Rick Roberts

Good read John. The end of your article shows me what its all about. A numbers game. Knowingly influencing those on the periphery of the support - be it lapsed supporters, young fans not yet made it to a match etc. Which runs into the 10,000s. A deliberate attempt at under-mining and chipping away at our fan-base. 

5 minutes ago, buster. said:

As a journalist, McLaughlin has every right to find sources who will give him 'information' on whatever story and this can often become 'one-sided' if that information is coming from one side. At this point, the 'other side' has to find a way of getting their side of the story out there, if it's a public war, eg. competing for support/custom of a certain group of people. 

 

IMO the problem with McLaughlin and some others was that they went beyond simple facts and pushed a slant / an agenda via the most listened to radio station in Scotland. As well as being used to spread bullshit (on occasion they may not have known it was BS at the time).

 

At the beginning of the week that saw our AGM in 2013, Alasdair Lamont was used by Jack Irvine to not only inform Sportsound listeners that the results of the various resolutions were already counted and  essentially decided BUT had the front to put forward that it would effectively be a waste of time for 'protestors' against the then board to attend the AGM. The whole point of the Mediahouse leak to Lamont/BBC Scotland had been to dampen growing disquiet and anger that was heading towards a public embarrasment for the then board at the AGM........and Lamont (said to be a Rangers fan) at primetime on the most listened to station in the country, duly delivered.

 

As for disinformation, in the summer of 2012, McLaughlin delivered a BS story on Arif Naqvi but the that is something that would need a thread on it's own.

 

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The unplatable truth is that the Celtic-minded have been more organised, better positioned, much more unified and way more effective at the dark arts than we have. They've also had material to work that we (eg. Sir Duped, etc.)  have sometimes presented them with and look to maximise damage on us (e. RTC, etc).

 

However, bottomline, BBC Scotland have been allowed to overstep the mark (and continue to do so).

 

There's a good point. Whoever gets the "news" out there first, by default owns the audience. Pretty hard to turn that around.

It probably also won over the bulk of BBC staff too ,as they'd buy into and peddle/protect "their" news (tho prehaps didnt require much persuading) .

Probably helps explain why they were so keen to push guilt and punishment, as the public are then conditioned to expect that. Likewise, why they omit celtic from certain discussions and news stories. 

1 hour ago, buster. said:

'The problem I had with this was that the background reasons as to why Chris McLaughlin put himself in the position to have press privilages withdrawn was never told or explained to the watching world. Instead, a vacum is formed that allows the BBC to stand by their man, be dismissive of the club for it's act and allow a general belief to form that it was Rangers who have banned BBC Scotland.

 

 

 

 

 

Totally agree. Clubs positions needs clarified.

Slightly off track but i was thinking about this recently. The whole Craig Whyte saga involved...

Chris McLaughlin, celtic fan, mouthpiece for celtic. BBC reporter, position not unrelated for work he does for celtic.

Got given goodies by RTC and was chosen to run their stories, RTC - Known haters with a sole agenda to damage RFC (with hindsight anyway).

Was allowed to run with story for years. Speculate/slander etc...

Imagine a world where the opposite was true. It simply wouldn't happen. Chris Jack, reading Vanguard Bears investigative work on celtic issues, on the evening news. Then discussing it for hours with other Rangers fans. That's effectively what BBC Scotland gave us. 

8 minutes ago, Frankie said:

BBC Scotland have a certain autonomy from London but, in any event, the network are supporting them as they didn't cover the Gerrard unveiling for example.

Do we know if the question has been asked or the point raised, officially?

To an outsider in London its probably something that could be explained away and "complaints" from the public probably just fall under noise.  

FYI - I've been told the minutes from June have been delayed. IT issues with a computer. Could be legit. We will see.... 

Good listen guys. Really enjoyed the topics later on. Really hit the nail on the head in my opinion.

Celtic have been ripping the piss for years with us and the "old firm" fixture. They realised its easier to undermine us and sell hate to their support i.e. no old firm, no Rangers, you cheated etc. With us conveniently out of the way it gave them easy money and trophies. Like Colin said it's been an "aggressive" tone from them. Aggressive. Dismissive. Undermining. The effigies, moon-howling and assaults are all symptoms of this. It's a worrying trend. Very divisive stuff.

Not unrelated, others have followed celtics lead. Dornan just the latest doing his bit for the cause. The SNP. Press pack. As pointed out, the suspect monies and allowances thrown at parkhead recently have been obscene. They have an army of puppets lining up to out do each other for them and against us. This is bigotry is action - and for me ten times worse than a few bad words between rival fans in 90mins. This is ow actually affecting peoples real lives in the professional and political sphere. They were able to bring in new laws and then get them repealed on a whim. It's new ground way beyond on anything before in our history. Murray made some comments about spending £10 and that's about as far as we took it before. Their response is mental. Rabid.

