Rangers Trust In Meltdown
Jun 12 2008 By Alan Marshall
CIVIL war has broken out among Rangers fans fighting over a prestigious place on the Ibrox board.
The Rangers Supporters Trust has been plunged into meltdown after all six of their directors resigned after a bitter internal dispute.
Ibrox chairman Sir David Murray had earmarked two associate director positions with full voting rights for leaders of the club's two main supporters' associations - The Trust and the Rangers Assembly.
The Light Blues' supremo was hoping to make the appointments ahead of this summer's agm, however, that plan has temporarily been put on hold.
Trust chairman Malcolm McNiven, vicechairman Scott McMillan and fellow board members Callum Renton, Derek Howie, Stuart Franklin and Andy McGowan have all stepped down from their positions in recent weeks.
They decided to resign following a dispute with fellow Trust member Mark Dingwall, editor of the Follow Follow website and Rangers fanzine of the same name.
It's understood Dingwall, a candidate for the Scottish Unionist party whose motto is Proudly Scottish, Proudly British, was feeling increasingly marginalised within the Trust while the board were unhappy at the militant direction he wanted to take the supporters' group.
A Trust source said: "David Murray had offered us a place on the Rangers board but there was no way we could accept it while people like Mark Dingwall were still part of the organisation.
"If he wasn't going to step down then the entire board thought they would resign and leave him and his cohorts to go it alone.
"Dingwall wanted the place on the Ibrox board for himself but that's never going to happen because Murray and him don't have a working relationship. He thrives on negativity and militancy when the best way for the fans to have a proper say in how the club is run is to change things from within."
Ding wall refused to comment other than to refer us to Trust spokesman David Edgar, who said: "The resignations are true. Over the past month six have resigned from a board of 20.
"Various reasons have been given for doing so. Initially, some felt the Trust was going in a direction they weren't comfortable with.
"But we've had people leave with differences of opinion before and the people left amicably. They are still Trust members. They just felt where it should go wasn't necessarily where it was going.
"We understand that, thank the guys and it is up to us to get in new blood."
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football-news/scottish-football/spl-football/rangers-fc/2008/06/12/rangers-trust-in-meltdown-86908-20604164/
