maineflyer

No one can claim the right to exclusive wisdom in the matter of Rangers and the recent crises have thrown up proponents of both sides of the various debates. Why is it then that only one side of any arguement has EVER appeared on the official website .......... over a period of many years. With the newspapers and television openly publicising the criticism of Murray, how is it that no one of these malcontents ever chooses to voice their opinions on the Rangers website. Or could the club be suffering from paranoid denial. Or is it just plain old pathetic.

That's right, let's just settle back for another ten years of Murray. And since you like to deal in specifics, perhaps you'll tell me how many championships you think we'll win in that period? Now remember, when doing your calculations, we've won 2 out of the last eight and none out of the last three. Perhaps that particular brand of is realism isn't quite what you meant though......?

And there are also much better.

Of course not, where on earth did you get that idea from. It is a pressure group with one single aim....to persuade Murray to sell up and leave by any and all legitimate means. When Murray leave, Reclaim Rangers will cease to exist. You know, not every idea has to be seen as a threat. The people behind this are extremely commited Rangers supporters and have nothing to gain other than the restoration of success

Two things.......... Firstly, I might give him some credibility if, just once, Murray told us exactly what he means when he says a buyer has to be "good for Rangers". What makes a potential buyer right for Rangers? Why is David Murray the only arbiter and why is he the only one who is allowed to know what this means? Why cannot he define openly what credentials a buyer needs to have? In the absence of this clarification I'm afraid I'll continue to believe Murray is still just blowing smoke up our collective arse. Secondly, this talk of European financial subservience to Europe's big leagues is irrelevant nonsense when we still can't compete in our own midden. Just one more red herring to obscure the fact that Murray likes being top cat but doesn't like his balls being on the line. He's the one who ain't cutting the mustard and until he can lead this club back above celtic where he found it, he needs to keep his petulance locked up and start delivering - or accept the criticism that's coming his way. Better still, bugger off and let a better man lead the club.

How do you know that no one wants to take on the club? Where does this come from? Why do you just accept that Murray isn't the stumbling block? Hopefully it's not because you heard it from Murray because that sob wouldn't know the truth if it shook his hand and introduced itself. I don't believe he has ever had any serious thoughts about selling. But he may have good cause to mull over this possibility before long.

Anything but cranks I can assure you - committed bears who'll do more than just talk. Good name, Reclaim Rangers. We'll be hearing a lot more about it. Hope many on here will want to be part of it.

There is one objective. To create a successful and inclusive Rangers. There is one strategy. To allow change by pressurising David Murray to sell and leave. No clutter, no blind alleys, no mixed messages, no Smith, no Bain, no sectional posturing (FF). Just in-your-face protest directed specifically and exclusively at Murray. No fretting about what comes after change - that is another issue and another process to deal with, it is not the matter at hand. If we keep on doing this thing of worrying about the detail and the end game while we can't get off first base, we are never ever going to get that one thing that is an absolute prerequisite of better days - change at the top. The time for closer conssideration of the nature of change is when change is underway, not in advance of it. This is taking shape among people you know, right now. It will probably take some time to gather momentum but like old Mao said, the first step is the doozy. After years of despair, I'm beginning to think we're getting there at last. I really hope so because this club was great before Murray and I would like to taste it again before I die.

Well there's certainly no chance of posting a complaint on the official website where content tends to be more tightly screened than the worst Maoist propaganda. Murray really doesn't like free expression of opinion (a bit like Jaffa's squalid nonsense on FF). It all came across to me as most satisfactory. I'm going to enjoy the next few weeks.

Not everything has to be micro managed. The next few weeks will see things emerge. In the way of these things it may not get off the ground immediately but there will be plenty opportunity to join in - for those who think it's important enough. I've waited years for the day people had their eyes opened about Murray and maybe, just maybe, that day is close enough to touch. One thing I do know is that there will be no progress at Rangers without major changes and these will not happen by themselves.

We need to maintain an air of reason and composure. We need to plan for discussions and ensure the correct people are involved. We then need to have said discussions. We need to form committees. We need to enter into consultations. We need to invite contributions. We need to analyse and formulate informed opinions. FFS haven't you learned anything from your wasted years on the Rangers Supporters Trust? Years of weasel words and pointless posturing, words that achieved absolutely fark all when you really get down to it. No seat on any board to pose upon. No influence with those who run the club. No better treatment of fans. No better running of the club. No more success on the park. The RST can't even hold on to the tiny membership it managed to scrape together - and I say that as a life member and committed proponent of supporters trusts - hell it talked so much that in the end they couldn't even talk to each other any more. but why am I telling you what you already know? What Rangers fans who cannot accept the status quo need to get into their heads is that change doesn't come about by distant debate and endless handwringing. It happens because people are prepared to turn up and do the uncomfortable things. Protest - not talking about protest and certainly not sitting across the table from those who urgently need to be pressurised right out of this club. In fact, I'm stunned to read this being suggested. Just another personal opinion of course.

