The Real PapaBear

Calling dB ridiculous or stupid for thinking that Kuznetsov *may* have meant catholic is completely out of order. Face facts; there is *still* a sizeable swathe of our support who *are* bigoted and for whom celtic fans and Catholics are one and the same and who use the term Tim to mean either, interchangeably. I'm not for a moment saying that Kuz is doing so, or that Kuz is in any way bigoted (nothing he has ever posted would make me think that) , but the post to which dB refers is phrased in such a way that it *could* be taken as such. So people who are having a pop at dB should take a deep breath and have a wee word with themselves. forlans sister? Well, I could give my opinion on him but I'd be banned from the forum - as I think it would breach at least one of the house rules;).

We sue them, forcing them into administration? Would that not be just delicious, if we did?

one word: haircut.

I have to say that Larsson was probably the most complete player I have ever seen play in Scotland. The only two in the same class were Gazza and Laudrup but Gazza was too inconsistent and self-destructive to be classed as a true great and Laudrup didn't have the defensive or finishing qualities. Larsson had it all.

"Salmond received the most stinging rebuke dished out to politicians from Lord Leveson." And yet another Mcmurdo blog where black is described as white: This is what Leveson actually said about Salmond: "Judged by what he (Mr Salmond) did, as opposed to what he said he was prepared to do, therefore, he cannot be criticised." Only in the fantasy paranoid world of McMurdo could "He cannot be criticised" be described as "a stinging rebuke".

Oh, *that's* quality. I'm logging that one for the next time my wife has something in mind that I'm not keen on

Definitely. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity here in which we can try to ditch the more unpleasant baggage that surrounds Rangers and adopt a new ethos among the support. Given our experience, it would make all sorts of sense for us to become the helpful, friendly club which is more than willing to mobilise its fantastic fan base to help any other club (other than the Gang of Four) in times of need. I don't think friendly matches is necessarily the way forward, but something along the lines of a matchday raffle or donating the proceeds of programme sales would help other clubs without putting too much of a strain on the Rangers fan base.

utterly, utterly brilliant - whoever put this together is a media professional, or if s/he isn't, s/he should be

The problem with a simple structure like that is the fact that teams can have nothing to play for from about January in some cases - and some times even earlier. The trick is to find a system that gives as many teams as possible something to play for for as long as possible. Imagine you had two leagues, each with one half of the Old Firm. You would then have half the league in contention for second place and a uefa Cup spot and with probably at least four looking to fight off relegation (with a two up two down system) almost every club would be playing for something until teh end of the season. Also, if one half of the OF has an off year the chances of another team winning the league or getting into the CL are much, much greater than at present.

We're all heartily sick of the SPL and the mood amongst is is to have nothing more to do with them. But we want to play a decent level of football; so what to do? We could start our own league. Seriously, bear with me. start a new league, call it the National League; invite some SPL teams (Killie, Well, Hearts, Dundee and Ross County and ICT) and a group from the 1st Div and play a 12 team league with a split as at present. The remaining dross could play in the Scottish League - or they could call it the Keltic League, since they're all in bed with them anyway. Divs 2 and 3 become regional leagues North and South, Winners of each region go into the NL or the SL. Winners of the SL and NL play off three games at the end of the season to decide the Championship and thus Champions league spot, runner up into Uefa cup if we only have one CL spot; 2+3rd place teams in each league play off for Uefa cup spots.

