Germinal

Oh well, he's plainly a prick then. For fuck's sake.

Ex-Motherwell, Sheffield Utd of late, on the fringes of the Scotland team from time to time, excellent player.

You can have serious reservations about Dave King without being anti-Rangers, indeed coming after the last few years a man with Dave's record in SA coming to the rescue sounded like a very bad joke. You can also have serious reservations about the kind of gung-ho capitalism practiced by the likes of David Murray, Dave King and many other people who hover around football without being anti-Rangers - many Rangers fans who back RF/BR probably look at that type of businessman as being 'fit & proper' with a jaundiced eye, and they certainly aren't anti-Rangers. I learnt via Craig Whyte not to mix up whoever was at the helm with the club - if Rangers is anything it is the fans, not the temporary owners of the club ties and parking spaces. All that said he was over the top on King (on radio), he was over the top on league reconstruction, and probably 101 other things. I'm not arguing he's the greatest ever mind to talk about football, but I do think he's several notches above the herd and as such his reaction, what limeburner correctly dismisses as consisting of 'nothing', was what bugged me into making the OP in the first place.

I don't take issue with what you write, but we need to remember that football reporters are people too, and that sometimes they'll get it right, sometimes wrong, and sometimes fly off the handle completely. Take the Hearts game Tannochside Bear spoke about - having ploughed up the motorway in hideous conditions (I turned back at Hillington) if you'd asked me what I thought if Rangers that night my reply would have been unprintable as well. Maybe he just had cold toes? But we can't expect people to expound the wisdom of Solomon every time they speak, especially if they're on as often as the likes of Tom. And yes, sometimes he talks cobblers! But I still can't make the leap from that to classing him as 'anti-Rangers' which in all honesty sounds a bit feeble, like something Stalin would have come out with. He doesn't have to like us, you know.

If it's a question of his ability: 'Shudderingly good' - Rugby World. 'Excellent' - Daily Mail. 'Superb' - Herald. 'A richly-textured picture' - Independent. 'I enjoyed this book enormously' - John Inverdale. 'Remarkable & compulsive' - Paul Ackford (used to play rugby for England). 'Marvellous, gripping' - Scottish Review of Books. 'It's terrific' - Alex Massie. Reviews for his book 'The Grudge'. He could walk into a job tomorrow covering rugby alone in any newspaper in the UK, while his other sports knowledge would mean editors would probably crawl over glass to get him, since they'd be getting three or four reporters for the price of one. He lives in Scotland, from what little I know, since that's where his family is growing up. If he was another talentless hack it wouldn't be worth wasting a post on. It's only because he is above the usual mediocre standard that his stance is disappointing.

Well, fair enough. I didn't get that from him but we're all different.

He was poor on all fronts really - interruptions which he wouldn't do to players, managers or fellow journalists, diversions, deflections - the best one was when he asked Craig Houston why he thought Rangers had withdrawn privileges from the writers, and when Craig gave HIS reasons these instantly became RANGERS reasons. Craig may be popular but he wasn't speaking for the club. It seemed like anger rather than logic, and that doesn't usually get anyone very far.

Assuming that's meant to be 'on the financial side anyway' that's quite clever. Cue hordes of comments from celtc fans on the lines of 'And what about the SA tax case? Youse are so bigotted. I hate the Daily Ranger' and so on. Click!

