maineflyer

I admired him when he was at Kilmarnock and I was delighted when we signed him. He's taken a while to settle but he looks the real deal now. Well done Steven Naismith, you deserve all the praise you're getting.

By this stage I think it must be abundantly clear to everyone that PLG (aka Christine Somerville) is unfit for any office, having neither the intellect nor experience to make sound judgement on issues of legality or finance. For years I've read her evasive brand of RST propaganda and silly politicking on various websites. She's far from the only one but she seems particularly keen to combine stupidity with self-publicity and deserves all criticism coming her way. If she had a fraction of the ability she claims, she would have disappeared from view long ago. The only constructive thing she has contributed is to show a wider audience exactly why I've been evangelising against these dangerous clowns for years.

That's about the size of it right enough ... to everyone other than those in whose interest it is to maintain the status quo.

Finally, some light enters the room ... and all we see is even more darkness. Perhaps there will be no more nonsense about a lady slighted. A bit more attention to her lies and deception might be appropriate.

That's part of the problem I'm afraid. No one like Walter Smith would ever touch such a chalice until the poison is removed. Fair idea though.

David Edgar on death threats A RANGERS fan club boss told last night how he quit his post after receiving terrifying death threats - from GERS supporters. David Edgar revealed that after he criticised the club's board last year he was warned he'd be attacked if he was seen at Ibrox. One sick fan even posted a package of maggot-covered rotting meat to his home. Shaken Edgar, 32, spoke frankly about his ordeal only days after he resigned as spokesman for Rangers Supporters Trust (RST). And the Gers diehard admitted he suffered a nervous breakdown after leading calls for a fans' takeover at Ibrox. He also hit the bottle as his marriage to wife Lisa, 32, fell apart. Edgar became the public face of the We Deserve Better Campaign, which the RST launched in January 2009 after a string of poor on-the-pitch results and dire financial predictions at Ibrox. Now, in his new book 21st Century Blue, Edgar tells how he was singled out by raging fans. He said: "I received some death threats. Worst of all, they were from fellow Gers. "Stuff arrived in the post graphically depicting what would happen to me if I didn't shut my mouth." Edgar said the threats started after he took up his RST post. He said: "I'd be sent letters threatening to kill me, with cut- up newspaper headlines spelling out the words. "Another time someone sent a package of meat and maggots to my house - with a note saying, 'Next time you see this, it will be your insides'. "And when we started the We Deserve Better campaign things stepped up again and became more sinister. I would get verbal attacks whenever I went to Ibrox - and a text message said that if I was spotted around the club, I would be attacked." Edgar claims Rangers chiefs also turned on him. He said: "The club went on the attack, launching a full-on assault on me personally. I was called a glory hunter and was cited as the reason for things being wrong with the club." The football fanatic, from Ayrshire, admits he turned to drink to cope with the pressure and his crumbling marriage. He said: "My life fell apart. I split up from my wife and suffered a breakdown. The constant stress definitely had an effect. "I was drinking to excess every day. Wine, whisky and lager - I got caught up in binge boozing. "I told a doctor how much I was guzzling and he just shook his head. I realised I had to give up or I was going to DIE." Now, after losing three stone in weight and resigning from the RST, the dad-of-one has a new partner and says: "I am sober, happy and settled." But memories of that turbulent time will stay with him. He told how Rangers owner Sir David Murray summoned him to a face- to-face meeting at his plush Edinburgh HQ last year. The showdown came after he attacked the tycoon in a radio interview. Edgar recalled: "As I walked in, Murray was on a telephone barking commands, but he motioned for me to sit down. "When he'd finished, he said, 'That's me just concluded a �£25million deal. That's the kind of thing I do in a day.' I'd like to say I was nonchalant but this was a new world to me. "I just wanted us to be a bit better at set-pieces, for crying out loud." Edgar also uses his book to defend Paul Gascoigne, 43, over an incident at an Old Firm match in 1998 when the Gers legend pretended to play a flute. Gazza was fined by Rangers at the time and widely criticised for stirring up sectarianism. But Edgar says: "He mimicked an Orange Order flautist. "As far as I know, the Orange Order is not an illegal organisation. So what's the problem?" Edgar also slags off the home grounds of Gers' biggest rivals, referring to Celtic Park as "The Potato Bowl" and "Girodome". And turning to Aberdeen FC's stadium, he states: "Going to Pittodrie just isn't a pleasant experience in a, 'I hope I don't have to touch anything in this place and get home without contracting rabies' kind of fashion. It's an absolute s***hole." Last night a source close to Edgar said: "His book will get under the skin of a lot of people - that's what David intended. He feels he was treated badly by people at his beloved Rangers." 21st Century Blue: Being A Bear In The Modern World, will be published next month by DB Publishing, priced �£12.99 http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/scot...x-torment.html

You won't hear any such objections from me.

I have to agree with you about the club being owned by the fans. It's not something I support or expect ever to see. The Trust should be about whatever we decide it to be about - there is nothing to say it has to be about owning the club, although that could certainly be one of the possible outcomes. In my opinion it should actually be about building bridges between the fans and the club, about having a democratic system of consultation that genuinely allows supporter opinion to be voiced at board level - and, if necessary, to organise supporters protest where club owners take a direction that is contrary to the interests of most of those in the stands. At the moment we have none of these things. The current RST is an agent for division and factionalism.

