Tannochsidebear

The total od rising stars tickets sold for the draw tomorrow is now expected to reach around the 40,000 mark. This is down almost entirely to the work of a select few individuals who have gotten the RSC's involved for this respectful campaign. From what is normally a �£2,000 first prize on matchday sales of around the 5,000 mark, tomorrow's draw will be a world record for a half-time draw prize, as prizes are in direct relation to the amount raised and has to be 40% of the total. We are looking at a first prize tomorrow of around �£16,000, with the winner receiving their cheque at half time during the upcoming old firm game. For any bears who have not already bought a ticket, this would be the very draw to do so.

Edu for me, a fantastic first half, topped off with a goal, and good defensive work in the second half. Whittaker also did well on his wrong side, and Boyd got another goal and generally worked a lot harder than of late, certainly outworking his two forward companions last night in Novo and Naismith.

The scale of change required at National level is almost on a par with the scale of change required at our club. Both institutions have gotten stale, corrupt, and lost the focus of what it was they were there for in the first place. As far as Peat is concerned, I refer back to my post earlier in this thread. Nothing has changed in this regard, and he is well out of his depth. Remind me again which club he ran into the ground and how they are doing now? As for the SFA, SPL and SFL, we are too small to have 3 gravy trains in our country. They have to merge, become one streamlined organisation with a proper CEO in charge of it who does not answer to any committees of part-time, self-interest seeking blazers who cannot even run their own clubs successfully. Kick out Queens Park from Hampden. They clearly cannot afford a market value rent for a 52,000 stadium when their crowds rarely exceed 1,000. So it is unfair to every other club in the SFL that they get such an advantage. This might even help the much-criticised pitch. I would not have spent the money on upgrading Hampden either. Murrayfield is a fantastic stadium and it is only the thought of 52,000 old firm fans on the M8 that worries people. However these events are quite rare so should pose no problem, as alternatives include alternating between Ibrox and the piggery if the OF meet in cup semis or finals, or make them two-legged affairs, with the proceeds from the extra game going to charity. But it is done now, so we have to make the most of it, and we clearly do not. We are also making a laughing stock of the game by insisting that the cup semi between Dunfermline and Falkirk is played at Hampden. Surely a full Easter Road would make for a better spetacle than a quarter full Hampden?

I have my problems with Ferguson's form and fitness since his return from Blackburn, and especially the last 2 seasons where he has looked well past his best. But I will not accept PLG's slaughtering of him at face value, when it has been thought and finally confirmed by Murray in his 20th anniversary interview on Radio Scotland last November, that PLG was a sly bassa that was working his ticked out and had been tapped by PSG as early as October, coinciding with negative stories starting to come out about unity. PLG made an almighty dogs dinner of the job at Ibrox, completely underestimating the importance of bringing in a Scottish coaching assistant to guide him through our system and style, not doing his homework on us or our opponents despite knowing he was starting the job for 6 months and being only a pundit for this time, he could easily have done a far better job. The reality of the PLG situation is he was a typical Froggy coward who, at the first sign of trouble, bottled it completely and walked out. The fact he took Ferguson down with him was only because Ferguson, as his captain, was trying to be helpful, and PLG's arrogance refused it. I will be happy to have Ferguson sold in the summer, but only because his form does not justify the salary.

Couple of pointers, Davis was suspended and you forgot to mention a third Rangers player playing for Scotland. Someone who when put clean in on goal failed to even get a shot away!! Perhaps it was intentional and if so, even better!

I only mentioned the league cup as it was an OF final, and the momentum would/should have taken us on towards the title!!

I try to take an interest in the National team, and under Smith and then Eck I was starting to even watch the games again. But Burley's appointment over Souness was the single most ridiculous appointment in Scottish football since Dr Jo. His attacks since on Boyd, Broadfoot, and generally picking and playing donkeys like Iwoogiewoogie or whatever the big lump is called, has yet again turned me away. I would add that the Scumtanta contract now means I wont even watch most Scotland games, and instead of going to the pub to watch them as I did for the France and Italy matches during the last campaign, I am going to see Jimmy Carr at the SECC and I think I have the better deal. Anyway, back to the original question, I would expect the poll results to be heavily slanted on this forum, given it is a Rangers forum, but to add it a bit further I would prefer we won the league cup recently against the scum than Scotland won the world cup. It is that big a gap.

