Frankie

Glad to hear you guys had a great time...

Good coverage in today's ET.... http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2492155.0.sandi_on_song_for_malawi.php

Part 3 There is a common theme occurring here, buying Rangers merchandise anywhere outside of the UK is close to impossible unless you are willing to pay over the odds by importing it from Scotland via JJB or the Rangers online megastore. Will switching to the other side of the world by getting an Australian supporter's point of view provide some much-needed positivity on the issue? Evidently the same story is appearing the world over. Little to no Rangers merchandise to be found outside of the UK. This is absolutely criminal for a club our size to have such a poor marketing strategy. The demand is clearly there as our last contributor demonstrated. Football is becoming a major sport in Canada, America and Australia and a large Rangers support exists in all three countries. Yet the club either do not have the vision or the business acumen to satisfy this demand and make a substantial profit. There are various ways in which Rangers Football Club should look to improve their marketing strategy both at home and overseas. Firstly, JJB are clearly not holding-up their end of the bargain. The company is in serious danger of liquidation and is not providing a good range of Rangers merchandise in comparison to the former Rangers club stores. We are not making enough of a financial profit from this deal to justify the decrease in market standards. Therefore the club should either look to negotiate a deal with another high street sports store who will guarantee to provide a better range of merchandise, or simply revert back to the old system of having multiple dedicated Rangers stores across the country. Thus the name and logo of Rangers Football Club re-appears on the high street and the initial flurry of supporters looking to discover the new stores will create good revenue, even if that will only be short-term. The same method should be applied throughout the UK where there is demand. Cities like Belfast, London, and Liverpool would all benefit from having a Rangers megastore. In North America there is already an organisation in NARSA which has the power to bring together thousands of Rangers supporters either through local RSCs or the highly popular annual conference. The club must approach both the individual RSCs and the wide NARSA community in order to establish ways of importing merchandise which will be easy for Rangers supporters to buy. Our earlier contributor from Canada had the suggestion of allowing North American RSCs to buy merchandise in bulk and sell it to its members. In essence, this is what should be happening. The club should welcome such initiatives and in turn reward the RSCs with discounted prices on all imported merchandise, free subscription to Rangers World for their members or signed strips and photos. It makes these alienated supporters feel like they are still part of the Rangers family despite being so far away from their spiritual home. The club will also make serious amounts of money by tapping into this market. In Australia ORSA and the local RSCs, although not as many exist, should be given these same opportunities. But the club could also engage with the local sports retail chains all over the country to establish trading links whereby they are willing to have plenty of Rangers club merchandise imported. With football becoming such a popular game Down Under it would be beneficial for the club to exploit this trend and make money and possibly new supporters from it. Why not also show some invention and adapt our merchandise to the climate of the country? Residents of Australia are hardly going to be responsive to buying padded Rangers training jackets and raincoats in such a sun-scorched country. Rangers beach towels, Sun hats, baseball caps etc. etc. would sell much more. The possibilities are endless. Once successful trading systems are in place in the countries where most Rangers support comes from, there is the possibility to expand our horizons further still. The history of Rangers Football Club is an awe-inspiring story of rags to riches, of success and skill and of loyalty and devotion. It is a story that everyone loves, a success story. This story should be told to the world and not just those willing to seek it and learn about it. There are many great books which have been written on the story of the club and the various periods of our history. We could export these books to North America, Australia, Europe and even Asia ( in varying languages) to captivate the world by the club's rich history. This will undoubtedly prompt a bigger demand for Rangers merchandise on these Continents. It would be unreasonable to expect there to be Rangers merchandise at a local level all over the world so this is where the club must embrace the internet much more than it currently is. The current online megastore does not offer value for money for supporters or customers outside of the UK. It is also not a swift and reliable delivery service which is why many overseas supporters are relying on family or friends to send them the latest gear rather than buy from the online club shop. Many British clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool have deal with international export companies who are paid to handle the delivery of all club merchandise around the world at a speedy and reliable rate. Rangers should look to make similar deal if we are to maximise our selling potential. The cost of a quick, reliable courier service will be more than expendable given the revenue we will earn from satisfied customers. In conclusion there is no doubt that Rangers' current marketing strategy is failing both the supporters and the club itself. In times of financial trouble we should be looking at initiatives to improve our income and with their being a huge, unsatisfied demand for Rangers merchandise all over the world, there is an ideal opportunity to gain revenue from this. The club should work with RSCs and Supporters organisations around the globe to develop measures in which the demand for merchandise is satisfied and also to open new markets. The supporters in each country can provide the club with good knowledge of the local markets that can be used to our advantage. It is not an impossible task, we have a fan base to rival any of the major clubs in the world but we simply don't have the vision to exploit it. Now is the time for vision and constructive dialogue between the club and the Rangers support to build towards a more profitable future where merchandise is available to all whom desire it. [With special thanks to: BoltonLoyal, Brissyger, Toni, Bobby, Nvager, CanadaReady, CanadianGer for your fantastic contributions to this article.]