Completely agree

Is it about �£30 or �£3000? I think you're way off the mark. I thought it was about an RST board that has achieved the square root of zip and the incompetents that have been responsible ... and far worse, who block every avenue to change. And about the belief that an effective RST could be a voice for all fans and a means of communicating with the club we support. That's what I would like to see but before any of that can come about we must change the current mess - not tolerate or ignore it but change it. As for the dear damsel that Wabash seems all exercised about, she has been as culpable as any of them and represents exactly the intransigence we need to deal with. Wabash can spend his time picking up her handkerchief but it won't help anyone.

Rangers teams going to Pitawdry need some fire in their bellies. I've seen too many games there where we've been out fought .. it's time we got as fired up as them. Calming them down is not what we need.

We can't have team selection dictated by what other teams might say before we play against them.

That was my thought too ... but no doubt it's as much sordid jouralism as demented sheep ... and therefore too deniable to take action against.

Thanks, I'm richly rewarded and very grateful.

It was a shambles four years ago. That nothing has been done in the meantime to sort it out is what you might want to focus your distaste on. So you feel uncomfortable with confrontation, what do you propose? Should we assess the situation again in another four years? Perhaps death and taxes will have done the job for us. But hey, as long as we're duly chivalrous in the process and treat a fair damsel in the manner becoming, we'll have all done our bit, dontcha know.

Another cheap Houdini act. It doesn't matter what I have done, I'm not the one with RST responsibilities, you are. I haven't questioned your competence, I've simply pointed out your lack of it, something you have also referred to. Stop trying to play the martyr and focus instead on your record. How about starting with you claim to know exactly what's required - share your wisdom.

Probably better all round just to have avoided the issue and said nothing.

Is she a woman? All I can see is a failed ex-treasurer of the RST who's in a state of complete denial about what needs to be done to save the Trust and about her responsibilities in that regard. Male or female doesn't come into it, my quaint Victorian gentleman.

Kirk could have been playing mind games, assuming someone wrote the script for him. If he said it of his own accord he probably meant it.

Have to say it's closer than I thought it would be.

A glimpse for everyone of the callous face of the RST. Not too often the mask slips in public but Christine can usually be relied on to be the one who shows first. How do you rebuild the RST with these people still on board, clawing and scratching to stay in the saddle. Not by rational debate that's for sure.

Give it up for God's sake. Do one decent thing and resign. You've no role, no ability, no support, no credibility. Instead of wondering who's who on Gersnet just look at the mess you've made of everything you pretend to stand for and go away.

Hmm .... Must be a trick question.

Yes, I've seen you play the old sympathy card several times in the past, usually when you start to run out of credible answers. However, having taken this tack rather than address the issues, let's see what it is you're now attempting to hide behind. First, you chose to accept a responsibility for which you knew you were unqualified and which you now say you never wanted. Hardly an excuse when the sensible thing to do would have been to refuse the position rather than compromise both the responsibilities of the office, the RST and the membership you represented. Please don't now attempt to obscure the reality with tales of only bravely helping out in a crisis. Whether your intentions were good or bad, the fact is you allowed yourself to assume an important office to which you knew full well you would never be able to bring competence to bear. It's a hell of an admission and one that fully justifies the assertions I've been making. But hey, it's OK really because you had all these other challenges that should draw sufficient emotional response to deflect any personal blame or liability. You had to travel to meetings and cook food. Perhaps you might just have been aware of these realities before accepting the office or even standing for the RST board? Perhaps it's slightly disingenuous now to offer these rather average hazards as justification for knowingly compromising the organization at the heart of these inconveniences. Sure, you had challenges. Sure, you put in the effort. Sure, November evenings are cold. But please, don't whine and tell me you didn't know all of these things before you stood to represent the members and accept the objectives of the Trust and the need to deliver them. Isn't the truth that you and several of your RST colleagues have been playing a shameless game of personal acclaim and gratification. Instead of relishing the challenges involved, you offer them as excuses. Isn't is also true that you have personally spent the last few years snubbing every valid enquiry and arguing against every criticism of your dysfunctional group. Instead of taking your responsibilities to the membership seriously, you spent your energies exclusively on defending what everyone else was telling you was a failing shambles. I've watched you fudge and deflect on website after website, hour after hour, when presumably the daily trials had taxed you less than on the occasion of RST meetings. I've witnessed your petty vindictiveness when anyone sought to question the (lack of) actions of the RST. I make no apology for the personal nature of this. The RST is dying on it's feet, has been for years, and it's all down to the personalized motives of individuals who refused categorically to put the Trust before their own self-interest. This situation hasn't arisen by chance ... but by the conscious actions of people who would listen to no one but their own mutual loyalties and ambitions. People who wouldn't listen to departing colleagues, wouldn't listen to their membership, wouldn't listen to the club. So here's the thing, you made this bed and now it's time to lie in it. The RST is of your making and now we're telling you to accept the responsibility for your own actions and omissions. If you had a shred of respect forbthe RST you would apologize, resign and answer some of the questions being asked. What you should not on any account do is dig an even deeper hole.

The Trust will make a statement as soon as they've decided what the truth is .... and found a way to get round it. You can almost hear the gears grinding from here but it's the smoke coming from the failed treasurer that stings the conscience. Why is she here at all? Is this her allocated beat, her section of the wall to defend? The problem for the implicated is that there's really no alternative to stubborn defence - admit any weakness and the roof caves in - offer cogent debate and ... well the roof falls in there too. Can't even slink away quietly because tat probably leads to rejection by current accomplices, followed by threats to theerson and ridicule if common practice prevails.