maineflyer

What worries me is that almost all of the debate so far has been about corporate and structural issues aimed at returning Rangers to a position of relative financial strength, be it through fan ownership or otherwise. While some form of financial stability must be found, and everyone recognises this, it doesn't necessarily correlate fully with the effective running of a football club. We have more than one fundamental problem to solve at Rangers. They may be related but they are not the same thing. For twenty years we have sat under the Murray template, using money to buy performance, which has led in no small measure to our financial perils. What we have largely ignored are several of what would be considered core functions at better-run clubs - such as youth development, an effective scouting network, coaching that improves skill and tactical awareness rather than simple fitness, progressive management, public relations, care of the supporter through direct engagement and fostering unity between club and support. These are not issues that call for huge funds but they do call for informed and diligent running of the football club. We could start fixing most of these things tomorrow, whoever owns the club, and everyone should be asking why this isn't happening right now. I'd advise we stop fretting about fan ownership and start concentrating on the ability of any form of ownership to deliver a well-run football club.... because we've not seen that at Ibrox for a very long time.

Announce contract negotiations and sweeten the AGM. Fail to reach an agreement that matches the reality of the club's financial situation. Infer it's down to Boyd. Sell Kris Boyd to Birmingham City in late January. Job done. Cynical, moi?? Hopefully that's all it is.

Maybe part of the problem is that when people start describing "the only show in town" you start to believe there might actually be a show in town. I think it's dawning on me that all we had was the RST booking the hall in case a show might happen to drop by.

It's just that the hole we're in is a very big hole and all sorts of people are shovelling shit into it...... Murray, Lloyds, prospective buyers, fans organisations, the media almost en masse, certain political parties, catholic/republican activists who hate our existence ......... that's a lot of shit to wade through, so there's plenty of cause to feel depressed.

Which just makes my point I'm afraid.

Hi TB. I just mentioned the ST price increase as a comparative test of people's willingness to part with real money. It's one thing to make positive noises about notional fan ownership but it's a little more real to consider a 25% hike in the ST that you already intent to buy in a few months. Anyway, it was just a thought. In reality I think the idea of 45,000 fans paying over more than �£100 on a regular, ongoing basis has probably got more to do with wishful thinking than financial planning. I think I drew that conclusion early on in recent events and believe that the role of supporters should be one of partial ownership, probably through preferential stock options, combined with a limited but crucial membership voting right on certain core issues - this latter as a means of constraining shareholder powers to alter key and fundamental arrangements without supporter approval. In reality, these may have to be quite limited but could include stadium sale, merchandising rights, debt limitation, and so on. A hell of a job to get agreement on these issues but those are the kind of checks and balances I had in mind to justify fan membership. In my opinion, and I'm not 100% settled on this, outright fan ownership is never going to be a reality in our world .... more's the pity .... and we could waste a load of energy pursuing it for no ultimate gain. That certain groups have leapt to back this as the primary goal shows either enormous deviousness or complete naivety. I've admired the insight and consistency shown by Zappa in this regard and I think some of his posts on fan ownership have hit the nail squarely on the head.

Things is though Frankie, a more astute and prepared individual would never have got himself in such a revealing spotlight. That he did and then seemed keen to engage is a game of "repel boarders" only diluted his credibility. No doubt he's a man of some ability in his own game but as athe man to resurrect Rangers he came up short in my opinion.

Sorry, I understood that, I'm being unclear. I meant that there is a lot of re-stating that nothing is happening ragarding regime change and that Murray is still king of the heap. I just wondered what that was all about. Is the point being made that David Murray is Rangers future and no change at the top is to be expected? I'd have thought we were beyond that stage, even if this is likely to be tediouly prolonged.

Taking everything into account, I'd find it very difficult to believe a word of what Duffy has so far said. As an example of TOSIT, he seems to lack a hell of a lot of substance.

Of course you're right but I wasn't meaning bs from any particular direction, just that there always seems to be contention about everything. While some of it is intentionally introduced, it would be nice once in a while if the likes of Bain, the player and the agent could agree that this is going to be announced so that these daft chaos stories could be prevented. Mind you that would amount to PR and we don't seem to do that. I don't know whether this was spun yesterday to deflect criticism but it's a hell of an opportunity for good news - that your negotiating contracts with your top striker - to leave room for this to fall apart within 24 hrs isn't clever.

I've just read through from the beginning of this topic and I lost my sea legs towards the end of the 4th page. Apart from the revelation that Murray owns most of the shares, which I kinda knew, is there a conclusion in sight?

The bullshit at this club is almost beyond belief.

I think the underlying point is that everyone already knows we don't have creativity and there's little point criticising players for failing to use talent they don't have. Everyone however is capable of at least making a decent effort during a game and can be criticised if they don't. If anyone wants to criticise the lack of creativity they would need to direct their frustrations at the manager who clearly doesn't feel we need any.

