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calscot

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Everything posted by calscot

  1. calscot
    Last friendly game I went to was against Newcastle. Enjoyed it immensely - bar disappointment at the last minute equaliser.
  2. calscot
    Don't know where he would have fitted in a midfield of VB, Albertz, Ferguson and Reyna. Would have had to play up front with Mols...
  3. calscot
    Boli had won the champions league and we'd seen him play a few times. Laudrup was someone who wasn't getting much of a game (although he did play 7 games for Milan in the CL) and was still a bit in his brother's shadow. Don't remember people not being excited by Brian though as he'd helped Denmark win the European Championship. They definitely both seemed like blue chip signings at the time. I remember that Chick Young interview where he said the two signings weren't good enough for Europe... Laudrup was a bit better than Cooper for two reasons: he could use his other foot, and was more consistent. Davie had far more off days where he didn't look interested. Fantastic when he was in the mood though.
  4. calscot
    Do we really need a reverend on the nominations committee? I would prefer us to start with a secular standpoint - and if someone religious (whichever that may be) gets elected then so be it. An on-line vote sounds a bit dodgy unless it is validated in some way.
  5. calscot
    The thing about those two is that they are still alive...
  6. calscot
    To be fair to the players I think the strip is pretty unflattering and makes them look fat, when I'm pretty sure they are definitely on the slim side with a max of 12% body fat. It doesn't make them look much like professional sportsmen. Worst strip ever for me especially the collar and buttons, which looks crap and has no point on what is supposed to be athletic gear. At best it looks naff and at worst it could be an irritation. The top makes you look fat and shorts make you look you're from another era and the length is just wrong aesthetically. I agree with those who think the blue is too light and gaudy. I would even say the sponsor's writing doesn't appeal either. The socks are fine though... But I wouldn't wear that kit even if it was given to me as a freebie...
  7. calscot
    Sorry, the selective quoting was for brevity, not for taking anything out of context. While the club part is in there, the way I inferred your point was to mostly tar him with the brush, and although the club but waters that down a bit, it's still there and, to me, still not very fair. It "defocuses" any of the reasons and implies they are all equal, and when you consider the team is McCoist domain then it starts to look at least 2/3 due to him. For me, to use it in any way for a stick to beat him with, you need to have more info. It's also a bit damning of the reputedly super loyal support. I would prefer to think that people are boycotting the tickets to force the hand of a toxic board that are bad for health of the club than merely because, despite a league season of winning almost every game and never losing, they don't like the style of football. That sounds a bit lame for a "loyal" fan to me when you consider the fans of most other clubs in Scotland. The "blew a huge lead over Celtic" part is pretty blurred considering they had two games in hand. It's also a bit of a conflicting criticism which ignores an obvious point. "European exits from that year remain a huge source of embarrassment." While they were bad it's hardly the most embarrassing exit we've had over the years and it's not exactly unusual for Rangers. There's other stuff but a lot of it seems to come under the "we're not as good as we were" which is a bit circular and obvious due to our circumstances. I think to condemn Ally, there needs to be fairer comparisons.
  8. calscot
    While I'm no fan of Murray, I can see the point of the apology - he was labelled a crook and a cheat, and has been vindicated. He is guilty of risky corporate governance or something like that, but it's something you need to expect from a somewhat successful entrepreneur - and unsuccessful ones. You take big risk to make big money, and sometimes you lose. The problem was that he took risks at a long standing and proud institution that was too precious to warrant it and had a dereliction of his duty of care. He burned his own fingers when he had to put in 50M, and when it came to it a second time and his whole empire was on the line, and instead of fighting he took the easy way out. So for me the apology part does have some validation in context - just not from us.
  9. calscot
    I think DB was alluding to "cherry picking" and plenty of people do that to arrive at their conclusions in all aspects of life.
