JohnMc

Not sure if any of you heard the remarkable Arsene Wenger stat from the weekend. Apparently Arsenal's Saturday starting 11 was the first time since 1986 that a player who didn't feature in an Arsene Wenger managed Arsenal side didn't start. So 37 years give or take a few months. 

As you do I started to think of a Rangers equivalent. Best I've come up with is 59 years although I can't say a player started every match in that period. So here's my workings - Jimmy Gordon joined Rangers in 1907, played 315 times (won 10 Scotland caps) and left the club in 1920, the year Bill Struth became manager. Struth took over in May of 1920. I don't know what month Gordon left though. 

Fast forward to Eric Caldow. Caldow was signed by Struth in 1952 and played for Rangers until March 1966. An unbroken 59 year connection with Bill Struth (I think). 

Happy for someone to correct or improve this. 

BTW Reading about Jimmy Gordon he apparently played upfront, in midfield, in defence and in goal for the Rangers first during his career. Love that. 

West Ham would have won the Champion's League by now had Di Canio not caught that ball...

Richard Gough once ordered our players not to score against Hearts after they'd been reduced to 8 men in a match at Ibrox. When does the petition to strip him of his place in the Hall Of Fame begin? 

I could understand the anger this seems to be generating if we'd lost yesterday. 

Raskin could join this week, have a blinding next few months in our first team, so much so that someone offers us £5 million for him in the summer. Beale and Wilson would like geniuses then. 

I can understand the disquiet over buying someone who is 'free' in 6 months time, but a bird in the hand and all that, and I sincerely hope our players and management haven't given up on this league, far less the cups. 

Changes are coming to European football, whether supporters want it or not. The question is will we be part of it. The imbalance in finance between the English league and the rest of Europe is stark, FIFA's report on transfer spending last year lays that out - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64412215 

This was largely behind the 'Super League' debacle last season, and while that has been shelved for now, the reasons for it haven't and it, or something very like it, will rise again and soon. 

I doubt we'll be invited into the elite league, but there's going to be a shuffling of the chairs in club football in the coming years and it will affect us. I mean no disrespect when I say that it's not right that we compete in a league with clubs most of who literally have a turnover that's a fraction of ours. Likewise when we go into the Champion's League we're the minnows, at least financially. 

The obvious next step is some sort of pan-European league. The Americanisation of sport in Europe is well underway, and while closed leagues are still unpalatable for most there's a chance of a pyramid and so clubs like ours have a pathway to the top. What form that league will be is anyone's guess. Rugby union in Europe has an English league, a French league and an 'all the rest' league. The English clubs aren't dominating like they used too, the 'all the rest' have sides that are very competitive as do the French. 

For me our current custodians job is to keep us solvent and competitive at the Europa League level, the second tier of European football, until the future becomes clearer. I suspect an 'all the rest' league isn't so far away. The fabled Atlantic League with Belgian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Swiss and maybe some eastern European sides as well as Scotland seems likely to me. 

Depending on what his remit is I don't think its worst appointment the club has made. He's a former Holyrood politician and someone who has held various roles, some senior, at the BBC, he must have an intimate understanding of how both work. We've not enjoyed good relations with either of those institutions for a long time now, and whatever your views surely an improved relationship with both is beneficial for the club. I'm guessing, so there's every chance I'm wrong, but my take is Morrison has been brought in to try and create a better relationship between the club and the large public institutions that run and influence much of Scottish day-to-day life. 

That won't be easy, I wish him luck as I think he'll need it. 

I don't catch Off The Ball often these days but I caught some of it on Saturday. They'd a couple of ex-refs on and  I assume they'd hoped to further fuel the Ange bonfire that Scottish VAR and refereeing was being placed upon. Instead, at least while I was listening, the ex-refs laughed at the ridiculousness of these allegations of bias against the Celtic. One of them, (was his name Conroy?) explained he was a Celtic fan and once got pelters from his pals for chalking off a Celtic 'goal' against us. Both easily explained the 'hand ball' rule and expressed surprise that Ange and co didn't know it. Cosgrove sounded uncomfortable at this breaking out of common sense, Cowan, to his credit, mocked Celtic and their acolytes. 

Great question.