I'd just like to add my thanks to everyone who helped bring the AGM to the forum. I've been buried in work the last couple of days with no other chance to find out what's been happening. Most interesting reading. Thanks again.

perhaps he doubts if the money consistently contributed by fans under a membership scheme would come anywhere near the figures being bandied about. I wonder what the reaction would be if Rangers incresed the season ticket price by �£100 - �£150 next season?

This needs to happen. I hope this isn't just another Ibrox smokescreen.

And until these issues are finally dealt with, we'll still have accusations like "gang of seven" thrown around like we've see this week and there will be no resolution to anything. Change means actually doing something different.

It's a pity then that you stayed silent for so long..... and the term chinese whispers doesn't come close to doing it justice. The absurdity of two of our longest-standing members falling squarely behind and even advocating the merits of secrecy is beyond humour. I have to say I find it most telling that they present opinions and conclusions in place of evidence and seem unusually motivated to ensure those involved feel no obligation to share facts. Why so? What's to gain from it? Every bit of the ludicrous politiking that has screwed up supporter representation at this club has come from this willingness to tolerate secrecy and to guard information like a treasure. To argue about where the "right" in this lies is farcical, this isn't a court of law and there's no obvious need to adopt such a defensive posture even if it was. It's not about a "right" to secrecy, any more than it's about a "right" to knowledge. How stupendously misguided do you have to be to put some kind of assumed "right" of individuals in front of the wider good of the club? To the best of my knowledge, the origin of chinese whispers lies in the artificiality of the chinese walls we put up around ourselves and by far the best way to remove the whicspers is simply to remove those walls. As for maineflyersworstnightmare ........... can I change my username too.

I didn't mean that post to come across as I now realise it must have. No offence was intended, just clumsy and rushed language.

Surely you're not saying that that statement was about informing anyone.

Thanks all the same but, while I'm sure you're trying to help, I'd rather hear facts than conjecture and I'd rather hear it from those who actually know what happened.

Pete, if i remember correctly, they weren't able to resign together so it's unlikely they'll be any more able or willing to act together now. No one is asking any of them to "come out" , simply to let the truth out. How hard can that be? I'm not interested in their split being repaired, simply that someone, somewhere realises that in order to represent Rangers fans you first have to have a conviction of honesty and integrity - and an occasional inclination to put those fans before personal issues. Maybe this is what they're missing.........

Then he's cooking his own books. There is no way he or anyone else can justify the position of secrecy that has been adopted .... and still propose a democratic system of fan ownership. You can live in or out of the shadows but you can't have it both ways. Making contrived arguments to support secrecy and re-naming it as privacy is plain bollocks.

Craig, I'm actually quite disturbed that someone as intelligent as you could put so little store in openness and honesty. I can only assume you're taking this view on the basis of personal loyalties because it's inconceivable you actually believe what you're posting.

What a fuss. But why? Why is it suddenly a threat to privacy to ask those involved to clarify what happened? Why would anyone possibly feel threatened by revealing the truth? Let's be absolutely clear about this. Those involved stood for, held and resigned from public office. This isn't some secret society we're talking about here, it's the Rangers Supporters Trust and, unless I've got this wrong, we're all Rangers Supporters. Many of us were or still are members of that organisation and were always denied the facts we should have been given as a matter of course. Instead, we were fed meaningless shite and kept in the dark. This was as much an ommission of those who resigned as those who remained in office and it sums up the attitude that condemned the Trust to failure from the outset. It is an attitude that continues to see the board of the Trust hold themselves above and beyond their membership and is why so many of us have concluded that the RST is run by and for a small elite group to the exclusion of it's core mission. Personally, I share the views of Pete that those who resigned had a duty of care to the RST mambership to offer a full explanation of why they resigned in such numbers and to give the membership an opportunity to assume an informed opinion on the whole episode. I believe it was a grave mistake to adopt the outwardly pious stance of wishing "to spend more time with their families", if you catch my drift. Both sides in this affair put themselves and their personal reputations before the interests of the people they had undertaken to represent and that, quite franky, was and remains unacceptable. Og course these views have become diluted by virtue of various personal friendships and loyalties, by the knowledge that (for example) Gersnet's and RM's own Frankie is one of those who chose to keep the affair under wraps. That causes us to offer excuses for and accommodate the secrecy, even transforming it somehow into an altogether inappropriate commodity called privacy. However, the RST is not a private party and those involved had not right to regards the resignations as private in the first place. There is no excuse for the lack of information that was offered by way of explanation and that's a simple fact. It almost beggars belief that the inclination to deny openness runs so deep through every aspect of this community of ours. Much as I've come to respect his views and motives, I genuinely believe Frankie is making a huge mistake by continuing to deflect from this issue. This simply perpetuates and builds upon the most fundamental problems we have - dishonesty and mistrust. It's not exactly rocket science to understand why the incumbent RST board might not wish to reveal the facts behind those resignations but isn't it absurd that those of us in the wider Rangers community continue to be denied a basis on which to judge all of those involved on both sides.