Tannochsidebear

Good. That should end the speculation linking him with us.

I am a fan of Ferguson but can see the cracks appearing in his play that is probably the effects of playing with injections and while injured for far too long on too many occasions and with plenty of centre midfield cover, it would be at least understandable and acceptable to let him go at this time. He must be the highest wage earner as well. I think that is a polite way of saying he may be finished at this level!!

Agree with a lot of what you say CammyF. I dont think the club is in danger of going out of business, but it probably could not be run worse. To let the club run up unmanageable debts once can be considered careless. Twice in a decade is sheer negligance.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of bears still cannot see any wrong in what Murray has done. Twice in a decade he has led us to the financial abyss where a full fire sale of players and talk of major downsizing is his only answer. This one sentence should be enough for anyone with any sense to see that he is not all he thinks he is, and that is without going into all the things other than the finances that he has failed us on. If all the websites, supporters groups etc got together as one and decided to hold a mass protest by not attending a home match, I reckon the attendance would be hit by about 6,000 max. Dont overestimate how many bears are on board and dont underestimate Murray's PR abilities when he is put under personal pressure and scrutiny. I have been firmly against Murray for several years now, but I would never boycott a match as a token of my displeasure against him. I dont have the answer, but the bear who comes up with the answer will be very popular indeed.

I said it often at the time, that we should have won the UEFA cup under Advocaat in the two seasons we dropped into it from the CL, but he totally arrogantly undervalued the competition, and I thought at the time it was our best chance I would see in my lifetime of winning a European trophy. I wish he employed the same underwhelmed attitude with his employers in 2008!!

I would like to know what qualifications Peat has for the job, apart from being next in line. What qualities has he shown at his club or in previous administrative positions to make him the top dog in our top sport earning top dough? Why do we not go out and get successful businessmen to come in with a big brush and sweep the whole place of its ancient procedures, and get some new ideas as to how to improve our lot, or new funding to help us compete both at club and international level, whilst providing coaching academies in every decent-sized town throughout the country with qualified coaches, proper facilities, and free for the kids. To assist and educate clubs as to how to get more than 500 punters through their doors for a league match. But no, as long as he gets to go away, first class all the way, with the squad and gets his mugshot in the papers every now and then, to hell with the rest of it.

FFS, I don't half go on a bit, I didn't realise I had written so much!! Sorry.

