amms

With respect DB Celtic haven't done this to us, we did it to ourselves. Lawwell has what he wants currently, he's won this part of the fight, but the war isn't over. Now is the time for us to retreat and regroup. A Rangers in the SPL, hamstrung by sanctions and possibly by finance helps who exactly?

Calscot - I’m not sure I agree we can define our debts and mitigate our responsibilities actually. I agree that Ticketus are moneylenders and people shouldn’t shed many tears for them, but the original debt was from Murray’s time and to the bank and so created by spending on football related expenditure. It is all cause and effect and we can’t overlook the cause of it. You ask where we’ve benefitted; that’s where. I don’t fully understand the EBT scheme. I agree it seems very unfair that HMRC can back date a tax demand by 10 years, however they can, that’s the rules and how they work. In my limited experience of them I’m pretty sure a deal could be done with them on repayment had the case gone against us, but who really knows. I fully accept that without the shadow of the big tax case a lot of what has happened wouldn’t have, however I don’t think it mitigates what did happen. I don’t accept the argument that because we’ve not benefitted from the debt we’re not responsible for it (and I do think we benefitted from it). As I mentioned before, you are Rangers, as am I, when all the players, directors and moneylenders are gone we’re what’s left, we should take the lead, show the direction. Ultimately we’re responsible. You seem to see what I’m saying as an attack on the club. It’s not, quite the opposite. I love Rangers, I genuinely think this is the best course of action for us. It will instantly end the feeding frenzy that has engulfed the club of late, it will allow us a period of reflection, regrouping and introspection. We’ll be forced to downsize, undoubtedly, but hopefully only for a few years, and again if it forces us to look harder for talent locally and produce our own it might be beneficial. If it also show’s a few of our more vocal critics that they should have been a bit more careful of what they wished for then that’s an added bonus, but not my main motivation. I hate Rupert Murdoch and everything he stands for, but he’s a smart man I’ll acknowledge that, and he understands human nature very well. Last year as the Milly Dowler phone tapping case came to light and an explosion of public revulsion engulfed the News Of The World he did a very, very smart thing; he closed the paper down. There were very few dissenting voices when he launched the Sun on Sunday six months later. The anger and feelings towards the News of the World had moved on to other targets and the paper, for all intents and purposes the NOTW with a new badge, carried on as before. By falling on our own sword, by leading the way in ‘retribution’ we’ll kill this debate, we’ll dictate its terms and we’ll be back in control of it. We’ll no longer be on the back foot, constantly defending ourselves, we’ll have the moral high ground again. For the record, I’ve not been brain washed by Peter Lawwell and I’ve not got some form of Stockholm Syndrome, I genuinely believe this is in the long term best interests of Rangers.

Thanks for your reply. As I said to Bluedel above I don't think we can pick and choose who is part of Rangers and who acts alone. Whyte owned the club, he acted in our name, whether we like it or not. I think we do have an obligation to make right his wrongs as best we can.

Indeed, which is why I think we should do it ourselves. It's up to others what they do in the future.

Bluedel - For me what we’ve done wrong is walk away from our debts. I’m hugely uncomfortable with that. We’re now, potentially at least, in a position of having no debt despite not paying it back. It’s a legal and broadly accepted business practice I know, but I still feel it’s wrong, particularly for an organisation such as Rangers. Whatever our corporate structure by shedding the debt, by not honoring what has gone before we’ve become ‘new’. As such we should start again from the bottom. The history, the memories, the emotion and the attachment will never die and nor should they. Calscot – This piece is my point of view, I represent no one but myself with it. Indeed I only wrote it because I was asked. I try and listen to all points of view before forming my own, my point of view changes from time to time on a whole host of subjects, this one included. It might change again, I reserve that right. I’m not ignoring any facts although I might well not understand all of them I accept that. If I’ve not engaged with someone on this I apologise, I’ve not been on here regularly for that long, I don’t always choose to get involved in every debate, often I’ve nothing worthwhile to add anyway, as you can see! If your intention was to wound then the Peter Lawwell jibe did just that, although I feel the piece wasn’t nearly bombastic enough for him. Wait until you read my next piece on why wee Jinky should get a posthumous knighthood though….

