Bill

I've only been to Anfield once. It was a Euro96 game, Holland against someone (France maybe). We turned up early, before the ground had opened and got chatting to some officials. Before we knew it we had been invited in and were given a tour of the stadium, which had only recently been renovated. It was stunning hospitality really and I never forgot the welcome we got as a group of complete strangers. Quite remarkable.

Like many other fans, I have shares. These shares give me a vote in proportion to the size of my shareholding - a "say" in the running of the club. I am happy to grant my voting rights to someone else if I agree with their intentions. That someone else could easily be Club1872 if I agreed with specific proposals they were putting forward, although given the state of them, I think that's fairly unlikely. I have in the past given my voting rights to Vanguardbears, who I trust far more to act in a sensible and unselfish manner. There is absolutely no need for Club1872 to own your shares. In fact it's little more than a laughable scam. Club1872 should be acting on your behalf, not hoovering up your shares, paid for with your money. Perhaps if that was the case they would act in an altogether more mature and respectful manner.

That's the deal. The role of Club1872 members is simply to hand over money when asked, on the pretext they're playing a part in securing fan ownership. The reality, as you've just made clear, is very different.

Any supporter who owns shares has a stake and a say. Where is the benefit in "collective" ownership?

Why do we "need" this at all? I'm a Rangers fan. I own shares in Rangers. I'm perfectly able to express my opinion as a shareholder without having my hand held by what I regard as some quite dark and dubious people.

Personally, I never trusted the underlying assumption that you could deliver security by Club1872 owning shares but, that aside, the evangelical support for Club1872 has always worried me. The belief that any laudable objective could be achieved by an organisation that from the outset was so clearly displaying the same profound flaws as its predecessors was very dubious. Despite all the money donated by fans of goodwill, it seems to me nothing has really changed. Rangers is no more or less secure for all the shares bought and Club1872 is essentially just the latest platform for supporter politics and personal ambitions. Still, at least we all know how it plays out from here.

Let me know if we ever get any?

Anyone indulging in blind faith shouldn’t be surprised when they walk into a lamp post.

Surely no one can be surprised by any of this and it’s hard to see how anyone could be disappointed. To be disappointed, you would first have to have believed any other outcome was possible - and that would require an unseemly degree of either gullibility or wilful denial.

Turkey 0 - 2 Italy Wales 1 - 1 Switzerland Denmark 3 - 0 Finland Belgium 2 - 0 Russia England 2 - 1 Croatia Austria 2 - 0 N. Macedonia Netherlands 2 - 1 Ukraine Scotland 0 - 2 Czech Republic Poland 2 - 1 Slovakia Spain 1 - 1 Sweden Hungary 0 - 2 Portugal France 2 - 2 Germany

This emerging mess is as predictable as it’s inevitable as it’s so very familiar. It’s not really a case of history repeating itself, more that the same actors have been staging the same sad tragedy for the last 15 years. All that money. All that hope. All those promises.

If penalties are not at the highest possible level for the false and malicious application of the law by the state then I don't know when they would be. This is the most serious misuse of state power it's possible to imagine. In a better society that this, the streets would be thronged in protest. We seem more concerned about how much money is being spent in compensation than we do about the gross and wilful miscarriage of justice by a rogue regime.

They absolutely deserve compensation, which is a right and proper recognition of wrongdoing at the Crown Office. However, the public also deserves better. By making a dogs' breakfast of these prosecutions, we have been robbed of any chance to establish the guilt or innocence of those charged. I haven't yet reached to stage where I'm willing to assign guilt without due scrutiny in court.

There's a far greater difference between not being able to pin a specific crime on someone and pinning a crime on someone which you know they didn't commit. This isn't an issue of whether or not Green and Ahmed were guilty or innocent but about a sovereign legal system that has become so corrupt as to abandon completely the fundamental principles of honesty and justice. By sacrificing a couple of political appointments, any hope of ever revealing the truth about the emasculation of Rangers or the guilt or innocence of specific people has conveniently been buried forever.

Yes but I invented that out of the ether in protest. Fight noise with noise.

That would be a good idea but unfortunately this topic was set up with the express purpose of amplifying the noise. Some people find silence a challenge too far.

He's bloody dire. The opposite of everything Gerrard has created at Rangers.

You'd have to examine the facts to answer that question. The difference shouldn't be hard to establish.

Wouldn’t call it a second club but for 40 years I’ve followed closely the (usually thin) fortunes of Port Vale.

The Romans used to rule the known world but, like Everton, you wouldn’t describe them as a big deal now. Any claim to fame at Everton is a distant and largely irrelevant memory. Today it’s no more a “big club” than Wolves or Newcastle or Leicester.

I’ve never understood the notion that Everton is a “big” club. By what measure?

Don't click the "send me info" box.

You don't plan to allot £6.75m worth of shares on the open market unless you have a very good idea that the offering won't fail. If I were to guess it would be that a significant portion of these shares is going to be guaranteed by a new major investor. Not only are the existing main shareholders unlikely to dig much deeper but the board must recognise the need to start succession planning. What remains to be seen is the offer price and therefore the number of shares to be placed. It may be a consistent 20p but it might also reflect the greatly improving prospects for the club and land at 25p or 30p, which would tend to inflate the value of existing shares too.

People should take responsibility for their actions in this as they would in any other matter. In any case, I'm not sure this share issue depends too much on ordinary fans investing £500. I saw no mention of the issue being underwritten by anyone but I expect the great majority of these shares will still end up in very few hands.

It's been a long wait for a supporter to be able to invest in the club by buying shares. I saw no mention of pre-emption rights of existing shareholders - are these being waived?