Part 2 Now, let’s have a look at how our generated merchandising income compares to others in Europe. International sports business group, Deloitte, recently published a list of the top twenty richest clubs in the world. Included in the report was a breakdown of each clubs' revenue, merchandise sales being of particular interest for this article. Unsurprisingly, the top two clubs, Real Madrid and Manchester United made a whopping Ã?£102 million and Ã?£64 million respectively on commercial revenue. It would be unrealistic for Rangers to ever dream of competing with those figures in the short term. But clubs lower down the league, such as Tottenham and Manchester City are also streets ahead in the commercial and merchandise department. Tottenham last year generated Ã?£9.7 million in merchandising sales alone, while Manchester City, bottom of the rich list, bagged Ã?£7.8 million. Both of these clubs have a substantially smaller worldwide fan base than Rangers, yet are generating almost treble the amount of merchandising revenue. This cannot just be down to these clubs having the prestige of playing in the English Premiership with its endless popularity all over the world. Do these clubs have ingenious marketing structures which allow them to make more profit than they otherwise would from their fan base? Are they doing so by enticing neutral football supporters to buy their products? Or are Rangers simply neglecting our own massive support by not providing them with the opportunity to buy Rangers our product? Shall we ask the supporters themselves? Starting from South of the Border in England, you would expect there to be an abundance of Rangers merchandise given the large amount of JJB stores in the country. This is what an English Rangers fan had to say: It seems that JJB are proving to be just as poor in providing a good range of Rangers merchandise in England as they are in Scotland. The recent Uefa Cup Final where a great many English Bears looking to purchase Rangers kits for the big day, were told that there was no stock, shows that JJB are not supplying to satisfy the demand. Outside of Scotland, there are more Rangers supporters in Northern Ireland than in any other country in the world. Historical associations over the years has created a unique situation where thousands of Ulster men and women support the Light Blues and travel in vast numbers across the sea every week to lend their support. Here is the opinion of two such Rangers fans from Northern Ireland on the issue: Yet another example of JJB failing the needs of Rangers supporters. There is not a great range of merchandise available, even in the Glasgow stores, and it is apparent that in Belfast there is less still. This is the same situation across Northern Ireland: Of course, in Northern Ireland the JJB deal also applies and therefore, like Scotland, there are no Rangers club shops. But it seems that there is also a lack of Rangers merchandise on offer despite the large Rangers support and relative ease of shipping merchandise across the Irish Sea. The club are not doing enough to provide supporters with official club merchandise in Northern Ireland and are subsequently missing-out on a great deal of revenue in the process. In Canada there is also a very strong Rangers fan base, most member clubs of NARSA (North Atlantic Rangers Supporters Association) are indeed RSCs from Canada. Is there a good range of Rangers merchandise available to Canadian Bears? So in Edmonton at least, it seems that Rangers don't exist. There is no club merchandise available anywhere in the city. Not good enough when you consider that the city is home to many Rangers supporters who would be more than willing to by Rangers merchandise if they could find it. What of elsewhere in Canada? So this problem of Rangers merchandise being extremely rare seems to be an all too common story in Canada – and what little that there is available proves to be very expensive by UK standards. The above contributor makes a very valid recommendation too. Allowing NARSA registered clubs to import the merchandise in bulk and sell to their members is an interesting suggestion which will be explored later in this article. This lack of merchandise seems to stretch across the border into the United States where the legions of Rangers supporters there too are finding it near impossible to find Rangers clothing: [CONTINUED]