It's a fair point and at the heart of why this is so difficult for so many of us. It's taken me a while to reach this point, I felt like you initially. At its heart football is a team game, a cliche I accept but no less true for it. When Nacho Novo buried that penalty in Florence to take us to the UEFA Cup Final I didn't think it's Nacho's moment, I'll sit back and let him enjoy it, or indeed it's for the 11 (10) guys on the pitch. It was for all of us, indeed I imagine it meant more to most of the support than to some of the players. Every goal Rangers score, game we win, trophy we lift I take the credit for, not personally but I bask in the reflected glory it brings. Buying tickets, going to games, simply investing the time and energy I do in caring about Rangers means I'm part of the team. I play a minor role, but it's a role none the less, it's a role we all play. That's what being part of a team is about. Unfortunately for every Lovenkrands last minute cup final winner there's a loose pass back from Gary Stevens. We take the rough with the smooth. It wasn't just Stevens who lost that day, we all did, and it hurt. Gary Stevens has moved on, I doubt he thinks much about Rangers these days, certainly not as much as you or I do anyway. Because the Gary Stevens, Peter Lovenkrands and Nacho Novo's of this world come and go, they join, they sometimes shine, we enjoy it and then they leave. We don't, we remain. For me Craig Whyte falls into that category too. He came, he did what he did and now he's gone and we have to live the consequences. It's never about 'one man' no matter what happens. What any of us do in the name of Rangers reflects on all the rest of us, whether we like it or not. In my opinion what Whyte did reflects on me. I didn't do it, I didn't know it was happening, I don't approve of it and I wish it didn't happen. I think we pretty much all feel that way. However he's gone and we're not and in the end we're Rangers. You're Rangers, I'm Rangers, Andy Steel is Rangers and so on. As such it is up to us to pick up the pieces and fix our club. Just my view Del and as you've known for a long time my views don't always reflect the broader support!

I’ve never watched Scottish third division football before, I’d no real desire to either until quite recently. However I now find myself in the unusual position of wanting my team, Rangers, to be playing in that league next season. I think that would be the dignified and right thing to do. I agree with everyone who says that Rangers didn't 'die' last week simply the corporate shell that housed us, however, we didn't pay our tax we've now stiffed hundreds of individuals and companies as well as our own debenture holders so a little bit of us did die. I believe we shouldn't just carry on in the same league, more or less debt free, as if nothing happened. I know there will be the Euro ban and possibly other as yet unknown 'sanctions' to contend with. But I wish the club would take the lead here and announce we will not be reapplying for the SPL. I'd rather we left Scotland all together actually, but that's probably not possible, in which case Division 3 it'll need to be. There has to be some recognition by us, the club, that what was done by our club was wrong, I don't feel that's happened yet. Yes, it was Whyte who was responsible, and David Murray too and most of the support could do nothing about it, however it still happened on our watch and we need to pick up the pieces. We've never had anything handed to us, despite what others might say about us, we've worked for everything we have, it took us decades to build a club and a team that could win things, we couldn't go out and buy the best players from the best club from day one unlike some others near by. Facing up to adversity is in our DNA. For all the hysteria and hyperbole that has surrounded Rangers this year this isn’t our darkest hour. As every Rangers fan knows that was in 1971 when 66 supporters lost their lives attending a game. Rangers response to that tragedy was to completely rebuild Ibrox. No one told Rangers to do it, indeed there was no pressure applied by the authorities to do it, but the club took the decision because they believed it was the right thing to do. What many people overlook about that decision is that Rangers were very much playing second fiddle to Celtic then. It was the middle of their 9-in-a-row run, they were regular participants in the latter stages of European competitions and were the dominant force in the city. That’s not a situation that sits well with Rangers fans. It is estimated that the rebuilding of Ibrox cost over £10 million, a huge some at the time, imagine if that money had been spent on the playing and coaching staff instead? It must have been tempting at the time. Had that happened who can say how history might have changed. I’m immensely proud that we didn’t though, there can be little doubt that it was the right thing to do, you don’t need hindsight to see that either, and we didn’t need anyone else to tell us it was the right thing to do, we knew ourselves. It was solely our decision. I think this is a similar moment. We need to acknowledge what our club did wasn’t right, even though it wasn't the supporter’s fault and we didn't approve of it. The 'company' who held our license to play no longer exists, so we should reapply at the bottom and work our way back. As such I don't have much of a problem with the statements being periodically released by other Scottish clubs and their fan groups. Indeed I agree with their sentiment if not with some of the language or indeed motivation behind them. We should acknowledge the strength of feeling at other clubs about this. Our (and I include myself in this) first reaction as a support is to circle the wagons and fight back when we are criticised from outside. Sometimes we might be better to stop, think about why it's been said and try and understand what is informing it. Some of it is fuelled by an irrational hatred of us as a club and a support, but some of it isn't. Time for us to accept that I think. I don't particularly want self-flagellation, I want the club to do what I think it should do. Had we achieved a CVA then we should have stayed in the SPL with no sanctions in my opinion. We didn't, the 'company' has now gone and with it our debt, I think that's wrong, we didn't pay our way and that sits uncomfortably with me. I'm also unsure what we'll be missing by not being in the SPL. We'll miss some 'big' league matches and some sponsor money and the quality of football will be poorer for sure, but beyond that? We'll still be in the Scottish and League Cups, so we might still get some 'big' games. What actually will be missing out on that's worth further blackening our history? I fully accept there will repercussions for other clubs if we are not in the SPL. I’m sorry about that, but I’m not sure it’s a good enough reason for us to remain there. New clubs start at the bottom, that’s what happens in football at whatever level. When Clydebank rejoined the Junior ranks after several decades in senior football they didn’t go into the Junior Superleague, despite clearly having a fanbase and structure that would make them competitive. There are clearly differences between Clydebank and Rangers however the principle is the same. Principles have been lacking in our boardroom recently, hopefully someone has enough of them though to do the right thing now. I know that some see this as their chance to do us down, inflict damage on us for petty, spiteful reasons that really have nothing to do with football. At the same time anything we achieve in football from today on will always have this hanging over it. If we win the SPL next season, instead of being seen as the second Miracle of Bern it'll be seen as a victory for tax avoiding, to big to fail, corporate bullies. History is very important to football fans, it’s taught me that doing the right thing pays off in the end.

