Rangers In Crisis

[Hildy 0]

Rangers has been many things to many people for nearly a century and a half and over much of this time, excellence and aspiration have ranked high in the club's priorities. To be a Rangers supporter was to be a part of a family that had high expectations, an intolerance of mediocrity, an insistence on elite standards and an undying ambition to be the best. The last few years, though, have been a uniquely testing time.

 

Experiencing the team in the lower reaches of Scottish football has been a ghastly experience. After 120 years of winning or coming close to winning the Scottish League, being dumped in the wasteland of the national sport has been more than just humbling: it has been surreal.

 

Finishing top of the third and fourth tiers may have secured promotion, but it went against the grain that these achievements were deemed worthy of celebration. They might be for small clubs, but for a club like Rangers, promotion was a minimum expectation. There's something unsettling about seeing Rangers celebrating the acquisition of minor trophies. Some will argue that every success should be lauded, especially after flirting with finality, but it feels inappropriate: it feels wrong.

 

The nature of the way the team has performed is a sorry tale. Watching Rangers is about as aesthetically pleasing as a long and lingering gaze at the urban monstrosity that is Celtic Park. An uncultured approach to football is now endemic within the club's football department: it knows no other way. Somehow, and it started before Ally McCoist settled in the manager's chair, Rangers has become the epitome of ugly.

 

The vital matter of club ownership is impossible to ignore. Fans have lost trust in the current regime; its plans are vague and unconvincing, it is out of touch with those who fund it and it can't even convince supporters that it genuinely cares. It is in a hole, a very large hole, and it keeps on digging.

 

Rangers is a shadow of what it used to be. In every single area, there are failings, but most worryingly of all, there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel. The club's financial predicament could mean a slow and painful demise, or perhaps a sudden and quick one. The spectre of doom hovers over Rangers like dark clouds over Arran, and even if the club survives, it may never recover to become a domestic powerhouse again.

 

Fans debate the corporate side endlessly, but expertise in this argument rarely offers hope, a way out or a workable solution. Learned fans offer little more than those who know as much about bean-counting as they do about rocket science. A glaring absence of the means, imagination and knowhow to lead Rangers out of this mess has been the most notable aspect of this entire debacle. The vast Rangers family has been found to be badly wanting.

 

It is staggering that a pillar of the Scottish sporting community could be so easily shaken and undermined, but the collective naivete of the Rangers support never dared to entertain the possibility that the club's existence could one day be threatened. From the fanatical element within the Celtic support to provincial club detestation of Rangers and an ever-open door on Edmiston Drive to rogue ownership, the inevitable consequence was hard times ahead for Rangers, but few saw it coming. In this hostile new era, winning a title or two was only going to be half the battle.

 

There are no heroes in this debacle. From millionaires to ex-players and from ex-directors to ordinary fans, the combined wisdom of the lot of them has amounted to failure after failure and blunder after blunder. The air of immortality that once enveloped Rangers has evaporated. The club has been outed as a zone of incompetence and its cheap talk and soft underbelly have made it an easy target for detractors.

 

There are times, when the mood is dark, when one wonders if Rangers has reached the end of the road. Society has changed, but maybe Rangers has never really changed at all. It gives the appearance of being an anachronism, clinging to a past that it can't let go instead of embracing a future that it never foresaw.

 

Regrettably, there is a hateful and sinister element within the Rangers support. For many years, our press and media told us it was there, but we denied the accusations outright. Now, with many contentious issues to deal with, the vitriol that spews forth from one fan to another is beyond the pale. Anyone trying to lead us out of this mess automatically becomes a hate figure for fundamentalists who believe that they and only they are the true carriers of the Rangers torch.

 

Maybe they are, and maybe that's why the torch is in danger of being extinguished - permanently.

 

Two words have sold a million Scottish newspapers over the years: 'Rangers' and 'crisis'. Finally, we have a crisis worthy of such a dramatic description and we have reacted exactly as our enemies would have wanted.

 

There is too much hate in our hearts to provide constructive solutions to the problems that beset us. Until this is successfully addressed, we will get the club we deserve - if we have a club at all.

Edited June 19, 2014 by Hildy

[Tom Davison 0]

Very good piece Hildy. I know where you are coming from when you say that there are no heroes in this debacle but it may just be that fans who have stuck with it and some of the club employees who have had to endure such worrying and unsettling times might just have earned the right to claim heroic status.

[Hildy 0]

Very good piece Hildy. I know where you are coming from when you say that there are no heroes in this debacle but it may just be that fans who have stuck with it and some of the club employees who have had to endure such worrying and unsettling times might just have earned the right to claim heroic status.

 

I can't think of one, Tom.

 

There has been a distinct absence of heroes in this sad chapter.

[Hildy 0]

The club continues despite all that has happened, but it doesn't always feel like the same club.

 

Are you optimistic or pessimistic with regard to Rangers, and, especially if it is the former, could you outline exactly why?