It has always been my opinion that Scottish football would be much better served if the SFA, SPL and SFL were combined to create one governing body for football in this small country. When we have second top tier teams attracting only a couple of thousand fans to the games, how can we possibly justify 3 fully administered and expensive organisations to run our game? For Rangers supporters, we have the same problem. Since 2003 we have had 3 active and polarised organisations. We cannot be best served by having 3 very separate, very different organisations all trying to get their message across to a 92% majority shareholder and his uninterested CEO. As an inactive member of all 3 organisations, I read the statements from Jim Templeton and John McMillan with great interest. It is clear that the differences between the 2 orgainsations these gentlemen represent (or represented in Jim's case) have if anything drifted even further apart, and the internal problems of the RST last summer show no greater unity or togetherness there. I thought there was hope when Jim and John both joined the board of the RST in 2007 that we were finally putting our differences behind us and getting a unified body to voice our concerns to the chairman. Unfortunately, and for reasons well documented elsewhere, this was not to be, and it seems that the 3 bodies are further apart now than ever. There are many things wrong with our Chairman's running of the club, our CEO's day to day running of the business side and contract negotiations, and us bears need a voice to challenge these wrongs and to seek clarity on matters we perhaps don't fully understand due to the lack of communications from the club. We need a platform for our good ideas to get aired at board level, we need to feel as if we belong again. There is not a chance in hell of any of this happening whilst there are 3 organisations running supporters interests. There is no chance of the RSA being able to do this as it's remit is to look after its' own member clubs, of which there are now unfortunately too few of. RSA meetings are also poorly attended for the number of members it represents, with the same selection of faces duly turning up, paying their dues and leaving again. It has made great strides and is to be congratulated for its efforts in obtaining tickets for member clubs this season directly from the opposition clubs after RFC's 5% debacle, and it's history and longevity is to be admired, but it does not tick all the boxes required in this era for supporter representation. The Assembly will never have the credibility amongst rank and file supporters because it is funded by the club and is seen as a nodding dog for the club, a soundbite to be used and abused by the board when it suits it. Despite having the largest membership of the 3 organisations, it probably has the fewest consistently active members of the 3 and that in itself is the saddest thing of all. Sure it can talk about having meetings worldwide etc, but day to day it has not done much to improve our lot, no doubt due to the fact that it was very well policed from within the club itself. Jim has recently left this post and his damning resignation statement made it crystal clear as to how much the Assembly can do to change genuine supporter representation and influence at board level. The RST looked to be the best bet for a while there. Since Malcolm McNiven took over the chair from Colin Glass, the objective of getting genuine supporter representation at board level looked to be getting much closer and culminated in the announcement at the 2007 AGM that it would be done within the year. Unfortunately, the RST imploded spectacularly in the spring/summer of 2008 with around half the active board leaving in a major split within the ranks. The new top table of the RST is not welcome at Murray's table and therefore it has to go back to being a vocal voice of the fans but without any chance of influence at board level. So where does this leave us, the Rangers fans, as we still have both concerns at the things that are being ran by the club, and creative talents and ideas as to how to improve things at the club that go unheard. We have a huge split between the club and it's supporters that is probably as bad as at any club in the footballing world, and for a club as successful as ours, that is quite an achievement. Sadly, for as many mistakes as the club have made, the supporters organisations have made just as many, and while all 3 have their place and certainly want to do the right thing, they are as guilty as the chairman of letting us, the rank and file supporters, down. I take my own share of the responsibility for the failures of the 3 organisations. I have been a member of the Association for nearly 20 years and been to only two of their meetings, despite being secretary of a registered member club of the Association for the last 10 years or so. I have been a member of the Assembly (by default admittedly) and have never asked them to do anything on my behalf, or offered to give them any assistance in helping my fellow members. I have been a member of the RST since the very first meeting in April 2003 at Partick Burgh Hall, have attended meetings and asked questions but never asked to join the board or help out to do something positive to help their cause. So can we have genuine supporter representation that is respected at board level? The answer for now is most certainly no, and will remain a firm no for the forseeable future, until we can unify our own organisations into a respected, independant from the club, popular with the rank and file, objectivised organisation with but one clear goal - to properly represent the general views of the Rangers supporter to the board of the club, and to get those views acted on for the common good where possible.

You have explained it very well Bluedell, thanks. I am glad that this has been set up in this way, and well done to those who gave interest free loans to help out with it. However the club should not have to beg and borrow to invest in youth development, it should be a major part of our investment in the football side of operations, and if we have to make do with a 25 man squad instead of 26 to pay for it, then so be it, the rewards should more than compensate. If only our manager had a little more faith in them to give them a chance, we might be happy to see the fruits of the system.

I hope you are right in this Bluedell as that is the only acceptable situation regarding our youth academy.

The away games will be the deciding factor in the league as usual. The difficult away games is where we lost the league last season, with only one win from the 10 away games against the other top 6 sides. This is what we must correct this season to clinch the title. We started well enough against sheepy where only the linesman cheated us out of the maximum, we have won at the piggery and easter rd and were again cheated by the linesman at Motherwell. We must win these games, and stay in touch before we can beat them again on Dec 27. If we lose tomorrow, the shadow of four in a row will be looming largely over us.