The scary thing about these Levein rumours is that they keep appearing. It is becoming scarily reminiscent of late 2001 when there were loads of rumours of DA being moved upstairs and McLeish being brought in. Of course I told everyone that was rubbish and there was no way a manager of McLeish's calibre would take over from someone like Advocaat. And of course I was wrong and the appointment was announced days later, and the major cost-cutting and player fire-sale began as our debt mountain started to decline. Oh so scarily similar to the position we find ourselves in today.

It is our big name, expensive, big salary players that continue to show only fleeting glimpses of form, and when we need them most to grab a game by the scruff and dominate it, they go hiding. Step forward our two panic, post-Kaunas buys Mendes and Davis. I am on record as saying that I thought Davis was far too inconsistent when on loan last season, and nothing has changed that opinion this season. I would have preferred not to buy him and spend what little money we had on a more consistent option. There is little doubt he has talent and is certainly good enough to be a good player for us, but when the going gets tough, the wee man does a hiding job time after time after time. Mendes loves to play lovely long range passes when we are a couple of goals up and cruising, but when we need to get stuck in and get back in a game or push on to win a game, he has failed us on many occassions this season. His few wonderful goals have papered over a quite inconsistent run of games through the winter. Around �£8M we didn't have spent on these two, in the gamble that they would bring the creativity to ensure the chances were created for our poacher, and they have failed to deliver far too often. The pair of them have 9 games left to raise their game and deliver, or they would not be missed in the coming fire sale.

"Try and run it off son" seems to be the only analysis our staff are able to suggest.

McGregor Whittaker Broadfoot Bougherra Papac Davis Ferguson Mendes Fleck Boyd Lafferty Subs: Alexander, Edu, Naismith, Novo, Aaron. Half Time Rangers 3 (Boyd, Lafferty, Fleck) Jambos 0 Subs used Naismith Novo and Aaron for Boyd Lafferty and Fleck Full Time Rangers 6 (Boyd, Lafferty, Fleck, Novo, Naismith, Aaron) Jambos 0 Rangers announce after the match that Dailly, McCulloch, Webster, Miller, and Hemdani have all agreed to cancel their contracts with immediate effect for no financial compensation as they all agreed to have ripped us off enough already. Rangers manager Walter Smith admitted post-match that he had had a change of heart in the last week and was no longer going to accept second best, and he was going all out to attack every team we play either at home or away, and would no longer sign 30+ duds or pay more than �£1M for any SPL player. He then issued life bans to Spiers, Keevins, Guidi, McNee, and a dozen other scumbag hacks telling them it was no longer open season on our club, and that they were no longer welcome. On hearing this news, the scum from the east end's bottle totally collapsed and Peter Liewell had a heart attack, (which Spiers reported as an attack by a Rangers fan) and Dundee United ran out comfortable 4-0 winners at Tannadice on the Sunday. Nurse!!!!

Just to get back to the original topic if you dont mind me interrupting the political debate for a moment, I was truly stunned to not see a thing about this on Scotland Today or Reporting Scotland last night. It must have been a really busy news day. I just thought that with the BBC always at the very forefront of the sectarian news agenda this would have been right up their street. A former Scottish political leader entering the debate that they are always so keen to talk up. I am sure they just missed it despite it being in the paper and being brought to their attention. Never mind, I am sure they will be back to their neutral best the next time a story appears about sectarianism, and that it will just be a sad coincidence that the story will reflect badly on a Rangers supporter. Some people just get paranoid you know.

Just had a right good look at the BBC website. Knowing how much they pride themselves on highlighting anything to do with the sectarian "debate", I just knew they had picked up on this article and would be giving it the same prominent position in their news and sport sections as previous similar articles where politicians have got involved. They must be really busy with something else as I couldn't find it anywhere. I will go back and check later, they surely wont miss out on this.