Yeah, got to say having read that piece I'm not sure McCulloch has done anything wrong either. He's explained that the players are still in the dark about the future. That's not adding fuel to any fire, that's simply stating the obvious.

Spence is the shining example of all that's wrong with positive discrimination. BBC Scotland must broadcast a certain amount of airtime from 'the provinces' and Spence manages to give them Dundee's allotted hours. I mean you only need to hear him to know he's filling a quota, there can be no other reason to give him airtime. Spence likes to play the provincial card as often as he can too, like it's some kind of badge of honour that he's from Dundee and so 'untainted' by Glasgow and the associated evil that brings. Of course you only need to hear him for a short time to realise how brutally untalented he is. He sounds like he's in his mid to late 70s, not in itself a problem unless you happen to be considerably younger than that, like he is. He compounds sounding like a moron with the words he then utters. He's the most cliche ridden broadcaster you'll ever hear. His hysterical reaction to our current predicament is predicated on him seeing life from outside the Glasgow goldfish bowl (yes he actually uses that phrase, often), this insight seems to involve reading Dundee Utd fanzines and message boards. It's enlightening stuff. Oh, and he's also a Roman Catholic, I've no idea why, but he feels the need to tell listeners that too from time to time. If you require any evidence to underline his banality Google his attempted interview with Dusan Pernis of Dundee Utd, it's really something. His written blogs on the BBC website are actually worse, hard as that is to grasp. He's barely literate, the sub editors in Dundee really must have their work cut out when he files late. The first time I read one I assumed he was some kind of work experience or prize winner from school, seriously it's that level of English. So you if you are wondering why the BBC put him on the radio and their blog, well they couldn't put him on TV, have you seen him? Some of you might remember Beaker from the Muppets, well Spence was the design model. Add to that unfortunate permanently startled look with his unruly strawberry blonde a dress sense that you'll rarely see outside of a taxi rank in a post Soviet Asian republic. Man at Uzbekistan meets Jim Henson's imagination, not a look many of us will be striving for this summer. But as has been said earlier, we pay this man, probably quite a lot, so who is laughing most.

It stops in August when the league begins again. If we go to Division 3 then that's it, no more sanctions or penalties, focus goes back to football again. We don't have to go any years without winning something. If we start again in Div 3 then we should be able to win that title and enter the League and Scottish Cups. We're not in Europe anyway so we've no opportunities there for a few years. The thought of winning the Scottish Cup, whilst in the third division is actually quite exciting. I think we're confusing 'punishment' with doing what's right (what I think is right, only my opinion rather than an accepted fact). Starting again in division 3 doesn't have to be seen as 'punishment', it would be a new beginning for Rangers. We'll miss out on SPL level football for a few seasons (hopefully) but is that such a loss to regain our self respect?