Part 1 Football is not just about the trophies or the glory anymore: money is as big a part of the modern game as success on the field. It is what keeps clubs afloat, allows them to buy the players and to improve the facilities for those players and the supporters who follow the club. It is these supporters who collectively provide football clubs with much of the revenue needed to achieve these goals. Rangers Football Club are well aware of this fact and know that the unwavering loyalty and devotion shown by us supporters can be exploited through the sale of merchandise and memorabilia to increase the yearly turnover. If ever there was a more critical time for this loyalty to be utilised, it is now. The club is enduring a period of financial insecurity after two consecutive summers of big spending coupled with failure to make the group stages of the Champions League this season and the Ã?£10 million cash incentive that coincided. In January, David Murray was forced to admit that all offers for our big-name players would be considered due to our financial predicament. These are tough times, but is the club exploring every avenue of generating income? What of our merchandising revenue? The Rangers support is vast, you will find Bears in all corners of the world who are devoted and loyal to their club. Around 200,000 of these supporters descended on Manchester last season for the UEFA Cup Final, an unprecedented number of people actively following a football match. That single event served as proof of the enormity of the Rangers fan base, and the truth is that most of these fans would have come from the United Kingdom alone. Think of the thousands upon thousands of others who would have packed their local Rangers or Scottish bar in the cities of Canada, America and Australia to watch their beloved team contest a European final. What I am trying to emphasise here is that with these great numbers comes great marketing potential. Which sadly isn't being explored. On the 9th of March 2006 Rangers Football Club signed a ten year licensing agreement with JJB Sports PLC. As contained within a press release from the sportswear distributor, it was announced that JJB would; Also JJB was tasked with the “maintenance and order fulfilment of the Rangers online retail facility where Rangers product will continue to be sold”. The deal was struck and an initial payment of Ã?£18 million was paid to Rangers on the 6th June 2006. This is accentuated by a minimum annual royalty of Ã?£3 million which is then added to if sales thresholds are met and exceeded. The deal was put in place just as Alex McLeish’s tenure at Rangers was running out and the arrival of Paul Le Guen was looking more likely. The deal, brokered by Sir David Murray and Martin Bain, meant that 18 club shops were closed, leaving somewhere in the region of 200 Rangers workers unemployed. But what has the deal brought to the club? Surely it is a good thing? On paper it is a guaranteed minimum Ã?£48 million pounds until 2016, rising if we meet certain sales targets. But upon closer inspection of the 2008 accounts, it can be seen that we cannot have met these thresholds as we were only paid the minimum of Ã?£3 million. In a year where we pushed to a European final and brought 200,000 fans to Manchester, when will there come another time where there will be more replica jerseys sold? If we didn’t meet the targets then, will we ever within the 10 year deal? Another consideration that needs to be discussed is whether JJB are actually keeping up their end of the deal. How many JJB stores have you been into recently that have a good breadth of Rangers products to purchase or have made their Rangers merchandise clearly visible? I tell you what, let’s do a small experiment. Go to the JJB website now as you are reading this. Using your internet browser, go to (http://www.jjbsports.com/football/shirts) and click on the “Scottish Teams” shirts that are available for purchase. I’m sure once you have clicked on this you will see the point that I’m trying to make. Problems of JJB mismanaging the deal could have been prevented. The conspiracy theorist in me might make the point that JJB are not pushing the Rangers merchandise as they do not want to pay more than the minimum payment to the club. But that is merely conjecture, we will never really know. But what could not be legislated for was the financial crisis which has been thrust upon our country. JJB as a company was no different and is facing the prospect of closure. Now I would not claim to know the inner workings of what would happen should this occur. But it would seem that if it were the case, Rangers and Murray would need to have a Plan B. Would we go back to handling our own merchandising and sales? Perhaps it would be a blessing in disguise if the deal with JJB was vetoed – allowing us to reanalyse and come up with a new innovative strategy. Although the JJB deal has been a bonus for the club financially, I do not feel that the small increase of annual profit from our merchandise sales in the UK since the deal came into fruition is enough to justify the loss of the Rangers name from the high street, or the reduced range of merchandise available. Yes, there is a wider range available online but the fact is that most supporters still prefer to shop in the high street, as do most consumers in general. People feel a sense of pride and excitement when we purchase something we can take home. That is somewhat lost with internet shopping. Therefore, as has been said, the club must either cut our ties with the failing retail chain and negotiate a deal with one who will promise to make Rangers supporters feel like they have a place to come and buy a wide range of merchandise and regalia. Or else reinvest in introducing the traditional Rangers superstores back onto the high street. Sometimes you have to take one step backwards to come two steps forward. [CONTINUED]

