JohnMc

Anyone else read this and picture Gonzo with his faced daubed in woad and shouting 'Freedom!' at the top of his lungs? Got to watch these deep, deep cover cybernats...

I met a Cork City fan once, he told me that sometimes Cork supporters say they follow Rangers as their 'Scottish team' to noise up the Dublin sides particularly Shamrock Rovers. Looking at the LoI table Cork aren't having a good season, however they'd be up for this and as they play a summer season will be sharper than most. Gerrard has a huge profile in Ireland, he'll be a massive draw there too. Be good to horse the Luxemburgers though, then just Chesterfield left to avenge!

All that being said currently the best way into the Ibrox first team for any young player is to be a current or ex-Liverpool player. *This post would make more sense if I'd actually linked it to the McPake story on the previous page...

As most of us played football, not necessarily to any great level, but even if just as kids, then we've probably all looked at professional players and imagined what we could have done if we'd had their ability. We of course view that opportunity through the prism of our own lives which have been largely untouched by adulation, great wealth and expectation. I saw the new film about Maradona at the weekend, and it's fantastic. Now, it might not be for everyone, firstly it's a documentary and secondly it's largely in Italian and Spanish so subtitled, so if that's not your thing quit reading now. For me, as a football fan rapidly approaching my the end of my fifth decade one this earth, Maradona was the greatest player of my generation. This film focuses on his time at Napoli, the peak of his career. He took a side that had never troubled the honours in Italian football and usually fought relegation, from the poorest and most unfashionable city in the country and turned them into one of the best sides in the world. During that period he also won the World Cup and reached the final again four years later, both as captain. The film is much more than football though, it's an insight into the utter madness that was his life. He was treated like a God in Naples and eventually that drove him mad. It's made by the same director who made Amy and Senna, both of which are stunning films. This is no different. It truly gives you an insight into how his life in Naples was and how no one is really equipped to deal with that. If you can, go see it, I'm not sure what kind of release it's getting, I saw it at the GFT in Glasgow if that helps. If nothing else you'll see footage of the greatest player ever on the big screen, it's almost worth it for that alone.

Four Lads was clearly reading @Govan Rear Bear 's blog at the weekend. That's a horrible looking car, he might as well have been driving a Trabant. I knew almost nothing about this player until yesterday. A quick read up of course now makes me an expert on him and suggests this is his make or break season. He seems to have been some sort of boy wonder, playing for MK Dons under 18s when he was only 13 and costing Liverpool £2million to sign as a 14 year old. After a fairly bright start things seem to have tailed off although not every 20 year old is capable of moving abroad and settling well. Let's hope Govan is more to his liking than the Champagne region of France.

Has it been confirmed that Middleton is going out on loan next season? Surely it's too early to have decided that far less arranged it?

Quite possibly. I initially thought it was a Trabant, it has similar aerodynamics, but I don't think they had wing mirrors.

I know nothing about this player but I think it's great that he drives an ice-cream van, or a Transit van or one of those 'Germoline' old Strathclyde Region social work vans. More players should have second jobs over the summer.

There's probably some sort of correlation between Scotland becoming a poor footballing nation and the 'Tartan Army' seeing football as of secondary importance. I'm not sure we can criticise them for their choice of songs, singing songs that have got nothing to do with football is hardly unique to them. But the dressing up and giving people ranks and all that martial nonsense, they deserve all the derision you can muster for that.

The majority of Rangers fans don't attend matches regularly so there might be something in what you say. Fat Eck always went to Scotland matches and was in the Supporters Club last time I spoke to him (which was a few years ago now) so some who go to both do exist. It could be under 10%, I'm not sure what that proves though? Like a lot of people I was initially surprised by this, but as the club with the biggest support I suppose the odds were we'd still be well represented. As I understand it the data comes from the official Scotland Supporter's Club member database, there's an option on it to declare what side you support apparently. It was the head of digital for the SFA who published it. I'm not sure the SFA are all that interested in deflecting criticism, they're fairly impervious to it all in all.

At this stage of their careers they simply need games, they need to be playing week in and week out and learning their trade. If that's not going to happen at Ibrox then it's better for everyone they go out on loan. It's very hard for a teenager to become a first team regular at our club.

