Tannochsidebear

The ammunition is there against any club's fans, it is only us that continually get it blown all over the press. Every club of any decent size has a following from all walks of life, with lawyers, doctors, academics mingled with office workers, building site workers, shop assistants mingled with unemployed, criminals, and neds. In our fanbase, we are not unique as a club to have some fans who want to cause trouble, both at the games, and when no football is on at all. The point is there is a clearly defined media bias against Rangers supporters, driven by our enemies, and not defended by us or our club, so that we even get complete non-stories like eggs benedict and pepperami, the lotto winning thug always called "Rangers fan" and the continual drip-drip effect of negative press. The press have as much access to stories that paint other clubs fans in a similarly bad light, but choose not to do so, or edit it in such a way to take out the sectarian element of timmy crimes. That they choose not to portray other clubs in the same light is the real question.

This is exactly the response I predicted from not just you, but a lot of Rangers supporters who have become disillusioned with the goings on at the RST, and I perfectly understand it, and probably agree with a lot of it. At the break yesterday, I had this very discussion with 2 RST board members, and told them they had no chance of unity within the Rangers support until they can prove absolutely 100% that they are being open, honest, and totally inclusive, and whatever has happened in the past remains there, and we look to move forward together. The impression I got from them, and also MD and SS during the meeting, is exactly that. Anything that has happened before cannot be reversed, but can be put aside. The olive branch is most certainly out from the RST to appeal to all bears to get together and move forward collectively. This is 100% not about who is running the RST in 2009, but about the survival of the club. It is my impression that, at long last, they have realised that forever looking backward, playing the blame game, and being reactionary, is not a policy that wins many friends. But being positive, forward thinking, and working with others, is the only way to go. What they are asking for, is for you to put aside your personal issues with them, and back the idea of the fans coming together with the cash to save our club. The time to watch with interest is gone, it is time to put your hand in your pocket and save your club. If you decide not to do your bit due to your personal issues with those who are trying to make a difference with this, that is entirely your right and decision to make. There is no time to wait around for a change of leadership in the RST, or to see if they have truly changed their outlook above the passionate words, I suppose it comes down to wether you can give them the benefit of the doubt from within yourself, wether you can rise above it yourself and commit to the future of the club itself over the individuals who previously have gone in entirely a different tangent to where you would like them to. Quite simply there is no other group doing this, as all the groups are together on this, and if you decide to sit around waiting for the white knight to come along, you may be even more disappointed than if you back this, and find out later that it didnt work to your satisfaction. It must be worth the gamble, given the situation the club is in?

The fact that this is the generally held belief of non-OF fans is as a direct result of the drip-drip effect of countless negative stories against us in the press over the last couple of decades. There are too many examples to mention specifically, but one that was pointed out to me at the last Gerspride conference by Professor Steve Bruce, who was written books on sectarianism, was the way a certain story was run by two different papers. The local paper ran the story of s few neds with celtic tops causing damage and setting fire to a CoS church. Police were appealing for witnesses etc, and set out descriptions of the neds, complete with celtic tops in the descriptions. The national paper (the record i think) ran the same story, but dropped all mentions of the neds being celtic fans in celtic tops, even dropping this from the descriptions in the police appeal. This is a clear indication of the press "cleaning up" a negative celtic story. In the same paper it ran a story of a rangers fan in trouble for something else, and they managed to find a picture of said fan in his colours, and over-emphasised the story in far greater detail than the much worse church fire. The Prof showed many mroe examples of this, and it was clear that this drip-drip effect will get into the heads of neutral readers and ensure they come up with the pre-determined notion that Rangers/Prods are the bad guys and that Celtic/Tims are the good guys. This is why the club's policy of no comment on any anti-Rangers stories, and the fact we do not even have quiet stern words with regular offending journos and their editors, has resulted in open season on us, and will take years and years of reversal of policy to eradicate this bias.

The only thing I can take out of that disgusting piece of shit, typical of English's rantings that would be more in place on messageboards than broadsheets, is the cold hard fact that UEFA have determined that the attack on Dida was far worse than the 3 minute scuffle in Bucharest, in financial terms. A cold hard fact I will be reminding Timmy of in future.