Absolutely spot on. It's the only way. sooner or later this will be the answer, it's just a question of how much shite we're prepared to swallow. Some people have surprisingly big appetites for shite, particularly when it's served up by shape-shifters like Murray.

A few reassuring noises released through grateful journalists, otherwise nothing at all. If things start to look ugly (ie some of the performing seals stop clapping and the nodding dogs stop wagging their tails) then he'll roll out some pictures of 21st century stadia or tell us some piece of financial astuteness means he will be able to make vast funds available in January. Anything really to keep the punters quiet. i don't blame him for acting like that. If I was David Murray I'd do the same. But I'm not, I'm a Rangers supporter desperate for success and trophies. desperate to see us slaughter celtic. That's why I'll never see eye to eye with Murray. However, while the sale of Cuellar will weaken the team in the same way selling Hutton did, it could actually be good business if you thought that Smith would use it wisely. He won't. He won't get but a fraction of it to spend and what he does get he'll waste most of it on no marks as he's always done and that will make the sale of Cuellar for no purpose whatsoever. A successful club needs a good chairman and a good manager. We currently have neither. We haven't had this combination since David Holmes left. Of course it's only my opinion and no one needs to spend another minute thinking about it.

Would it be just too cynical to think that, like all such news, this has been grossly manipulated. Not for me anyway, after enough years of watching the same old shite you eventually have to bow to the inevitable. the club needed the money, the club got the money. What's it to Cuellar to leave under good terms?

You were saying?

Oh well, there's a surprise. never thought that would happen.

It would be a step forward - if the price is sensible.

I'm glad you admit that your opinion is speculation, since much of it is wrong. The shares are held by neither David Murray or MIM. Rangers is ultimately owned by Murray International Holdings and the debt therefore does remain within his business organisation. The shares were not acquired in Murray's name - which is in fact the whole point of this debate. You make great play about the Rangers debt being reduced, which I had already acknowledged, but cannot answer the question I posed about the consequential avalability of spondulas to buy players. If, as you say, the debt reduction put Rangers in a better position to spend money, why didn't we spend it? After all "Murray's �£50m" is a lot of dosh for it all to go AWOL. Of course it was a rights issue but it WAS still an intercompany bale-out. Murray himself put not one penny into the process. The debt existed, the debt still exists, since the whole shooting match exists within the MIH group it matter little exactly where that debt exists unless Murray agrees to sell Rangers without trying to recover that debt in the process. Unfortunately, too many accountants are like car mechanics. You need someone to service your car but that doesn't necessarily make them good drivers. Which, considering the information at their fingertips, is why too few of them ever become successful businessmen. You try to see everything in terms of technical accounting because that's what you know. Sometimes that prevents you seeing what is actually going on. To counter your rather silly statement about not needing to be smart to own your own company, you're right but not too many stupid people run consistently successful businesses, which I do. If you ever want to test your own driving skills rather than your ability to change the oil, why not climb in behind he wheel now and again?

Accountants, ah well, I couldnââ?¬â?¢t claim to be one of them. But I do employ a few, they keep the books straight. While I may have rushed into some words which might have been more wisely chosen, I nevertheless still think I was basically correct. If I remember correctly (and it's been a while) the original proposition was that Murray has put money into the club. I said he hadn't but that he had simply moved the debt from one place to another within his business organisation, which is indeed what happened. Effectively, he is keeping Rangers afloat with intercompany loans. The spirit of the proposal was that Murray has sacrificed Ã?£50m of his own wealth to bale out Rangers. This is clearly not the case. Now I don't deny that the debt on the Rangers books was reduced and that the cost of servicing that debt was also reduced. However, as you know very well, Rangers is still not immune from the effects of that debt and it continues to be one of the reasons why Murray finds it so difficult to sell the club. So, we reduced the debt. But at the end of it we still didnââ?¬â?¢t have money to spend. The reason I mentioned that we were in a sustained loss-making situation was to emphasise the fact that we were in no position to acquire or generate funds without further borrowing. If you like, we had simply become less unable to spend money on the fundamental purpose of the club, winning trophies ââ?¬â?? but unable nevertheless. Amazingly, Murrayââ?¬â?¢s money that so many speak about was nowhere to be seen, not penny could be found to buy even a used corner flag. Thanks for the lesson in accounts. Most edifying. But what I asked was how much more Rangers had to spend the day after Murray is supposed to have made is donation.

