craig

Maybe I am being an optimist but this now has the makings of blowing Scottish football wide open.... and that will be something that Doncaster, McKenzie, Shifty, Lawwell & Celtic will be very, very keen to prevent from happening.

That is potentially explosive stuff. Popcorn time

I don't see any value - but I am in the fortunate position of being able to afford it, so will undoubtedly pay it.

We will need to agree to disagree. Mathematically possible to be caught, yes. But this league was as foregone a conclusion as Liverpool winning the Premiership, and they only needed 1 more win. I didn't agree with the awarding of it, so the "travesty" comment is irrelevant to me. If they weren't awarding it to Talbot the only natural thing to do, which I would agree with, is null and void it

You actually think those were Gerrard's words as opposed to Club generated soundbites ?

It's a fair point Bill, particularly when the team at the top don't actually get it awarded to them. Wonder how many Kilwinning fans are upset about it - I honestly can't imagine too many saying "Talbot wouldn't have won the league" because they have been so dominant for a number of years - could they have dropped the requisite number of points ? Sure. Was it likely ? Highly unlikely. More unlikely than us overtaking Celtic anyway. I guess in the Junior world it isn't as much of a deal as it doesn't make a huge difference in terms of finances etc. Talbot have run out of all the places to store their silverware. Will be interesting to see what happens when they enter the pyramid (they didn't actually want to but felt obliged).

eh ? That lot seriously have an alternative reality. I actually had a Hibs supporting friend, normally logical and a smart guy, said to me "Do you think that the ICT CEO had been got at ? Inexplicable vote". I had to reply to him... "I know what you're getting at (ex-Rangers and/or rumours RFC were offering him a job) but no. How is it an inexplicable vote when his team are sitting in the play-off spots in the Championship and could have been promoted to the top division had they been successful. That opportunity has now been denied them". How is that inexplicable ? He clearly voted for what made most sense for ICT. Self-interest ? Absolutely. Inexplicable ? certainly not.

Well we know for sure THAT statement wont be getting made from Parkhead

The table in the junior belies what is actually the case - it is only when you read the narrative you get the full story. 9 games in hand and Talbot fairly significantly ahead in every single metric in the West Premiership. It is still bonkers to award the league on that basis though. I imagine the vast majority of Junior fans would be in agreement Talbot would have won the league anyway, but that isn't exactly the point.

That isn't using the Ayrshire calculator though if comparing Rangers to Talbot. If Rangers win all their games they need Celtic to drop points elsewhere. Talbot could win their league with plenty of games to spare. Kilwinning COULD end up on 68 points if they win their remaining 5 games. That would leave them 27 points ahead of Talbot. However, if Talbot won their remaining games they would finish the season on 83 points - a full 15 points, or 5 games, ahead of Kilwinning. Your comparison is flawed compo, significantly. Either way, this still shows (despite me being a Talbot fan) how much of a farce it is to award team's league titles in this manner. Look at Raith Rovers getting promoted at the expense of Falkirk...1 point separated them and Raith still had to go to Falkirk yet. It is utter lunacy.

MON THE TALBOT

Thanks TB, I had only read the headline

We haven't seen an global economic complete shutdown lasting for multiple weeks before. We also haven't seen stimulus packages of the quantum or needs as this one. That is their point, they can't use previous trends because this is unchartered territory. I contend that it isn't common and hasn't really happened before either - even in the Great Depression, economies were still working. This one, globally, has ground to a halt. I am perhaps an optimist but I am with Bill in that I suspect that once things open up again I think that industries and jobless numbers will drastically reduce. My fear, though, would be a 2nd or 3rd wave - not so much as it could result in another lockdown but that the markets will react very unfavorably to that instance - I personally don't think a 2nd or 3rd wave, and how they are handled, has been priced into the markets yet. The lockdown is causing the economic carnage but it certainy isn't causing the wider health issue - unless you consider economics to be the only issue..... If governments don't get the "r" below 1 (average rate of contamination) then you have an expanding virus. Timing will be everything with this - herd immunity is not only a foregone conclusion but also essential to build immunity and build people to be asymptomatic. However, you and I both know that the markets don't work on common sense all the time. If, for example, the UK says in 6 months time that there is an increase in CV cases again you can guarantee that the markets will go into a frenzy, not matter whether it is short term or not. No matter whether a 2nd wave is a large, or small, issue. It is all very well to say stop the lockdown and get back to work, but that runs the risk of infections rapidly increasing again and even greater pressure on the healthcare systems around the world. As I said, timing is everything. Back on topic, yes Rangers must now tighten the belts - what will be interesting to see is what happens across the city - as I said earlier, everything is relative in Scotland, how we do is relative to Celtic - but their wage bill is significantly greater than ours and is largely dependent upon making the CL. Will they ultimately have to sell assets to a) cover wages b) get some wages off the books to lower costs and c) ultimately balance the books. This could hurt them financially far more than it hurts us, which brings them closer to us financially, which then MIGHT allow us a chance to challenge, even without the need to have a "war chest".

