andy steel

We could always be sold to the SARS as part payment of his debt, thus becoming the club of choice for all Africa, especially if old Nelson can hang on long enough to visit Ibrox...and we'd be owned by a Communist government, as well (the ANC). With that in mind, we could expect fans to get that seat on the board they've been after for so long. The best of African talent could wend it way Govan-wards...I like the sound of this. We all deal with things differently, gallows humour is my method.

Might as well out myself. In all the years I belted TBB out, not once did it cross my mind I was expressing solidarity with people from Ulster. I thought I was cheering on The Rangers.

Not a thing, because we don't have the financial muscle to affect (or effect) anything. There's nothing more than solidarity with the team that we can do, and that was kind of on show yesterday, but it's not something Bears specialise in. We'll take whatever comes as we have no choice.

Oh well... It's just that all the people who have been bumping their gums about the OF going to England, and how they wished they would go and stop talking about it, might have found their dream of an SPL minus Rangers becoming a reality, if you believed the stories doing the rounds. I think it would be a case of 'careful what you wish for' should it actually happen! And as for the likes of Spiers...he would waste away with a mystery illness were there no Rangers to blame for the problems in Scotland. How would the sectarianism industry survive without big, bad Rangers to moan about?

That was me, it's supposed to be a joke!

I don't know where to put this so I stuck it in here, sorry if it's the wrong place. Some thoughts on our current predicament and how others, currently gloating, might find their bubble bursting all over their faces. A great ray of sunshine has broken out across Scotland, on this windy and rainy Sunday morning. Speculation is rife about the financial situation at Rangers, the football club based in Glasgow. Are the banks in control? Does the club debt of GBP30m mean imminent liquidation? Is the absentee owner, David Murray, in danger of seeing his business empire collapse? All these and more are the points exercising all thinking men this weekend. They're in danger of missing the most important points about this whole brouhaha, though. Should the worst happen, and Rangers go to the wall, it betokens vast change in Scotland's society. Without this malign, black hearted succubus draining the vitality from the small European country, perpetuating hatred, sectarian conflict and outdated political ideaology, Scotland at last has a chance to move into the 21st century. The removal of Rangers FC will see the country at last learn to love it's vast immigrant Irish populace, afford them their due place in society and not object when celebrate terrorism. In this way, Scotland can show the way forward for countries such as the US, and lead them into loving Al-Queda sympathisers in the States. Also, without the doom-laden horde based at Glasgow's Ibrox Stadium, the rest of Scottish football can finally realise its true potential. For too long held down, unfairly, by the jackboot of Rangers FC, crushing opposition under it's relentless, right wing, thinly disguised quasi-fascist agenda, they can now soar free, as on the wings of doves. We may look forward to Motherwell, Brechin, and Albion Rovers emerging into the broad, sunlit uplands of success and prosperity now that the rule of terror is almost over. You may think I am mistaken, and that the demise, or just strife, of Rangers FC will mean no change whatsoever in Scotland's social problems, and the almost certain re-positioning of Scottish football from the mediocre to the abysmal. But you'd be missing the underlying evil of that club, and how it and it's supporters have strangled Scotland for so many years. This is the start of a new dawn for Scotland; I urge all viewers to look on and see how the country, and it's football, cope with a wounded or dying Rangers.

In a sense the last decade has been a fudge, in that Murray has plainly been wanting out but unable to actually find someone/go through with a deal on some odd moral grounds. However, he was willing to get the hand in pocket from time to time so the club could occassionally spend some money, and function reasonably properly. It certainly wasn't ideal, but it was 'liveable with.' Obviously that's changed of late, and the fudge has turned into a marsh. The finality is that David Murray will be out of Rangers sooner rather than later, and somone else will be in.

I'm even more grateful that we have Walter Smith in charge than ever after all this. He could have come out with quake-like comments about the parlous state of the finances and the uncertainty of the future any time recently, but he waits until we're going through the stickiest of sticky patches, and plays his card at exactly the right moment. Pressure off the team, attention goes (probably exclusively, for this week anyway) onto the board, the bank and Smith himself, who is strong enough to bat away anything he doesn't want to answer on the subject. Masterful. At the same time, we are still (just about) at the top of the league, and showed enough yesterday to suggest there's a bit more fire in the belly. Hopefully that will stay, because it's going to be enough to beat most teams in this poor league. And in all honesty, I'm glad someone, somewhere is doing something about the ownership. I would be (sort of) happy to see Murray remain; I would be happy to see a new owner. What we can't have is a fudge, a middle ground with no leadership, so while it is worrying to hear rumours and stories, at least there's a finality to the whole thing which suggests it might be over sooner rather than later - and that's got to be a good thing.