Getting back to the OP, I totally agree and have been saying for years also that this myth and dream of playing in any other league but our own Scottish version is complete and utter tosh, and should never be seen as a viable alternative to us. We are a Scottish club, and the most successful one at that, and we are rightly proud of this, and our history backs this up all the way back to the Gallant Pioneers. Fashions come and go, and right now the SKY money has turned the English league into something no other league in world football can compete with. So why should we always try to compare our lot with that of a country 10 times bigger than us, just because they are our nearest neighbours? It is completely ridiculous. We can continue to strive to be the best we can be, and over the last decade at least even this most basic of aims has been downgraded due to the total mismanagement of the club at all levels, but particularly the owner. We have been on a downward spiral of negativity, driven by our owners neglect, bad financial decisions, poor media work, poor performances on the park as well, and the acceleration to the abyss has only been tempered by occassional highlights, with 3 last day titles and one great European run, which only came about because we failed to get through our CL group after being in an almost uncatchable position at the halfway stage. I have no doubt that if we get our house in order, on and especially off the field, get a togetherness and a family spirit back to the club, stop pandering to our enemies, we will become the force we all want to be. Yes, tv money means we cannot compete with the top English clubs, but neither can anyone else, so take them out of the equation and we can still have qualified success on the European stage, as our fanbase can generate other revenue streams can allow us to compete with most countries best teams. It is only the negative way Murray has run us down that has us all thinking we cannot compete with anyone, as that is what we have been fed for the last decade.

I put the following report on to RM and thought, as well as UCB's update, I would copy/paste it to here to add to the debate. The first speaker was Jens Wagner, from the HSV Supporters Club. He spoke very well, aided by a powerpoint presentation, on how the club is structured. As most will know Hamburg is 100% fan owned, and he told us they now have 52,000 members paying 48 euros per year. Half of that goes to running the Supporters club, and half goes into the club budgets. The Supporters club is responsible for all ticketing, all other sports that Hamburg are involved in, kids clubs, seniors clubs etc, and all these off-shoots have their own democratically elected boards that report back to the Supporters club board, who in turn elect the Board of Directors, who appoint the manager and run the club day to day. All board positions except one are voluntary, with over 300 elected unpaid officials throughout the vast network of boards and off-shoots. This took my breath away at the size and structure of things at Hamburg, and anyone who thinks we could turn our club into a fan-owned club overnight, even if we had the money, got the reality check of the situation by listening to Jens. He answered many questions also, and was very informative and his English was excellant, and was greatly appreciated and thanked by the 150 strong crowd. Next up was James Proctor, a Raith Rovers fan who works for Supporters Direct, who are a government funded organisation set up to help fans groups set up and run supporters trusts throughout the UK. James spoke very well on this, and very interestingly about UEFA's take on fan ownership, how the EU's freedom of labour movements laws are trying to find some common ground with football players contractual rules, and where he sees UEFA going with club licensing. After a coffee break, Catalan Councillor David Palomar showed a short video of the history of Espanyol, and blew away the myths surrounding the club that seem to have been accepted as fact over the decades, and have done the club no favours whatsoever. He clearly points the finger at Barcelona FC and the Barca press for this dirty tricks campaign, and this culminated with Espanyol nearly going out of business, with their ground being sold off to pay off debts, and not having won a trophy of any kind for 60 years between 1940-2000. It didn't take much to see the similarities of our own situation regarding the way we are demonised in the press, but gave some hope that it is not a lost cause, and once they got themselves organised and the fans got behind the club and they found their proper marketing tools, they have really prospered in the last few years. There was then an open floor for questions to the 3 speakers plus Stephen Smith and Mark Dingwall from the RST, and for around 45 minutes many topics were discussed. The main subject was of course our own situation and what the trust were planning to do. Both Stephen and Mark spoke well and passionately about working as a unified group in conjunction with the Assembly and Association. There was a real desire from the floor to get a scheme in place to try to raise cash to help the club, and of course the trust has the Gersave scheme already regulated and in place, but it may need some tweeking to allow it to accept funds for this. The RST announced they have been speaking to former players about figureheading the campaign, to give all fans a uniting voice to rally behind, and they have also been speaking to potential big investors, and while they have got encouraging signs, we cannot afford to sit around and wait for our white knight, we the fans must do this ourselves. Plans are almost ready to be unveiled to raise whatever cash we can all put in to save our club, and asked for a little more time to ensure they get it right. They are studying 17 different types of schemes that have been used elsewhere and have been suggested for us, and they are very aware of the need to get it right, as only by getting it right will it appeal to enough people to make a difference. All in all it was a very positive meeting, probably the best one the RST have done in years, as they focused on the positive, did not resort to having a go at anyone or blame anyone, assured everyone of unity within the fans groups, and were completely focused on what had to be done, and stated they were determined not to let us down. Like everyone else, I can only hope that the people they are talking to are the right ones, with the right motives, that the scheme they choose to take this forward is the most well balanced and wide-ranging system available, that they ask for and take seriously the advice of bears from outside the board of the RST for a different angle on things, and that they produce their blueprint quickly to ensure that the momentum gathered since "Waltergate" is not lost. Let us not forget that the transfer window opens in 47 days, and that if there is nothing in place for the security of our club at that time, the bank will seek to recover whatever funds it can, and the vultures will be circling for a bargain. Now is not the time for petty squabbling, for bringing up what the RST did before, or what people got banned for on another website. Quite simply this is so much bigger than all of us. Perhaps only once in the history of a football club will it be in a position like this. It has fallen to our generation to save our club. Be under no illusions that a white knight will definately come to the rescue with �£100M and everything will be good again. That may of course happen, but in this climate it is highly unlikely. No, fellow bears, it is up to us to save our club. We quite simply have no other choice, we have to act now, as the consequences of not acting are unthinkable

