The Real PapaBear

and yet you are unable to explain why. Any chance of actually responding to any of the points calscot makes? Or is your idea of debate simply making a dismissive, groundless statement?

Then you need to define what you mean by "protestant" - in your case, and in many others', I suspect it defines what you are not, rather than what you are. You cannot logically be an atheist and a Protestant. You can, however be an atheist and a protestor against the doctrines and teachings of the Roman Catholic church. And if you are, why are you? Do you have doctrinal issues with the Romans? Or is your 'protestantism' actually a social result of the division caused in society by the segregated schooling system enforced on society by the RC church?

5% of the population of England and Wales is Muslim according the the Royal Statistical Society, of which I am a committee member. nah, not really - I read it in The Independent last week

I think 49,000 empty seats would raise enough curiosity across the world's sports desks to ensure that we got our point across.

ehhmm ... oops

A large part of the problem is that you get those idiots who claim to "support my club no matter who is in charge", so that when a situation like this arises, where a city whizz kid with a proven track record describes it as a horror show, when a guy who was appointed to the board because of his track record of honest corporate governance is driven out of office, where alarm bells are sounding like a raid over London in 1940, these same idiots spend their time denigrating the proven good guys in the same way they denigrate the character of our Manager rather than coming together to demand answers from the people running the club - the club they profess to support, but in reality do nothing but harm. There is always something that can be done. If the board's behaviour or composition is unacceptable to the majority of the fans, we simply stop going to home games. We send a message. They already have our season ticket money, so that bargaining chip has gone - but we still have the moral power of the support; the same moral power that saw tV crews from France, Japan and America turning up to cover the worldwide football story that is Rangers. If the fans, having bought season tickets, don't go to games, there will be questions that have to be answered.

Beautifully put. The sort of measured, mature and balance response I can only dream of

That's one way of avoiding answering it.

Your three statements are erroneous, fallacious and irrelevant in that order - and rather than defending your position with reasoned argument, as I have done in my defense of McCoist, you simply ascribe invented viewpoints to me. You've stated that you can differentiate between the club and individuals. You've stated that you were supporting 'the club' regardless of who was in charge. I'll ask again; who or what was it you were supporting and how did that support manifest itself?

in which case, you'll have no difficulty answering the question I put to you: "When you say "support the club" who or what were you supporting? "

When you say "support the club" who or what were you supporting? You had no idea whether Green was another con-man and crook like Whyte - none of us did. If he had turned out to be another crook and if you had blindly supported him and driven the club into extinction by doing so, how is that "supporting the club"? As it turned out Green was given the support of the fan base - thanks in no small part to McCoist - and was then able to bring a degree of stability to the club and get us back onto the park again. If it hadn't been for AM it is extremely doubtful whether Green would have got enough support to allow him to continue as Chairman. Whether Ally's support was the right thing to have done is something for historians to decide - but the fact is that McCoist was 'our' man and the only one we could trust and he made the decision to give his backing to Green. As for AM's decision being a 'no-brainer, If McCoist had come out and told the fans not to buy season tickets, Charles Green would have had to consider whether it was worth trying to flog a dead horse or whether he would be better off selling RFC to someone else for a tidy wee profit.

One of the surest signs that somebody has no argument is when they resort to extreme terminology and use straw men. Nobody has claimed AM was a 'messiah'. What he was, however, was a leader at a time when the fans and the club desperately needed one. AM wasn't "forced" into the manager's position. He chose to stay in the position he was in and he did so with no pay. Why did he do that? Because he knew that if he walked away there would not have been one single person the fans could have trusted and the club would have been in a potentially fatal position. "Gullible" describes people who, yet again, are willing to throw their money without thinking at whichever charlatan or crook happens to be chairman without stopping for once to demand answers - even after the club has been brought to the edge of oblivion by that very sort of mindless behaviour. In fact, no, strike that; that's not gullible behaviour, that's bordering on criminally negligent. We had been run by a fool, whose mismanagement put the club in mortal danger. No questions asked. We were taken over by a criminal, whose recklessness almost killed us. No questions asked. We were sold to a consortium of fly-by-nights and shady characters and yet some people were still willing to follow along blindly, believing whatever these carpetbaggers told you, no questions asked? Thankfully the great bulk of the support weren't as blind and we demanded assurance that this latest bunch of chancers weren't going to kill the club off completely this time - and the only person we could trust to do that was McCoist. You had trust in your 'club'? Really? What exactly and who exactly did you have trust in? I'm really keen to know what and who it was that you trusted so much, because nobody I knew or heard or read had any trust in anybody or anything at that time - except Ally McCoist. Ahem!

