Gaffer

I think we should all care where it's coming from. We've had too many people with the wrong motives in charge of our club. I've had my frustrations with DK, but never once have I questioned his motives. Equally, I'm surprised and suspicious of anyone who invests in a football club and is not a supporter. It's the last place you'd expect to get a return, especially in a Scottish club. I may have concerns about some decisions my fellow bears would have us take if we had control of our club, but I'd rather have that risk than unknowns with unknown motives.

If you have a seat on the board, you really need to be able to contribute something to the agenda. I don't know any of the Club 1872 board (despite me being a member) so I don't know who would be best placed to offer skills or experience. Anyone? Equally, we are a minority shareholder so don't really have any power to demand anything. We could ask nicely though. If we were to get a place on the board, I'm not sure what difference it would make. The representative would have to be as confidential about boardroom matters as the others, and I'm not sure that they'd be any more committed to the good of Rangers than the bears already around the board. What is the expectations around this forum as to what we'd achieve?

I think it was always going to be a tough one to find the right balance. Having said that, I think this is more an attack on the Aberdeen statement than an attack on McInnes, but it's very softly worded in my opinion. I think we're now looking for things to criticise the club for. Good luck Murty!

You may have misunderstood Bill, but I'd be very happy to have Murty in the role. He has a steep learning curve, and I do have concerns about his ability to command with discipline and respect, but he deserves the chance I think.

Ian: We really need to start listening to you more. If I had taken your word for it, I could have avoided the last few weeks of worry that DM was going to be our manager. Now, please confirm that it won't be Eck either so I can relax completely.

Yes, you can join my club.

I wonder now if McInnes has used this to improve his own deal. He'll never be Rangers manager after this. Obviously, as you'll all know I'm pretty happy that it's not him but this is awfully embarrassing for the Rangers board. Having said that, it'll be even worse if we have a knee-jerk reaction and appoint Eck or someone like that.

Isn't this just the way these things happen? Is Milne just forcing McInnes to resign? Then he gets the compensation and the continued 'respect' of the Aberdeen fans because he refused to let him go.

That's my gut reaction to that news.

I seem to recall that the Motherwell and Hibs fans' attacks were a legal matter that the SPL and SFA had no authority to act on. That seemed bizarre to me. However, the Lennon gesture v the Halliday gesture was another example of a complete injustice. Once again however, the reason they said they couldn't act was because the referee opined at the time. For me this rule is utter nonsense and needs to change.

Ian: you do a great job of making all sorts of media easily accessible here. No matter what the news story is, you seem to have your finger on the pulse. Brilliant job, and thank you!!!

That's fair because I can't recall any instances recently where that's made any difference. I do remember when Ally injured Snelders that his immediate response to help the player did help the situation but that's about 30 years ago I think so nothing recent. I still don't know why refs don't punish tackles like the one on Tav. Those are career ending tackles and surely the simplest of all reds to give. Very rarely is that being punished appropriately.

I liked the good old days when we used to call 'them' the paranoid ones. If any party seriously wanted to destroy the union (as the SNP does), there's not much point wasting your time on Rangers. There are more direct ways of achieving this, which is exactly where they are spending their time. And if pro union parties really believed that Rangers was an important pillar of the union, wouldn't you expect the Labour and Tory MSPs to support Rangers? I've now attempted to bring this back into topic 4 or 5 times without success. Can we stick to the topic, which is about refs and decisions against Rangers? I was listening to the podcast as I normally do and thought they made a good point about the Jack red card. They suggested that he wouldn't have had a red card if he had acknowledged that he injured the player, but didn't mean it. They thought that by him carrying on, it demonstrated a f@@@ you attitude which suggested to the ref it was deliberate. I thought it all happened too quickly for that to be the thinking of the ref. Of course, I did think it was red. My issue is why the other two tackles from their players were not punished consistently. One of them was right next to the linesmen so why didn't he intervene? I see it very rarely. Why? Are they too scared to put their heads above the parapet?

Unfortunately, all this talk of politics is clouding the issue. The original question was around honest mistakes or something sinister. I think we had very good 'evidence' of something sinister from the ref at the Hibs game. Surely the question is then about how far does this go. Seriously, is there anyone that has another example of our team being victimised by referees? As I've said, this is the only example I have where it was obvious that there was something sinister rather than poor performance by the ref. Are there any others?