Separating the 'club' from the 'support' for a moment, although both are intrinsically linked in reality. Our claims to be the 'world's most successful club' might be factually accurate but don't really hold much value under serious scrutiny, I mean are we really claiming to be more successful than Real Madrid or Liverpool? I could check but I think Linfield have now won more domestic titles than Rangers and no one is claiming they are the world's most successful club. But domestic success is still clearly a part of our 'brand'. You ask any football supporter in Europe to name a Scottish football club and they'll know Rangers. When we reached the Europa League final last season the Chairman of Frankfurt welcomed our semi final victory by saying something like 'it's great the final is being contested by two traditional clubs'. This was partly a dig at RB Leipzig who are universally disliked in Germany, but also a nod to our history. There are not many organisations who reach 150 years old, we had a history with Frankfurt, having famously played them in the 1960s, and they knew this. Add this to Ibrox Stadium, again an organisation that has had the same home for over a century, and a home with a building as magnificent as our Main Stand, is impressive. So I'd venture that 'tradition' is part of our brand. We're not Man City, or PSG or Chelsea where everyone knows that success has been bought by oligarchs and sport-washing, and while success brings fame and adulation, none of those clubs have what we have now. So 'tradition' being a 'real' football club that exists purely for the love of the sport for me is key to the club's brand today. 

Now we're obviously not the only club who can claim that. but we should be careful about protecting it. 

Another term that's often used to describe Rangers is 'the quintessential British club'. I've never been entirely sure what that meant, as 'British' is such a difficult term to define. Undoubtedly a good percentage of our support embrace this, and while in recent times the club hasn't made any statements that were overtly political or about national identity, we do fly the Union flag and, famously, toast the monarch. So being 'British' however complicated that might be, is currently part of our brand. 

Is being 'Scottish' part of our brand? It was when I started following Rangers. As ridiculous as it might seem today the bulk of the Scotland support was made up of Rangers fans up. I went to every Scotland home match from the early 1980s to the early 90s. Something changed then. I don't know if it was the influx of English players under Souness, something that had never happened in Scotland before, or the start of the decline of the Scotland team as a force in international football, but something changed. I'd still watch the games but no longer attended, but I never missed a Rangers match. Gradually my interest has wained and I don't think I'm alone in that. I was barely aware we were even playing earlier this week. That's me, and I fully accept others will feel differently. But I don't think it's inaccurate to suggest a gulf lies between the Scotland side and many Rangers fans. Many of us don't feel an ownership of the national side, and we should, it's our side too. I lived in Belfast for a while and Linfield supporters see the Northern Ireland side as theirs, as do Glentoran and Crusader's fans, in a way that I don't think we do anymore. Indeed I'd say NI based Rangers supporters feel an ownership of their national side.

We can analyse the many cultural, footballing and political reasons for this and never solve it. But once you leave Scotland there is no doubt at all that the rest of the world see us as a Scottish side. Whatever our slightly complicated relationship might be, to a German or a Dutch football fan Rangers are Scottish, indeed often we're one of the few things they associate with Scotland. We're based in Scotland, most of our support is based in Scotland, we play in blue and have a lion rampant in our badge. So, Scotland is part of our brand.

Is Glasgow part of our brand, or even Govan? To an extent it is but it’s not something we make enough of I feel. But both are closely associated with us so it’s part of our brand.

Is Protestantism? It wasn't at the beginning, or indeed for the first 3 or so decades of our existence. But it would be mendacious to pretend it didn't become a defining tenet of who we are. But is it today? I'd venture that the club like to keep it at arm's length. That said we have a club chaplain from the Presbyterian tradition and whenever services are conducted around the Ibrox disaster for example they are normally officiated by the Church of Scotland. But today I don't think our club is any closer to reformed Christianity than say Hearts or Aberdeen are, both of who I suspect would also look to the main denomination for guidance when the need arose. 

In my opinion the support are a bit schizophrenic on this. While I'd say the majority of our support are at least culturally or traditionally 'Protestant, I suspect most don't darken the doors of their local Kirk very often. Religion plays a smaller and smaller part of most Scot's daily lives, I'd say most Rangers supporter's have no real religion if you pushed them on it. Yet, we're still seen by many people as being a 'Protestant' club, whatever that means. Clearly part of this is connected to our main rival's clear association with Catholicism. If they are one thing we must be the other. It's also true that some supporter's have an association with organisations like the Orange institutions and much of the trappings of that, such as songs, have become associated with Rangers too, and still are. Songs and chants with a strong Loyalist influence, largely from Ireland, are still popular with a large section of the support, as are some that can only be described as 'anti-Catholic'. 

For me I don't believe we're in really a 'Protestant' club anymore, but it would also be wrong to pretend others might disagree. It's part of our 'brand' in some shape or form. I worry being ‘anti-Catholic’ is also seen as part of our brand by some and I’ve personal experience of some who think we’re ‘anti-Irish’.

My biggest frustration is I don’t think we can genuinely associate any clear football related themes to our brand. We’re not Ajax for example and their association with producing their own players. We’re not Liverpool or Man Utd or Spurs where a particular type of attacking football is associated with them. If anything in modern times I think we’re seen as a club who buy success, who can outspend most of their rivals. We don’t have a reputation, at least in modern times, of producing our own players and our style of football changes with every new manager. I’d say that was different 100 or so years ago when we were the ‘speedy and light blues’ and viewed as one of the most attractive and progressive footballing sides of the time. I suppose in Scotland we’re still viewed as a side who ‘wins trophies’, even if it’s not so accurate in the last decade. But that’s a domestic brand and rather than an international one.