Bluedell, Agree with most of your comments on the AJ interview. My own reading of the beholden to the board was tht he was beholden to his MIH board, but continued to do things that his RFC board didn't agree with. I thought AJ was making the distiction between the parent group board and the RFC board. Could be wide of the mark there, but that was the way I read it.

Looking forward to this tomorrow, and it appears all the more timely given the recent discussions about fan ownership. How many are going from Gersnet?

Agreed:thup:

The money gets paid at the end of the group stages.

Either way works for me Frankie. As long as the end product is a CEO that does the job properly, I dont really care what his motivation is. I suppose that just reflects the rest of society, where employers are looking for good workers, not fans of the company. The reality with Bain is that, like with Murray, time will tell. You can only polish a turd for so long!!

WTF, a balanced article by a Scottish journalist. How the hell did that get out? A good read that, proper jornalism.

It is hard not to like the interview given by our new chairman, and I can understand some bear's cynacism regarding the content, given the last decade at our club. And of course, he is not operating freely at the club either, with banking restrictions, and still a 90% shareholder to satisfy, and the knowledge that a new buyer will have to happen before the 2010 AGM, it does not really give him the tools to run the club in line with his personal ideals. But what has ben significant since Murray ws "sacked" by the bank, is that not only has AJ came out with some clever statements that dont quite stick the knife into Murray, but can certainly be viewed as strongly critical of Murray's running of the club, we also appear to have seen a new Martin Bain being unleashed since Murray's departure. Read any of my posts on Bain while Murray was in charge and you will know I am not a fan, but I have been impressed with the change in him since Murray has left, he has been more visible and vocal, more supportive of the fans, and his aggresive defense of the club against the bank's position a couple of weeks ago which did not get much attention, but I hear was worthy of high praise. It just may be that we are starting to see the post-Murray era at Rangers bring in a new era of openness and honesty, which is after all the very least we deserve.

What was all that about then? Loss in keeping with most estimates, and a no-brainer without Euro football and the singings made in summer 2008. Fine smaller than expected, no ban, seems Bain done a great job of putting our case forward. UEFA are never going to let those pictures get seen around Europe and let us off, so a small fine is accetable. EPL2 kicked into touch, as it should be, another good result for us, IMO. A pretty satisfying day all round I would think.

The problem is, we can certainly accept the financial penalties that come along with minor disturbances once every few years, and can continue to point out the numbers involved in Rangers travelling to other places in Europe is probably consistently larger than any other club in Europe, but UEFA do not see it that way. None of us know the solution to the dilemma, but someone (Bain) at the club has to make a decision, after carefully looking at the possible actions and reactions to whatever solution is put in place. We are all very good at having a go at those running the club when they make decisions (myself right up there I know), but this is one decision most of us dont envy him having to make, and he has to make it quickly. My educated guess is that UEFA are going to issue a fine and last warning to us tomorrow, that last warning being any more crowd unrest from us and we are out of competitions. As so much of our entire budget is made up of European income, a season without European income is financially disastrous, so we certainly cannot go on hoping to avoid trouble, and wishing we could get rid of that small number who cannot turn the other cheek when provoked.