Football writing being usually rubbish, the sports equivalent of Frank Zappa's dictum that music journalism was written by people who couldn't write for people who couldn't read, I'm going to fit right in and start with a few bits of banal ground setting. Cards on the table. Let's get a few things straight. Clear the air. This is because I am about begin a post on Gersnet by announcing that I like Tom English. I think his non-football writing is first class, his breadth of interests refreshing and his football coverage better than most. Not much of a title I admit, but even so. But all this stage dressing is merely the preamble to a bottom spanking for Tom. Having listened to him on Monday night's Sportsound, in which BBC Scotland demonstrated the depth of their ostracisation of Rangers by devoting a solid hour to talking about, well, Rangers, even the most generously disposed toward Tom must be feeling a little bereft. I think in today's Scotland it may be verging on illegal to dredge up Irish stereotypes such as blarney but Tom's defence of his employer, BBC Scotland and his colleague, Chris McLaughlin, was woeful. And it was all the more woeful because it basically employed the reflex reaction which we Rangers fans used when Craig Whyte was being slaughtered by people out with the club. Since - and it's still hard to type these words - he was meant to be representing Rangers, many of us (me, certainly) automatically defended Whyte without really giving the accusations enough of a look. Tom's defence of Chris McLaughlin rests on similar ground - 'what do you expect us to do?' being a repeated line. Well, I suppose I expect you to look at the basis of the complaint, upon which I find it hard to believe anyone vaguely objective would find no issue with Chris' work. I expected a bit better I guess, which may be my own fault. It's a bit ironic to level the (justified) accusation of knee jerk reactions at Rangers fans for several years, then do the self same thing yourself. The 'circle-the-wagons' reflex which did us no good and helped expose the club to the cast of loons, chancers and ne'er do wells who have haunted our days and nights these long years past is the same reflex which makes journalists defend their colleagues no matter what. It wasn't healthy for us and it isn't healthy for them. There are few enough people in Scottish sport who can write anything worth reading and certainly too few for the likes of Tom to go wandering in the fields of narrow mindedness. No, he isn't anti-Rangers and no, being Irish doesn't preclude rational analysis of the game here, regardless of what extremists may think. No doubt Tom gets Twitter messages of an unpleasant nature from Rangers fans, but journalism, like politics, is a hard and dirty business and I hope he, like the best of people, doesn't allow that to cloud his judgement a la Spence. Think again, Tom.

Can't say I've ever met Mr McQuarrie but I have met Mrs Mckinnon and frankly she makes the Queen sound common. If anyone is imagining a hard-faced Republican harridan, think again.

And that's without being fully match fit in a team still bedding in.

BBC Scotland have been shedding 1,500 jobs over the last months, a massive percentage of the workforce. The place is an absolute morgue. If what Gunslinger says above is right, it would be distasteful in the extreme to blame your loss of work on Rangers.

As much as I loved the man, he managed to do that by himself.

Which makes the withdrawing of privilege from Spiers all the dafter. Focus on the huge story here, which would be a BBC employee taking stories for cash - if true, end of the line for yer man. Spiers is a written media diversion which allows baldy to sail on at the BBC, when we want the spotlight firmly on his chrome dome. Clive James has been here already: "And there is nothing more covetable in the whole land of the media than a solid BBC radio audience. When I did “A Point of View” for Radio 4 it used to pull three million people. This programme will do at least as well. And people will remember it and discuss it. The journalists for the cheap press are uneasily aware that nobody cares much about what they say. Hence their sad conviction that they can say things any way they like, even if it means staging a man’s funeral for him just because he makes a few down-in-the-mouth remarks. Talk about getting the hearse before the horse."

While it's pleasurable at a teenage level to tell baldy to sling his hook it doesn't achieve anything, while a focused PR drive mocking his output in humourous style would - journos love publicity, but they detest not being taken seriously. I can't help but be forever grateful to the present board for saving the club from the nightmare, this is childish nonsense, much like McLoughlin's work.