No-one will ever call out them out unless we start pointing it out. Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts seem to willingly join in but i genuinely don't think they realise half of whats going on with celtic. Therefore, the club has to be public with this. It's politics and we'll get laughed if we try and reason our way through it with people not interested in being reasonable with us. 

1 hour ago, Bill said:

Only two things remotely interest me about this matter. Whether Rangers will increase its merchandising income and by how much. 

It would be good to see some numbers / projections on this. To compare it to old deal i.e. how soon is the £3.5m made back?

Good stuff as always ?

Good discussion on transfer fees and pay offs. Waghorn and Mackay etc most would agree we sold ourselves short at the time. Giving that Wes will probably end up in England then asking price must reflect that i.e. £2-3m. The pay offs for so many of Pedros guys are pretty galling. It would be interesting to hear how we compare to other clubs on this score - Obviously Martin Bains record was shocking and i'd hope we keep well away for that type of performance.  

15 hours ago, craig said:

To be fair - I think, for once, that BBC report is actually balanced and fair.  Scrote points out that the guy was largely condemned by fellow fans.  He also points out it was just one fan (unlike the Record that used fans plural....)

Out of interest did BBC cover SRtRCs comments on Rogers Logan comments? Whilst Mclaughlin didn't go over board with it, he didn't ignore it either. It'll get plenty of air time from our friends at the BBC.

BBC aside, the supporter left the club in an impossible position and club had no other option. Perhaps a timely reminder that a pro-active approach cannot be over-looked and with drink and sun involved it never hurts to remind folk of responsibilities. 

Good listen guys.

Agree with you on the strips. It's right that Rangers fans discuss these things and set our own path on them but don't get dragged into "debates" on them with others. Almost everything involving Rangers gets sensationalised and the same nutters are asking for justification on everything. It wastes time and makes issues where there aren't any. Others do not get the same scrutiny and don't have to explain their actions. 

15 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

If it would require another fans fighting fund and hire someone to investigate all this, one I would be happy to contribute to. 

That is the dream. A pro-active, full-time group, independent from the club, tying all the fans factions together and sorting out all the bullshit whilst setting the agenda.

13 minutes ago, buster. said:

This had been preceeded by Celtic FC sending a video to the SFA/Referee dept. of what they viewed as mistaken decisions that went against them. I think this was about the Feburary. It wasn't interested in balance, it was more to stir up the masses, create more siege mentality and keep their support (who were peeved with Mowbrary) onside and attending football matches.

Agreed. I think club have a duty to pick up these threads. The bheast quotes in that BBC story are pretty menacing with hindsight. 

Another angle is that these changes were meant to "improve" refereeing in this country. Giving this season (RFC and other games tbf) i think we have an even bigger problem with referees. 

6 minutes ago, Darthter said:

If you wanted a more accurate (mis)reprsentation of the effectiveness & role of the CO, you'd really need to start looking at cases that have been dealt with by him in order to provide direct factual evidence of potential bias etc.

Agreed. There are a few higher profile incidents which back that up, but not enough to nail them. They'd probably point to one or two celtic suspensions and claim balance. From that point of view its difficult to capture or prove the "feel" of the CO, in that there's literally hundreds of incidents that get over-looked and never commented on, even when they should. Part of the problem is that incidents which are noteworthy to us seldom make the headlines and match reports, as we're seeing with Allan, it never happened. Likewise, Browns kicks and stamps etc are presented in soft focus. I've had a quick look but never found any stats or reports on charges etc .

18 minutes ago, ian1964 said:

The club should release a statement to clarify this article, aye I know another statement but they can't ignore this!

Yep. Its an opportunity to address any issues and take initiative on this. Basically, grab the spotlight from Daly and shine it where he refuses to look. 

I hope so Walterbear. The concern is that the celtic-minded are shameless about these things and will take some shifting. Like you say, hopefully SG is the sledgehammer to take it on. 

Great podcast guys. Part of my weekly listening now.

One key turning point for me was that first Hibs match. It set the music for lots of aspects of our season.

- Even taking into account Pedro having limited ability, this threw him up against it from the off. It wrecked momentum and confidence (which these players more than others seem to rely on) and the subsequent draw against Hearts was a hangover from this. 5 points gone straight away. OK, a better manager and better players would've overcome this quicker but this lot never did.

- It showed that refs would apply to 2 sets of standards. Alarm bells should've been ringing here. Whilst stopping short of calling it a conspiracy, if refereeing can be influenced by external (or internal via SFA) factors, then its effectively the same thing. The fans, investors, sponsors put in money, the club spend £30-40 million a season to compete - its big business and its all geared to competing. If we get another season of refereeing like that (sub-consciously or not) then we wont be winning anything, its that simple. The club has a duty to protect all influences towards winning football matches be it our manager, facilities, players etc and the refereeing team is a significant factor in that. The recent 1st half against Aberdeen is the perfect example of refereeing influencing a game; suspect penalty, gradual build up of 50/50s going one way and one set of players start of lose discipline. Ironically, Goss wasn't booked for his lash out, but that's the influence a ref can have on a game - even with no major calls 2 or 3 points can be spirited away .  

