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We have scheduled a maintenance window during which our providers will migrate our hosting service to new hardware. The maintenance window starts next THURSDAY, 18th NOVEMBER 2021 at 10pm and it ends FRIDAY, 19th NOVEMBER 2021 at 6am (UK time). During that period I'd imagine the forum will be unavailable - apologies for any inconvenience.

A 100 Year Old Bahamian Folk Melody. It began last week, Rangers released their new 150th anniversary strip. A tribute to the Gallant Pioneers, the minute long launch video was accompanied with appropriate mood music, 'Four Lads had a Dream'. Most folks will know the tune as the Sloop John B, popularised by the Beach Boys. Some will remember Gorbals own, Lonnie Donegan covering the song in the early sixties? The air is a traditional Bahamian folk song about a sunken ship, first published in 1916. The same melody is also utilised for the so called, 'Famine Song'. Glasgow University Senior Lecturer, Jeanette Findlay took to Twitter in her role as Chair of Call it Out. The former Secretary of the Irish Republican Bands Association labeled the tune "racist" stated the club's launch was, "pandering to racists" and concluded, "this is no accident". Four minutes later, BBC Scotland's Senior Journo, Margaret Gilmour re-Tweeted Findlay's opinion whilst liking it and, five minutes further on, Michael Stewart did similar. The usual suspects piled in and on. Angela Haggerty was in a state of fulmination. Michael took it further, made a few more Tweets linking the launch tune to those arrested whilst marching through Glasgow City centre on the morning of the last old firm game. Michael demanded explanation for his interpretation of club formal backing of intimidation? The high water mark of this latest outrage was reached when Fettes College educated Hibee and Herald Journo, Aidan Smith did two pieces; firstly explaining the furore, then reporting Michael's outrage. Humza, Dornan, Devine, ........ etc did not reinforce and the necessary momentum was lost. It was left to PQ's Hater-in-Chief, Stuart Cosgrove to attempt a resuscitation during Off the Ball. At one O'Clock on Saturday, there is usually a five minute chat with Big Dick on matters to be discussed on the upcoming Sportsound. DrStu' was already lamenting no Big Dick as Host, the Token Kenny Macintyre promised live coverage of five of the afternoon's fixtures, and being right across happenings at Ibrox. DrStu' pushed it, "any discussion on the underlying trends in Scottish football this week"? Kenny showed Cosgrove a straight bat thus the Saintee pushed, "looking forward to hearing Michael Stewart's take"? The Token told a tale of no Michael contribution. Michael over egging a rancid pudding should be put to a century old Bahamian folk melody. Chico the Clown. These last thirty plus years, BBC Scotland's Comedy Unit has relied heavily on the existence of Chick Young. Those who schooled with Chico at Bellahouston Academy tell of his love for Rangers. Chick began his journalistic career as a Cub-Reporter at the Rangers News, his first book was, 'the Rebirth of the Blues' a diary of the Souness first season as Rangers boss. Chick bought a Cabin Cruiser 25 years past, became Captain Calamity and, smelled the PQ wind lifting from the water. After enduring the navigation from Rhu to Cumbrae, Chick experienced a catharsis announcing he had become a Buddy - constantly articulating a life long devotion to St Boo. Cap'n Calamity has safely navigated passage to his eighth decade and rode the BBC Scotland waves last weekend by immersing himself in conspiracy theories. He wondered aloud on Sunday, "Sportscene showed us Porteous tackling Aribo last week, why no highlights of Aribo's launch into Cammy Devlin"? Chico was only following the joint Twitter outrage of Tam McManus and Michael Stewart. James McFadden answered the question, "I've seen the footage, the Ref' got it right with a yellow card". Unfazed, Chick set the tiller into the strong breeze, "St Mirren play Rangers next week and Jim Goodwin will want to avoid such refereeing". The eddies and currents swirled as the skipper pulled his anchored adorned cap over his pate. The discussion was Newcastle's predicted managerial vacancy. McFadden, Foster, Cricthon all agreed the Georgies would probably have Gerrard on their discussion list. The name, his record in Europe and, the manner of last year's Premiership victory would be in his favour. Kenny Macintyre added Gerrard had stated he would not get involved in the speculation because Steve Bruce was a good friend and in position. Chico went full Coco, "before Newcastle look at someone winning one out of nine trophies available, they should be looking at St Johnston's Callum Davidson". Chick should be sailing on a sea of sand, advising the Saudis. Tom Talks Tosh. Last night Angeball was retrieved from the slates and re-inflated. Sellik had done the fourth team in the Hungarian league and Tom Anguish was purring. It was unusual, Big Dick hosting with Tom adding colour. Where was Pat Bonner? Any game at Paradise requires Pat and Tom giving the blarney large, in stereo. Anyways, Tom made up for Pat's absence. At half time he dismissed Ferencvaros as, "playing for the draw" and speculated Sellik's possession stat'," would not be less than 25%"? Big Dick looked at the stats and relied, "it's 63%". Tom did not want to disrespect the statisticians, then went on to do just that. He reminded the listenership of how unique the event was, "it's three O'Clock on a Tuesday afternoon and there's sixty thousand here". Once Tom begins to polish a Sellik turd there's no stopping the Bhoy, "these supporters have had to put up with the whole Covid vaccination passport thing too". Talking of Vaccine Passports, BBC Scotland went big on both TV and radio with this. Chris McLaughlin, remember him? He conducted vox-pops for both mediums, taking to his fellow supporters of the green'n'grey pre-match. All were articulate, all praised with the Scottish Government approach and, all were willing to put up with anything furra Sellik. I don't know why Chris didn't just go into the PQ Canteen and interview members of the CSC which he Chairs? Tomorrow night, the current resident of the PQ naughty step is Richard Foster and he will watch Premier Sports in a studio and "be right across all events at Ibrox". There will be no vox-pops.