Too right. Folks need to remember that Templeton's mob receives an annual support from Rangers (Murray) - I could be wrong but I think it is now �£35,000 each year. Talk about buying your publicity!

But of course that won't include those assets that the company no longer owns? I've really no idea why you've decided to stain your knickers because someone posts something you don't happen to agree with. This is the second time in a week you've lost your cool - has someone upset you recently?

OK Mr Financial Expert - tell me how much more money Rangers had to spend the day after the debt was relocated to another of Murray's companies. That's right, since the cub was already running at a loss, not one penny more.

Oooo I'll have to watch my P's and Q's with you around to judge things.

I think that's obvious. Murray to accept a significant part of the losses he was primarily responsible for and to sell the club to other investors (that WOULD be putting money into the club). Thereafter, the appointment of a manager and staff who are capable of transforming what the team is doing doing on the park. Excatly the same as most other people really. But the whole issue depends on ridding the club of Murray. Since he owns virtually the whole shooting match, no one can force him to sell and until he does no one else can influence how the club is run. What we can do is make his life as chairman and owner a complete misery. We can openly attack his reputation as an astute businessman, as the much-vaunted guardian of Rangers, his honesty, his intentions. We can do this very openly in public. We can let the whole country know that the Great Leader isn't as loved as he wants everyone to believe he is. Fans of other clubs have done this very successfully and while there is no guarantee, the only choice is between accepting the way things are or trying to do something about it. I have always felt that the reason Muray gets away with what has been happening at the club is twofold - the natural apathy of a huge swathe of the support and a general eyes-closed ignorance of the facts. There are many fans I speak to who just refuse to hear the slightest criticism of Murray, who genuinely belief that everything he has done has been in the best interests of Rangers. This blind-acceptance baffles me and I long ago decided this was the single greatest challenge facing us. There can be no hope of supporter unity with this vast difference in perception about the one guy who really matters. We saw that a couple of years ago with fans physically fighting each other during a small protest after a game at Ibrox - then witnessed the official Rangers website being used within one hour of that fracas to denounce the protesters like some Maoist propaganda machine. But I think things have moved on now and open protest is now much more likely. I know there are those amongst us who are now planning such action and the question will be whether enough fans yet have the heart to take part. You ask what I would do about the current situation and my suggestion is to join in when the opportunity presents itself. Talk to your fellow supporter and question the prevailing head-in-the-sand attitudes. People need to make up their own minds and reach their own conclusions but that's not exactly been the case in the past. Murray has undoubtedly manipulated every Supporters orgaisation to ensure there is minimal dissent to his leadership - ask Frankie about the RST experience. Every time there is a crisis at Ibrox, Murray rolls out some new promise of success just around the corner - usually when ST's are due for renewal - who really believes in a stadium redevelopment at �£700m is anything but bullshit? One moonbeam after another to keep the customers acquiescent and interested. I suppose for me it has been a sequence. Reading, listening, gathering information, forming opinion, exchanging views on forums like this, reaching a conclusion. For me, it's about putting pressure on Murray. There are a lot of very smart folks among the Rangers support and many of them have are motivated to act. Just like happened across the city, it took things to get to desperate straits before their fanbase swung into action. I think it's time for us to do the same. Gers for Change anyone? What comes afterwards? I really don't know and I'm not sure anyone should waste too much time speculating. Only Murray can choose who he sells to, all we can do is create a climate for change and an environment into which new owners can come. Of course it's nonsense to say that people are spineless. Most are nothing of the kind. But we need to think seriously about the state we're in as a club and get it out of our heads that all we have to do is sit back and keep the faith for a few years before our turn comes round again. I wish things were well at Ibrox and I could look forward to the game today and view the season ahead with a hopeful heart but those days seem to be gone. We're going to have to work our way out of this.

There's not a lot to be gained from speculating about early results but, from what we've seen these last 20 or so competitive games, we could get a few tannings. On he other hand we may be pleasantly surprised that we fight our way through the first few games and take full points. But I think we all know that finishing second this season will actually be a significant achievement.