JohnMc

This thread has taken an unexpected turn. Anyway, here's some fuel for the fire... Personally, without any inside knowledge, I expect every member of the Hamilton board, playing staff and supporter would love to win the Scottish Cup. The Scottish Cup final has been contested by Ross County, Falkirk, Motherwell, Inverness, Dundee Utd, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs the Tims and ourselves over the last decade. The decade before saw Queen Of The South, Gretna and Dunfermline reach the final. So it's not inconceivable that Hamilton, or any other side in the top 2 leagues in Scotland, could make the final. However, undoubtedly every side in Scotland sees the Cup as a potential cash windfall, and for many, many sides the prospect of a trip to Ibrox or Parkhead is a huge bonus for them. There is still romance in a small side drawing a big side and travelling to their ground for the match. I suspect some of the people involved at Stranraer on Friday will never forget the experience, one they may never be involved in again. It's different for Hamilton, they play us 3 or 4 times a season just now, they are already guaranteed at least one trip to Ibrox, so drawing us is less 'romantic' in that respect. But it would be naive, I think, to dismiss the financial windfall a trip to Ibrox would provide a club like Hamilton. Getting half the gate, probable TV revenue, catering and so on would make a massive difference to them, it wasn't so long ago they somehow 'lost' half a million to a Nigerian prince or some other internet scam. I think it's entirely possible for people involved with a club to hope for an away tie whilst still harbouring thoughts of winning and progressing, you can be pragmatic and romantic. The term 'Old Firm' comes from the belief that both club's directors were more interested in money than 'romance'. There was a widely held belief that the clubs played out pre-agreed draws, requiring replays, so both could cash in on another full house. Back in 1909 after a Cup replay also ended in a draw there was a full scale riot, involving both sets of supporters, aimed at the Glasgow police, both club's directors and the SFA. We literally tried to burn down Hampden that day. Romantic. Anyone with any connection to professional football knows that the game functions on money, and it always has. My great grandfather signed for an English side from Clyde many years ago. There was a wage cap in place in those days, so he was given the maximum wage available, however he was also given a 'job' in the Chairman's factory, and a wage with it. So was my great grandmother, neither of them ever set foot in the place though. This was commonplace in football, he only signed for them for money, there was no romance in playing part time and going down the pit the rest of the week. Things are a little different now, but I'm fairly sure most of the Hamilton side aren't born and bred Accies supporters, they'll leave and play for Motherwell or Ross County or any of Hamilton's rivals for a couple of grand more without losing a moments sleep. There is no romance there. However, on the day, I suspect every Hamilton player will be doing all they can to win and I suspect some of their supporter's will have a day dream of a trip to Hampden for the Cup Final. Their directors will also dream, however they'll be happier knowing they'll have some extra money coming in, and I suspect they'd be even happier if an away tie had made the windfall ten times as much.

What does that mean Stevie, does that mean he's leaving the club or he's staying at Ayr on loan? Houston is another one of whom great things were once expected.

BSC Glasgow were literally the school team for one of our local primary schools a few years ago. How they've created a club from that is nothing short of miraculous. This is a great draw for them, but getting us at Ibrox would have been the dream for a lot of the guys involved. Maybe we'll get them in quarters.

I understand what BlueDell is saying but I'm not sure it's fair on Konterman to compare him to Negri. Konterman was a limited player who tried his best, Negri was a talented player who downed tools and stole a wage. I've heard Konterman speak and he's surprisingly articulate and if asked the right questions he's actually pretty interesting. His views on the structure of Scottish football and the absence of organised local clubs is worth listening too, actually. As a support it's funny who we take to our hearts. The Sebo love-in baffled me, I didn't share it. But there are other players who only played for us for a short time who somehow retain enormous affection from our support, guys like Ray Wilkins, Gattuso and Pedro Mendes spring to mind. In the grand scheme of things all three were mere footnotes in our history, yet they're arguably more popular with our support than other players who made a much more significant contribution. Football doesn't make sense of course, that's part of its appeal.

