Hildy
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Everything posted by Hildy
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Thanks for that. It was the club looking at millions being pledged to the RST's Save Rangers scheme that motivated it to create the RFFF. People actually believed that those who were prepared to commit thousands to Save Rangers would do the same with the RFFF. I know one guy who was considering investing a six-figure sum in Save Rangers. When it was suspended and the RFFF came along, wisely, he kept his money - all of it - in his pocket.
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That's a decent summing-up. I think the NARSA statement was out of order and will be damaging to their reputation, but it is a properly organised democratic organisation accountable to its members. The RFFF, on the other hand, has no members and when it calls for a vote the question has to be asked - what is the qualification to actually have a vote? Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk
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I'm led to believe the club was behind it, but it is a grey area because no-one seems to be able to give a clear answer on who proposed it, who seconded it and what the vote was on it.
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Where did the idea for the RFFF come from? What individual or organisation proposed it?
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If money is raised for a specific project like scouting or maintaining the pitch, it lets the board hang on to the money it would have spent on these things and leaves it with more to fritter away on itself or on undeserving others. Without trust in the board, there is a fundamental problem. Ringfencing is a well-meant proposal, but it does not get round the fact that an untrusted board will never attract the money that would be available if the club was perceived to be in good hands.
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I wouldn't volunteer an extra cent to Rangers - not under the present circumstances where the board burns money like there is no tomorrow. I do agree though that those fans who are eager to pay whatever the club asks should be given the opportunity to do so. If we have fans prepared to pay £50 for a £25 ticket, their cash should be gratefully received. Let's face it - some fans try to justify admission prices no matter how high they go. This will be an opportunity for them to be as generous with their cash as they expect others - on more limited means - to be.
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We've been owned by Murray, where we saw an £80m overdraft, then Whyte came along and we had a ringside seat for the catastrophe that followed - then the current regime rolled in and there hasn't been a worry-free day since. This is the opposite of fan ownership and it fell a few inches short of killing the club completely. If the support wants this instead of fan ownership and the occasional contentious debate, it can have it, but the price that we will pay, at best, will be a significantly less glorious future than the trophy-laden days of our domestic past. It is inconceivable that the club will have a planned and stable future while it is subject to ownership change on the whim of a hedge fund and with total strangers able to take the reins. We've been around for over 140 years. I expect us to sink long before another 140 years passes because we don't seem to have sufficient interest in properly caring for our club. Unbelievably, we prefer to leave details like club ownership to chance. Fan ownership will regenerate Rangers - if it happens - but if it doesn't, Rangers' future will be grim - and limited. We really have to learn the lesson of our recent history and while pettiness, bickering and badmouthing is regrettably all too evident just now, maturity will kick in when we finally take full responsibility for Rangers. Even after 140 years, we still have a lot of growing up to do, but when power comes, we will surely rise to the challenge. With power comes great responsibility. Without power we will lose everything.
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It was for the club, mate. The fact that the club has been moved from a dying company to a new one doesn't change anything. Do you really think the RFFF can spend the money as it likes and then defend itself by saying that the fund was exclusively for the oldco? It was said at the time of the RFFF launch that the money was for the administration period - and beyond. That's where we are now - beyond.
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There will always be varying degrees of dissent in the ranks, but we are discovering that there is a nasty and vindictive aspect to this within the Rangers support and most decent fans won't appreciate this. Instead of being a unified band of brothers, it turns out that we are a splintered and much broader church than was perhaps imagined, and when differences occur, too often the situation descends into abuse. We have long been portrayed as an uncouth and bigoted support, and groups like the RST have done their best to refute derogatory media allegations, but our mask is slipping. When we can't even conduct internal debate in a civil manner, it is no wonder that we are struggling to find solutions to our problems. Being passionate is fine, but dishing out abuse on a regular basis, as some do - not so much on here - crosses the line and needlessly antagonises people. The road to becoming a democratic fan-owned club may be longer than we'd like, but I think we are starting from a much lower base than other fans who have travelled this journey. At Rangers, we love a leader more than we love ourselves, and it will take time to alter this mindset.
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Rangers Unite - it wanted everyone to unite to achieve fan ownership - but deliberately excluded the one organisation - the RST - that was set up to do just that. This isn't laughable, it's pathetic.
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Competition is healthy but is it healthy when different groups are competing against one another to achieve, supposedly, the same goal? Is it healthy for the Rangers support to be fracturing and dividing rather than cooperating and being constructive? Some of the groups serve no real purpose, but their existence muddies the waters. Would anyone miss the Assembly if it disappeared? If it had already disappeared, would anyone have noticed? A club 'membership' scheme will probably have an ex-player involved - possibly Mark Hateley if rumours are true - to keep dissent to a minimum and make sure the group stays tame. Groups of this type are for people who want to play at fan representation rather than catering for those who will read the riot act when it needs to be read.
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From the official Rangers website: "Money raised through the 'Fighting Fund' will go to the club's running costs."
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When the RFFF was launched - from this very site: "RANGERS legends Walter Smith and Sandy Jardine have launched the 'Rangers Fans Fighting Fund' which urges supporters worldwide to back the club they love by making donations to a secure account that will generate essential revenue throughout the administration process and beyond." N.B. "and beyond".
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For the last few years, people have been calling for one single fan group. Merge the Assembly, Association and Trust, they said, which wasn't really possible, but it showed that the punters wanted the simplicity of one size fits all. Now we have a multitude of groups creating division when the main body of the kirk wants togetherness and a semblance of unity. A club 'membership' scheme is proposed on top of all this, but while the club belongs to the few and not the many, an in-house group, effectively a discount card dressed up as democracy, has about as much appeal as a day out at Parkhead. We are a mess - the Omnishambles Loyal.