Here's a piece about some trouble in Oz. Not to hard to imagine some people of a non-Rangers affiliation thinking about doing the same here! The publicity would be horrendous. Whatever your own belief western (inc. Oz in this context) societies seem to be at a place where they won't tolerate things like this anymore. Answer is no politics of any sort at sport, but I wonder how likely that is. Continued booing of Adam Goodes may require football players to walk off the ground to protest against a rise in “corrupted national pride” among some Australians, the country’s race discrimination commissioner has warned. Tim Soutphommasane said AFL players may have to mirror the actions of some football players in Europe, who have publicly protested against racist treatment from fans. “If things do not improve, and assuming Goodes plays on, it may have to come to the players taking matters into their own hands,” Soutphommasane said in a speech to the Australian National University on Wednesday. “In Europe there have been occasions in football when teams have walked off the pitch in protest against racist abuse. What an indictment on our society it would be were things to come to reach such a point.” Goodes, Australian rules football’s most prominent Indigenous player, has been repeatedly booed by rival fans. It follows him criticising Australia’s policies towards Indigenous people and identifying a 13-year-old football fan for calling him an “ape” in 2013. The booing has intensified since Goodes’s war dance in front of the crowd in June. Soutphommasane said the “ugly” booing has “involved an element of racism” and needed to stop, noting reports that the Sydney Swans player is considering retiring because of the controversy. “Goodes has been a public figure not afraid of challenging prejudice, not afraid of asking questions about Australian history and society,” he said. “He has done it in ways that have made some people feel uncomfortable. “And it beggars belief to think that those booing somehow don’t know what they are doing. In taking a stand against racism, [Goodes] has inspired many, empowering others to do the same. “And, partly because of that, he is now the target of despicable behaviour. “Adam Goodes is a champion of football, an advocate for human rights, a man of integrity. He deserves our respect. It is not him, but those targeting him, who deserve our contempt.” Soutphommasane said the recent Reclaim Australia rallies, the feeling among many Muslims that they are under suspicion and a rise in reports of anti-Semitism shows that Australia is “at risk of a deterioration of our community harmony”. Although racist agitators were still clearly in the minority, a sort of “corrupted national pride” appeared to be on the increase in Australia. “Not all that long ago, ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie’ was just a harmless chant at sporting events,” he said. “Waving the national flag in public was regarded as something done not by Aussies but by Americans. The idea of tattooing your flesh with the southern cross was, well, strange. “Not today. And there is a strain of patriotic expression that is tainted with the stain of aggressive nationalism. For some, loving your country means declaring: ‘Australia: love it or leave it’ or ‘Go back to where you came from.’ “For some, patriotism means believing that you can identify ‘real’ Aussies on the one hand, and those who don’t belong here on the other.” Soutphommasane said “genuine patriotism” based upon egalitarianism and generosity was the best bulwark to racism and intolerance. “It is time that we reclaim patriotism,” he said. “Because our national story and symbols don’t belong to just a select few. They belong to all of us.” In a statement responding to the booing of Goodes, the AFL Fans Association said the situation is an “emotive and divisive” issue among fans. “We appreciate that many fans who have booed Adam Goodes genuinely feel that they are not motivated by racism,” it said. “Regardless, we urge all fans who have done so to stop booing in the interests of the game and Adam Goodes the person. Adam is a proud Aboriginal man, dual Brownlow medallist and premiership player. “Regardless of its motivation, the booing is clearly hurting him as an individual and being interpreted by him and many others, including players of all teams, as having racist undertones. It is also not helping the game.”

Find it hard to get too worked up, I think he's a good player but it won't be the end of the world if we miss out.

Yes but in the light of last season not showing attitude can just about be classed as complicity with the rotten tomatoes! Anyway so long as he's scoring I think everyone will be happy enough.

I was surprised at the some of the comments directed at Miller in this thread and I'm chuffed that he's both scoring from the bench and that Warburton repeatedly refers to him when talking about the senior pros.

Remember the army chastising servicemen for singing at Ibrox, presumably the same servicemen they had previously lauded for what in the context of warfare would be called aggressive violent behaviour. It's a strange world.

That's not true! I regularly booed him in Divs 2 and 1 as well.

Maybe in a year, if the new board acquit themselves well. But anyone who voted for a Rangers rep at this stage would have a hard time justifying why, TV audience or no.

Ian Black would do well to reflect that many fans would have 'handled' his exit in a stridently more hands-on manner than the club. The words arse, marble staircase, and booted spring to mind, and not metaphorically either.

If we judged players on last year's team, under last year's coaches, even Messi would fall into the category of 'pish'. I'm assuming a better style of play which creates more chances and Miller, playing about 10 starts and maybe 10 subs, would probably/almost certainly bag some goals. As for his attitude well I hold him to be more or less a model pro and can forgive anyone with an ounce of self respect losing the plot while at Ibrox last year. Plenty of us did.

Although, if we get a decent trio of strikers I would have no objection to Miller being available as an occasional sub or to give the others a rest in mid winter. He's a perfectly good player for the level we're at, though obviously not first choice No.9.