The problem is Frankie, all that already happens and has happened for years. The advance party go out and agree with the locals what will happen come matchnight, how many turnstiles will be open, where we are allowed to place our stewards, buses, etc. What happened in Romania was that all the things we had agreed to with the Romanians then didn't happen when it came to matchnight. The problems for this all clearly lie with the Romanians, and they will be punished for it, but that doesn't get away from the fact that a small number of us took the bait that was laid out in front of us, again, and we clearly cannot continue to get it right 90% of the time, only to be let down by poor organisational work from our hosts, and us getting into trouble as tension rises. It was very noticable that the normal number of Rangers vested stewards were not outside our turnstiles in Bucharest, and as they were taken to Romania with us, I can only assume there presence was not welcomed by the Romanian officials despite prior arrangements. Anyway, back to the question, we have a problem for Seville, you are in charge of the club, what do you do?

You see, MF, if everyone just wanted to follow the team, have a good day/couple of days away, and be intelligent enough to avoid any flashpoints, this thread would not exist. Unfortunately, not everyone is like that, and while we are talking about probably less than 1% of our travelling totals cause any grief at all, this tiny minority get all the publicity, and take away from all the good relations built up with 99% of our support and the locals in whatever city we go to. But the question is not what would you do with the time off and tickets to go, it was put yourself in the club's position, with the good of the club at stake, and decide what to do for the best. It is a tough position to be in, and we all think we can run the club better than those currently doing it, so here we are with a real live situation, what do you do?

So, hypothetically, whoever is running our club these days passes the buck over to the good bears on RM to decide what we should do regarding our match in Seville next month. Now it is your job to put the interests of the club first and foremost to secure our European future. Dont just answer because you are already booked up, this is only hypothetical remember. Here is the situation I want you all to answer. UEFA fine us for the events in Bucharest, and warn us that we are on our last warning, and any further problems WILL result in our expulsion from UEFA competitions for the next 2 seasons. So, you have a decision to make regarding our game in Seville. Do you; 1. Refuse to take any allocation for the match, knowing it will badly let down decent Rangers fans who have already made bookings, and will affect the team by having no support for what could be the match that decides our last 16 fate. 2. Take the tickets, but only enough for official day trip Thomas Cook charter flight travel club members, with no independants, and herd them about all day. 3. Take the full allocation, but only distribute tickets at the ground 2 hours before kick off, and not to anyone who has been drinking heavily. 4. Take the full allocation, distribute as usual and hope this game passes off as peacefully as the vast majority of games. In addition to the above 4 options, if you believe there is a better alternative, please vote for 5. Other option, and put your preferred option on this post. I am just interested in the views of fellow bears, especially the ones who travel to European away games as to what we all think should happen, given the problem the club now has with UEFA.

I really believe it has to be OMOV here. We can create other avenues for corporate sponsorship, but our voting rights should be untouchable to the corporate world, this ensures our supporter driven identity going forward, and we cannot become disenfranchised by big corporates buying up the voting rights. It is exactly this scenario, where Murray had all the power and was untouchable, that got us into this mess, and we must ensure that our future blueprint, as much as we can, avoids any chance of a corporate takeover. OMOV, the same membership fee for everyone all over the world, and democratic elections every3-4 years to appoint the chairman. Potential chairmen have to spell out their manifesto to the fans, and we vote for the one we like the best, and as we have all had an equal say, we can have no complaints about the victor.

Who would lead it is not important in the short term as democratic elections take place every few years. What is very important to any successful change to fan ownership would be the price of membership and the benefits of membership. This was the main topic of discussion for me and my mates in our Bucharest restaurant. It costs 155 euros to be a member at Barcelona, and 48 euros at Hamburg. That is quite a gap, however there may be more benefits at Barca, or it is just that they have many more international members, they can afford to have a high members price. A guy off my bus became a Barca member when we played them in 2007 and got lots of tickets through his membership!! My initial thoughts would be that a fee of around �£100 per year would be an appropriate level. The benefits would include 5% discount off any match tickets and season tickets, perhaps 10% off club restaurants and shops, both online and megastores. Arranged discounts for members with our club sponsors (car hire, mobiles, etc), and most importantly, your vote for members reps on the board itself. For overseas bears, clearly there is not as much benefits to be had as those in the UK, but there would be discounts on Rangers tv, and online shops. I have been planning to do a much more in-depth analysis of this for ages, so the above is only my first thoughts on what could be included. Obviously there has to be some common sense applied, as the membership fees are going to be a significant source of income to the club each year, and we dont want to give all the value away in discounts and freebies, but we have to give enough to make it an attractive proposition. Finally, I would make renewal date 1 January each year, so as it becomes the perfect xmas gift for bears worldwide.