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Agree and disagree. The RFFF should never have entertained the idea of spending money on something far removed from its fundraising objective, but . . . The NARSA statement is an abomination that is needlessly damaging, overly threatening, petty in the extreme and about as useful as another tax case against the club. 'Omnishambles' is a fairly new word. It could have been invented just for us.
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It's not the fault of King or Murray. The problem lies with us for growing too dependent on them.
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Just look at the sorry state of play with regard to fan groups and the RFFF. There is a complete absence of maturity and behaviour that would shame a five year-old. There's too much posturing, too many personal vendettas, too little diplomacy, an absence of constructive dialogue, too much bitchiness and too many threats. The Rangers support has looked to figures like SDM for so long that it has become dysfunctional and needlessly splintered. It hasn't a clue how to deal with this ongoing crisis and it is to political sophistication what Celtic is to good sportsmanship. This is what happens when all hope is invested in an SDM or a Dave King. Decades of taking no responsibility for the club have brought us to here. This situation can be repaired, but while we plead for saviours, a fix will likely remain a long way off.
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The argument in favour of fan ownership has been in place since the advent of the RST over ten years ago. By now, it should be obvious that it is the only achievable solution to our ills. The current board will probably never listen or change so we should do all that we can to buy it out. If Dave King can accelerate this process, fine, but if it doesn't lead to the proper democratisation of the club, then it will only delay the next crisis, and there will be one. A mature support that truly believed in itself should be able to work towards making Rangers fan-owned, but as you can see from recent mutterings and splinters, the Rangers support is a mere infant in the grown up political world, and while this has to change, it never will while we plead for Dave King and folk like him to do what we should be doing ourselves. If Dave King walked away, the onus to fix things would be on us. I'm fine with that.
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An institution like Rangers should never have to rely on one man to prop it up but we have allowed ourselves to be overtaken by this mindset. We drone on about how great we are, how loyal we are and how unmatched we are as as fanbase, but when a crisis comes along, we try to seek out saviours instead of working constructively towards making Rangers safe and secure. Basically, we run from our problems instead of properly addressing them. If Dave King becomes the new main man at Rangers, unless things change significantly, it could be an exercise in papering over the cracks. In the long run, it will do more good if we sort out this mess by ourselves. Admittedly, we have too many fan groups, too many pet projects and a worrying amount of disharmony, but if the club is worth saving, and if we aren't capable of saving it ourselves, it will surely falter again in the future. The arrival of Dave King might provide us with temporary respite, but the underlying illness will still be present. If the fans can't harmonise their efforts and work maturely and constructively to put Rangers on safe ground, we really have to ask ourselves if we deserve to have a club that has given us so much pleasure over so many years.
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Doesn't that tell you how much Rangers has fallen as a football club and as an institution - that it appears to be dependent on the intentions of the last rich man alive who is prepared to chuck a few pounds in its direction? If Dave King walked away this afternoon, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. It would maybe force us to act like responsible adults and be constructive in our approach to making Rangers great again.
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Buying a season ticket is not so much an admission charge, more a Rangers tax. Some are paying it now because they feel they should contribute towards the upkeep of the club, but they are enduring the spectacle rather than enjoying it. The McCoist way is the Smith way, and this ghastly approach to the beautiful game has made football a brutal experience down Ibrox way. Things will never improve until the club distances itself from the Walter Smith legacy. It urgently requires new management and a new broom will hopefully sweep Ibrox clean of every last vestige of Smith and McCoist monotony and negativity. I'd be delighted if we replaced the management team and put an X against every player or coach who has been influenced by Walter Smith and his methods. The club needs a clean break from a brand of football that is so vile, so unwatchable and so devoid of entertainment that it should be made illegal.
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If this was done with malicious intent, it is a serious matter. VS should find out exactly why it was listed inappropriately, and then inform the complainers.
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If we want to safeguard Ibrox, we have to take ownership of the club and everything to do with it. If the stadium ended up being owned by Dave King/ a trust/ a fan group or whatever, but the club itself belonged to untrusted ownership, what would happen to Ibrox if Rangers found another place to play, in all probability, Hampden Park? The stadium needs to be properly maintained and the expense involved might make the idea of 'losing' it appealing to a board with no emotional attachment to it. If 'we' own Ibrox but Rangers play elsewhere, would we stump up enough cash every year to properly maintain it if the prospect of returning to it was remote? It seems like an unlikely scenario, but who predicted administration, liquidation and a tumble down the divisions a few years ago? If we want to ensure Ibrox remains as Rangers' home, the club must be bought - not the stadium in isolation. Ideas where fans own the pitch, the ground, the training ground etc are pointless unless we can be sure that the club will remain as a constant user of them. If the club isn't owned by the fans, there is no point in the fans owning Ibrox.
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It's about raising money and spending it appropriately. There is very little opposition to the guy getting financial help from fellow fans. There is an issue though with a fund set up for other reasons being used to spend money in this way. The RFFF should be keeping a safe distance because the mere prospect of it spending money on something like this has stirred things up and added to the disharmony that already exists within the Rangers support. The RFFF appealing for money and then spending it on something substantially different from assisting the club with its running costs is a very bad idea. By all means help the guy out, but it should be done in a way that is unambiguous and straightforward, and that means having a separate fund that does what it says on the tin. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk