Tumshie RFC

I expect Walter to come out at some point this week to back Paul Murray & Co.

I don't think its looking good for Paul Murray & Co. I'm really worried what will happen to our club if this current board is allowed to remain.

Crawford has had enough chances at right midfield to prove he doesn't have it. He is simply not good enough and offers just as little as Peralta, probably less in fact.

Would disagree with that. Think he's done just as well than anyone else who has played there this season. No-one has made that position their own. Not even Templeton who's allegedly a million pound player.

Not one player in that position has really made that position their own since the start of the season. Out of the lot of them I would rather see Crawford given an extended run to see how he gets on.

They get away with murder, we get away with nothing - welcome to the national press of Scotland in 2013!

Absolute joke of a decision. What must the fringe players think when Ally would rather postpone a game against a part time side than play them.

Once again the normal fan loses out because of it.

Even if Parkhead or Ibrox wasn't full to capacity I would guess that there would be at least 40,000 people there - still a helluva lot more than those who will see the game. I''ll be very disappointed if I don't get a ticket. Regretting not signing up for the CCC scheme already.

Foster has been ineffective, I wish we had retained Mitchell and given him his chance at RB. He deserved it after last season, but seems to have been made the fall guy for the loss at Forfar, even though he only played 45 mins.

I wish McAusland would have kept his place since the start of this season. He had a few steady performances and didn't deserve to be dropped.

I think we would take 30,000 to the cup final. For that reason it has to be at either Ibrox for the Brendanbeu.

I wasn't impressed with his signing but he's proved me wrong. One of our best players so far this season.

Scouting for what level ? Players to go straight into the first team squad or youth product ?

I would say both. We don't seem to have either at the moment. I know we all wanted a lot of kids to come through during our time out of the top division but lets be honest most of them simply aren't good enough.

Would like to see more of Crawford, Gasparotto and McAusland when he's back from his loan spell. Apart from that I didn't think any of the youngsters last year were good enough, Lewis Macleod being the exception.

I'm not sure if its wasted years but I certainly thought that we would have a proper scouting system in place by the time we return to the top flight. For me the chief scout has to be the second most important person in the club apart from the manager. I would rather we spend big and get our scouting system across Planet Football done properly than pissing away thousands per week on average players who will be replaced when we get back up the divisions.

We need to properly invest in a proper scouting system and improve our youth system rather than simply throwing money at a title tilt. We need to properly re-build the club.

Barry was a terrific player but he should never have left for such a wee diddy team.

Seems to be one rule for Rangers supporters and one rule for everyone else. If you wanna crack down on distasteful chanting then fair enough. Focus should simply stand in the home end of every away ground we visit when you here the H word. But hey nothin creates a headline more than a Rangers fan up in court on a sectarian songs charge.

What I take from this that you can't sing anything that involves any paramilitary activity but I can see someone going to court and challenging this in the same way as happened with The Sash.

I thought Van Vossen was a pretty good player till his infamous missed sitter against Celtic. He completely lost his confidence after that and even Walter was saying how he'd somehow been replaced by his twin brother who wasn't any good.

 

That view of him was cemented home when I watched the season review on Sky that year.

Van Vossen had a great start to that season. Scored a belter of a goal against Killie and scored a few goals in the run-up to that Old Firm game.

It was a shame for the guy as he became a bit of a joke figure after that miss. I remember playing football with my mates down the park and if one of us missed a sitter it was known as a "Van Vossen".

Is it fair to say we never got the best out of quite a number of quality players (not quite world class). This may be due to a few reasons like they were winding down their career, couldn't adapt to Scottish style of play and many more.

 

We had a pretty good record at signing players with pedigree who had success at World cup and European level.

 

To name a few:

 

Kuznetzov - A lot been said already

Van Vossen - I remember him coming with big reputation but other than a few glimpses he failed to impress.

Salenko - Scored 5 goals in 1 game at the world cup.

Porrini - A champions league winner with Juventus who were a cracking side. He didn't have a bad Rangers career, just not spectacular. (played RB a lot rather than CH)

Boli - Another CL winner who didn't last long.

Rosental - Was hot property in South America and getting into the Chile side with Salas and Zameramo both who were cracking. Obviously injury was his downfall. I remember being at the game he got injured against St Johnstone, he just jumped for a header and his studs got stuck in the turf. Such an unlucky one.

Prodan - Never kicked a ball.

Thern - Was cracking for Sweden and captained them to the WC 94 semi's. But looked well out of place for us.

 

Thinking back we probably under achieved in Europe for a few seasons considering the players we had, money that was spend. For a few seasons we were shocking in Europe losing against teams like AEK Athens, Rosenburg and Copenhagen when we should have been beating teams like that.

Add Grasshoppers and Levski Sofia to that list.

The difference with Durrant was at least we got quite a bit out of him both before and after his injury. With Kuznetsov - and Rosenthal, they came with massive reputations and expectorations which they were never able to deliver in more than half a game or two. They're a couple of the many intriguing Rangers what-ifs...

Big Oleg did at least score that screamer against Celtic on New Year's Day. What a strike.

By all accounts an outstanding player who was in 11th place in the European Footballer of the Year award in 1988, and in 17th place in 1989.

 

Unfortunately we didn't get to see him at his best and I must admit I was always very suspicious of that second game injury; if I recall it was early in the match too.

 

Sorry don't get the connection with Durrant; Kuznetsov was a CB?

Just that like Durrant, Kuznetsov suffered a really bad injury and we never really saw the best of him while he was here.

A question here for the older bears following on from the discussion about Ian Durrant's world class potential. What about big Oleg Kuznetsov?

By all accounts he was a stand-out of the Dynamo Kiev and USSR team before he came to us and got injured straight away.

So many memories from that time. It was great being a Rangers fan at that time.

* Orange Cup Final

* Ronald de Boer's diving header against Celtic at the Brendanbeu

* Big Bert's wonder goal at Hampden

* Mols' first season. Some of the goals were just unbelievable

I suppose it depends on how you to define world class.

I'm not old enough to have seen Baxter play but I've heard he was genuinely world class. We have had guys like Gazza and others but I don't think they were world class when they played for us.

That's actually a very valid point....Walter was probably working under stricter financial constraints than Ally is just now......yet still won major trophy's.

We didn't sign a player for almost 18 months and still won two titles, a league Cup and played in the Champions League. A phenomenal achievement looking back even if the football wasn't the prettiest.

TBH I still dont know how he fooled the majority! He looked and still looks a creep imo.

 

Ps.......Similar with Green & Co

At the time we were all desperate to get away from the bank running the club. How Walter and the team got 3IAR under those circumstances was a minor miracle.