andy steel

Your biggest problem will be getting people to 'out' themselves as Rangers fans on podcasts and the like. It's easier getting people to admit they vote Labour than publicly declare themselves Bluenoses.

Jings, I think now that the existential threat has been removed I'll choke back on the messageboard side of things. What a depressing read even Gersnet has been since Saturday afternoon!

Good to know that Kenny McDowall wants out asap, that should be easy to arrange. Good to hear that McCoist is on board with the resigning and freeing up the money idea. I can't exactly say I'd be overjoyed at Walt3r, but I wouldn't be distraught either. It might be a pragmatic way out of a very, very knotty problem.

1st Saturday will give a better indication. My youngest has a school choices meeting between 7-8 so I can't make it, but you don't get things like that on a Saturday.

Moving forward as one is a no in your eyes then?

It's not, no. I should probably say why.

Our club came close to ceasing to exist, certainly once and very likely again just recently. We have no coaches or management, and a team which, to judge from the match thread, is not just the worst Rangers team ever but in the running for worst football team ever. But when I come on here, it's the same people fighting over the same crap, day after day, post after post. Far too many online fans can't get past their own avatar and see what's obvious to any real fan, that the club comes first, second and last and that without the club there's nothing.

I've moaned about this on other fronts over the years and I'm sick of it. Get heads out of baksides and shoulders to the wheel and we will at least get better and probably get back to something approaching how we were. Tbh I don't want to be beside you and people like you, or those who were on the fan board and who spent time fighting other fans. I've had enough of parasites who suck the life out of Rangers because they have some personal issues which, seemingly, can only be resolved by creating a new persona on the back of Rangers. I've had enough of people squabbling about who did what to whom and when.

No-one ever asked me for their support (well, the RFB did but I didn't bother with it) so I doubt they, or you, will give much of a monkey's. But for clarity and just so's you and the rest of the people who assisted, deliberately or otherwise, the madmen in their hatchet job on Rangers know, as far as this this Bear is concerned you're not wanted.

A very well written piece.

But I won't forget that some members of the RFB were virulently anti-Sos, UoF etc to an extent McMurdo would have been proud of. They were happy enough to see BH kicked off - I may not agree with much of what BH posts, but that should have been a tipping point and it wasn't, because members put their and his personality before the club.

The only thing I want to see out of the RFB is FS co-opted as technical adviser for disability issues (I had no idea things were so bad, as usual we care little about what doesn't affect us) - that apart its history and, tbh, miniscule mandate, mean its a goner for me.

Ah sod it. I'm just going to say what I'm thinking - these people are not 'Rangers fans' as McMurdo put it. The club would be much better off without them, so hopefully they will decide not to go to games, comment online, and basically vanish.

I remember getting slung out of a pub in Paisley when we started singing that. The regulars must have thought we were the Salvation Army come to save their souls, but if I remember aright we were just steaming. The bouncers must have been Cub Scouts, though, as they lobbed us unceremoniously onto the street, upon which outrage we regaled passers-by with the theme tune from 'Heidi' until the bouncers came back outside & threatened us with dire consequences unless we beat it. There was about half a dozen of us at it.

Ah, youth.

Was it Johnson who said, regarding that other dismal thread about who was right and when, 'no one ever wished it was longer'?

Aye, that was classic. 'AIM are a company who have to think about their reputation', warned Baldy McLaughlin, hinty darkly at behind the scenes unease. 'They are getting twitchy about what's happening at Rangers'. Given what we now know about AIM that has to be up there with some of Green's bullshit.

Irvine's puppet, right to the very end.

The initial reaction has to be good riddance.

Panic over - BBC has Spence & Hugh MacDonald on, which is pretty conclusive proof that we're getting somewhere.

Spence is doing a pretty good Rangerrab impression, by the way.

Surely, even under the Godforsaken entrepreneur culture, this kind of move has to be barred under the present circumstances?

What time do the courts shut at?

