amms

I disagree regarding Shiels in particular. Shiels was a boy wonder, signed by Arsene Wenger as a youth player Shiels looked like he could become a genuine great, however he never fulfilled that potential and Arsenal eventually released him without making a 1st team appearance. He moved to Hibs where he first became known to most Rangers supporters. He had some good games for Hibs but he failed to become a first team regular, often starting from the bench and he was eventually transferred for about £50,000 to Doncaster. Again Shiels struggled to become a 1st choice, he'd get a run of games then drop out of the side, inconsistency plaguing his game. Eventually Doncaster decided to loan him to Kilmarnock who happened to be managed by his Dad. Doncaster decided not to offer him a new contract and he was released and signed a short term contract at Killie. Now at Kilmarnock he looked quite good, but again he had good games and bad ones, ask any Killie fan. Playing for his father seems to have helped his game, whether his Dad simply understands better what makes him tick or simply has more trust in him we can only speculate at. However he's not the 1st player who has performed beter for his own father than another manager and perhaps gives an insight into his psychology. His career at Rangers has followed a similar pattern, good games and quiet ones. When he's good he's match winning good, but when he's quiet he might as well not be there. That's been Shiels career so far, McCoist has had no more success or failure from Shiels than all his other managers, his father being arguably the only exception. But It is stil early days, he's less than 4 months a Rangers player, the team has looked better in recent weeks, it is too early to judge him a success or failure. Likewise Black is another of who much was expected when young but little delivered. His time at Blackburn Rovers is best forgotten and he was 21 before he made his debut for Inverness. At ICT he developed into a midfielder who could break up play, stop the opposition ball players and make a nuisance of himself. This got him a move to Hearts where he continued that role. It was only in the last year of his Hearts contract (a coincidence?) that he bagan to be noticed, crocking Jelavic being his main contribution. Stopping better players is fine if you play for ICT or Hearts where you play against better players most weeks, but at Rangers, particularly in Div 3 you don't. We're expected to control the match, make the play, set the tempo, not aspects of the game Black is adept at. He does act as a lightening rod for the opposition cloggers though, in pretty much every match this season he's been the victim of a bad foul. His presence though lets our better players play, MacLoed, McKay and even Shiels are able to express creativity whilst Black gets kicked and does some kicking in return; well it's a team game after all.

C'mon, it's just two cousins having a laugh. Who among hasn't donned a balaclava, draped a flag in the kitchen, held a six inch blade to our wee cousins throat, taken a picture of it and then posted it on Facebook? Exactly, we've all done that at least once, probably more often if we're being honest with ourselves. Frankly, for me, that's what Facebook is for. Where's our sense of humour gone, nothing's funnier than simulated masked knife crime after all.

Well it depends on your definition of 'ok' I suppose. On the pitch Spanish football is arguably the best in the world just now, it is enjoying a real golden generation. It is impossible to argue that Real Madrid and Barcelona aren't successful, they clearly are, and the league as a whole is still one of the best in the world. However scratch below the surface of that and you'll find that almost every club in that league is basically bankrupt, the level of debt being carried by Spanish league clubs is breathtaking, it's surprising Craig Whyte hasn't moved there frankly. We're already seeing La Liga start to lose important players because of that, Valencia found their best players being picked off by Swansea in the summer, clubs below the big two can't afford to hold onto their players now, as such the quality of the league will soon start to drop and when that happens Real and Barca will start to lose ground also. They've benefited from the strength of La Liga as a whole over the last few seasons when money was no object to most of the teams in Spain. Already the other clubs in Spain are calling for fairer TV deals.

Interesting points. Firstly the SPL was set up so the bigger clubs could get more money, whatever else they might have claimed that was the reason. I think it is more important for us to have a stronger league than for us to have a bigger budget. The late Smith/Advocaat years were a time when Rangers were able to compete with almost everyone for players, we had some seriously talented payers and two very good managers, but were we competitive? The problem was we still played a shit Thistle side on the Saturday before playing Juventus in the CL. If we were playing against better teams more regularly we would be a better team. The gap between Scotland and the 'big' leagues is growing, you are correct. That will make competing very difficult, no matter our budget, I believe a stronger league will help that, but it might not be enough.

