Hildy
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Everything posted by Hildy
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Hearts are in a situation that is rare for them - they are under pressure to win every game. This is the norm for us in domestic football. Today's result will be a big disappointment for Hearts - and much of the rest of Scottish football.
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The reason we can't all get along is because we care deeply about the one thing that is our reason for being here: Rangers. One man sees a course of action which he believes to be beneficial and good while another sees it as a blind alley and waste of energy. Because we care, we disagree, which - very regrettably - means that the level of hatred which exists between certain fans - and hatred is the right word if we are being truthful - is as high as the enmity that exists between ourselves and rival supporters. People believe that others don't care as much as they do, and they feel aggrieved when fellow fans call things out as they really are rather than living the delusion that we're the greatest fans in the world, and other such nonsense. This isn't particularly unusual - there are enmities in various organisations where people all care about the one thing - but the level of dysfunctionality within the Rangers family is far too high, and this has come close to paralysing us at a time of crisis. If we can rise above it and learn to co-operate where there is common ground, we'll stand a chance of making progress, but if we can't, we will deserve all that is coming to us.
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Full fan ownership is more likely to protect the club and keep it safe from those who would do it harm. Settling for being a minority and wilfully leaving space for an undesirable incomer to arrive and dominate the club is, to put it mildly, unwise. Right now, we are open to and flirting with devastation. If RF achieves its 25% goal, that will still be the case. I've stated openly since coming on to this forum that I support fan ownership. It is perfectly clear now that Rangers First is not only not going to deliver this, it has no intention of delivering it. In that respect, this discussion has been very helpful.
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I'm all for respect, but I cannot be expected to approve of or join an organisation that only wants the Rangers support to be a fringe player when it comes to all the key aspects in the way that the club is run. If one party has 51%, the club will be run in a way that reflects that person's thinking, and if said person has a motivation of greed, or worse, that comes ahead of the general wellbeing of the club, the club will suffer and a quarter share of ownership will find itself on the losing side time after time. I cannot imagine why anyone who cares deeply for Rangers would want that, especially after all that we have witnessed, and are still witnessing. I don't doubt your fondness for Rangers, but the club needs to be wrestled away permanently from those who would wreck it for a quick buck. Rangers First is not going to do that, even after all that has happened. The club needs to be transformed into a member-owned club where every fan has a vote on who the president should be. It's time we embraced fan ownership fully instead of chasing a 25% share and hoping that the other 75% finds its way into appropriate hands. Surely by know we must realise that this is a recipe for catastrophe.
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While Rangers is under controversial ownership, thousands of people will not pay towards its upkeep because they believe that their money is being plundered instead of being wholly spent on the club's wellbeing. If Rangers was fan-owned and in trustworthy hands, people would happily buy merchandise and attend games and do so uncomplainingly. With untrusted ownership, which the RF plan leaves the door wide open to, they hold back or stay away or sometimes chuck it altogether. This current episode has already cost us support. Some will not return, and yet the RF plan is do precisely nothing to stop the whole sorry tale happening again. A lesson has not been learned here, which is both mystifying and inexcusable. A quarter share will not save Rangers or make it the club it will need to be to recover its reputation both as a football club and as a sporting institution - and if the current lot can reduce Rangers to its current sorry state, don't imagine that a 25% holding is going to inhibit a majority owner with 51% or more who has acquired Rangers for reasons best known to himself. Fan ownership will slam the door shut on the sharks and the charlatans. Minority ownership, however, most certainly will not. I'm sorry to say it, but the RF plan looks like an exercise written up by accountants whose career experience has been to look after the books of the neighbourhood church. Only by shutting out the crooks will we be properly rid of them - and the only hope of doing that is to become a fully fan-owned club.
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The SNP's main goal was always complete independence. That's why the party exists. They aren't afraid to say it. They didn't set up the party to stop at devolution. Our publicly stated goal should not be to aim for a minority stake in the club - that will be an inevitable consequence of going on this journey anyway - it should the Star Trek option - to boldly go where we have never been, certainly in the modern era.
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Not going for full fan ownership is both timid and bizarre. I find it so frustrating when people who have been persuaded that fans having a stake in their club - together - is a step in the right direction then back off from taking it the whole way to its logical conclusion. I believe in fan ownership but I could not lend my support to Rangers First or back it financially. It seems to me to be a road to future disillusionment, and yet this could easily be avoided if it was to bite wholeheartedly into the fan ownership bullet. We need boldness to make the revolution happen. RF should go for full fan ownership instead of having an ambition to be a minority player.
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Remind me what your plan is.
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How do Barcelona and Real Madrid and most of the German top tier do it? And if they can do it, why can't we? This idea of waiting until a billionaire comes along is draining the club and killing it - along with being akin to believing in Santa. Let us put faith in ourselves - just as our founders did.
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Having a goal of owning a mere quarter of the club and then drawing a line under it is, I regret to say, political naivety and an own goal. The sharks can still come in to swim in the Rangers pond, and if they are ruthless enough, they will chew up and spit out minority shareholders without drawing breath. It sounds as though this 25% plan has been drawn up by beancounters who have no concept of the clout that majority owners with menace on their minds have. Fan ownership excludes the sharks from existing within our midst, and even if the odd one does make it to the highest office, we can elect him away and choose - actually choose - his or her replacement. This 25% idea is a sticking plaster and bandages non-solution to our problems. The club needs a revolution, and the revolution is full fan ownership. I really wonder why we are so afraid of it.