Seconded. I think we also have to ask the question whether Stuart Cosgrove's position on football shows has become untenable. 'Off the Ball' is supposed to be a comedy show but when one of the presenters has slandered, libled and defamed the most supported club in the country, and thus alienated the many, many thousands of license-fee paying listeners who tune(d) into that show, it can be argued that he is no longer able to do the job. The show, with Cowan and AN Other could possibly still survive, but with Cosgrove as part of it, the show is dead. I was, until the start of this tax/EBT thing, an avid listener to the show and I never bought into the supposed anti-Rangers agenda of Cowan and Cosgrove - and with regard to Tam Cowan, I still don't. Cowan regards us with the healthy contempt that the supporter of a small club *should* regard the country's biggest club. That's fair enough and perfectly reasonable. Cosgrove, however, is a different issue altogether. His vitriol and barely disguised bigotry is clear to every Rangers fan and his protestations to the contrary ring hollow. Further, his position on Your Call is equally untenable. Jim Traynor, at least, has shown himself to be an independent voice (albeit a 4th rate radio presenter). Irrespective of whether you agree with him, he has an integrity which means he is at least worth listening to. Cosgrove, otoh, has shown himself to be biased, eager to jump to mistaken conclusions and has lost all credibility as a result of his behaviour over the events at Rangers. The problem with Cosgrove is that he just doesn't understand his own bigotry. He has apologised for making a mistake only because the FTTT decision was delivered in our favour. He should be apologising for the mind-set and value system he holds, which made his behaviour such as it was. The EBT issue was only ever a question of interpretation of tax law. There was never any question of illegality, cheating or fraud - simply whether it was a legitimate tax vehicle. Cosgrove's hatred of Rangers, however, meant that a supposedly intelligent man who should have been able to see the EBT issue for what it was, couldn't wait to jump on the bandwagon and put the boot in as often and as unfairly as he could. Up until now, his contempt for Rangers was, if not acceptable then at least bearable masked as it was in the guise of 'baiting the Old Firm' - despite the fact that 90% of his vitriol was reserved for one half of it. Now however, he stands exposed in his true colours - and it's not a pretty sight.

The only thing that would make it better is if he got David Attenborough to narrate it!

for anyone looking to build up a collection of sites which posted defamatory articles or comments about Rangers. Just enter http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:the_url_you_want. For example; http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rangerstaxcase.wordpress.com will show you the front page of the site before it was removed. Just as an example, mind you - I'm not alleging defamation. Oh deary me, no. I don't think this is defamation: "The current PR campaign from Murray, and other senior Rangers’ personnel who were beneficiaries of the EBT scheme, is designed to reverse any sense of inevitability regarding amending the sporting record to reflect the cheating that took place between 2001-2011. All Scottish football fans- Rangers fans included- were cheated during these years. " I think it's lible. If you then make a note (or right click +copy) the urls of the articles on the menu on the right hand side, e.g. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rangerstaxcase.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/digging-the-hole-ever-deeper/ you'll be able to see what was on each of those pages before they were removed. happy hunting

I'm reminded of the story of teh two bulls who notice the farmer has left the gate to the cow field open; "quick" says the young bull, "lets run down quickly and screw a couple". "No", says the old bull, "let's walk down slowly and do the lot" So, let's not rush in too hastily. We should take our time about this and consider things in a careful, calm manner; After all, we want to make sure that we get *all* of them.

Nah, it would be a police report.

Doncaster, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey and Doc can make all the plans they want - but unless we give the go-ahead, nothing's going to happen. It's about time that all the dwarves of Scottish football realised this.

It wouldn't be a metaphor, which would describe one thing as being something else. It's possibly an implied analogy, although the way tg used it here it could be more accurately described as a conceit. Just sayin'.

LOL! I'll just wipe the coffee off my laptop then, shall I?

LOL! nice one

have to correct a wee typo there, Darther...should be GIRFUY

Rangers debt used to be in the order of £80m. Murray reduced it to round about £20m. This amount of debt is manageable for a club like Rangers - so why did Murray sell to Whyte and why was nobody else interested in buying? Because we and everybody else had been told that the Big Tax Case was a foregone conclusion and that Rangers would end up owing HMRC £95m. Murray got cold feet, knowing that he couldn't possibly come up with £95m, he panicked and chucked away the club like a hot potato. Turns out that wasn't true and there was no need to sell to Whyte after all. So Whyte bought us and ran us into the ground and put the company that ran the club for 113 years into liquidation. Have I missed anything here?

The problem was that from about x-mas the relegation battle was fixed, the title was between two clubs, very rarely 3, and so you had 15 or 16 teams with nothing to play for every week. The 'Split' has been a good idea since it gives teams something to play for right up until the last month or so.

I didn't think Germans did irony You're getting more Scottish by the day, bud!

and once Celtic start to give a fuck about winning the SPL and put 4 or 5 past Hibs and Aberdeen then you can see the attendances fall like snow off a dyke

nah, 54, I'm not having that. Tom English is actually just about the only writer working in this country who is worth a damn.