It’s a mixed bag. We could, and should, have some footballing themes to help define our brand. Certainly developing young players is something the board are actively pursuing but it takes a lot of successes and a while for that to become a reality.

I suspect his defence will be "but it can't be sectarian cause I'm a Proddy too". 

I've some sympathy for the posters who are neither offended by the phrase nor see much point in escalating the tit for tat 'I'm pure offended' that often dominates online discourse. Like all words the person using them and the tone in which they are delivered makes a huge difference to that word's meaning, whether intended or not. As Ascender says up thread being called a 'hun' by a friend or acquaintance in a friendly conversation rarely causes any offence and neither is it meant too. However a complete stranger shouting Kill All Huns at you on a dark night might elicit a different response, and again I suspect that would be deliberate. I imagine this Aberdeen fan's defence will be along the lines that he feels 'hun' has no sectarian meaning, to him it's simply a derogatory term for Rangers supporters. I also suspect he'll be able to show numerous examples of this, maybe he'll ask Stuart Cosgrove to give evidence in his defence, it's a term he's used a bit in the past after all. It'll be an interesting defence and assumes that bringing a banner saying 'kill all Rangers fans' to a ground holding nearly 50,000 Rangers fans is otherwise perfectly acceptable behaviour of course. 

From a personal perspective, like all of us, I've been called a hun on numerous occasions. Often it was jocular and delivered by someone I knew, no offence was meant and none was taken. On others I was fairly sure the person was intending to insult or intimidate me, it was meant aggressively. Sometimes it was said in my company by someone who forgot I was there and their reaction when they realised I'd heard was often telling as to their intention and meaning. I'd a girlfriend many years ago who described me as a 'practicing hun' to members of her family when the subject of football inevitably came up. That relationship wasn't destined to last. 

The meaning of words changes. That's simply a fact about the English language. No matter how much we might wish it otherwise, the meaning behind how we say something, or these days type something, isn't always the meaning that someone reading it will take. On a return trip to Belfast a few years ago I noticed the term 'KAH' sprayed close an intersection where Unionist and Nationalist areas joined. Graffiti and murals have long been used in Belfast to designate territory and I found them a very helpful navigation aid when I first moved there. For those unaware KAH stands for 'Kill All Huns', and it was sprayed as a territorial marker, letting everyone know what area you were entering. Do we think the person responsible meant 'Rangers supporters' when they left that mark? We can only speculate, but personally I'm in no doubt at all that in that context it meant 'Protestant' or at the very least 'Unionist', although those terms are often interchangeable. 

Whatever that Aberdeen fan's intention, it's naive in the extreme to think that some people who use that word don't see it as a derogatory catch all term for Protestants. Like a number of other words that were once fairly commonly used it's probably advisable to avoid using it at all now. 

23 minutes ago, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Yes, to an uneducated financial ignoramus like me it looks like:

 

• Our wage bill is too high (constant)
• Selling Patterson/Gerrard & Co has made a massive difference (one off)
• Euro run has made a massive difference (one off)
• Penalty payment to SD is an ouch (one off)
• Loan repayments is an ouch (one off)

Looks like we struck gold getting to El final and selling Patterson/Gerrard. Without that, we could be in trouble.

 

Football operations need to tackle wages. Too many players with no real resale value earning a large wage is problematic.

 

Positives for next year will include Aribo/Bassey and CL cash, but be countered with NEH and repair costs? Are there any more significant outstanding loans to be paid?

 

Poor TV deal impacts us greater than it does other team (funny that)

 

Happy to be corrected by someone who knows what they are doing

 

 

 

 

I suspect the Europa run has inflated our wage bill. 

While Paterson and Gerrard are indeed 'one offs', we've already sold Bassey and Aribo which should have generated more. 

Qualifying for the Champion's League should provide a similar amount to the Europa run. 

Hopefully that's Sports Direct finally gone from our lives. 

Paying off the loans is a good thing I think, I suspect there will be more to pay off in the coming seasons. 

Overall a pretty good set of accounts considering where we were when this board took over. For all the criticism they've had recently they've delivered stability and all being well it's a sustainable model. 

And the owner of the Phoenix Suns would want to own Rangers why? Rangers going back to the 'sugar-daddy' model is a retrograde step. I know of no supporters who think the majority of our players 'play for the shirt', they're professionals in a professional era. The thought of an American 'sports entrepreneur' buying Rangers is utterly depressing. We're not a franchise.