I don't think you can doubt the credentials of the data, I can't see why the guy publishing it would make something like that up, it could cost him his job for a start. The echo chamber nature of modern digital media, and it's particularly pronounced when it comes to football and politics, can lead to tunnel vision, the lack of exposure to people with different views can lead to you believing they simply don't exist. For me this data simply underlines the one universal truth about our support; that it's a very broad church. Personally I've not been to a Scotland match for a couple of decades, having been to almost every home match for the two decades prior to that. I've absolutely no time at all for middle-aged men dressed as extras from Rob Roy and my heart sinks when you see them marching around with feathers in their hats and a look on their face that suggests they think their more Scottish than anyone else. Knobs. But then, in all honesty, I cringe at some of our songs and some of our fans too, it doesn't stop me supporting Rangers. I hate flag waving (all flags, whatever their colour or design) and all shows of nationalism (all nationalism, whatever its flavour) make me uncomfortable. Yet I still find myself turning on the radio or the TV and following the Scotland match. In the end I still want 'us' to win, or at least fuckin compete. I also think that international football is perhaps the only 'pure' football left at the elite level. It's much harder (although not impossible) to buy success at that level, smaller nations can and do compete, and at some level it clearly stops being directly about money for the players and becomes about winning for winning's sake again. Yip, I know doing well at international level has a direct affect on a players earning ability and profile, but it still feels less mercenary than club football. For me then this simply proves that despite the best efforts of our haters, and some of our own, you simply can't pigeon-hole the Rangers support. We're broad, we come from all over, we've no proscribed views on any subject except wanting Rangers to win. Plus, on some level, the sheer pain and frustration watching Scotland brings does make watching Rangers all the more enjoyable, even in recent years.

What do you think is the point of it Rangers Syntax? I understand there are millions of people in China with a burgeoning interest in European football and an increasing disposable income, but I suspect we must seem like a Junior side compared to the Champion's League and big Spanish and English sides. What I would say is Celtic made some money when they signed the South Korean and the Japanese players a few years ago. I'd a long conversation recently with someone involved in that and apparently Celtic were astonished at the interest it created there, and the subsequent web traffic and shirt sales that followed. For me, a bit more time spent shoring up support in this country would be money better spent. I worry we're heading down the 'Ireland' road now in Scotland. So many young lads in Scotland now support Man City or Chelsea, I suspect there will be a few supporting Liverpool and Spurs in the coming years too. That's a far bigger threat to our club than potential shirt sales in Shenzhen I think. We had that tie in with a Chinese club before, you could buy their shirts at Ibrox for a while. How did that work out in the end?

Very interesting, thanks.

Oh he wanted Laudrup and expected him to be there when he joined. Murray had told Advocaat he was confident he could persuade Laudrup to remain at Rangers. Murray was nothing if not confident about most things. For all his tactical shortcomings Walter Smith was able to build incredible team spirit and Laudrup bought into, and enjoyed, that aspect of Rangers. As has been said by others I also would have loved to see Laudrup under Advocaat, however Advocaat was a Marmite type manager capable of falling out with his best players, so who knows what might have happened.

100% agree. If anyone is any doubt that Laudrup was indeed 'world class' I suggest they watch the Brazil v Denmark World Cup quarter final match from 1998. Laudrup was astonishing in that game, a game a country of 5 million people had no right to be in, against the eventual World Cup runners up.

I saw Sturridge had been released by Liverpool and woendered if Gerrard, who must know him fairly well, might be interested. He was a superb player but his injury record is a worry and Klopp all but questioned his commitment a season or so ago in public. I suspect he's still capable of commanding a hefty salary from someone too. I thought Wallace was home bird and wouldn't leave Scotland? Maybe he thinks he's signing for Queens Park...

Nope, you really didn't say that Pete, you said "Laudrup had failed in pretty much with Bayern and was pretty much a bench sitter in Italy so he was also a bit of a risk." No mention he "was good player but not world class" only that he was a bench sitter and a failure. By all means criticise Laudrup, but to describe him that way is laughable and insulting to those of us who were lucky enough to watch him.

C'mon, Laudrup played 31 times for Fiorentina, almost every match that season. He struggled to get into the AC Milan side but be fair, that Milan side were the best team in the world at the time. They won Serie A and the European Cup that season. The 3 foreigner rule was in place so he was competing for a starting spot with Boban, Desailly, Savicevic, Papin, Radicioui and Van Basten as well as most of the Italian national side. Not getting into that side hardly made him unproven. Every signing is a risk but with a player like Laudrup or Gascoigne, or today someone like Arfield or Defoe, you already know they can play at our level, they've already proven themselves at a higher level. They are still a risk of course after all they might not settle or there might be a personality clash but they're proven at our level, that's why they're paid so much. A player like Polster is a different type of risk because he's not proven at our level yet. The gamble is can he step up, improve his game, develop and adapt.