An excellant article. I cant believe the Herald published it!! I expect a full retraction of the article and a witch-hunt to commence straight away on McLetchie, exposing him of being worse than evil, or perhaps going further and insinuating he is a Rangers supporter. On the other hand, maybe this will lead to the ever-eager Reporting Scotland teatime programme doing a full report on this. Naw, the first looks more probable.

I think I have a copy at home I got for a birthday or christmas pressy. Haven't opened it, and have no inclination to do so to be honest. After reading the comments above re sectarianism and f*enians, I think it will go straight into the charity bag. If I wanted to read lies like that, I would buy the Daily Record, which I dont. I dont dispute there are probably some good stories about 9IAR, and while it might be a worthwhile read overall, (and lets be honest, a great prize for a free competition), but as with everything to do with Rangers these days, it looks like another opportunity missed to produce a book worthy of the subject matter.

I see Kenny McDowall lost the spin the bottle competition then. Right, who's turn is it to come out with some guff to the bears about us going to do this or that? Today's winner is Kenny McDowall. Here's the script big man, just change the date.

I was actually using this as an example of how ridiculous it is to be saying such things in the first place. Having re-read it, I admit the context could be read differently. Sorry!!

It is very similar to MON in his first season, when even when they were well clear continually said that Rangers were the benchmark and Rangers would come back at them etc etc.

There is a full SPL card on Wed 4th March, and has been scheduled since the fixtures were released last June. While I wish Lee personally a speedy recovery from injury, am I wrong to wish that he is only considered fit enough to play again on March 16?

The two important words omitted from the end of the sentence in the above post .....so soon. Kind of changes the perception of the article a bit dont you agree.

hee hee. I wonder what results they wll get.

Spot on. The only criteria that matters.

From memory Ally, when the split was first introduced the way they solved the problem if an unseeded team made the top 6 was to swap the unseeded team's fixtures around the old firm fixtures. This resulted in us having to go to Aberdeen for a third time that season. A few years later, using that rule would have meant us having an easier run-in than the mopes. When the fixtures were announced for the post-split games, we were sent up to Aberdeen for the third time that season again. The excuse from the SPL was that the rule had changed and it was now the 6th place team who would get their fixture changed as that was seen to be the less important fixture to change. What it is now, is anyone's guess. I remember it well as at the time I was at the Scottish Grand National at Ayr when the fixtures were released for the post-split and had a mate who I had been discussing this with the previous day phone me to tell me about the fixtures and the reason given, despite there being nothing in the papers about it, or on their web-site since the previous time it had happened. Perhaps if journalism in this country was of a better standard, the papers would have been asking the SPL to set out their reasoning in advance. It would surely make for a better article than another transfer rumour non-story.

I do see that argument as well Frankie, but in our midfield Ferguson has hardly played a forward pass this season, Davis only really works when coming inside (which if we had a mroe mobile forward, he would probably be in the same space that Davis is moving into), and our lack of real width has been a problem since the return of Walter. So I dont really see what better options we woud have if we had a more all-round CF instead, but I do see that a more mobile CF would not be in the kind of positions that our poacher extraordinaire takes up. You cant coach that, it is natural talent, despite it looking quite cumbersome at times!!

The wholly frustrating thing about that whole debacle was its total avoidability. Smith took our entire budget (�£6M) and blew it on 3 strikers, even though we already had Boyd, Novo, JCD, Cousin, Naismith and were employing a system where only 1 of which were getting played every week. The 3 in question, (Miller, Lafferty, Velicka) have hardly set the world alight with only Miller making any kind of contribution, and only in patches at that. The Mendes signing seemed to come out of the blue and doesn't look planned. We messed about with the Davis signing over a paltry difference in valuations. We were not genuinely linked with any other midfield players pre-Kaunas, and we went on to sign central midfielders, ignoring our obvious deficiences in wide areas. The sale of Cuellar was totally avoidable, and with him partnering Bougherra, we would have been even stronger (no offence Davie, but your old legs are getting slower every week). The blame for this lies squarely with the manager for getting his signing priorities completely wrong, and with the chairman for sanctioning his decisions, knowing full well he was blowing the whole budget on the one position.