calscot

Sounds to me like Man U fans are being massively ripped off by the Glazers. The borrow the money to buy the club and then sell a small part of it to pay of their debt - and the club pays the rest. We might be the next in line for this sort of profiteering. All we needed was a benevolent Richy Ritch to underwrite us to help us buy our own club and finance it which could have been paid for in a share issue for about £15m. We'd then own 100% of the club for 100% of the money - rather than a fraction of the club for most of the money.

From talking to Celtic fans who are also friends, I have come to understand that they have been brought up to believe that they HAVE to support Celtic and that Rangers are evil and to be despised. They are taught a lot of anti-GB, anti-Protestant and anti-OO, anti-UK army dogma and are encouraged to call Rangers fans and protestants, "Huns" in a way neo-nazis would use the word, "kyke", never said normally but spat out with venom. They are taught that anything to do with history that is negative towards them is, "revisionism", that the OO are the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan and that the army are murderers and baby killers. GB is of course an imperialist, nazi state of invaders and a Union Jack is not allowed past their doorstep. And these are the nicer ones that can't help but believe all this. That all sounds a bit sectarian to me. I experienced NONE of that kind of stuff for protestants or Rangers at a west coast, non-denominational school. I supported Rangers with no pressure from anyone except for the fact that you were normally asked, "Who do you support, Rangers or Celtic?" and I chose Rangers because I liked the colour blue. It was a free choice and there were Celtic fans at my schools who were not victimised in the slightest. I only discovered the religious element when I became older and even then I still couldn't really understand it except that I was definitely against the IRA. I did however, among Rangers fans hear a lot of FTP and Fen**** stuff that I always thought was a bit out of order, although most of it was more banter than real feeling. The words were rarely spat out and were more expletives than anything else. There is still some Rangers fans who come out with anti-Catholics or anti-Irish stuff but there are many Rangers fans, including myself who condemn it, I don't see that condemnation on their side for their bigoted side.

No, that's the problem. "no Catholics at Ibrox", "but did play Protestants". He also puts a pretty ignorant and irrelevant point in here: "had a sizable non-Catholic following". That ignores so much it's shameful. Celtic have about 25-30% of the support of all clubs in Scotland from a base of 18% Catholics. Even if every Catholic in Scotland supported Celtic, all things being equal they would HAVE to have a sizable non-Catholic support. But then, where are the Catholics that support all the other clubs? Celtic have a "sizable" non-Catholic support but that ignores the fact that they have an endigenously disproportionate number of Catholics supporting them and in fact MOST Catholics do. Why is this? From what I gather is that they are institutionally indoctrinated into supporting Celtic. Catholics who support Rangers are shunned. What was the proportion of Celtic versus Rangers versus other clubs in Catholic schools? I gather it was unfeasible to openly support Rangers in a Catholic school unless you wanted a lot of trouble. So the reason that Catholics support Celtic and none support Rangers is obviously sectarian by them in nature and more a negative for Celtic than for Rangers but he's done the Timmy thing and turned that around. The problem here is separating the chicken and the egg. Catholics are far more likely to support a team based on their religion than a protestant but that is considered fine. A much lower percentage of protestants choose a team based on their religion (and I'm talking about a "sizable" number of Rangers fans but not all) and that team is thereby labelled bigoted. This is the tangled web you need to clear yourself from before you can call yourself a historian and this guy is very much entangled.

He probably did... :devil:

Give it a rest and actually contribute something to the forum instead.

Never heard Ally speak about CumbernauldGers but after his anti-Ally posts today I doubt if their relationship is growing unless it's apart...

He may be informed but then why is writing stuff in a way that I find to be misinformation? It seems he's fallen for the two Timmy lies that persuades the neutral against Rangers in that: a) We're sectarian and they are not as they were not exclusive and b) That they were never exclusive If he's informed then why doesn't he get it? It's an incredibly pivotal point and not understanding it means that you can never see a neutral picture and I really get the impression from his piece that he is far from neutral.