where do I start with this? Firstly, McCoist wasn't an "alleged" figurehead, he *was* the figurehead. Secondly, Why did we need one? Because everybody who we knew as being part of the club before disaster struck had done a runner, had retired or had been sacked; The new people, or rather the new, new people ( since the old new people i.e Whyte's mob has got us into the mess in the first place) were unknown to anybody. The only person who we knew ad who we knew to have the best interest of the club at heart was McCoist. You might have been foolish enough to put hundreds of pounds into RFC in the immediate aftermath of thousands of people losing the money they had put into RFC, but without the support of McCoist it is doubtful whether many others would have been willing to trust the latest group of chancers to appoint themselves to the Ibrox board. Have you *completely* forgotten where we were in the summer of 2012? Thirdly, you are confusing McCoist's position as manager with his position as figurehead for the club, whether willfully or because you didn't take the time to read what I wrote, I don't know. McCoist's performance as manager is, as I have already said, the subject of legitimate debate. The support is split on this. The support is not split on his position as one of the guys who saved the club or on is position as one of the all time Rangers' greats. Finally, I did not say or even insinuate that we need McCoist or any other figurehead to keep the club together now. My assertion about McCoist's invaluable role referred to 2012. I assume that you have confused past and present and raised this straw man argument because you haven't been able to pose an alternative; i.e. in the summer of 2012 when the club was in freefall and heading for possible oblivion, nobody knew or trusted anybody else and we needed a figurehead; McCoist stood up. You've said you disagree with this but haven't said who else we could have trusted or who else could have done the job he did. My breath is still baited awaiting this other name.

Ok. Now we know that you disagree with that. What we don't know is the reason for your disagreement and which other unifying figurehead in whom we could all have trusted you would propose in counter argument. I await with breath baited.

is it just me or is anyone else getting heart-felt sick of people using every chance they can to denigrate and slander Ally? Granted, McCoist has yet to convince us that he is the right man to be the manager, but this sudden upsurge in anti-McCoist postings which have nothing to do with on-field activities makes we wonder if those posting them really are Rangers fans - because no *real* Bluenose would *ever* attack the personal integrity or honesty of Ally McCoist. And on the subject, it would be a refreshing piece of honesty if all the anti-ally brigade (whether real Bears or interlopers) would say clearly what Ally would have to do before they would stop their sniping. I'll start; I'm pro-McCoist - but if we don't finish next season 20+ points ahead, playing a style of football that is blowing away the opposition on a regular basis,, with a healthy supply of new blood into the team and talk of prospects in the pipeline, then I'll be willing to agree that maybe he's had his chance and it's time to move on. Over to you greetin'-faced whingers, what would it take for youse to shut up? (I kinda feel I've broken a forum rule somewhere there, Frankie - and if I haven't you have to revise the rules - apologies in advance of getting my knuckles rapped.

true, but without Mccoist we would have had nobody to rally around and/or trust

in other words, they're doing exactly what we did. Except for the part about being taken over by a criminal. Oh, and except the part about the Scottish media crawling all over them calling them cheats.

The highest is number 76 in the list of Ireland's highest mountains. Not Nepal. Not Switzerland. Ireland. 76. How fuckin' insignificant does a hill have to be that it has 75 ahead of it in Ireland? Anyone needs rescued off that hill is best left to die, for the sake of the human gene pool.

i'm guessing "twat"?

If it were a ban on him/her being published then yes; but in this case it is no such thing. In this case it is simply telling people who deliberately seek to damage the club, "beat it - go and write your lies somewhere else; you're not doing it from here". Why should we extend facilities and information to people whose sole intent is to abuse those facilities and distort that information against us? It's one thing for a journalist to write that McCoist is a crap manager, that we are burning through money faster than is healthy or that our youth policy is a shambles; those are all legitimate areas for debate. It is entirely another thing to allow someone to perpetuate the myth of Rangers FC cheating or to allow someone to continue to broadcast that we are somehow a new club.

all due respect mate, that's an argument reducto ad absurdum - nobody is talking about stopping free speech; the question is whether we should continue to allow people access to the club whose seeming sole purpose is to piss on us once they are through the doors. They can write what they want from the comfort of their offices, but are you really saying that we should continue to give free access to someone like Spiers who continues to publish defamatory lies which only serve to damage the club? I wouldn't ban English (yet) because I don't think his stuff is malevolent in the way that Spiers' is - but he sure as hell has to be held to account by the club when he writes stuff that is demonstrably wrong. We have to let these people know that there is a price for overstepping the line.

That's because you assume that the UK is a modern, social democracy - which is kinda sweet. The press in the UK serve the interests of those who employ them; they have zero social conscience and even less social responsibility. There is no political will or need to regulate the press - because a "free" press is good or those who pay for it. For those of us who get it 'free', it is very expensive indeed.

Spiers is a craven joke, so let's not waster any time discussing him. Tom english, however, disappoints me. I had held him for something above the rest; erroneously it would appear. It is the way of things, the natural way and the best way, that the press should hold to account the biggest and most powerful. That was us until last year. We were, and remain Scotland's biggest club, Scotland's most successful and Scotland's most unpopular. Consequently we should expect, indeed secretely welcome, the natural levels of abuse and vitriol that accompanies that position. That's fine. We can live with that. That's as it should be. What we should not expect, far less tolerate, is the cowardly laziness of the media, Mr English included, who when faced with evidence that shows Rangers to have been the victim rather than the perpetrator of a crime, willfully ignore this and continue with the safe, fecund, and dishonourable vein of reporting that refuses to acknowledge the new reality. Truth is often hardest to tell when it serves the powerful - but it remains the truth. If Mr English is too afraid or to myopic to see it and report it for what it is, then he loses any remaining credibility he may have had among the more enlightened of our support.

done - but had never heard of this club world cup business

Brilliant!