Another fine article from the lads at RangersMedia as BlueIsTheColour and therabbit explore the problems with the existing retail arrangement and, as usual, offer a few suggestions to address it. http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/newsite/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=759&Itemid=2

Did you serve the usually rather negative fellow above with a fruity melon liqueur in order to make him be so positive? I hate it when I have to explain my already weak jokes...

Norris, did you serve the poster formerly known as Maineflyer with Midori again...? :fish:

There goes my chance of winning the editor vote...

:D Come on Cammy!

Same here...

I got an email about it the other week where someone had put us forward initially. I asked a few more folk from here to do the same and it seems we're nominated. Now we just need enough votes to win. *Opens mass email software*

A huge thanks goes out to Shroomz for his incredible work on the three new splendid header images above.... Tremendous work, I'm sure you will all agree! :cheers:

Delighted to announce that Gersnet has been nominated for the following categories in the Rangers awards. You can vote for your favorite fanzine, site, editor and writer by clicking the following link. We'd appreciate your support as always. http://www.footballfanzineawards.com/the-nominees.php Best Premier League/SPL Print Follow Follow Number 1 Best Premier League/SPL Online FF.com GersnetOnline.co.uk Best Editor (Online or Print) George McGhee (Number 1) Mark Dingwall (FF) Stewart Franklin (GersnetOnline.co.uk) Best Writer (Online or Print) Opportunity Knox (Vanguardbears) The Gub (FF) CammyF (GersnetOnline.co.uk) Frankie (GersnetOnline.co.uk) Stewart Franklin (GersnetOnline.co.uk)