I can't believe the reaction to this from some posters is to have a go at Edu for being naive or an attention seeker. There's only one response to this, and that's the one the club have done: condemnation and 100% support for an employee.

It's not so much getting us forward in Europe as much as getting a professional, European mentality into the place. But we know how that ended up before. Levein is a pussy who can't handle the pressure of Dundee Utd without cracking up, and acting like a 10 year old. There's more to being the manager of Rangers FC than being able to organise a decent side, although admittedly that would be a step forward atm. There's no strength of character inside Levein; he wouldn't last two years at Rangers.

An irrelevance. But he opens to door for the petty minded amongst us to lodge a complaint with the BBC, as he now signs himself off with 'Just for the record, I'm Jim Traynor' when on air. Hilarious, I'm sure you'll agree. But in contravention of BBC rules, I fear.

In the cold light of day Nacho isn't going to improve a poor, poor side. I appreciate his effort as much as the next man, and he seems to have a voodoo sign over 'them', but ability wise I'm not convinced.

The Rumanians can sign players we can't get due to work permit regulations: but we probably wouldn't sign them, and if we did we probably wouldn't play them, and if we did we'd probably play them out of position anyway.

Words fail me.

Far be it for me to doubt the word of Muff, but if that's a lift from a FIFA guideline, it's the most informal statement they've ever put out. Sounds a lot more like someone Scottish talking, which makes me suspicious straight away!

http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/vb/showthread.php?t=14098 The SPL nails its colours to the mast.

Makes you wonder who did best out the war, sometimes. But then, they have created the huge interest amongst a new market (women, families, more middle class people) who can afford the tickets and are seemingly happy to be ripped off; we have no comparable market and are just sucking the money from people who have been going for years anyway...and who should probably use the money to better purpose, in all honesty. Scottish football needs to decide whether it is going to ferociously target the middle class, family, audience: in which case, we'll see more Spiers-type coverage to drive out the traditional audience, or stick to the base customer, in which case the price has to come down. Or there's the 3rd way, where a traditional audience is charged super-modern prices, and the games withers away into an irrelevance. I know I said a tenner earlier, but I suppose for 2 hours 'entertainment' I could grudgingly stump up $15, but not a penny more.

Absolutely not. Anything over ten pounds is overpricing Scottish football, Old Firm included.

You'd struggle to phone me, my moby is permanently out of charge/credit. Maybe he's just absent minded, who knows? If they introduce a category in the 2014 Olympics for Mountain Making out of Molehills, Scotland can rest assured of one gold, at least, to mark the by-then Workers' Socialist Republic's sporting debut on the world stage.

But don't you think the players are holding all the cards? Suppose Walter and Ally go into the office tomorrow, and the first thing on the agenda is the lack of fire from the go, especially in the middle. OK, says Walter, let's drop Kevin, to show them all. Who comes in? Long silence. The only alternative to the usual set up would be to go with Nacho and Naismith wide, with Boyd and Miller through the middle. Even then you'd still be using the same players in the middle, be it Mendes or Davis. Unless there's an alternative, like an Edu or a Barry, the players know that come hell or high water they'll be in the next team. The management's hands are tied to such a ludicrous degree.

Do call me Andy, please.

We don't have the luxury of dropping him for the CL game. We must play our best players, regardless of whether or not they act like brats. We're all over a barrel, but then, we're in it together as well. There's no point cutting off the nose to spite the face.

He's missing all the good weather, too.

What idiot wrote that? The only John I can think of is Hartson, in which case I assume it's a sympathetic squib from a friend in the papers. But it's wishful thinking. He's a good player, McGeady, but he hasn't done it for nearly 2 season now: that's not a dip in form, the form he's showing now IS his class.

Just makes me sad that Remembrance Sunday gets hijacked by people for the wrong reasons, every year it seems. I doubt many people who died in various wars did so in order that football fans could score points over each other, but then that goes with freedom of speech.