You've chosen an odd hill to die on dB. Comparing Polster to Gazza or Laudrup is just bizarre. Polster has played 3 seasons with struggling MLS side and has one US cap, a friendly against Bosnia. Gascoigne was one of the most high profile players in the world when he joined Rangers, a first choice internationalist who's played and starred in top flight football in England and Italy. Laudrup was also joining from Serie A, having previously starred in the Bundesliga, he was also a first choice international and had played in the winning European Champions team. Weir was an experienced player who'd worked with Smith successfully and was seen as a short term stop gap. Polster, on the other hand, is the very definition of 'unproven'. He might turn into a Kamara or a Goldson or he might be a Grezda or an Ojaria. He's unproven, so we'll just have to see.

To be fair to Richard Gordon it is hard to consider players from a team you refuse to watch...

We were good at developing keepers. Goram went from a good keeper at Hibs to one of the best on the planet while at Rangers. Klos was excellent when he arrived and remained excellent throughout his time with us. Antti Neimi couldn't break into our side but proved himself to be a very high quality keeper when he left. McGregor first time round was superb and is still very good even in the twilight of his career. Big Wes is a better keeper today than when he joined us. Liam Kelly's form with Livingston suggests our keeper development remains strong, hopefully the 'other' McCrorie will continue that run. Our inability to produce a forward player of any note since Robert Fleck is a source of some embarrassment though.

Some of those English stats are astonishing, no way is that sustainable. As for us if the figures are correct then that's not great reading, however the issues around merchandise are a contributing factor and something our directors are aware of. We clearly need to get our income up as I suspect our wage bill will rise this summer, that's inevitable if you want to sign better players. That said the costs involved in paying off Caixinha and some of the signings that didn't work out might be included in those figures. I suppose this comes down to trusting our current directors to protect the club and not overreach.

I've no particular dog in this fight but I do think you're being harsh on Ajax here. Feyonoord didn't make it to the Champion's League semi-final playing some sensational football whilst defeating Juventus and Barcelona along the way. That's what makes Ajax so appealing to old duffers like me who are hacked off how a handful of Spanish and English sides can simply buy anyone they want and dominate football. It's great to see a side we can realistically hope to emulate doing that. Also, when you add in former Ajax players like Eriksen, Alderweireld, and Vertoghen being in the side that put them out as a neutral you have to say as a club they're pretty impressive. I'm sure it pisses off some Dutch (and Scots apparently) but Ajax have a mystique about them, since the 70s they consistently produced world class footballers, even when they themselves weren't doing anything on the international stage, their alumni were. Plus that banner when they last played Celtic, clearly not fancying a 'special relationship' and letting them know it made me laugh.

I've got some sympathy for Clyde on this. Firstly I think we have to accept that child abuse is a very difficult subject to talk about on a sport's programme. Super Scoreboard has a wide audience age wise, that creates problems in subject matter, it's on in the early evening when children could be listening. Personally I'd turn over a programme that was discussing child abuse if my 11 year old was listening. It's not an appropriate subject and it is most certainly not an appropriate programme to be discussing it. Secondly no one on that programme is even remotely qualified to discuss the subject matter. I mean the presenters and guests struggle to say anything vaguely informative on football, what possible insight could they bring to this subject? And a phone-in on it is a horrifying thought. I understand why some people feel there's double standards being displayed. After all no one on Super Scoreboard is an insolvency or tax expert yet they were happy to discuss and comment on that for months on end. However, I think there's a huge difference between spouting ill-informed gibberish about EBTs and spouting it about a paedophile ring. For me the latter is a subject that should only be covered by the 'news' shows. Whilst it concerns a 'sports' club it's not a suitable story for sport journalists to cover. It's news story, it's a big news story, potentially a huge one. A paedophile ring operating inside one of the biggest and most successful sporting institutes in this country, apparently for decades, requires a level of investigation and analysis no sport's programme is capable of providing. I agree with those that have called for a public enquiry, that's not point scoring either. I knew boys who played for Celtic Boys Club, their families were so proud of them. Even as a Rangers supporter you recognised the kudos that came with being able to say you were good enough to play for them. Evil, evil men preyed on young boys, deceived their families, lied and abused their positions and ultimately destroyed the lives of who knows how many people. That shouldn't be allowed to simply be forgotten.