Not sure I believe anything Llambias says, mind you....

He's not actually worth anything. At the risk of sounding almost religious, you can't take it with you and it is by your actions that your worth is judged.

Ergo, Ashley = worthless.

Oh please...oh please...

The thing is Andy if you take Phil many names and some of the other journalists, they are not looking for a middle ground they just spend their days looking for a stick to beat us with. If They can't find one then they will invent one. These people will never be objective no matter how much we cuddle up to them. Their whole outset in life is to hurt us.

Absolutely agree with Thinker - how pathetic must it be to live your life like the people you mention?

But there's no question of cuddling up to people, simply giving them no genuine ground for complaint. I doubt anyone is naive enough to imagine that Rangers being run well and fans packing in the occasional lurch into bigotry will stop the attacks; but it would reveal them as agenda driven and ever so slightly obsessive.

There is a small pool of decent journalists. However, there's also a range of pond life who are not and who we must continue to scrutinise as this journey starts for real later this week.

That's a natural reaction to some of the coverage we get from the more outre writers, and I sometimes share it in my more emotional moments, but I don't believe it can ever reap any kind of benefit to the club. It's like my other hat, the political one - some colleagues want to inflict dire retribution on the media outlets who are, shall we say, unfavourable to the cause. But I firmly believe that this is self defeating, that constantly hitting media bodies over the head and creating a permanent division will never bring them around to being more amenable. Building bridges where possible and, crucially, being competent on and off the pitch will leave critics, no matter how articulate, looking like serial whiners rather than ideological crusaders for peace and harmony.

Since there's no way to control what appears in print, online and on air, the best - the only - approach is to influence as best you can. That's impossible with a policy of confrontation - Alistair Campbell had short term success but in a few years it went very wrong for him. It may not be popular, but a twin strategy of achieve and persuade will result in much more positive coverage than all the bans or scrutiny ever could.

Nothing wrong with him as it stands - like I say, he's well respected and there is puff piece after puff piece available about him.

 

Will that change when he joins Rangers? For some success may not come into it.

Ah right, I see. Maybe in a minority of one but outside of extremists on one side and those who must sook in to earn a living on the other I can't see much wrong in the coverage we get form the small pool of people whose opinions are worth reading.

Progress will be slow.....we need to re-learn how to walk, before we run.

 

DK needs to put together a solid infrastructure that will support a successful 1st team. It will take time to ensure the right people are in place. Providing there are signs of progress/improvement, folk will be happy.

If you'd said 'some' folk will be happy, I'd agree, but I can see great swathes of threads full of moaning and groaning about things not happening overnight coming over the hills...

The appointment of Cathro as Rangers head coach really would confuse swathes of the Scottish media who've bummed him up for long enough.

How so? Sorry for being slow, but is there something wrong with him?

Too Early Loyal, I think.

There was an admiring piece on Cathro in the paper yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/mar/02/valencia-real-sociedad-la-liga-david-moyes-ian-cathro

What we need is a real manager, if only for 6 months or so. What we'll probably never have is someone we all warm to immediately. Likewise, what a manager does at one club does not exactly relate to what he can and will do at another. The current options will be limited, but let's wait and see what the new board will do about this. Debating speculation is quite pointless, not least when we hardly have a clue about the new board's intentions.

I agree with Jackson - what we need is to appreciate that it's going to take years of work to get back on an even keel, let alone back to any kind of success. Championship, SPL, this season or the one after...there's bigger fish to fry, ludicrous though it sounds, before we should be moaning about which league we're in.

I mean, I know we all say we get this, but will we really be willing to put up with more years of thin gruel without beefing too much?

Character is going to be very much needed, maybe even more so than over the last few years. Though in fairness, I was ready to give up in despair a few short months ago, so it shows you what I know.

N

 

You can always come to our dinner on April 11th and meet him.

I could come straight from campaigning, with my party hi-vis on. Should raise a tidy sum if I bring my collecting buckets!