Texture like sun.

He has appendicitis apparently. Hopefully they've caught it long before it burst but he'll certainly be out for a few weeks, particularly if he gets it removed.

As a rule I'm generally against banning the media. If you don't like something don't read it. Don't buy it, don't click it, don't share it. I've not read the article in question and don't think I've ever bought the Sun so this doesn't really affect me much. Bill Leckie was never a writer I thought had much to say and from what I hear that's not changed. I've felt for a while Morelos is treated differently from other players by the media. I think race does play a part in this. The fact his English isn't great and he's South American has certainly led to some very lazy stereotyping, and there's an almost Fawltyesque default with a depressingly high number of people in this country when it comes to 'foreigners', our local media aren't immune to this. When that's added to him playing for Rangers then you've got the perfect storm for some. Morelos clearly irks opposition supporters. You get players like that, beloved by their own and hated by everyone else, Morelos is one of those. The Aberdeen supporter's bringing in a banner was crass and an embarrassment to their club who should have removed it and banned those involved. But was it worse than the song we (I) sang to Frank McGarvey many moons ago? I've never met the said Mrs McGarvey but I apologise to her now, I wonder if she reads Gersnet... Likewise I cheered along with almost everyone else in the old Rangers end at Parkhead when a particularly distasteful banner was unfurled in the rafters under the roof about the recently deceased Celtic director Demond White. The Celtic support, most of who could read it clearly, were very unhappy, whilst we cheered and laughed and Strathclyde's finest sought a sharpshooter as there was no other way to get the lads who climbed up with it down. Again, not my finest moment. In my defence I was only a teenager, I'm not the brightest now but I was particularly stupid then. Everyone else was doing it so I joined in, I gave no thought whatsoever to the actual people involved. In part I think that's because I didn't see them as 'real' people. They were people I only read about in the papers or saw on TV, they were basically celebrities, and so treated differently from everyone else. A couple of years ago I walked from Sloans in Argyle Arcade to the taxi rank at Central late on a Saturday night in the company of a minor local celebrity and his wife. It must have taken us 30 minutes to cover the distance, a normal walk of around 5 minutes. Every drunk wanted a selfie, or to shake his hand or to tell him he was great. But some wanted to tell him he was a dick, almost all completely ignored his wife and the rest of our party, we were invisible, our desire to get a taxi home was inconsequential to their right for a new profile pic and a dull anecdote over lunch the next day, 'you'll never guess who I seen last night in Buchanan Street...'. He smiled, obliged, did the voice and played his part. I'd have hooked the first guy that pushed past my wife for a better angle on their Samsung, I'd have ignored every friendly 'hello big man' and would have almost certainly reacted very badly to anyone who called me a dick in front of friends and family (even if they might have been correct!). My realisation that local celebrities have to live very different lives from you and me was stark. I wouldn't have swapped his life for mine for any amount of money. Morelos is a celebrity in our wee corner of the globe. He operates to different rules from the rest of us, that's why warmers like Leckie write about him. I suspect there's more than a hint of politics to this too. I imagine the Scottish Sun is finding Rangers something of a cold house currently. Gerrard won't be doing exclusives or feeding them tit-bits, I'm certain of that. Gerrard is Scouse, he knows how much the paper is hated in his home town and he knows the consequences for anyone who doesn't follow that code. There's a reason why Souness, one of Liverpool's greatest ever players, doesn't get many invites back to Anfield and that reason is the Sun. I suspect all of our backroom team follow a similar code too, they're all ex-Liverpool and might harbour ambitions to return there one day. It's also obvious that Morelos isn't a fan of the limelight off the pitch. He seems to be a quiet living guy, he's not a regular at the dancing, he's yet to be photographed barely conscious outside a kebab shop and he's not really playing the media game. There are a noticeable lack of interviews with him, no daft photos of him with a sombrero on, or beside some Tennent's girls or whatever their modern equivalent is. Morelos doesn't seem to be much interested in that side of celebrity, he just likes playing football and scoring goals. Add to that the rise of the club's internal channels, places like this, wall-to-wall Sky/BT Sport and the rest and there's a fair degree of choice now for me to get my Rangers fix. Anything the Sun has as an exclusive will be all over social media within minutes of breaking. The media has changed immeasurably in recent years, I don't think Bill Leckie has. Gersnet is independent, Frankie and the people behind it have always struck me as reasonable and fair. As such they can ban whoever they want, it's their site. What I'd say is you need to go some to get a ban from here. Simply having a contrary opinion isn't enough, I can testify to that. I wonder if anyone at the Sun cares. They should, sport, and football in particular, is what's kept them going for years in this part of the world, footballers are our celebrities. If we're no longer interested in what they've got to say on that then the Sun has a problem that it's running out of time to fix.