I am a member and supporter of the RST, and would love for there to be genuine fan ownership of our club. However I have to agree that I would not want the RST in it's current set-up to be the ones running this, nor do I think for one minute that they would, or could, get the fans onside enough to let this happen. That of course is an entirely different subject altogether from wether fan ownership would work for a club like ours, and bears should be careful to distinguish between the two. I would think that a fan run club, properly done, would be the best thing that could possibly happen to us, and I think that every avenue should be explored to make this happen. In my book, if this was to happen, it would mean the end of the RST, as it's primary aim would be accomplished, and I am very interested to hear more from the Hamburg model on saturday to see how things actually "work" within the club, appointing officials, boards, properly representing the majority view of the fans, how they find out what the majority view is etc. I dont think anyone should se this as a way for the RST to take over the club, as from what I can see, it is entirely the opposite that would happen should fan ownership ever happen.

Or of course the SFA could have done the right thing and sacked Burley for failing to come in the top 2 in the easiest group possible, and dropping our nation quickly down the rankings that Walter and Alex had worked so hard to get us up into the top 20, and all with the same players of course. At the removal of Burley, the SFA could have appointed the right man (Souness, surely) and wiped the slate clean and start again, allowing the manager to pick the best players available to him without conditions attached. That would see a much stronger Scotland squad to allow us to at least pretend we can qualify for EURO 2012, instead of another few embarressments surely coming in the next campaign under Burley's charge, with lots of call-offs and reports of unrest and ill-discipline. As for Burley going back and picking McGregor and/or Boyd, there is absolutely no chance of that coming from Burley, and probably even less chance either would accept a call-up from someone who has treated them so poorly in the past.

The draw has been made and we got St Johnstone.

I thought this was about the easiest MOTM to pick all season. Boyd's running, chasing, controlling, linking-up, bringing other players into the game, and finishing, is what we all keep getting told only Kenny Misser can do, but Boyd done that better on Saturday than Miller has done at any time in his Rangers career. Only those looking for faults in his game can deny that, IMO. Other good performances came from Fleck, who linked up well with Boyd up front in a surprise move by Walter, Wilson, another mature performance had bears saying Madjid who?, and McGregor, keeping up his fine recent run of form. Disappointed with Naismith, Novo and Davis, who can all do much better than they showed us on Saturday. Now if only we had managed to get the game finished at Tannadice we would be clear at the top again, and heap more pressure on monkey-heid.

If there is an option for "sold to the highest bidder in January", I am getting more inclined to vote for it. Davis main weakness is his inconsistency. I said it when he was here on loan, and said it all last season, and here we are again. Some players can perform to a certain level most weeks, with the odd game being above that level, and the odd game being below that level. The problem with Davis is that his level is not comparable to his ability, and that his "normal" level is where his below average level should be. I think we can all see that on top form he is a very good midfield player, with good vision, a good engine, and can create chances. This form only appears around 10 times a season, which may be good enough for Fulham, but is certainly not good enough for Rangers. I have been waiting patiently for him to come good. I was told when he was on loan that once he is signed for good he will settle down, then it was he was being played too often out of position, then his mothers death, then niggling injury, then out of position again, then too many changes in who he was playing beside, then too much being placed on him. As far as I am concerned, now nearly two full years into his Rangers career, there are no more excuses, and the truth is his a frustratingly inconsistent player that we cannot rely upon to perform when we need him most, as we dont know if we are going to be graced with one of his better performances, that we should see as only his average performances anyway, and even rarer, a great performance. For �£3.5M and �£25Kpw, he is now a luxury we cannot afford, so he either steps up to the plate between now and the opening of the window, or I would have no hesitation in accepting a bid of around what we paid for him.