I felt the questions in the survey totally missed the point about what the supporters who already go to all the games want from their club. The section about membership where you get press releases and a xmas card and then asked you to tell them that if you were only charged �£15 it would be so cheap you couldn't believe it was in itself unbelievable. The fact that there was no "other" option or a place to write comments was just another sign that they dont want to know what we want, they have geared the survey to report back that we will pay x amount of extra cash for nothing. The stakeholder scheme for the youth academy confused me also. I was under the impression that several big money men (Satty Singh comes to mind) have already invested in this and "own" the youth players already. I would consider a membership scheme for an extra �£20-�£30 per year if you got something worthwhile for it. And by something else I dont mean the chance to buy a ticket after the season ticket holders have had their chance because I am a ST holder!! If I was guaranteed cup semi-final & final tickets, given discounts in the Rangers shop and on Rangers tours, the Argyle House restaurant etc, given a tour of Auchenhowie and/or the stadium, and given a vote to elect a fans representative to the board of RFC. Now that to me would be worth �£20-30. I would probably pay �£50 if they threw in two friendleis/euro qualifyers as well.

Good to see Aaron getting a good review. Would be nice to see him in the team soon, although perhaps this weekend might not be the ideal moment.

I for one would be glad to see the back of NBM. It's only purpose after a fairly balanced start was to give credibility to MOPEry, and refused to comment on anything not pro-scum, anti-rangers. When it was found out brilliantly by the guy on FF who wrote to them twice from a Rangers and scum perspective and got very different answers, it should have had it's public funding stopped there and then.

It is also worth remembering that Papac was only bought after his first choice centre half signing, Svensson, was a disaster. It was a panic buy on the last day of the window, on the same day that we paid off 4 defenders.

I think it will be a midfield of Davis Ferguson Mendes Lafferty with Miller and Boyd continuing up front. Although Lafferty's position is far from secure and I wouldn't be surprised to see Novo retain his place or Adam/Whittaker/Beasley coming in for that last spot.

Just got official Rangers text saying that Sasa Papac has signed a new deal until 2011 and quoting him as being delighted to stay and he now wants to win the title.

He said he had spoken to you last night at our meeting. Very good of you to assist him with this, as he is a good bear and does really enjoy watching the future generations coming through, whilst never missing a first team game either.

It is a member of my RSC that runs this site and he was telling us about it at our meeting last night. He goes to a lot of the youth games and I for one will be checking it regularly to see how the young bears are getting on. I would recommend other bears do likewise as they will probably get more accurate info on that site than on the official site.

As far as I am concerned I already have Thomson as a certainty to be away in January as I have pointed out a few times now. It will just depend how much we get for him, and how many fringe players we can get rid of, to see if we can afford to not lose another regular starter.

That was when he was trying to get a new deal here of course. Now that he knows he is not getting a new deal here, he all of a sudden "cannot forget" France where he made his name. I just hope that we secure a reasonable fee for him and dont end up giving him away just to reduce the wage bill as Bain has done so many times before.

Thanks Frankie. In that case he may well go in January, depending on offers that come in. I have not been so impressed with him that I think an EPL or Championship team will look to pay big money for him. Previously Cuellar, Hutton and Boumsong's reputations have been gained by showing great form in European football. The absense of Euro football and a couple of less than impressive performances domestically wont exactly get the big money teams running to Ibrox with their cheque book, so I think MB will be safe for this season.

IMO Murray is continuing his discrediting of Mark Dingwall, the owner of FF and his mates. This has been most prominent since the summer changes in the RST. The fact that he does not come out and name FF is not required to work it out for yourself, but has the effect whereby Frankie and other forum owners feel the need to defend themselves when I am sure they were not the target in the first place. But as I said in my earlier post, it was merely tactics to change the subject from his own poor stewardship and it has worked again, as usual.

Great OP Frankie, and sums up the current situation perfectly. I think we can all work out that Murray's attack on forums is directly focused on MD and the personal abuse on FF directed towards himself and his puppet, sorry Chief Executive. If he loses the argument, this time about how the club will have to sell players in January to balance the books, he changes the focus onto something that will grab the media attention, this time the forums. It is just the same old, tired, lazy responses from a busted flush of a Chairman who wants out, but on his own terms.

Can anyone confirm if MB played any competitive games for Charlton in 2008-09. If he did, he cannot be sold in January 2009 under the three teams in one season rule. If he didn't play for them he is in the same boat as every other Rangers player come January, if a decent fee comes in they are off. We need to balance the books and our chairman has proven over the last two/three years that this takes precedence over squad strength.