The only Tor anyone on this forum should concern themselves with, and one of the best football books every written.

I disagree entirely. Scottish club football was a force in the 60s and early 70s when we had truly competitive leagues. Clubs like Hibs, Dundee, Hearts, Kilmarnock and Dunfermline were all capable of beating Rangers and Celtic, they were more than capable of winning cups and in some cases winning the league. Wealth wasn't concentrated in those days, gates were shared, sponsorship barely existed and TV rights were almost unheard of. We remained at least competitive in the late 70s but most of our best players were outside Scotland by then. Our next period of being any sort of force in Europe was the early 1980s. You had 5 genuine league challengers each season, shared gates, little to no sponsorship or TV money and English football in the financial doldrums. It's not coincidental. Since then us and Celtic have made the final of the Europa League once each, a tremendous achievement but not to be compared with the old UEFA Cup which was a much harder trophy to win. But it wasn't just us. Sweden, Belgium, Romania, Austria, Portugal and of course Holland were all producing club sides capable of competing in Europe then. Celtic have had a good week, but let's not get carried away, the sun shines on every dogs arse once in a while, it hardly proves that Scottish football is structured correctly.

I didn't say anyone should be used to prop anyone else up, where do you get that from? Spreading revenue more equitably has nothing to do with propping up and everything to do with fairness. You think some clubs are 'dross', I don't know who you mean by that. The loss of clubs like Hearts, Kilmarnock and Dunfermline would be a bad thing for Scotland and for Rangers.

Yeah but it isn't just about going to watch 'great football' is it? If it was Ibrox would be pretty empty these days. Going to watch 'your' team is about so much more than just the quality of football. It's about meeting mates, fathers, brothers, it's a social thing, a community thing, a sense of belonging, about letting off some steam, having a sing-song and so much more. The quality of football is important, but it is only one part of it, you know this. Removing a club like Hearts would make Scottish football poorer, both literally and figuratively, in the short and long term. That's not in Rangers interest.

Who are the dross, what clubs do you mean?

Fine, but if Hearts don't exist then those kids are lost to the game here, they won't become Rangers or Hibs fans too, just big English/Spanish club. I've lived in Ireland, I've seen what happens to your local league when everyone starts supporting Man Utd and Liverpool.

But it wouldn't be propping up, badly run clubs will have problems no matter how much money is available, if you are badly run you are badly run, end of story. You are confusing having proper governance on club finances and having an equitable and competitive league. The two things aren't the same, even distribution of money means clubs that are well run have a chance to compete, without that chance we increase the likelihood of clubs over extending and gambling in the hope if success. Ah, right, I misunderstood this point before.

Aye, but it'll be Man City or Real Madrid.

We should rebalance the wealth because since we 'imbalanced' it the game has deteriorated in this country. The game thrives on competition, the better the clubs we play every week the better we need to be to beat them. The SPL has stifled competition, home team keeping the gates has stifled competition, 'Old Firm' voting veto has stifled competition, the total dominance of two teams (now one) has stifled competition and seen dwindling crowds. Fixing that doesn't reward badly run clubs, badly run clubs will always get into financial trouble. It is in our interest that the league we play in is as strong as it can be, that the teams we play against are able to compete against us, that the players being produced locally are of a better quality than have been produced in the last 15 years. 'Poster Boys' for armageddon? Are you serious?

Professional football in England extends much further than the bottom team in League 2. Closing clubs means fewer football supporters, if Hearts go down the majority if their support will be lost to the game, they won't start rolling up at Easter Road or Livingston next week.

Where do we come in that equation then? I disagree we've too many clubs, what we have is an imbalance in the allocation of finances and a system where the customer (us, the supporters) are ignored, taken for granted and at times actively discouraged from voicing an opinion. Reform is needed but reducing the number of clubs won't make it better.

Ach, can't believe they don't name them, spoilsports. Let's guess. I'm going for Hearts, Dundee, Dunfermline, Kilmarnock, Dundee Utd, Aberdeen, Falkirk, St Mirren and Inverness.