For those that can't make the event please have a look through the following auction prizes. If you're interested in making a pre-event bid please contact me by pm. - Teeth Whitening Course for 2 (donated by MOT Dental) (Do you want a brighter smile? Tooth whitening is the easiest way of changing the colour of the teeth without changing the shape. MOT Dental are based in Glasgow (Cambuslang) and in Paisley (Linwood)) normally worth Ã?£1000 - Signed Sandi Thom Guitar (donated by Morningside School of Music) - His & Hers leather jackets (donated by 'Leather of Morgan') (2 leather jackets of your choice up to the value of Ã?£1,000 from their fabulous collection at Howard Street, Glasgow.) - David Beckham signed Shirt Fantastic framed AC Milan shirt complete with Beckham & his no 32 on the back. David Beckham signed the number on the back of the shirt at Ibrox 2 weeks ago. - Rangers poppy Shirt This very rare shirt has been framed after being signed by the Rangers first team. - Bespoke Bluebell Tartan Kilt (donated by Kilts 4 U) Be resplendent in this beautiful Tartan unique to kilts - Take That Experience (donated by Mr Singh's India) 2 tickets for Take That concert at Hampden Park including fine dining at Scotland's favourite Indian Restaurant, Mr Singh's India. - Dynamic Online TV CHANNEL (donated by Moviecom) An online TV channel for a 3 month duration including a 1 minute welcome movie and 3 monthly email campaigns to a 1000 name database. (normal package cost - Ã?£5000) - A Ã?½ day Mindstore Session (donated by Mindstore) This unbelievable prize which can reach the value of up to Ã?£12k has been donated by Mindstore. It entitles you and your company a Ã?½ day session on site. - Limited Edition Ally McCoist Print (donated by Rangers FC) Signed by Ally McCoist and the artist this print is part of a collection with only 100 printed and most have not been released yet. The latest one was sold at a Rangers function for Ã?£3,000. - Recording session (donated by Morningside School of Music) For vocalists, your chance to record a song of your choice in our studio. Worth Ã?£1000! - Knockhill “Top Gear” Experience (donated by Mr Singh's India) Your chance to thrill with one of the top Knockhill Experiences, using only the best of vehicles, with the maximum of driving time and packed with excitement and adrenaline.

After the Celtic game at Ibrox in late December I thought we had no chance but, more because of their poor form than our great form, we're right back in it. I just doubt we have the bottle to win it though. Pessimistic I may be but while Celtic are a poor team they do have players who been there and done it over the last few years. We don't. I'm no more better than 50/50 at the moment.

I'm just glad he didn't say 'knob-end' or I'd fast be running out of moderators...

Thanks for that link Franker... Much appreciated.

Any win over Celtic is a gubbing...!

Certainly hadn't heard any rumour about a French buyer.

Agreed....