So if a pyramid seller is successful is he doing something right? A loan shark? They are massively successful by exploiting their customers, is that what you want at Rangers? To be honest I find that opinion pretty amazing and frighteningly prevalent. People justify themselves being ripped off by a company by praising them for having a good business model... What makes you so sure? The hardware products for Sky are loss leaders and Apple is going that way as well. The devices aren't really their products, in fact Apple makes by far the majority of it's money by taking a 30% cut of everyone elses' products. You're comparing us to another team that went into administration?

Yes, but successful entrepreneurs wind up companies all the time on sound business principles. They remove all sentiment and make their money on their companies that are more profitable. Would you like our club to be run like Sky or Apple where customers are continually levered into paying more and more for services in the name of profit and good business? There is a lot to be said for being led by your heart.

I thought Ross County voted against us in the SPL vote along with some negative quotes from their chairman and fans? I think Dingwall should be boycotted.

It's hard to enjoy an article from someone who clearly does not fully understand the concept of discrimination or the history of it in Scottish football. Discrimination does not only manifest itself in "exclusion" - and he fails to acknowledge that Celtic were actually exclusively Catholic for sometime after they were founded. But to play 8 Catholics and 3 protestants from a country where the ratio is something like 18:80 for these religions is as obviously discriminatory as something 10 to 11:0 the other way around. But if you're going to talk about a historical exclusion, just where in history do you draw the line where you just forget about it? Maybe 30 years is closer to the present than 100 years but why is that still reflected like a binary number of 1 and 0? Without that understanding you are going to get the bias that permeates that piece dressed up as some kind of neutral view and then sugar coated with false sentiment for the present. All this guy is doing is perpetuating the myth that sectarianism was one sided in the old firm but Rangers aren't so bad now.

Since you replied to my post this must be a candidate for weirdest post of the year. You really need to calm down, "mate", and get a bit of perspective.

It think we can ditch the JJB deal and that would be a good move as we already received something like 33-40% of the money up front, so we're only getting a fraction every year of what we could make from a new deal.

Can you name someone who thinks Ally is god? I doubt it. Most people are reasonable and call things as they are based on some kind of realistic expectations that they apply consistently, no matter who is the manager. You on the other hand, base it on whether you like someone or not and can't conceive that others don't do the same. Like I said, some people apply the same expectations no matter who is the manager and it's based on realism and reason. Perfection is a ridiculous standard with which to judge others - and it's pretty obvious that you don't apply those kind of standards to yourself.

That's just not even the slightest bit reasonable but I'm not surprised.

They're not the same level but obviously SPL are two levels above SFL2. There is a reason the SPL teams are in that division and it's not just luck. These teams are not interchangeable. Otherwise we'd have built our own teams around players from all divisions instead of so many just from the SPL. Would you prefer an SFL2 striker to Sandaza? An SFL2 midfielder to Black? SFL2 defenders to Wallace and Broadfoot?

Or there's the joke about the devout priest/minister who's boat sinks and prays to God to save him. Along comes a sailboat and seeing him offers to take him on board but he says, "No thankyou, I trust in God and he'll save me." Then along comes a speed boat and offers to get him on board but he says, "No thankyou, I trust in God and he'll save me." Then a rescue helicopter comes out to save him but he refuses to grab the rope ladders as he says, "No thankyou, I trust in God and he'll save me." He then drowns. He goes to heaven and gets an audience with God, and asks, "I followed your teachings to the letter and yet you didn't save me from drowning, why?" And God replies, "What do you mean, I sent a yacht, a speed boat and a helicopter - what more do you want?"

I'm pretty sure we'll drop points this season - we already drew against Brechin. That may have had the mitigation of not playing any preseason, and they are a 2nd division club; however, there are times when on a very narrow pitch with 9 to 11 men behind the ball when the ball will just not go in and you can also lose freakish goals, silly goals or just well taken goals against the run of play. I think it will be like rolling a couple of dice and getting a draw if you get a double and loss with a double six, otherwise you win. The odds are well stacked in your favour but you won't always win. In that scenario you'd expect 30 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss which funnily enough is my prediction for the season.