For what it's worth BDO have been 'strictly off the record' briefing some of the press regarding this.

Hearts situation is interesting. Unlike us the majority of their debt is owed to their owner and it is his decision to stop funding the club that's brought their problems to a head. Yet surely administration is in 'Vlad's interests. He can agree a 1p in the pound deal with himself and take the club out of admin, whilst remaining as owner of the club and the ground. He can also use the admin as a way of losing the debt to HMRC and of off-loading playing staff. In all it would cost him what, a 10 point penalty? Then the club is a much more attractive proposition to buy than it is just now and he has a chance of recouping some of his money. However HMRC have issed them with a winding-up order, that would see them liquidated rather than go into administration I understand. Which suggest Vlad is out of money, no longer cares or is bluffing the support in the hope they'll chip in to pay this bill. I for one wouldn't welcome Hearts demise. Not only are they well supported by Scottish standards they have a pretty good record of developing players. But it does look like it's only a matter of time. There was an interesting article on a St Johnstone fan's blog I read recently. He's usually to be avoided as he's pretty anti-Rangers/West coast bias pish but he was linked too on Twitter by someone I respect so I read it. He pointed out how SPL clubs are valuing their stadiums in their accounts and how our takeover in the summer showed the 'real' value of a football ground, even a big important one. It's real creative accounting, Hibs had Easter Road valued at £24 million, Celtic Park was something like £45 million!! Tynecastle was/is valued at over £18 million, even at the height of the Edinburgh property boom that land wasn't worth that. Only Motherwell and St Johnstone could say their grounds are realistically valued, they were telling figures. At some point in the not too distant future you can't help but feel someone is going to question these valuations and insist they are recalculated.

I've never counted them but it would surprise me if the parking spaces behind the Copland and Broomloan Rd stands are fewer in number than the car parks in front of Hampden or Parkhead. Certainly neither of those grounds has anything as substantial as the Albion.

Thank you, I did not know that. So without the Albion or some other car park we can't play matches at Ibrox? Could we use the Science Centre car park for example?

I can't believe you guys haven't been told. That's a slight, you should be offended.

We're going round in circles here. Yes, I understand why on paper it makes sense to purchase the freehold for £1.1 million rather than pay £300,000 per year for 11 years. My question is why do we want it? I think the club could have walked away from it when Green took over, I believe all contracts became null and void. Obviously the club have decided to honour, or at least continue with, some of the contracts that were in place prior, but we weren't beholden to them, that's been an operational decision. So my question is why do we want to own The Albion? What strategic benefit is there to the club to own that piece of land? Don't tell me it's too park cars on, I understand that, but why is it the club's job to help people park cars? Is it a good use of our limited resources at this time? Would in excess of £1.1 million be better spent on improving Auchenhowie for example, or employing more youth coaches, more scouts for example or more food kiosks inside the stadium? So my question is this, is it so profitable for Rangers to be in the car park business that we should invest a not inconsiderable sum of money in buying a strip of land, albeit land closely associated with the club historically, that sits empty doing nothing for about 340 days a year? It's a genuine question, I don't know the answer to it, it isn't a trick one, it might well make perfect business sense. It just strikes me as strange that at this time with the club where it is we're spending 7 figure sums on car parks.

I don't know, that's why I'm asking. But if the company cease to trade then surely all contracts cease? I assume the contracts were with the PLC? What happens to the cars isn't really my concern, they can get the tube for all I care. Would planning consent still matter now? This is my question, does owning a car park help the club, is it a significantly profitable venture?

I'm not trying to be smart here, I'm genuinely curious. Someone can correct if I'm wrong but surely every contract was nullified? Green would need to have decided to renew it surely? If what is being reported here is a renegotiation then my question stands, why do we want this piece of land if we can walk away from it it? Is it to use it as a car park? With an average of 24 home games a season we'd need to take over £12,500 per game from it, is that realistic? How many cars does it hold, do they all pay? Really what I'm asking is are we in the car park business, do we want to be in the car park business? Or are there other plans for the Albion?

Do we? Why do we have too?