  10. calscot
    I was expecting a far more balanced appraisal and still not expecting McCoist to come out rosy in the slightest but the OP seems to rely on a lot of the popular memes on this site that are generally far from validated in my eyes. I do think there is enough to criticise McCoist for that can be applied more fairly without resorting to a very blurred, subjective take. The quoted one above is a good example: I really didn't know it was a fact that Ally has removed 20k from the season ticket holders... Without some information to substantiate it, I find it hard to remove this apparent cause from the pleas of a former investor and several fan groups to not buy tickets due to the lack of trust in the board. Maybe the anti-management reason agrees with some anecdotal representation on this forum but I don't see the real evidence for applying it to the support as a whole, and it's all a bit coincidental with the latter reason. Stronger evidence is required for such a big stick to be wielded. There are several other arguments like this in the piece that to me are far from robust and I would be more comfortable if much of it had been given a more reasonable defence when previously challenged on the forum, which is all a bit disappointing. I would agree though, that the sentiment of the piece is representative of the majority view of this forum as I see it, but it also seems that those with an opposing view are being marginalised by being told they are clueless or blind to the "facts" rather than providing what should be an easy defence if these facts are water-tight and so openly obvious.
  11. calscot
    I've never found much relationship between any sense of Britishness and supporting Rangers, and indeed as I child I started off feeling British and then less so as I became older and more of a Rangers fan. There was no connection. From my own experience there is negativity towards the English that rather than all taught (although some people are) for me it's something learned from experience - mostly with the media and national institutions, of the poor treatment that Scotland often gets. There is so much of that from my childhood it's hard to know where to start but I remember resentment for things like the school holidays coming and having no children's TV for a couple of weeks until the English schools were off. In the news there was always a perception that if Scotland did something well it was British and if something bad it was Scottish and vice versa for England. Then we were given a diet of English football with a couple of Scottish games thrown in. We only got a mention on Football Focus because Iain St John insisted on two or three minutes for Scottish Football. Football-wise my relationship with England was continually soured with the general English view that Scottish football was Mickey Mouse and the unreasonable supposition that Rangers would be lucky to survive in Division 2 - and this continued straight after we beat Leeds home and away (in a tie that would "show these Jocks how football should be played"). The excuses all came out about Leeds being a spent force and it was back to square one. There have been plenty of other stuff that's been political, especially with the Tories and you just need to listen to a Proclaimer's song to get the drift although I remember already being aggrieved for how Scotland was treated by an English based government by the time I was in Primary 5 and learning a bit about politics. I'm a bit more grown up now and live in England and so feel a lot more British even though I have had to put up with a lot of the casual "racism" from the English, of the ilk that Scots are pilloried for. Even now the ignorance, arrogance and self centred-ness with which many of the English apply their extreme viewpoints on the Independence question can be grating and I have to stop that tainting my own viewpoint towards the Yes vote (even though I can't vote, although I'm very ambivalent at the moment). But although I knew people who flew the Union Flag and sang some songs, I don't remember many being much different from me in their Britishness - nor any more Christian than me in their religiousness (ie not very much), nor any more bigoted than me against Irish and Catholics (ie not at all in a real sense - although I suppose they had that casual language thing which I avoided). A lot of it seems to be a 90 minute thing. It's only a game after all.
  12. calscot
    September is the deadline and so it's plausible the board can probably negotiate till then. There is no fee for the player so the amount spent depends on the signing-on fee and when it is due to be paid. Perhaps it's after September...