Just done that dammit!

I think Green is benefitting from Rangers fans now turning to the task of supporting the team. We’re back to the actually fitba’ and the fans see that as both a relief and a time to get behind the players and management and drive us back to the SPL as quickly and enjoyably as possible. There is also the aspect of showing who we are to the rest of Scottish football and that we don’t do walking away. I personally think (and hope) the turnout for East Fife is only the start and those who suggested we’d only be getting 20k in the 3rd division will be getting a rude awakening. The current ticket prices are bound to help and could be good for a lot of people while we’re in recession and that could keep the huge numbers of our support strong compared to across the city. I can imagine there will be a response from Celtic fans and that their numbers will be high this season – especially as they seem to always have something to prove that is unrelated to football and they are more coordinated and conditioned than us. However, if they are dominating a poor SPL for three years, a lot of their momentum could dwindle; whereas, the adventure of rising up the different leagues with different opposition should keep our fans interested each season as long as we gain straight promotions. There’s nothing like a bit of momentum and sense of achieving something great to create a snowball effect that becomes an avalanche and you only have to look at the increasing interest in the Olympics with Team GB winning so many golds. As for Green getting the credit, I’m not so sure how much he deserves. It’s like a King taking credit for the tide going out when it just happens naturally - but perhaps it’s a case of “if you build it, they will come” and he’s taken a Rangers in ruin and built it back up to something that the fans can come back and support. I think he’s done plenty wrong at the beginning, but has learned a lot about Scottish football and Rangers fans in the past months and is now doing and saying the right things that will have bears dropping most of the animosity towards him. The club now seems to be in calmer waters and making progress which is gratifying to most. There will still be suspicion for anyone who comes to our club just to make a profit and while many think that’s not such a bad thing, you just have to look at what happened to the banks when that philosophy is taken to its extreme conclusion. If you watch the apprentice you’ll see supposedly some of the brightest young entrepreneurs in the country - but the thing that strikes me is that as soon as the pressure is on to make a good profit, they ALL start lowering the quality of the product and start shafting the customer. It seems like the natural thing to do in business – and the more short term your intentions, the worse it gets. But then, in the longer term, to sustain or increase your profits you can start disappearing up your own arse - like the banks, and face meltdown. So where is the happy medium? Is it the family business that really cares about its product, its customers and its community? Well that doesn’t sound like the people investing in Rangers right now… The long term future of the club is still by no means certain.

While this is quite good for the pockets of the fans in a recession, the problem with lowering prices is that you can get used to it, and then grudge the higher price when we get back to the SPL - and the price then is likely to be a good bit higher than when we left.

You mean the few songs that helped us get kicked from pillar to post recently?

I can see the point of not giving UEFA and FIFA the slightest stick to beat you with in regards to keeping your country's individual team. The four home nations have a very precarious place in international football that becomes harder to justify as time goes on. With Olympic football a virtual irrelevance in sporting terms, why risk anything for something which is almost worthless and where you would be lucky to have a one token player due to English dominance? As it was, Scots volunteered and none were chosen - to me that in itself is a justification for the SFA's stance. Why risk anything at in the slightest just to have the chance to play Uncle Tom? If you are not interested in preserving a Scottish team then fair enough, feel British and support an English and Welsh team representing GB in a nothing competition. But it's incredibly insulting to call those with a differing viewpoint "chippy Jocks". I really don't know why there are so many people coming on here these days and putting the sneering boot into fellow Rangers and Scotland fans for no obvious reason whatsoever. It's happening all over the forums and I'm getting pretty disgusted by it. By all means disagree but debate the point rather than just disparaging a load of people in one stroke.

As soon as clubs started declaring they were going to vote with the opinion of the fans, describing their decision as "some of it driven by bigotry" becomes a charge that is totally indefensible. All it takes is one bigoted quote from a fans forum as proof.

And then on comes an anti-Scottish wanker... Absolutely no need for that.