Part 3 Firstly, presuppose the basic goodness of the vast majority of Rangers fans, and make every public statement focus on these people: your clients, your customers, your supporters. The idea that the average Rangers supporter is, by and large, more bigoted and less good than the average Celtic supporter, is a sociological impossibility, given that both clubs attract fans from every stratum of life in comparative numbers and proportions. If the media are too hasty to generalise, ask for specifics, and, whatever you agree with yourself, apply the ancient art of rhetoric to portray your clients in the strongest possible light. Anything other than this is decadence. I’ve not heard one positive word about Rangers fans from you in years; discontent doesn’t grow from nowhere, even if the forms it presents in are tedious, or obtuse, and clumsily made banners. Secondly, make a friend of the internet. Other than in the case of further recession, it’s going to be with us for a while. From a purely practical point of view, any club that doesn’t secure the hearts and minds of the internet followers, much less simply dismiss them, is going to have a generation of alienated customers. You can do this by actively engaging with popular websites – you don’t have to soften your stance on any issue, but by making these places the supporting underclass you provoke rebellion. If you explain the reasoning of your approach on any issue clearly, you’ll be sure that there will be plenty of people there who will adopt your position, even if they are dismissed by fanatics. It’s easy to cherry pick the worst of the internet and argue against that, but a man of your intelligence should pick the best to fight with. Thirdly, don’t equate patriotism with bigotry. As uncouth, and crass, as many modern intellectuals, and media pundits, find the idea of British patriotism, with its connotations of Empire and racism, it isn’t necessarily so. If you listen to the whispers of our time – if you watch films like Tropic Thunder, and you walk into a meeting with head of a company who is catholic, you’ll realise that a great deal of those Britain oppressed live beside us as fully functioning members of society. The shame of being British was probably, for a period, sociologically necessary, but that period is at an end – were we to filter all our thoughts and deeds, and judge intentions constantly, through this shame forever, even when the people are no longer oppressed, it’s just condescension. Wherever aspersions are cast with nudges and winks as to what’s “really going on” behind the songs and the chants, fight them rigorously, and in doing so make the people singing them aspire to the most noble interpretation of their actions. Fourthly, and most importantly, please apply all your energy to rebuilding Rangers from the ground up. If you applied that same intelligence that has turned the media inside out to a vision for a rebuilding of Rangers, what greatness could be achieved. You rode in on the upwards trend started by Holmes, but you took it forward - now it’s time to create a second upwards trend and create the environment for our next owner similar to the one you were so ready to buy into. If Holmes had said he was dying to get out of it all, would you have bought in? Things have fallen again, and you’re partly to blame, but Rangers fans, still, look to you. You’ve been a man to make the big decisions – outline what sort of a club you think Rangers are, what the best it can aspire to is, and what sort of drama it would take to get there. You know how good bad music and reasons sound when you’re marching to war; let’s have a good plan, a good war, and not just stumble through from day to day. All the recent discontent has arisen, more than anything, out of a feeling of purposelessness, and the sense that, as a club, we’re going nowhere. Decrying the internet is no small part of this – why poison the inkwell of the future? Make it work for you. You’ve seen how much hullaballoo a few people with just a Word document and a website can produce – if you get them onside, they’re your hullabaloo. It shouldn’t be the case that someone who takes the time to write, or even criticise, the club should be seen as some sort of lunatic fringe – they’re a symptom of how big a club we are, and the standards we aspire to. Manipulating the media to turn on the internet is massively, massively intelligent – but it’s short termist, and ends up causing as much discontent as it decries. Unless the financial situation changes you’re going to be at the helm, so please don’t tell us how sick of it you are while still expecting people who’ve endured all the same hard times with Rangers as you have to plough money they don’t really have into merchandise and tickets. Don’t poison in the inkwell of the future – it’s a symptom of a decline not about to burst into the new upwards trend. You have all the resources available to you – be bold, have vision, and lead from the front. That way you wont have to worry about the internet or the press without berating either.