  13. calscot
    I think we have to remember that when paying to watch a sport, we are not paying to be entertained by the participants, we are there to witness it and be entertained by our perception of it. In motor racing, many people are entertained by crashes but that doesn't mean that F1 should encourage more of it - however you can go and see banger racing instead. There were a lot of people not entertained by the top of the game - the semifinals and final of the World Cup with a good example being the Brazil vs Germany game - whether you enjoyed it depended on your perception. If you were Brazilian it wasn't just not entertaining, a lot of the home crowd were totally devastated by it - what price for that? Conversely, if you were German, you had the time of your life. As a neutral you were probably highly amused and entertained. The other semi and the final were generally pretty boring for neutrals. So you can't guarantee an entertaining game from the top players in the world... The only real way to make a sport more entertaining in itself, is to change the rules in a way that encourages this. Otherwise, you will always have participants doing what they can to win and stuff the entertainment. In fact, I don't think many successful sportsman think about being entertaining at all. If they are super entertaining, it's just a natural part of their personality rather than a concious effort. Sometimes the spectators change their perceptions and learn to like what was formerly boring - like snooker. Steve Davis took the safety game to new excruciating levels, but now the crowd appreciate a safety battle and realise it needs to be done rather than a player going gung ho. You don't get Higgins type players in the game any more, they are far more like Davis, but the crowd have moved on. The same can be said of tennis with all the baseline play instead of serve and volley. In the golden age of Schumacher F1 became a lot more boring and they were losing viewers, so the governing body changed the rules and we now have KERS and DRS and other innovations, as well as the removal of refuelling. How they show the sport has also changed. Tennis brought in electronic refereeing which sounds dull, but they made it into an entertaining spectacle. I really doubt that there are any teams in Scotland that people would find entertaining to watch every week and so maybe it's the rules that need to be changed - which have happened before, like the pass back rule. Now there was an old tactic that bored me to tears.
  14. calscot
    I think there is sometime the impression that if you half the ticket prices you will get twice the attendance, but it rarely works that way. There will be a curve in a graph of income against price in the shape of a hill and a maximum around a certain point where the board will be aiming for. Where that maximum is, is obviously dependent on what people are prepared to pay. Obviously, the more income the club brings in, the more spending they can do on the team and other stuff. At the moment we're making a loss and so whether on not you think you're getting enough entertainment for your money, the bills still need to be paid regardless. We need to remember we're not paying Cowdenbeath's bills, it's ours we have to worry about and they don't reduce with lesser opposition. Usually the maximum in the curve moves up the price axis when a more attractive game comes along, which is why there are premium prices for the Edinburgh sides, but I think it would be to complex to have a different price for every game. Prices of all sports and entertainment have gone up hugely as we have a high disposable income and with the likes of football seem to enjoy the pyramid scheme of giving all our money to a rich few. We can't exactly complain that we're not as good as top English sides and then baulk at paying tickets at about half the price. Olympic games tickets seem to start at about £50 and I can see the Commonwealth games not being cheap. While £20-£30 is quite a bit to pay for a couple of hours where you may or may not be entertained - I doubt the Brazilians were against Germany, it's not really that expensive compared to a lot of other alternatives, like seeing a headline band or something like the Monty Python show which can start at about £100. My main point is that while it's not cheap, it's not exactly outrageous when you look around. I suppose in the end you pays your money and takes your choice.
  15. calscot
    Wasn't that what a large chunk of the 120 day review was about? I don't think the timing is of relevance here as with this board, it's a continuous problem with no sign of changing...
  16. calscot
    I thought they were playing at the Excelsior?
  17. calscot
    While SDM was no angel by any means, I can't see what great crime he committed against other clubs that warranted how we as a club and fans were treated. They were akin to trying to apply the death penalty to a whole (and very large) family for a bit of creative and slightly dodgy accounting by the head of that family. We are angry at the incredibly unjustified, undeserved, disproportionate and highly hypocritical way we were treated, and no deflection to the misdemeanors of an erstwhile owner will ever change that.
