line was often drawn at sport, rugby was the sport of choice for the private, fee paying schools and their alumni wore that badge with pride. Football, whilst far more popular was something to be avoided, firmly embedded in the worst of working class culture. Something changed though. Perhaps it was Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, perhaps Sky’s millions, perhaps the implications to stadia of the Taylor Report, perhaps Skinner, Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds perhaps a mixture of all of them, but something changed. Suddenly all sorts of figures from popular culture were openly flaunting their football allegiances, from politicians to pop stars to the Footlights of Oxbridge everyone had a tale of the terracing and an anecdote to beguile a gullible public. To my cynical eyes some of them seemed fanciful and reeked of bandwagonism, but that’s popular culture for you and it became de rigueur to swear very public loyalty to a club side. Most of us who really follow football were introduced to it by a friend or relative; a father, a brother or an uncle perhaps. It could have been peer pressure or the apparent brilliance of a player that led to our choice of club, for most of us it was a decision taken at such a young age as to make analysis of it worthless. But if you get to choose your side as an adult, if your choice of club to follow is done as a badge of fashion and informed over glasses of Pinot Grigio in Ashton Lane then other factors come into play. There are few organisations as arriviste as BBC Scotland. Scores of the expensively educated metropolitan elite struggle manfully to fill the schedules in the hope someone in London will notice them whilst bilingual Gaels build empires to protect their budgets, it really isn’t what Lord Reith had in mind. Rangers don’t fit well into that mindset. Sure they’re a bunch of bigots, aren’t they? Thugs too, as well as being the establishment, and there is nothing the actual establishment likes less than the perceived establishment, how can you be a Byres Road Che Guevara if you’re sporting red, white and blue? So the squeals from BBC Scotland over the BBC Trust pronouncement simply enforced my view that ignorance is the main problem here. They simply don’t get it. It isn’t surprising though, if you’ve chosen your allegiance because you think they are footballing equivalent of the Sandinista movement or Teenage Fanclub you are so far out of touch with genuine football as to be almost irrelevant. To understand why Rangers didn’t die, aren’t a new club and are very much directly connected to the teenagers who founded the club 140 years ago requires an understanding of why football matters to so many people, and not on a superficial level. I’d argue that no club in Britain draws its support from a more disenfranchised, disempowered and unrepresented part of the population than Rangers do. For some the club is their only real source of cultural identity left, did you really think that would die so easily? Do BBC Scotland think Dynamo Kiev aren’t the same club founded in 1927 because they had to change their name and disband during WW2? It’s probably trite to say this but a football club like Rangers is built on passion, on love, on memory and shared experience. Which is why when Ally McCoist in particular stood on the touchline and fielded the first Rangers side of season 2012/13 I knew Rangers hadn’t changed, my Rangers were still there, it was familiar, it was welcoming, it was home. Quote me passages from Scot’s Law and explain corporate semantics all you want you’ll never know what I know, you’ll never feel what I feel and you’ll never understand why it matters to me. You only underline your arrogance and how distant you are from your audience, quite how that fits into the public service remit I’m not sure.

They are hardly the only Scottish club trading whilst insolvent. Kilmarnock, Dundee Utd and Aberdeen are also basically insolvent, I doubt even selling their grounds would cover the debt they have. I'm not sure how Hearts can start next season, there isn't going to be a white knight riding to their rescue. If they can't field a side then Morton would be promoted, whilst that might ensure a couple of decent attendances for St Mirren it's of little interest to the rest of the sides or TV. A further club collapsing would surely signal the end of the league. I still believe this is for the best though, Hearts need to start again, so do most of the other SPL sides, the sooner they do it the sooner they'll be healthy again.

Aye, I'm sure they called Peter Lawell up and asked him how it was doing, we're probably opening one up on the Gallowgate too next month.

The inability to get out of their lease I imagine.

It's true though. As of today Hearts are not in administration as such there isn't anything that can be done to them. Whilst UBIG are that's in Lithuania, Hearts are registered in Scotland and until they officially go into administration here they haven't broken any rules. It does look like it'll just be a matter of time though.

Really? You want us to open shops that don't make a profit? In what way can that be a good move?

In what way was the JJB deal a disaster? It looked like a pretty smart deal to me even at the time far less now with the carnage there's been on the High St of the last few years. Not having a good enough online offering isn't a great reason to open potentially loss making shops. How many shops have Man Utd got?

It's difficult to tell, certainly they've wanted rid of their Sauchiehall St store for a while now, it's in a terrible location. I've always seen an airport shop as an ego thing, I'm far from convinced it'll be profitable. Hopefully it'll be air-side at least. Ann Street is a secondary retail site too, Victoria Sq has helped that part of town but it's still not great. I'm surprised they didn't go for Connswater myself.

Right, cause High Street retail is doing so well just now! I worry hindsight will prove Murray actually made a fairly shrewd deal with JJB.

Oh well, I hope they know what they are doing.

We'll see, that's entirely possible. I think clubs like Motherwell, Ross County, St Mirren and Thistle will side with the Div 1 clubs more often than not leaving Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee Utd and Hibs as a block with Hearts too if they survive. I can't say why I just dont see the mid-sized clubs being pushed around in the way they were before. The games up and they all know it, I've some faith in the smaller clubs to do the right thing for the game now. I might be hopelessly naive, I accept that.

On the contrary, I think this proved how much they really need us, and when our voice returns we'll have a number of backers at the table now that we didn't have in the SPL. We're not much worse off now than we were last week. This will help the SPL clubs but it won't save them, they've still a ton of work to do and it won't clear the debts being held by Aberdeen, Hearts, Killie, Utd or ICT either. Remember we're still rebuilding our club, the others haven't even begun that process yet.

You know we might look back on this decision one day as one of the better ones even if it doesn't feel like it just now. What has actually happened today? Well the power of the SPL cabal has been diluted and I expect it to be further diluted in the coming seasons. No way will the mid-ranking clubs allow the larger clubs to rule with impunity again. Everyone is round the table now and all voices will need to be listened too. I also expect we'll see further fairly radical league restructuring soon too. The SFL clubs have agreed this so they can get a say in the future and their future looks quite different from Aberdeen and Celtics. I'd be very surprised if we don't have a significantly bigger top division in a couple of years. Money wise a more even spread is actually in our interests too. The more competitive the league the better the league I believe.

Are you saying they didn't? It won't ever stop as long as individuals own the club.

So the guy running the club at the behest of the then owner? Shouldn't your issue be with those people then?

Do you have any proof of that, if so who do you think was instructing them to do that?

But Frankie if you employ a company to do a job for you, be it a PR company or a widget manufacturer you judge them on the job they do. The problem here is you/Forlan and many other Rangers supporters are judging them on a different job, they're being judged on the job you'd like them to do or wish they did. That's unfair. To use a football analogy it's like judging Lee Wallace on the number of goals he scores. If they were giving partial advice, if they were working an angle they'd be found out quickly because they wouldn't deliver what they were being paid to. What is the conflict of interest though? Are the people who pay them aware of it? If they are why don't they share your concerns? To be fair to Media House they don't stick their head above the parapet much, they are only the story because someone leaked confidential emails and taped meetings. They aren't the story, they are players in the game but it is someone else's game and someone else's rules.