That's depressing. #Old

Barasic is having such a good season it would be dangerous to sell him now. Injuries are always a concern but assuming he doesn't pick any serious ones up his value won't have dropped come June. I always wondered how we'd have faired in 07-08, the season we sold Hutton in January. He was playing out of his skin, starring in Europe and at international level. We lost the league on the final day and we reached the UEFA Cup Final, would keeping the best full back in the league all season have been worth 3 or more points to us, we'll never know.

I think Barasic, and most Croatian players, would choose Italy over Scotland. Culturally Italy and Croatia are fairly close, it will feel a lot more like 'home' to him. I suspect the type of football played there would appeal to him too. That said, if we keep him until the summer and if we won the league the chance of Champion's League football might persuade a few to stay, Barasic included. I'd certainly be disappointed if we sold him in this window.

Go on then, I've not done one for a while. I'll take the Aberdeen match if no one else wants it.

Elfideldo tells of seeing Michael Stewart (yes, that Michael Stewart) as a youngster and just how good he was at that age. Stewart had everyone wanting to sign him, eventually choosing Man Utd, arguably the best club side in the world at the time and one with a wonderful record of developing young players. We all know how that story ended. Now, Stewart had a decent career, playing over 100 games for Hearts and Hibs, but he achieved nothing like what was expected of him when he was 16. It's instructive to look at who are arguably the 'best' Scottish players currently, at least in terms of the level they're playing at every week. John McGinn and Ryan Fraser didn't make any Scotland side until under 19s, and Andrew Robertson never played for any Scotland side before under 21s and was famously released by Celtic and ignored by us while playing in the same league as us. I guess the point I'm labouring to make is the correlation between being the 'cream' at 15 or 16 and actually becoming a top class professional is tenuous at best.

It's funny you mention the injuries, I've stopped myself mentioning this on a few occasions in case I jinx us! If that does happen it's on you!! ? As regards your 'cream' point I'm far from convinced being an outstanding 16 year old is any indicator of how your career will go. Glance at Scottish international youth sides of the last 30 years and you'll see hundreds of names you don't recognise. In 2014 Scotland under 17s reached the semi-finals of the European Championships, have a look at the squad, how many of those boys, the cream at the time, do you expect to go on and have good to exceptional careers? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_UEFA_European_Under-17_Championship_squads#Scotland

That's still a youth Craig. Most 17 year olds are still playing age-group appropriate football, McKay did when he joined us. I'm not being a pedant, but the challenge we've regularly failed at is taking a talented 17, 18, 19 year old and turning them into a first team player. McKay managed that and has gone on to have a reasonable career at a decent level.

I forgot about Fleck. He's a perfect example of a kid tipped for big, big things, one with obvious talent when he was young, but who simply didn't develop it with us. He couldn't get into Ally's first side and was out on loan at Blackpool and struggling to get a game for them. It was Coventry who figured out his best position and gave him regular game time. He doesn't look out of place in the English top flight now, good on him.