  18. calscot
    While again I agree with you, I find it hard to see where they would stand in some of the fights for compensation or whatever. They can't show loss for some of the stuff that happened to the Oldco or that the Newco is deserving of anything - and in fact the board of the Newco rather than having loss have actually gained from a lot of what happened, much of it scandalously so. In simple terms I can imagine them complaining to say HMRC and being told, "What's it got to do with you?" The problem with the separating of club and company to preserve our history is that it also muddies the waters for this kind of stuff. The new company has no concrete grounds for complaint against HMRC, while the club and fans do. I still agree with your point that the terms of the 5 way agreement should be vigorously appealed against as they were forced upon us under duress and this would now look incredibly onerous in a court of law without the ill judged, perceived justification of tax evasion and competitive advantage. I believe we are owed transfer money, prize money and a far larger slice of the TV money. The illegal transfer ban now also looks totally inappropriate but playing devils advocate, it hasn't made a great impact in our promotion back to the top, and it gave the board and excuse to save money without flack from the fans. Perhaps it could be argued that we had to sign in haste which meant we overpaid some players and are due compensation there. I think our biggest problem in any demands is the non-payment of tax by Whyte and the actual administration and newco scenario did happen. I think the SFA can wash their hands of liability there and just say they applied their very fluid rules correctly in their eyes. Thinking more, I think there is a case to be made against members of the SPL for the vote on our share, as this was not done fairly - especially with the pressure applied by Celtic based on what is now known as a fabrication. But like the EBTs "discretionary" loophole, they can argue its legitimacy by using subjectivity of intention. So the only fight I can see that the board have a good standpoint for winning, is the 5 way agreement and punishments thereof.
  19. calscot
    Looking back at the shadow image, I now find it very distasteful.
  20. calscot
    I agree with the sentiment but find it difficult to see which parts are their fight. The 5 way agreement is definitely one I agree they should be pressing on.
  21. calscot
    LBG Are highly complicit in the whole debacle - they forced Murray to sell which pretty much made the club unsellable. They did both of the sides of the equation by effectively calling in their loan. The problem is that the BTC was looming and if it was lost, anyone who bought the club could stand to make an immediate 18m loss, which is why no-one legit would touch it. Under a normal sale where the debts are passed on with the same terms, a buyer would have nothing to lose if he bought the club for a pound. Losing the tax case would have led to the same scenario of administration and subsequent liquidation of the company, but without investment the new owners would have lost nothing. Of course, if the club was sold this way it would be worth more than a pound, but even a few million might have been worth the risk rather than a hefty 18M. Without LBG, Murray could either have kept the ownership of the club and fought it out, or sold to someone, anyone, who wasn't a Craig Whyte. As they say, this was a perfect storm where so many bad conditions came together at once.
  22. calscot
    Putting aside the various actions of the board and animosity due to them, I can't really think how they could have responded in a "better" way. The tax case doesn't really have anything material to do with them and indeed led to their current positions at the club and the wealth that that has brought them. To overly celebrate it would have been very crass and a bit paradoxical. However, they really needed to acknowledge the victory and tip their hat to the fans, which is pretty much what they did. As club statements go since SDM, this one is not too bad in my eyes.
  23. calscot
    A new edition with a further chapter is now due...
  24. calscot
    I think Witch hunt has more depth to the meaning. It's almost been a trial by drowning. If you're innocent you drown, if not you are burnt at the stake. The weirdest thing about Spiers and others is that they seem to forget that Celtic were guilty of this same, "cheating" (not to mention soft loans and land deals). A fact that should not be forgotten is that Celtic also cheated to have us removed from the SPL. This was not a fair vote, it was Celtic putting the implicit jury under financial duress, using the "guilty as sin" card as justification. THEY look pretty guilty now.
  25. calscot
    Worst match I've seen in a long time. Couldn't watch any more after about 80 minutes and I knew there would be no scoring. Wasn't feeling too well so didn't see the point of staying up for the penalties. I would argue that Rangers matches are no worse than a world cup semi between Netherlands and Argentina. Actually they are far more interesting as (a) they have Rangers in it and (b) I usually get the enjoyment and satisfaction of us scoring a few and also winning. Ironically, the Brazil game was very enjoyable, perhaps they should deliberately play like that all the time just to make their football more entertaining...
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