 

Are our best days in the past, and in the past, will they remain?

[buster. 5,257]

 

Are our best days in the past, and in the past, will they remain?

 

I don't think there is any doubt that the 'best days' are in the past regards what has been, being reasonably competitive at a European level for on average one season every decade.

 

It's not only our very own 'onerous omnishambles'. You have to take into consideration Scottish football as a whole, the wide gulfs in TV revenue and the marginalisation of the middle to smaller size leagues.

 

I think it likely that there will be a steady lowering of attendance averages over the next few years as the generations change. The youngsters becoming increasingly more disinterested in Scottish Football.

 

 

 

 

Many talk of the 'magicbean' being a move to a European league.

I don't buy it. I haven't seen one viable and realistic plan that would be a gamechanger and that's not to mention the fact we're not going to be in any state to do anything for the forseeable.

[Rangersitis 0]

The best days are most certainly in the past and until expectations are lowered, there will be no let up on the misery front.

 

Any talk of a European League returning the club to former glory is pie in the sky. At best, Rangers and Celtic would get invited into the third tier. In these days of global TV coverage, the effect of stadium capacity is growing ever smaller and the real wealth is accumulated by the larger European nations securing ever-increasing TV deals based on population figures. Even these will be dwarfed once the HD technology is there to allow individual clubs to distribute their own matches on internet PPV.

[Hildy 0]

I don't think there is any doubt that the 'best days' are in the past regards what has been, being reasonably competitive at a European level for on average one season every decade.

 

It's not only our very own 'onerous omnishambles'. You have to take into consideration Scottish football as a whole, the wide gulfs in TV revenue and the marginalisation of the middle to smaller size leagues.

 

I think it likely that there will be a steady lowering of attendance averages over the next few years as the generations change. The youngsters becoming increasingly more disinterested in Scottish Football.

 

A horribly negative downward spiral regards competitivity at a decent level.

 

 

Many talk of the 'magicbean' being a move to a European league.

I don't buy it. I haven't seen one viable and realistic plan that would be a gamechanger and that's not to mention the fact we're not going to be in any state to do anything for the forseeable.

As I understand it, Celtic are keen to find a way into another environment. Whether it turns out to be England, Europe or having the door closed to all options, I cannot say, but I believe they have recognised that a future within Scotland automatically limits their ambitions and prevents them performing at a higher level and attracting greater crowds.

 

If Rangers was a well-run club, it should be talking to Celtic on a regular basis about how to proceed from what has become a European backwater to a more competitive and rewarding league set-up.

 

Within Scotland, Rangers and Celtic can only ever be big fish in a small pond, but the pond is getting smaller and the big fish will inevitably shrink to fit.

 

Anyone in charge at Rangers or Celtic is not doing his job if they do not address this.

[Hildy 0]

The best days are most certainly in the past and until expectations are lowered, there will be no let up on the misery front.

 

Any talk of a European League returning the club to former glory is pie in the sky. At best, Rangers and Celtic would get invited into the third tier. In these days of global TV coverage, the effect of stadium capacity is growing ever smaller and the real wealth is accumulated by the larger European nations securing ever-increasing TV deals based on population figures. Even these will be dwarfed once the HD technology is there to allow individual clubs to distribute their own matches on internet PPV.

You think that the lowering of expectations is a good thing?

[buster. 5,257]

As I understand it, Celtic are keen to find a way into another environment. Whether it turns out to be England, Europe or having the door closed to all options, I cannot say, but I believe they have recognised that a future within Scotland automatically limits their ambitions and prevents them performing at a higher level and attracting greater crowds.

 

If Rangers was a well-run club, it should be talking to Celtic on a regular basis about how to proceed from what has become a European backwater to a more competitive and rewarding league set-up.

 

Within Scotland, Rangers and Celtic can only ever be big fish in a small pond, but the pond is getting smaller and the big fish will inevitably shrink to fit.

 

Anyone in charge at Rangers or Celtic is not doing his job if they do not address this.

 

There is such a gulf between Rangers and Celtic in terms of how and for whom the respective football clubs are run that IMO you can't currently put them both together when considering the making of medium to long term strategic plans.

[Hildy 0]

There is such a gulf between Rangers and Celtic in terms of how and for whom the respective football clubs are run that IMO you can't currently put them both together when considering medium to long term strategic plans.

There is a gulf. Rangers can only partner Celtic on potential with regard to moving to another set-up because it is now Glasgow's second club and all the indications are that it will remain as the poor relation within the Old Firm indefinitely.

 

This does not mean however that it should steer clear of efforts to get itself out of the environment which limits its potential to move to one that will more handsomely reward it.

 

Rangers and Celtic need to talk. If Celtic were to be admitted to the second tier in England, for example, and Rangers were left behind, life would soon become for Rangers the way it is just now for Celtic - dull, unattractive and austere.

 

Of course, while the strife at Ibrox continues, hopes for any kind of meaningful future are very low indeed.