Don't Livingston offer the closest precedent? It's difficult to see clearly in all this, like you say there is a lot of noise, much of it unhelpful and spite driven, that needs to be waded through first. I personally think the concept of a 'new' club joining a league system is well established in football. Even at amateur and boys league levels you start at the lowest league no matter your history or size. The massive grey area is over our 'new' club status. We're clearly not a new club in many accepted senses. We're the same club, playing in the same place with the same fans. But we are new in other senses, the most important one for me is the absence of our debt and our inability to pay the people we owe. I think if we were to return to the top flight it sends out a message that what we did is okay, I don't think it is. When Inverness joined the senior league there was no suggestion they should start in say Division 1, despite it being fairly obvious they were of a size and potential that they could compete there. When Clydebank joined the Junior league they didn't go straight into the Superleague, they had to start at the bottom. This despite being clearly one of the biggest and best supported teams in the league and with the resources to compete at the highest level as this season has shown. It's difficult drawing parallels with us and ICT or Clydebank Juniors, there are clearly some very large differences between us all, however the concept of a new team starting at the bottom is well accepted in football, no matter their size, history or potential. The agenda driven, hate-filled punishment junkies from other clubs and parts of the SFA lead us, the greater Rangers support, into a defensive position. We know that some see this are their chance to do us down, inflict damage on us for petty, spiteful reasons that have nothing to do with football. At the same time anything we achieve in football from today on will always have this hanging over it. If we win the SPL next season, instead of being seen as the second miracle of Bern it'll be seen as a victory for tax avoiding, to big to fail corporate bullies. That's not who we really are.

I don't particularly want self-flagellation, I want the club to do what I think it should do. Had we achieved a CVA then we should have stayed in the SPL with no sanctions in my opinion. We didn't, the 'company' has now gone and with it our debt, I think that's wrong, we didn't pay our way and that sits uncomfortably with me. I'm also unsure what we'll be missing by not being in the SPL. We'll miss some 'big' league matches and some sponsor money and the quality of football will be poorer for sure, but beyond that? We'll still be in the Scottish and League Cups, so we might still get some 'big' games. What actually will be missing out on that's worth further blackening our history?

I think I fall into that camp Zappo. I believe we should begin again at the bottom and try and work our way back. I think that would be the dignified and right thing to do. I agree with everyone who says that Rangers didn't 'die' this week simply the corporate shell that housed us, however, we didn't pay our tax we've now stiffed hundreds of individuals and companies as well as our own debenture holders. I believe we shouldn't just carry on in the same league, more or less debt free, as if nothing happened. I know there will be the Euro ban and possibly other as yet unknown 'sanctions' to contend with. But I wish the club would take the lead here and announce we will not be reapplying for the SPL. I'd rather we left Scotland all together currently but that's probably not possible, in which case Division 3 it'll need to be. There has to be some recognition by us, the club, that what was done by our club was wrong, I don't feel that's happened yet. Yes, it was Whyte who is responsible, and David Murray too and most of the support could do nothing about it, however it still happened and we need to pick up the pieces. We've never had anything handed to us, despite what others might say about us, we've worked for everything we have, it took us years to build a club and a team that could win things, we couldn't go out and buy the best players from the best club from day one unlike some others near by. After our darkest day, the 70s Ibrox disaster, our club took the decision to rebuild Ibrox. No one made us do that, we did because it was the right thing to do. We made that decision during a period of Celtic domination, the money that went into rebuilding Ibrox could have been used for the team, we might have stopped their 9 in a row, we might have enjoyed more European success, who can say. I guess my point is we didn't need anyone to tell us we needed to fix things, we chose to do it ourselves because we knew it was the right thing to do even though it penalised the team and put us at a disadvantage in the league. I think this is a similar moment. We need to acknowledge what was done by our club, even though it wasn't our fault and we didn't approve of it. The 'company' who held our licence to play no longer exists, so we should reapply at the bottom and work our way back . As such I don't have much of a problem with the Kilmarnock statement. Indeed I agree with the sentiment. For what it's worth Kilmarnock are a financial basket case and will almost certainly go into administration next season if we are out of the league. We should also acknowledge the strength of feeling at other clubs about this. Our (and I include myself in this) first reaction as a support is to circle the wagons and fight back when we are criticised from outside. Sometimes we might be better to stop, think about why it's been said and try and understand what is informing it. Some of it is fuelled by a hatred of us as a club and a support, but some of it isn't. Time for us to accept that I think. Perhaps not the most popular view I accept.