Part 2 And so somehow, as I open my word document, and begin to type, the people with all the words, David Murray, and the newspapers, and all their respective power, have already agreed to put off their usual disagreements to agree that whatever it is that I type is nothing but trouble making, and internet fanaticism. The people who have thousands of readers are accusing people on the internet of clever self-publicising. Instead of being proud that a relatively normal person would waste their time writing about their club out of irrational love, they’re condemned. It’s a recurrent motif. Instead of being proud that 200,000 people travelled to a European final, David Murray and Walter Smith joined in the general condemnation, and have took every opportunity to refer to it subsequently. It’s obviously undeniable that the events surrounding it were unacceptable, but the self same master rhetorician, Murray, with all his intelligence, could’ve surely argued convincingly that if any old industrial city in Britain took 200,000 of their citizens anywhere, a portion of them would be from sufficiently troubled backgrounds. If 200,000 people from Manchester went anywhere, you would be pretty sure there would be a troublesome element. Surely he could’ve looked at the situation and seen how clearly English hooligan elements, and poor co-ordination, had denied at very least, 99% of decent people’s day. Manchester took all the money from all the decent people, and then called us evil. And David Murray joined in. Instead of being proud that British people are still sufficiently patriotic as to decry people who live here but would prefer to be somewhere else, David Murray allows them to be labelled as racists and bigots, and conspires to have them put in jail, and testify against them. There’s moral ambiguity about all this, and I’m no unionist, but a man with such intelligence could surely at least argue the case that if people are to be criminalised for telling people to GTF back to the another country if they love it so much, then a country is at odds with itself. If he set the tone of aspiring to noble patriotism, it would at least give the element with dubious intentions something to aspire to. Instead of this, he takes it upon himself to judge invisible intentions with nods and winks that everyone really knows they’re all thugs and racists and bigots. And so it’s been. And I don’t know why. Murray may just have got sick of it, and that’s his prerogative. It may be that instead of being proud that idiots like me waste their time writing about the very thing he owns, he’s seem how sad it is, and would rather decry us as petty fantasists with nothing worthwhile to say. He may be right. But as Jesus said, a nation divided against itself can’t stand. And if he shares the ‘cultured’ objections of the media towards the Rangers fans, then that’s his prerogative, but football is not a sport of rationality and culture. It’s a sport of animation, passion, and irrational pride. He might not like what the people on the internet have to say, but it doesn’t justify poisoning the well from their speaking at all. Now am I joining the chorus for getting Murray out? Not at all - you don’t get many men who can take on the media and win: he’s a special case. But how I dearly wish he wasn’t doing it at the expense of the fans; if only that same intellect was driving us forward. It’s not the lunatic fringe that use the internet. The internet, as I’m quite sure he knows, is quite popular these days. If the internet is devoid of practical solutions, and is petty, and is indeed extremist and reactionary, as Murray and the media say in unison, then there isn’t much hope for society as a whole. Yet if you read back articles from this site you’ll find no evidence of this fanaticism: the same people that talk about the game in the pub talk about it on the internet. There’s outbursts of emotion; but these same outbursts of emotion finance the game. They buy the strips, the season tickets, the DVDs. If you want to turn every person into clear logical thinkers about what’s in everyone’s best interests you’ll quickly find that people will realise they can live without strips, season tickets and DVDs, and they can live without writing articles like this one. Rightly, or wrongly, the people with all the words have decided that words like these are poisoned from the offset. It you wanted to be dramatic, you could say it’s a type of Old Media’s last stance against the internet. And this naturally brings me to the questions as to what the better approach would be. Contemporary linguist said David Crystal said, talking about language change, and particularly about people moaning about language change, that ‘Language change is inevitable, continuous, universal and multidirectional. Languages do not get better or worse when they change. They just — change.’ In the same way, thinking that the new generation of fans, those who use the internet, are better or worse, rather than different, is to try and fight the course of time. What Murray may gain in the applause of the media, he loses in alienation of large portions of the support who are decent, and pursuing their love of Rangers in the way obvious to people of their time. The internet can’t be fought. However, as a resource, it can be used. If you disenfranchise large portions of a population, you get rebellion – however, if you give them a voice, and infer on them all the responsibility that comes along with that, you just might make them work for you, and for the greater good. So, as a consequence of all this theorising, and in the spirit of offering practical alternatives, David Murray, here’s what I’d like you to do: [CONTINUED]