Right on time ... Andrew Dickson @mrandrewdickson Following an investigation by an ethics and disciplinary inspector, UEFA have concluded there was "insufficient evidence of racism or discriminatory conduct" at Sparta Prague v Rangers to warrant the opening of disciplinary proceedings against the Czech club. UEFA could just as well call a day on their Respect and anti-racism campaign ...

Sorry, that was the point I was making. In terms of exclusivity the CL and ESL are essentially the same thing, distinguished only by the subtlety of de facto versus de jure.

The more exposure for Rangers' victories -esp those in Court- the better.

rangers will be odds on Brondby will be something like 6/1 it's about time we started playing like a team thats odds on , time to get the fingers out .

The SFA loses in court to Douglas Park, and, "Lord Carloway, who as Lord President is Scotland’s most senior judge, ordered the SFA to pay Parks of Hamilton’s legal bill for the hearing - the sum which will be paid is not known", which is nice. Sorry, but this report is from The Old Currant Bun: Rangers chairman Douglas Park claims second victory in legal dispute over SPFL’s £8m cinch sponsorship RANGERS chairman Douglas Park has won a second victory in a legal dispute over the SPFL’s £8 million sponsorship deal with online car retailer cinch. The businessman’s company, Park’s of Hamilton, obtained an interim interdict to prevent the SFA proceeding with an arbitration process involving Rangers, the SPFL and cinch. The Scottish champions are currently refusing to allow cinch’s branding on team shirts or an advertising boards. Mr Park believes that the deal struck by the SPFL breaches a commercial agreement which has been made between his firm, Parks of Hamilton, and Rangers. The SPFL have referred the matter for arbitration to the SFA. On Wednesday, lawyers for the SFA addressed the Inner House of the Court of Session - Scotland’s highest civil appeal court. The SFA’s legal team told judges Lord Carloway, Lord Pentland and Lord Woolman that the decision to grant the interim interdict was incorrect. Lawyers for the SFA believed that Parks of Hamilton shouldn’t have a place in the arbitration process because it wasn’t a member of the SPFL. Parks of Hamilton’s legal team told the court that the decision to grant interim interdict was made correctly and that the SPFL’s own rules entitled Rangers to refuse to display cinch’s’ branding. They also argued that Parks of Hamilton should have a role in the arbitration process. After hearing the submissions, the judges agreed with the submissions made by Parks of Hamilton and refused to overturn the lower court’s decision. Lord Carloway, who as Lord President is Scotland’s most senior judge, ordered the SFA to pay Parks of Hamilton’s legal bill for the hearing - the sum which will be paid is not known. Earlier in the year, a Park’s spokesperson welcomed the court’s decision to grant the interim interdict saying that the SFA had no other option but to involve it in the arbitration process. The spokesperson added: “We can confirm that Park’s of Hamilton has been successfully granted an interim interdict at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, to prevent the SFA from proceeding with its arbitration process in relation to the sponsorship of the SPFL. “For the purposes of Park's interim interdict application, the Court considered that the failure to include Park's went against the SFA's own rules. “This ruling now prevents the SFA from proceeding with an arbitration process without Park’s of Hamilton being involved.” At another hearing in the case, the SPFL’s lawyer, Lord Keen of Elie QC told the court that bosses at Rangers had spoken to cinch about renaming the club’s stadium ‘the cinch Ibrox stadium.’ However, a spokesman at the club said no negotiations took place. On Wednesday, advocate Garry Borland QC, who is acting for the SFA, said it was wrong for interim interdict to be granted. He said that laws surrounding arbitration showed that Parks of Hamilton shouldn’t have a role in the process. He added: “In the present context Rangers Football Club Ltd are members of the SPFL and they are therefore required by virtue of article 196 to comply with the SPFL rules. “The petitioner, Parks of Hamilton, is of course not a member of the SPFL and is hence is under no obligation to comply with the SPFL rules. “Membership of the league will mean the clubs will have to be bound to comply with certain things including the articles of the SFA. “Parks of Hamilton is not subject to or bound by those rules. It follows that Parks of Hamilton is not party to contract of the dispute referred to in the arbitration.” Gavin MacColl QC, for Parks and Hamilton, said that the commercial issues brought up by the matter meant that it was only right for the company to participate in the arbitration process. He said that the SPFL’s own rules show that Rangers is correct not to allow cinch branding at Ibrox. He added: “An individual club that is a member of the SPFL does not require to comply with overarching contracts entered into by the SPFL with advertisers, if to do so were to place the individual club into breach of prior contractual obligations. “In these circumstances, the commercial reality of this is that from the petitioner’s perspective and any objective perspective - is that the dispute is something best resolved with all of the parties that have a clear interest participating in that process and being bounded by that process and avoiding the possibility of the sort of divergent views and divergent orders that could be made if one process having taken place between Rangers and the SPFL alone the petitioner here is sought to go to court to vindicate its own contractual position and other parties such as cinch are forced to take similar steps - that sort of approach makes very little commercial sense.” Announcing the court’s decision, Lord Carloway said he and his colleagues would issue a written judgement explaining their reasoning. He added: “We will give our reasons in writing in early course - hopefully within the next week or so. “But we are satisfied… that there is no reason upon which we can reverse the Lord Ordinary’ decision and we will refuse the reclaiming motion.” https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/7875320/rangers-douglas-park-win-legal-dispute-spfl-cinch-sponsorship/amp/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

