calscot

Replacing the corners with seats is not as easy as it sounds. They are basically supporting walls for the adjacent stands. You'd have to spend quite a bit on re-roofing every stand with a cantilevered design like Old Trafford or even Hampden. And even then I can't see how you'd gain that many seats as it would be a few thousand at best if you look at the area available. For the number of seats, probably cheaper to put another tier on the Govan stand. But the last thing we need is another Ibrox expansion pipe dream.

I can't see in what definition of "good fan" fits people who stop supporting the club because we sign a great player who was brought up in a faith they hate. They are "bad fans" on so many levels. It's got to be said that since Mo Johnson our attendances have gone up dramatically in the 23 years since compared to the 23 years prior. Looking at the stats, probably something like 50%. That sounds like thriving to me. To me the hand wringers are those who wring their hands and have cries of woe about something as silly as players religion. The weird thing is that they see themselves as Christians but don't even understand the religion they associate themselves with. Seems to me that if hand wringers is to be applied in the current scenario, you'd have to choose to apply it to those that are wringing their hands about the threat of stadium name change. The other side are instead rubbing their hands thinking about the income.

Anyone else think this is worthy, adult humour? Or are you "pompous" like me and think it's a bit childish?

I thought it was intended to be inflammatory. Best for us not to rise to it.

I don't understand the wage bill aspect either - it could hardly be much lower. I assumed if we're making a loss it was due to other operational costs for the stadium and match day expenses. Our turnover must be over 20m this year so with a wage bill of 7m it means we're spending more than 13m on everything else. How much loss are we forecasting? However, we used to have an income of over 50m and a wage bill of 30 odd million which left 20m for costs and still often made a loss. With the size of our crowds perhaps the costs have not been reduced. Well, we should definitely see it all in the accounts this year. I pretty sure the share money doesn't count in the profit and loss statement.

In what way am I pompous? I could egg your windows or put shite under your car door handle and find it hilarious, but would you? Do you think that's grown up humour? Would you be pompous for dissing my sense of humour? Your assertion seems to make YOU pompous every time you criticise someone for whatever behaviour they themeselves think is acceptable. Everytime you call someone a ned are you being pompous. They think violence is a normal part of life, are the rest of us pompous in judging their ethics? People may or may not find what I funny funny themselves and vice versa but there are times when you can see when humour is immature or base or whatever - like the Andy Goram "wind up" - and I don't think that's being pompous. You are judging me now, is that pompous? Seems to me we're all pompous then... All these people who think their idea of good football is better than everyone elses eh? Or their idea of how a CEO should act? Can we actually just have a debate without the name calling? It just gets the heckles up for no gain whatsoever.

While I'm not bothered, I don't find it funny in the slightest. I wouldn't find it funny if we did it either. Proper humour that is funny is usually taking the mick out of yourself - like if we wore zombie masks- I met a Rangers supporting taxi driver at Christmas dresses as Santa who said he dressed up as a zombie for his Halloween shift. This one is just one of those childish, "Wouldn't it be funny if...?" but the answer to those is generally, "No". They probably thought that with the "Wouldn't it be funny if we threatened to boycott our own matches if they vote for Rangers, and then Rangers are kicked out the league?" The irony is that they seem to hate us and give us bile due to the actions of the man they are now championing... The embarrassing thing is what passes for humour and banter in Scotland these days... hilarious.

There are a lot of people willing to listen to both sides but they are not willing to listen to a slagging match which only negates any real warnings you are giving. If you come on and rant and get angry at people who don't agree with you rather than providing the evidence then you'll get nowhere. I'm fairly ambivalent about Green and give credit where it's due and criticism where I think that's due but I can't stand all the snidy remarks and can't believe that some people think we should be listening to them like they are valuable.

This is from the Scotsman: General Secretary of the Rangers Supporters Association John McMillan has condemned the plans by United fans to wear the masks, calling it ‘inflammatory’ and insisting it was ‘disgraceful to even be thinking about it.’ Despite the proposed plans to stay away from the match, around 200 Rangers fans are expected to make the trip to Tayside, with McMillan urging fans of the Tannadice club not to goad the travelling supporters. McMillan added: “I was anticipating the United supporters doing something but I didn’t think they would stoop to this. It’s out of order. “Dundee United should be doing all they can to prevent their fans from carrying this threat through.” I find that really embarrassing, this is a time when a dignified silence would have been - more dignified. Do we really care if they wear the masks. It will only show how crass they are.