Since some on here don't necessarily share your views on non-footballing issues, are we ruining your enjoyment on the forums? But seriously, I think you are right. I enjoy having debates with people of differing views, but I equally enjoy being in the company of like minded people. One thing we are all like minded about is the success of our team. The other stuff is something we just have to accept is non-football related. As such, Frankie suggested we keep that for the off topic forum. Is it possible to get back to the debate on here about refs?

Good post Big Jaws. Hopefully we can now get back to the topic which I think was a good one in the beginning. Is there something worth investigating? For me, I think the refereeing can be really poor at times. There are some terribly inconsistent decisions, but I don't ever see an end to that. I think the game is now so quick, and let's face it the players are better at conning the refs these days too. Being a ref is a tough job, but you just hope they do it to the best of their ability. I think the linesmen need to step up to plate more though and help out. Maybe there is also a case for using video evidence to punish players that were already 'punished' by refs. This rule of not being able to punish a player twice is ridiculous. If there is evidence that a player deserved a different (or no) punishment, surely we can use that to achieve justice. That being said, there is that one refereeing performance against Hibs that shows there are people who are extremely biased (to say the least). That's the one person who needs to be investigated and reprimanded accordingly. That was a disgraceful example of someone trying (successfully) to manipulate the outcome of a match. As for the others, my opinion is that they are just poor decisions. In all my years of watching our games, that is the only one instance where I've felt it was deliberate so I don't think there is anything particularly sinister going on. What do you think?

Great. We've found something else we agree on!

That could be true dB and that's why I've got everything crossed. I hope he can deliver good (and winning) football. And as with MW and PC, I'll support him and the team as always.

There you go again, suggesting that "all bears" call it that. I don't, and I certainly don't call any of my fellow bears anything like that. You're trying to lump us all together in things that we can't be united on. Why not just accept that we are all united in supporting our team. The other stuff is where we diverge and have our own beliefs. That's fine, and in most cases it's healthy to have differing views on other matters. Is it not?

I think the compensation fee is mostly a charade. Milne needs to be seen to be getting a huge sum for McInnes, otherwise their fans would be up in arms. Equally the Rangers board will be happy to go along with these reported figures because it shows they are willing to pay big money to secure the right man. However, I don't think it'll cost us anywhere near the value quoted to get him. We will probably never know either, unless it is a separate item in the accounts. The most important part of this for me is that we get someone in who is supported by the board, the players and ultimately the fans. And I've got everything crossed that he can have us play decent football with the players and budget he has with us. It's the style of his play (or lack of) that has me most concerned.

I actually don't believe there are many MSPs who actually support a team. It's like Tony Blair being confused with West Ham and Aston Villa when asked who his team was. How many of them actually go to games? I don't think many. I actually couldn't care less either. I just want the politicians to get on with their job, which for me has nothing to do with my team.

You can sing what you want. In my ideal world, people can say what they want. I'd hope that others would be tolerant of that, but equally I'd hope everyone is willing to take responsibility for the consequences of what they say. As for the "cultural" side of things .... Rather than using vague words like that, why not call it what it actually is?

I appreciate that there is no changing your mind on this, and that's fine. It seems a little ironic however that you want to live in a free speech society (which I do too), but then claim that what you think is the only correct position. You may consider yourself to be a "pathetic cerebral wimp", just as you can claim that your Rangers is about unionism and related politics, but for many of us (and dare I say the majority), the club is about football and we the supporters of the club. It's about a successful team on the pitch. Plain and simple. I don't understand why you want to complicate matters by bringing politics into it. All this does is create division in our support, and that makes me suspicious as to your motives. Why would you do that? Don't you think it's healthy to have people with different views all coming together as we do? As for Bill wondering how his father's generation achieved those great things ..... wasn't it a case of thousands/millions of people (probably with many different opinions) uniting around a common cause?

I think it maybe started out 50/50, but then Jack continued with his 36km/h velocity, while May decelerates at a rate of 18km/h, resulting in a red card. Or something like that. Pete the physicist can explain it again if you want.

Now you've got me thinking ..... I wasn't so keen on this appointment, but if we swapped Miller for DM ..... I'd be fine with that. And then the deal couldn't be done until January, meaning that the new Gersnet forum could be launched just in time to announce the new manager. It's all coming together nicely, just as Frankie planned it.