Showing your age, old bean. Good name on his displays so far. Doesn’t look like a player. Now watch him rise to great heights. Nothing like a condemnation from me to see a career take off.

I'm afraid yes, just ask Souness.

I'm starting to get twitchy now. If we don't improve quickly I suspect SG might think he'd taken us as far as he can - and in a way he'd be right I see we are linked with a Blackburn player called Rothwell in January - yet another midfield player. Maybe to replace the Lily of Bacuna?

Their troubles sound remarkably like our own this season.

I'm intrigued to see whom they go for. I suspect Graeme Jones will get it for now, but although he has good coaching ideas and experience (working with Roberto Martinez for 11 years), he doesn't have managerial experience (a season at Luton only). Ideally, they'd want someone to stabilise the club over the short-term, keeping them in the League, whilst also being able to use their new wealth to assemble a competitive squad. And, then they go for the man to potentially win them things.

Steve Bruce given his jotters. Belated.

I renewed my TV Receiver Licence under protest. Several protests, actually, one of which was the BBC Scotland fiasco with regard to Rangers. Here is what BBC Audience Services say. Rangers continue to operate an exceptional ban on one of our journalists which severely restricts our ability to report freely from Ibrox. We hope you’ll understand that, in order to maintain public trust in the impartiality and independence of our reporting, it is the BBC’s responsibility to determine who should report, on its behalf, on any particular story or organisation. It would be inappropriate for us to allow any other body or organisation to pick and choose which BBC reporters should or should or should not provide our news reports. We have offered to return to Ibrox to provide match commentaries and interviews etc. while we try to find a permanent solution to the overall dispute, but Rangers have said this is unacceptable. We continue to speak to the Club as we seek to find a mutually agreeable solution to the current impasse. I’m conflicted here. While I understand that others have different needs from the Broadcaster I personally don’t want any Sportscene/Sound people back at Ibrox because they will just carry on where they left off but it’s the principle that matters. I’ll be answering the letter to see if I can persuade them to reply more substantively and more accurately. (What “ban”?) In addition, they are silent on the Manchester United/Dundee United scenarios on which I invited comparison. One of the non Rangers matters I raised was the futility of the BBC Scotland Channel. They tell me it’s the most watched digital channel between 7pm and midnight. After BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV/STV, and Channels 4 and 5. What an achievement. I wonder who came sixth. ALBA?

Jock Stein transformed a team of losing donkeys into what became a nightmare. In his first season he got Simpson on a free and bought Clark from Morton. Next season they won the ……. sorry I can’t go on. I have to take something to dull the memory.