calscot

When you look back, we didn't need him at the time. David Holmes was doing a great job but Malborough was never that interested.

What would you change? From what I remember we played brilliantly in the league in the first half of the next season - untill Negri, who scored about 30 goals in that time, hurt his eye playing squash. He scored about 3 goals after that and we lost the league by 2 points. It also coincided with a form dip for the rest of the team and was about the time that Walter announced his retirement. I do remember we were rubbish in Europe, getting beat by Gothenburg, then Strasbourg so maybe we could do something about that - and perhaps sell Laudraup to Chelsea for £5m and buy another decent striker with the money. Then, with a half decent European run, Walter would have stayed, we'd have won 10 in a row and Advocaat would not have got near our overdraft...

We will only cut our own nose off by not turning up to home games in previous numbers. If we want Rangers to thrive then we should freeze the season ticket price and everyone who would have renewed under normal circumstances should renew. If that happens then division 3 will hardly affect us and allow us to make up for the skeleton team and lower TV and sponsorship money by having lesser paid players who are more than good enough to win the league by a margin. By the time we are back in the SPL, they will have suffered and withered and some will have died - and we will have rebuilt ourselves and therefore we will be successful again. The way things are in Europe means that a strong league is no longer important as Scotland are already irrelevant in that arena - all that is important is that we have financially sound clubs and that we are the best of the bunch. Clubs need to live within their means and that will probably (and hopefully) be without away ticket sales to large numbers of Rangers fans. In the name of "sporting integrity", whatever that means, ALL badly run clubs in our country need to be severely punished and I hope it shall be so.

We will only cut our own nose off by not turning up to home games in previous numbers. If we want Rangers to thrive then we should freeze the season ticket price and everyone who would have renewed under normal circumstances should renew. If that happens then division 3 will hardly affect us and allow us to make up for the skeleton team and lower TV and sponsorship money by having lesser paid players who are more than good enough to win the league by a margin. By the time we are back in the SPL, they will have suffered and withered and some will have died - and we will have rebuilt ourselves and therefore we will be successful again. The way things are in Europe means that a strong league is no longer important as Scotland are already irrelevant in that arena - all that is important is that we have financially sound clubs and that we are the best of the bunch. Clubs need to live within their means and that will probably (and hopefully) be without away ticket sales to large numbers of Rangers fans. In the name of "sporting integrity", whatever that means, ALL badly run clubs in our country need to be severely punished and I hope it shall be so.

Just before Marco Negri's squash game...

Who says he's a supporter? Sounds to me that he's a supporter of reason and of doing the right thing.

I believe there was a short-list of 35 with 3 Scots in it - including Fletcher. I see the English have bullishly jumped on this saying that it's great that the team has been picked on merit only. However, how many know if those picked are actually the best 18 players from the choices available? What is Pearce's knowledge of Scotland and NI's under 23 scenes?

The embarrassing thing for Scotland is that there is now only one big club in the top division - and supposedly they are Irish...

Again they have three choices and choose the worst possible - either say that at the beginning, leave it be or put another spanner in the works by saying it now. Regan can't help doing the stupidest thing possible every time.

PS Rugby have a great example of this.

I'm starting to think that maybe Scottish football needs a melt down, it is far too bloated with very small teams who for some reason think they should have massive power and a disproportionate share of other people's money. One problem I have is that clubs are saying that they are listening to fans about the what could affect the future of Scottish football. If that is the case then where is the democracy? Why should a club that averages 200 fans have more of a say than one that averages 47,000? Surely it should be one fan one vote? This is a total case of the tail wagging the dog. There has to be sense and if that means many clubs disappearing altogether then maybe that is justified by survival of the fittest. To survive we probably need less clubs with bigger numbers of supporters - like what is happening in England. We certainly need to reduce the Edinburgh clubs to one as well as Dundee. You could even add Livingston to Edinburgh United as they are close and originally came from Meadowbank. Motherwell and Hamilton, Airdrie and Albion Rovers would be better off together as one - and perhaps Clyde as well. You could merge Kilmarnock and Ayr; Falkirk, East Stirlingshire, Alloa and Stirling Albion are pretty close; Dunfermline, Raith Rovers, Cowdenbeath and East Fife; Arbroath, Forfar Brechin and Montrose; Inverness, Ross County and Elgin; St Mirren, Dumbarton and Morton. You could even disband Partick Thistle and Queens Park and allow their fans to join the ranks of either of the Old Firm. We could end up with an SPL of about 10 to 12 super clubs and a few of provincial divisions for Highland, Central and Border clubs who can play off with the bottom of the league for promotion. I used to respect the need for local clubs to survive but they way that they are using their numbers to kill football in Scotland for justification of their own self importance, I am now starting to see them as a disease on the game.

Can you tell us exactly what we did wrong? I'm pretty sure, like the rest of the SPL, you can't actually explain it plainly, and you will probably get fact and allegations mixed up as well as who is actually responsible.

The answer is both. No apology came from Motherwell, Livingstone, or Dundee when they went into admin. Hearts have not apologised for not paying players' wages last season or for their financial situation which is hardly fair play to the rest of the league. Celtic, Hibs and Dunfermline have previously been mismanaged and close to closure but no apology. Aberdeen didn't apologise for avoiding relegation when sporting integrity would have put them down. Celtic haven't apologised for the O'Donnell, Burns, Japan tour cheating nor for bringing the game into disrepute by causing a referee strike or the multiple offences against society which brought the game into disrepute like the Bloo stained poppy banner etc. Dundee Utd haven't apologised for "financial doping" for charging away fans twice for the same game. Where do we stop? Or is it just Rangers who have to apologise? How about the SFA apologising to us for allowing someone improper to take over our club even though they were warned? Or how about breaking their own rules to invent a punishment which doesn't exist? Doesn't that bring the game into disrepute? Where is their punishment?

Sometimes it's best to climb out of the trench and do whatever diplomacy is needed.

Then you can't complain about how other clubs treat us or our final punishment. If we don't give a fuck about them, then why should they give a fuck about us? You're just as bad as they are and if more are like you then we deserve all we get.

Or perhaps it's time to induce others to start an Atlantic league. With 18 top clubs outside the big five countries threatening to form their own association, UEFA wouldn't have much choice. They have no real argument against it now that population based TV money means all these clubs are now marginalised by border rules.

Could we resurrect Gretna, start them in the low end of the pyramid, let them rise up to the FL and then move them to Glasgow and change their name to Rangers? They've played in England before so there is a precedent and then moving them to Glasgow could not be complained about as they wouldn't be crossing the border.

So now the previous directors have apologised, fan group leaders have apologised and our current chairman has apologised. Will the the complaints about lack of contrition cease? (I doubt it) Does that mean we'll now be back in the SPL as that was one of their biggest reasons for kicking us out (I doubt it).

It seems everyone outside Scotland finds the the frenzy against Rangers very strange.

Way to insult a load of people for no reason...

LOL This reads like when a young kid gets excited and trots out one of those massively long sentences without pausing... I take it you really like those new boots?

Are you talking about the fans bringing a class action on the SFA and SPL?

Did they have enough in the end for a five-a-side match? At least there were two goalies for that.

Do I understand the players leaving? Yes. Do I understand a very selfish person welshing on a lost bet? Yes. Do I see them as doing the right thing or being good people? No.

Our coefficient is about to go through the floor. We only need to drop one place to lose a CL place and go down to four teams. The champions would also have another qualifier. After that it doesn't get much different the lower you go for a while as you still have four teams, but the number Europa qualifiers becomes greater for the teams. People forget that Rangers have propped up the coefficient for years and we'd already be far lower without our exploits.