Use? What do you mean?

Indeed, but we're not trying to make a profit.

As I said above much easier said than done. Lots of guys were successful businessmen until they got involved in football.

Easy as that. What could go wrong.

Right there. That's my issue with him and his consortium - they are businessmen who want to make money. You say it like it's the most natural thing in the world, like it's easy. Well here's the rub, it isn't. Who is making money out of Scottish football just now? How do you do that exactly? Because you know what, you can't. The revenue streams, the marketing opportunities, the TV rights they simply don't exist in our game. We've no European revenue for a long time to come. The only way to make money out of Rangers is to sell the assets. We have two types of assets, our players and our property. Well the players we've got just now will probably not switch to the 'newsco', some might but who knows. Without money we're unlikely to be able to buy better ones and as we still don't know what league we're going to be in or what sanctions we'll face we're not the most attractive option for players just now. That's before any possible UEFA action on us for unpaid transfer fees to other clubs. So what's left? How else do these businessmen who only want to make money, make money? What's left to sell Darther? So does Walter Smith just want to make money, is he just a businessman? So for me, my ideal owner of Rangers would be a supporter of the club at least. Someone who has some feeling for us. Not some Yorkshire spiv out to make a brass from muck. I doubt that Charles Green is a better businessman than David Murray. I bet David Murray is better connected, more influential, more persuasive and richer than Charles Green. Well look how that worked out. Businessmen gamble, all the time, that's the system. we don't need anymore gamblers, we need to go back to being a club, a club who play football, who concentrate on playing the best football we can. Nothing else.

Calscot, it's been a long and difficult day, I've not got the emotional energy to do this anymore. In future if you reply to a post of mine and use the word "you're" I'll not assume you mean me, despite most of the English speaking world thinking that way too. I'll know better next time. We might well have the Division 3 conversation again unfortunately, perhaps not, we'll see. And that's an insane amount of money to spend on a bike!!!!

Our jersey's are going to be hideous next season now.

Actually the only interesting thing I know about Jim McColl is he practices Feng Shui. Expect the Blueroom to look quite different the next time you see it.

Oh, so not the guy who presented the Beechgrove Garden then?

This is spectacularly good news. Smith is arguably the only figure who could front a group that pretty much the whole support will unite behind.

Okay, as long as you know what you meant.* So by “unless you’ve no real affection for it?” you were implying what exactly? Your helpful Dad’s Army sketch hasn’t really changed my mind on what you meant either. Right, and from "For me it isn't a lack of ambition that means we'll need to sign some Div 3 players, it's the opposite." You get “So you're saying we should just become another div 3 team?” and you wonder why I’m struggling to understand what you wrote. Tell me if we joined the English League do you think it might be an idea to sign some players who had played there before and knew the setup? When Graeme Souness joined Rangers his best signing was Walter Smith, that’s not just with hindsight, he said it at the time, he needed someone who knew the league and the personalities in it. Souness was an exceptional footballer who had captained the finest team in the world at that time and just left the best league in the world. He knew that alone wasn’t enough. No actually there are many parallels to the pre-Souness period both economically and socially. On top of that we’ve wall-to-wall TV coverage of some of the finest football in the world available to compete with now too. You are naïve if you think our attendances won’t fall. That’s not a question of loyalty, it’s a harsh reality. You can’t keep the same level of team in Div 3 as you have today, it’s simply not possible. By replacing our current squad with unambitious SPL players, because that’s all who’d want to play in Div 3, you are taking a huge risk. If that’s where we end up, we should build our squad around a core of better players but we’ll need some players with Div 3 experience. See that "they can't hope to finish above a team like Rangers" attitude is the problem. Have more respect for other teams, it wasn't that long ago people were saying administration/liquidation/oblivion can't happen to a team like Rangers. BTW Are you implying we’re as good as Man U, Man City, Barcelona and Real Madrid?

A report written by the Sports Editor of one of the largest selling newspapers in the country, a report that has still not been denied by McCoist. If that doesn't deserve 19 pages on here I don't know what does. Whether this is political, opportunistic or factual isn't the point, a front page story about the imminent departure of the Rangers manager at anytime would create a 19 page thread at least. There is no hysteria, just concern and a desire for more knowledge.