I'm sure if it was the other way around that Celtic would be suing the SPL and SFA for as much litigation as they could think of - not for any of their own gain, but just to put us out of Europe...

While we might be a preferred club to go to, I can't see how we can be realistic first choice for any young lad that is not within reasonable distance of Murray Park - unless we buy his family a house and move them, although some mature boys over 16 will just need a room in a flat. Even after that there are other off-putting factors like the chances of breaking into the first team. Taking away any reference to managers not playing youngsters, they still have a lot more pressure to show more ability to play for Rangers first team than for say Peterhead. They will usually be competing for places with experienced international players as well as some of the best youngsters in the country. That's a couple of reasons why I can't see how we can expect to "discover" all the best young players in the country when the whole thing is based on a numbers game with genetic happenstance. We should have the best coaching and facilities and the greatest choice but we are still partly at the hands of random luck. We should have more than our fair share of "good" youngsters but then they are required to be at a higher level which means many of them are not good enough. We can bring them through when we have them but it's never going to be a guarantee or a conveyor belt. Basing our whole team on them to me would be folly as we would be severely limiting our catchment area. We'll be back as the premier club in Scotland and as such will be in a position to pick up the best young players from the whole of Scotland once it has been seen what their level is. If there are not enough of the required standard in Scotland then like anyone else we'll have to cast our nets further afield. There is far less determinism in developing youths than to buying a player who has already proven himself - although we need to be careful we're getting the required standard and value for money when recruiting the latter. We need a combination of where we get our players from rather than putting all our eggs in an inconsistent basket.

PS it will be interesting to see where the class of 12/13 is in 10 years time and whether playing so many of them has stopped them being "ruined" and developed them into a generation of great players. Obviously they won't be playing for us as we'll be developing loads more youths.

I think the biggest reason for this is that we're already playing about 11 young players, there isn't much room for more, so we'd have to find ones that are noticeably better than the ones we already play. It seems fairly obvious to me that if playing 11 youngsters is a good idea then what is wrong with playing them in an U21 league? Surely they should develop just as well. If everyone was playing youngsters how would it be different than an U21 league? And yet people say playing them in such a league instead of the first team is "ruining" them. So which is it? For me I think players learn from experienced team-mates. The more youngsters you have the less mentoring they will be receiving.

Your philosophy above is all very well but doesn't quite agree with what you've been suggesting. What you're saying is that all our players should be home grown but that's about introducing players to the team, developing them and keeping them. For that to be sustainable you can really only bring one or two players through the ranks every year. If players are useful from 18 to 33 then in a 16 man squad you would expect on average one player of every age. Bringing loads of youngsters on means you are upsetting that balance. Not only that it doesn't deal with the fact that you need to win now. If you're currently developing many players then you are suboptimal for the challenges you face against similarly or better resourced rivals. Then you get into the problem of trying to discover and develop talent from a small sample of players. Why should our youths be better than anyone elses apart from having the possibility of better coaches and training facilities? If that was all that counted then Messi would really be from Barcelona. Seems to me it's better to cast your nets wider and at least the whole of Scotland. I think it's probably cheaper and far more effective to pinch the best players from other teams as well as developing some of your own with top youth coaches. Our biggest problem in that sense is that we can no longer compete with English clubs for the best talent in Scotland and can't even keep our own best youths when they come sniffing around from over the border. Your philosophy sound ideal but the numbers just don't stack up.

I don't see what your saying as your trees don't make sense. Not many people strive to be on top as they get wise that it's ultimately futile. Either you have found the same philosophy or otherwise you are either on top or look at a failure in the mirror every day. There is not one person on here that has that philosophy for themselves as there is far more productive ways of using our time. But it's incredibly hypocritical to be a failure by your the standards you spout on here, while castigating a team who are by conventional measurements "on top". If you can't see that then there is no hope for you. By what measurement is it not an achievement? This is your problem you say they should strive to be on top, they are and yet you give them no credit. Maybe you need to strive to better at magnanimity.