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Mike Ashley set to bid for Rangers (and NUFC ban Daily Telegraph for story)
Hildy replied to ian1964's topic in Rangers Chat
What is it we have become so used to saying - ah yes . . . You couldn't make it up. What an embarrassment. -
Why settle for second best? Why be a minority to an uninvited majority owner? If Mike Ashley owned 51% of Rangers, and if he wanted to sell off Murray Park or Ibrox, do you really think a 25% stake would stop him? We are being manipulated already with this new membership sham and decent fans are falling for it. Any CEO of Rangers with a fast buck priority will easily neutralise a minority group holding 25%. Settling for being a minority stakeholder in Rangers is an accident waiting to happen. We have to learn our lesson - a halfway house - or quarter way - towards fan ownership is not the answer. Outright ownership where the members, not the shareholders, own the club is the revolution that simply has to happen. We don't need any more chairmen - we need elected presidents.
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Imagine being a fan-owned club. Imagine electing a president to oversee and organise the club instead of not knowing from one day to the next who is going to own it, when it is going to be sold, or which important club asset is going to be unloaded. Imagine a chairman choosing to sell Ibrox and doing it against the wishes of almost all Rangers fans. It could happen, and we are rightly very worried about the possibility. Imagine a president trying to do the same thing but being stopped in his tracks by democratic processes within the club. In a fan-owned club the people matter because the people are the club - not just in terms of allegiance - but in a legal sense. Rangers would belong to us - not uninvited strangers. The case to be fan-owned is very powerful. Right now, we are the people who don't have a say in how our club goes about its business. In the future, if we become fan-owned, we will be the people who matter and the people who make the club an honest and honourable Scottish sporting institution again. I know that people have issues with various personalities in and around fan groups but the message must overcome this. The RST wants each and every one of us to stand together to own Rangers, to make Rangers what we never tire telling people what we believe we already are - the people's club - not for factions, not for dubious business types and not for asset strippers. John Lennon used to saw that 'war is over', but he always qualified it by adding: 'if you want it'. Well, Rangers can belong to us - every red brick in the stadium and every blade of grass on the pitch - if we want it. That's why I am part of the RST's BuyRangers and I hope many of you will join me in becoming a part of it.
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In a fairly short time, the RST's SaveRangers initiative was pledged around £13m when things were looking desperate a few years ago, so in particular circumstances the Rangers support is prepared to step up, but, bizarrely, the utterly pointless RFFF was backed instead and a golden opportunity was lost.
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My way, as you know, is fan ownership. The RST is for fan ownership - that's why I support it - but Rangers First is happy to be minority shareholder at Rangers - it's worth pointing this out. It wants fans to have a minority holding, but doesn't want Rangers to be a fully fan-owned club. There is an ocean of clear blue water between the two groups and people need to understand this. Only one - the RST - has an ambition for Rangers to be fan-owned. As for Vanguard Bears, I have no idea what its plan is. I think the RST should give serious consideration to coming up with a blueprint for fan ownership to illustrate how it works elsewhere, and how it could work at Ibrox.
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It's overused in politics and in society - not just in football.
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ACT? Perhaps you should explain this.
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The longer this saga drags on, the more likely it is that Rangers will not fully recover. As things stand at the moment, it is impossible to be optimistic.
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The people who don't believe in boycotts and who believe that the team should be backed no matter how toxic the Rangers board is really have to grasp a new reality: the situation has gone too far. Daily revelations concerning the board and its antics have made it impossible for many fans to support it with their cash. I would agree that a climate where boycotting becomes a first port of call every time there is a grievance is dangerous, but the mess at Rangers is so beyond the pale that stronger measures are not only called for, they are inevitable. I could not criticise anyone for refusing to prop up this regime. My only worry is that they won't be back if the situation is ever resolved.
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That is a shame - not for me personally - but for the future wellbeing of Rangers. I would urge every fan to join BuyRangers and help make Rangers a fan-owned club. With fan ownership, Rangers can flourish. Without it, we will surely perish.
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You don't trust your fellow supporters on the RST board. You have made this abundantly clear. You choose not to buy from them citing a lack of trust, which is entirely your right, but then get offended when I describe the Rangers support in less than glowing terms. I believe that the Rangers support has been generally inadequate to deal with the many problems that we have encountered - but you go as far as to cite lack of trust as an issue in this dysfunctional family. Welcome to the 'negative' camp.
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It's not just apathy. The Rangers support expects the right sort to always step forward, and if there is no obvious candidate, it is lost. Look at the blame attached to supposedly wealthy fans who didn't 'step up'. This has been the expectation, and when there is no-one prepared to do it, the club attracts fast buck ownership and quickly unravels. Someone said on here recently that the fans should watch the team while the board(uninivited) gets on with properly running the club. This attitude belongs in the distant past. Rangers cannot properly function when it is the fast buck tool of people who have no real affection for it. The only way for the fans to safeguard Rangers Football Club is to buy it - and that's where the RST comes in. It recognised over ten years ago what more are coming round to now.
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The RST has already had commendable success, and while it is well short of achieving its goal of fan ownership, the concept that is fan ownership is now part of the vocabulary of the Rangers support. The RST made that happen - no-one else. A long road is still to be travelled, but the fan ownership message is beginning to penetrate. This is progress - not enough - but progress nonetheless.
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You'll note that I'm talking about the Rangers support being hopeless - and that includes all of us. The only ray of hope is the RST which has a vision of fan ownership and an understanding that wholesale change is necessary.