The Spaniards will, once again, find a way of assisting Barcelona and Real Madrid.... but it wont be through state aid of course

Probably not. But they know as well as I do that Talbot would have won the league eventually this season - unfortunately the consequence of being successful is that you end up in more competitions (senior SC) and have a backlog of games.

Winning should clearly have been in inverted commas, which I am sure you could have gathered given my initial terminology of "awarded"

So as many of you know... I am an Auchinleck Talbot fan outside of my love for Rangers... They got awarded the West SuperLeague yesterday.... despite being 12 points behind the leaders Kilwinning and actually sitting in 3rd place, with Pollok in second place To be fair, they highly likely would have won it anyway - 12 points behind but an unbelievable 9 games in hand to the leaders... and one point behind 2nd place and 6 games in hand. They were awarded it on average points per game. Obviously I am happy at Talbot winning the league but what an absolute farce !

I'm way too young for this one @Scott7 Defnitely Caldow, Gemmill, Nicol, Boyd - think big Geordie Young was Ayrshire too. I would definitely need to think about this....

Barcelona already looking to sell the naming rights to Nou Camp for a season to try to help them through it....

The markets are currently down no more than they were in 2008. Consolidation is inevitable and, when it happens, it will be about being on the right side of it. My fear in the financial markets is a 2nd, or 3rd wave and we will see a double dip in the markets - it is very strange because, unlike 2008, this pandemic has everyone already espousing we are looking at a depression - so the markets SHOULD have already priced that in - yet they are "only" down 20% from their highs in February. We (my company) have had calls with some of the brightest and sharpest investment manager minds around (obviously due to investment portfolio management) and they cannot believe that the markets have rebounded as much as they have - in their words.... "we have NEVER seen this before.... so how can we possibly know where it is all headed" ??

Mate, I would try to put something together for discussion but I am a) absolutely swamped at work and b) all of this really would be guesswork because there are so many variables. I have read that matchday profit is negligible at Rangers so right now we shouldn't be overly hurting (wages should be getting funded from ST's - though that also depends on whether CC companies are releasing funds as, I think it was BD that said, they only release them from the CCCS per game - and with games not getting played we may be seeing that income drying up). Some may not want to hear this but our current financial state is one thing.... everything is relative i.e. we will be successful or not, dependent on where we are in relation to Celtic. I suspect that Dave King & T3B (again, personal business circumstance and finances pending) have come so far that they wouldn't let the club fail. May need additional funding but I suspect (nothing more than a hunch) that they would be prepared to do so. But Celtic wages are significantly higher than ours, CL qualification wages. With the pandemic drying up income it is known that they have asked, and been rejected, Adidas for an up front payment for their new sponsorship. Adidas have asked for state aid from Germany.... so things clearly aren't all rosy at Celtic Park. It is also rumoured that much if not all, of the Tierney money is segregated for, ahem, anticipated legal cases against them. If the transfer market dries up or significantly drops that will hurt us for sure - but given their need to sell, annually, if they don't make the CL then one has to expect that it will hurt them more. Which is a good thing. Yes, we have been running at losses even with decent sized European income - but that EL income has also helped fund purchasing Kent for 6.5 million (as an example)… we may have to curtail such purchases for a period - but that also depends on the club, King & T3B funding, sponsorships, commercial retail issues with Ashley, potential share issues (will they be postponed as people look to their financial liquidity) ? And all of that is before we even look at the personal financial situation of 43,000 ST holders and their ability to continue to buy ST's.... or, as an extension of that, the alleged 15,000 ST waiting list The situation is far too liquid, far too variable, to quickly make a stab at what to expect. Sorry

Which will just show how much class (sic) as a club they have....

Kevin Thomson

buster, do you genuinely believe that if we play nice with PQ that anything changes ? Fair enough if you think that. I, however, believe that by doing so we effectively capitulate to the lies and propaganda that Chris McLaughlin has spouted about our club. His lies were completely outed, yet BBC dug into the trenches over it. If we capitulate, and you can be assured that it will be seen that way, then we will still be cast as pariahs by that lot. Even if it was a silver bullet, I suspect Rangers would be the ones taking it in the head.

One that didn’t make it that I know is on elfi’s list is Michael Stewart..... thankfully ?