Actually I see us as pretty much 16 points ahead but I'm sure if I said that someone would want to argue about that rather than get the point I'm actually making - which is that winning the league is considered a success in football so if you're already winning by a margin there is no need to castigate yourself as a failure in the mirror. Really simple stuff but too much for some. To explain the 16 points is that points is that Queens park are averaging about 1.5 points a game so two games in hand makes 3pts. With Celtic it was probably more like 5 points but they were on a run and six points was pretty likely and so it proved to be. When Queens park play their games in hand we will KNOW what the gap really was just like we do with Celtic. The reason I didn't get into that is that 13 or 19 points difference is still considered a fair margin and being pernickety over that does not change value of the point I was making. But there you go, you pick up on it anyway...

Surely there is a trade off between concentrating on development and immediate success? I don't get the mentality that there is something wrong with playing experienced players that are over 23. As I've said before when you take that to extremes then you should bin every player who hits that age. 23 should therefore be the retirement age. Then everyone will be playing young players and developing them. The question is, developing them for what exactly? Early retirement? Or are you saying we should be a youth feeder team to supply richer clubs when our players mature? Please just think about it as you really don't seem to get this point. If everyone constantly plays more and more youngsters, where do the older players play and consequently the very same young players when they get a bit older?

When someone asks for advice, they are usually asking for the results of knowledge you've gained over years so that they don't have to learn all of it themselves. For example you ask a lawyer for advice about law as you don't want to have to do a law degree first and then gain 10 years of experience before making a decision. You're saying that when someone asks you advice where you don't have much knowledge you should do a load of research for them in an area you're not interested in and then give them the answer? Where is the wisdom in that? I agree learning is good, and also that you should take your own advice. I am learning all the time, and if there is one thing I've learned is that there is an infinite amount of knowledge our there and you can't learn it all in a thousand lifetimes, never mind one.

Who said anything about doing that? There is a difference with measuring your success realistically than living to the lowest standard. You really seem to lack wisdom. By your own philosophy, unless you are top in the country in your job and everything else in your life, you must be a failure and aiming for very low standards. How do you even overcome obstacles when you don't acknowledge they exist whatsoever? Rangers are top of their league by 19 points, where are you in your league?

Firstly are you saying their team didn't cost millions? I'm pretty sure our current Rangers squad could beat that three man team. If they are so good at it, why is their whole squad not free? With their resources I doubt they'd be crap in Div3 too. Newsflash, we don't have their resources. Would they be better than us with our resources? We have absolutely no way of knowing. I doubt they would know where to start as they have no experience of this part of the market. A friend of mine once asked me to help him buy his son a bike for £120 as I'm pretty into bikes and have four. However, my bikes cost from between 800 quid for a Brompton and £2500 for a mountain bike. I often spend more than twice his budget on a service for the latter - my XTR cassette cost more than the bikes he was looking at. I had absolutely no idea about the sector of the market he was interested in. The cheap ones all worked on the same principles and I could ride them but I couldn't really compare them. Barcelona could possibly learn very quickly but they would not be instant experts. Trying to copy Barcelona would be like trying to copy Chris Evans when looking for a second hand car.

You know I've come on here after a game and my first "highlights" of the game are looking through the match thread. There's a time when I saw comments that we are playing well and then we end up with a draw. I don't remember ANYONE saying that they were happy with the draw because we played well. It's easy to say that kind of stuff but a Rangers manager will never get away with that kind of thinking. But the big fact is that big winners want to win more than anything else, big losers just want to play well.

I can't help feeling that Barca are an incredibly illogical verging on silly example for almost any football club to follow. Really, what do they know about producing a team without spending hundreds of millions? They may be a good model for Man City to emulate but who else? At the moment our own club should ignore Barcelona and take a look at consistently very successful teams with our sort of budget and standard of local talent. If anyone can name any I'd be interested in looking them up.

I know I shouldn't reply but isn't it obvious that if you believe the definition of anti-football is breaking the rules then EVERY PAGE in the rule book says you can't play anti-football?

So if you have a bunch of cyclists riding against a headwind and struggling to get a decent pace on you are lame if you don't expect to storm past them at a normal pace? You can really see why people whinge all the time when they have no perception of the effects of reality. If you only accept perfection no matter what then, yes you'll see everything as an excuse and everyone as lame. Pity that people don't judge themselves the same way.

Innocuous but also misguided and unprofessional.