Part 1 Recently both Walter Smith and Sir David Murray (as well as the press more generally) have turned on Rangers supporters who use the internet. I’m not surprised – the fight or flight response is equally as valid when cornered by a lion as it is when cornered by a pack of ravenous journalists with quotes and criticism they attribute to the internet – but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. We’re back at the top of the league; criticism of Walter and David Murray will be largely suspended for the moment, and everyone is in a slightly saner frame of mind. I think in this little period of repose we can discuss the ongoing relationship of Rangers FC with the fans, and with the internet in a happily constructive manner. Constructive criticism is what our situation needs – building up as well as breaking down. But destruction is the father of creation, and so first I’ll consider Walter Smith’s accusation that the Rangers fans online are essentially faceless wonders, who appear on the internet and become another person – assuming an authority they don’t have in order to simply spew bile. Then I’ll consider an alternative approach the club could take when dealing with the internet, which would hopefully be in everyone’s interests. So, why would someone on the internet write about Rangers? The desire to spew bile? That’s not why I want to write about Rangers, but the question remains - why would a happy and healthy member of society who, instead of watching YouTube videos of funny cats; or talking to their colleagues about television programmes; or listening to one of Yale’s, surprisingly free and public lectures on the contemporary philosophy of death, is choosing to write an article about a football club, Rangers. Why would that be? Why would someone fritter away their precious minutes writing something about the fortunes of a football club – writing about millionaire athletes running about a kicking a bit of leather at extravagantly woven shoe-laces tied to metal poles with varying degrees of success? Why would they write without the possibility of fame, or money? What madness would provoke this irrationality? I’m not convinced it’s for the villainous motives that Walter Smith and David Murray have chosen to attribute it to. I think the answer’s simple: the irrational and unconditional love of Rangers. The same irrational and unconditional love that has people getting out of their beds with hangovers to go and watch average football in the blistering rain and numbing cold. In short, the madness that makes Rangers a big club. The same madness that would devote a massive portion of their wage to watch Rangers is one and the same as the madness that would provoke someone on the internet to write an article without any chance of fame, or fortune: simple, irrational, but truthful, love of Rangers. You would think this is something that the club would seek to celebrate, rather than condemn, even if some of it is criticism - it’s one of the few remaining indicators that ours is a massive institution, in a world demanding financial tightening, and scepticism. But that’s not the case. David Murray’s criticism of the internet has been as vague as it has been vitriolic: it comes with harsh words directed at no-one in particular, but everyone in general. Now, I’ve never underestimated David Murray - he is one of a few in every generation that prevail over their peers and achieve where others imagine and talk – so we can be sure this isn’t unconscious. It’s thoroughly considered. ‘Genius’ has become a much overused words these days; it’s become a commodity, yet I would go as far to apply it to David Murray in this recent attack on internet fans. I’m not happy about it, naturally - I would go as far as to say I’m hurt by it – but I can’t deny how utterly clever it is. You see, the media are supposed to represent the public. They are supposed to critically examine the people the public are interested in. That’s their job, that’s the myth we buy into when we buy a paper. It’s hard to believe in it fully – the 'Daily Mail' clearly isn’t representing all of the public’s opinion (you’re not going to see harsh criticism of ineffective immigration laws if they’re tough), but they at least pretend that they are representing someone other than merely themselves. They are supposed to be after the public (however they define ‘public’) interest. In this context, David Murray is an object of public interest, and those disgruntled (rightly or wrongly) are the public. Yet, somehow the situation has turned inside out. The media are carrying the object of interest, David Murray, and turning themselves to critical examination of the public. It’s an unprecedented step, that’s not without historical significance. When Britain went to war with Iraq over a million people protested. Regardless of your views on these protests, if you have opened the papers and read “Less than 1/50th of the national population, ungrateful for what their government had done for them, and provoked by internet trouble makers, decided to protest against our irreproachable leader’s decision to go to war” we would have, quite rightly, assumed that there was some sort of fishy propaganda going on. You would think you had wandered into China, and found the role of the newspapers to be completely inverted. Similarly, regardless of your views on the recent discontent among the fans at Rangers, one has to wonder how it can possibly be that the public has become the object, rather than instigator, of critical analysis, and how this reversal has happened. David Murray has always had the media in his pocket because he’s simply more intelligent than the journalists he’s had to deal with. Any potential criticism he is clever enough to deflect, or reverse. But now that the criticism is getting harder to deflect, and the questions more pointed, and with more public weight, David Murray, and his large, large, intellect the reversal has had to be grander. How is it that the public has become the object of criticism of the papers? Because David Murray has been clever enough to play on the papers, and old media in general’s, fears about new media, the internet. Your enemy’s enemy is your friend, indeed, it would seem. And while newspapers are merging, shutting, and going out of print, the craftiest way to turn the tables is to present them with an opportunity to turn themselves into moral crusaders attacking the evil that is only incidentally putting them out of business: a hook simply too juicy for them to swim past. With an opportunity to turn on the internet, their new competition, they will happily turn their duty inside out and divert their criticism from its destination back to its source. [CONTINUED]

Another lengthy (but quality) article in the STS series with bmck examining the interesting very public and most unnecessary 'battle' between the internet loyal, the media and the club. Well worth taking 10mins to read this. http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/newsite/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=758&Itemid=2