Lewis McLeod and Barrie McKay are both established English Championship players, albeit neither looks like making the next step up the leagues now. Both broke into the side when we were in the lower leagues but getting into this current Rangers side will be a lot more difficult for any young player. It's a little concerning how poorly most of our young players have done out on loan, the two at Ayr and Robbie McCrorie at QOTS seem to be doing okay but it's not a great level, you'd really want to see them doing it week in week out at a mid-level SPFL side before you'd even consider them ready for our first team squad. McPake has struggled at Dundee, Middleton couldn't get into a shit Hibs side, Zac Rudden, Jake Hastie and Ross McCrorie haven't set the heather alight in the lower leagues down south either. I suppose the club look at it as a calculated gamble. If they can produce one player that can be sold for a few million it pays for itself, likewise producing a few squad players allows transfer budgets to be spent on better players, no need to sign the Andy Kings and the Sheyi Ojos in the future. We'll see, much as I like to see us bring through our own I increasingly think professional football clubs shouldn't be allowed anywhere near youth development.

He'll be 31 this year. Lennon happened. Sinclair played over 30 matches last season but wanted to leave at the end of the season, Celtic invoked an extension to his contract trying to get a fee for him much to his annoyance. Apparently he has no relationship with Lennon and has wanted to move near Manchester for a while for family reasons. Or so the Tim downstairs told me!

We signed a boy from Motherwell very recently, much to Motherwell's annoyance I understand, so these things even themselves out. The best way to keep the Gilmours and Kings of this world is for us to have players progress to the 1st team, showing clear examples of what can be achieved by staying at Rangers. Unfortunately we've not been able to do that for a few years now.

It's still all about getting some of these lads to make the giant leap from youths to first team. It's great to see us sitting on top of the league and to read about success at this level, but ultimately the purpose has to be producing finished first team players or else it's all just an expensive vanity project. Saw the lad Leon King on the highlights from Germany, he's a big lad for 15! Is that why he's playing so far above his age group do you think Elfideldo? I recall seeing Billy Gilmour at a similar age and he looked like a wee boy compared to the other kids he was playing with, but his ability really made his stand out. Anyway, can I echo Stewarty, many thanks Elfideldo.

Presenting Partner just means they're sponsoring the Rangers TV/ social media/website stuff being produced while we're on the winter break. In terms of what they do they seem to be a private contractor who'll support military operations (and non-military I'm sure) in potentially hostile parts of the world. Offices in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan do jump out a bit. I suspect the US military 'outsource' logistics, catering and so on when they're trying to keep a lower profile in some theatres, or Congress have only given them permission to send a handful of 'advisors'. As for what they're doing with us I'm going to guess that their CEO, Andrew Robertson, is a bluenose, he's certainly Scottish and ex-military too I suspect.

A guy I sort of know was a guest on Off The Ball at the weekend, I suspect @DMAA will know him too. I didn't hear the show so I've no idea how it went. But he's a bluenose too so the staunch quota must have been particularly high in Pacific Quay for a change. I've always found Pat Nevin to be pretty fair, he's publicly stated he stopped his children going to Parkhead because of the sectarianism around them. There's not many will say that openly.

Gerrard doesn't come across as naive or stupid, so I assume there's a reason for him taking this stance that's not obvious to us. Like you I'm really surprised he's not using this particular issue, and many previous ones, to put pressure on refs and the media with regards Morelos. I don't know what the strategy is but I'm hoping there is one and it's working in ways we can't see.

This is what the internet was made for, love it. There are at least 2 players on that list I've literally never heard of and if Willo Flood appears anywhere near your 'best players of the decade' list you've got some systemic issues! We spent part of this decade playing behind hedges and against ex-Highland League sides and our list would still be better than this.

I return to this thread as I think it only fair to point out that the side has indeed responded positively to last weekend's defeat. I was concerned about our mentality but for most the Young Boys match and again against Motherwell, a match that had potential to be tricky for us, we were composed, controlled and energetic, our big players stepped back up and we did what we needed to do in both matches. Well done. I'm delighted to be proved wrong on this, absolutely delighted.