- It showed players seemed confident in pushing the limits against us. This was something we got through the lower leagues and were told to accept because it was the lower leagues (and it was Ian Black getting booted) but Hibs and Motherwell in particular were willing to jump into straight red card behaviour against us in plain sight. Their confidence was rewarded by our players spending months on the treatment table and them not even receiving cards, in many cases. I think we can rule out the CO picking up our complaints too and don't even start me on "it was a yellow so cant be reviewed" fob. Compare coverage of Naismith on brown, compare column inches, narratives and end result - a ban for Naismith and puff pieces for the lego muncher.

So, extremely saddened club hasn't recognised and highlighted all of the incidents this year. There's clearly a trend and its clearly a significant influence on our performances and points tally. I expect rivals to look after their interests, I don't expect Rangers (including ex-players/pundits) to roll over and let it happen.  

Think i'm leaning towards Yes. 

The profile part is something that makes sense. Big club, big names etc.  

And if we want to be considered a big club then at some stage we need to start acting like a big club, or at least thinking big. 

Add with the right team around him, it reduces the risk. Who knows...

Always interested to hear opinions on the media. How to we get a foothold back in the Scottish media? Why are we (club) so bad at setting narratives etc. 

Likewise as others have said Club1872. With hindsight, was probably mistake with merger. How best to move forward and repair any damage?

Would be good to hear about options on area around Ibrox, what is possible and what would any barriers be?

3 minutes ago, Walterbear said:

I can’t give any credence to NBM. Following reaction by them to our fans songs I thought I’d test them and I contacted them about a former Rangers manager getting the ‘cheer up......sad o..... b........” song.  I offered the relevant media and time to listen on the recording to make it easy.  I asked them 3 times (politely) if they had a view. I didn’t get a single response. 

 

The UB thing is daft and not representative of an impending krystallnacht as some would happily want many to believe but some of our fans seem very good at not understanding the environment we operate in and shooting themselves and inthe process the clubin the foot. The independent media can report what they want and not much we can do about it. Politicians pander to what they think will help re-election and offer soundbites to get votes. 

 

The best thing we can do as a club is get back to winning and to please Rangers fans. We can’t win this media war so devote all time and energy to football success. 

 

 

 

 

w.r.t NBM, i get the feeling they know who butters their bread. It fairly obvious press requests are one sided and being abused tbh. But he refuses to concede that or answer fairly simple questions on it. 

46 minutes ago, colinstein said:

if the group of young lads had not been wearing IRA type ski masks and paramilitary jackets, and the flyer beforehand..... there wouldn't have been a problem.

It was our open goal.....learn from it.

Prehaps. Deliberately offensive etc. But really anything any different from any another ultra group?

4 hours ago, Gaffer said:

Our support is so large and diverse that they cannot be out into a simple political bucket.  It's easy for other groups to associate with one political party or ideal, but it's not so easy for our support.  I'm accepting of that, although I do agree that there does seem to be a large number of SNP MSPs who are eager to demonstrate a blatant bias given any opportunity.  Some of the posts from MSPs are just bewildering.  I couldn't get away with posting anything like that or I'd lose my position, and I'm not a public servant!!!

 

There was also the story of the senior barrister (I think) who apologised and now everything seems to have been forgiven.  What?!?!?

From their side, there lots of benefits from involving us in their politics. Dividing our support is another one that can be added to point scoring, entrenching their voters, damaging our brand etc...

4 minutes ago, buster. said:

There are many individuals out there who know bit's and pieces about 'the affair'.

 

You'd need to build a database of names, subjects, collate and see where it took you. Then work about 8 hours a day on it for god knows how long.

 

Not a cheery thought but tThe quicker you start the better because people's circumstances change as the years pass.

What would be handy is a council building full of workers with a remit to work on this for a few years.

9 minutes ago, buster. said:

Sometimes when the dice are loaded, having the information isn't enough.

 

#GaryWebb

It certainly seems that way. If so. we need to build our own dice.

Boabie. Here's where i think it shows how politically naive and disorganised we are as a support in general (not a bad thing btw, as it should be football and not a tribal dog fight, but that now the environment we exist in). There's plenty of guys wanting to help out and do something but no way of making a real difference or anything happen. For example, look at the recent referee displays, we cant even muster a story in the press putting forward our point of view and setting a narrative.

My thoughts is that somewhere out there is a Bear who has access to a smoking gun and wouldn't even know it e.g. proof of certain people meeting up. The next question is would we know how to use that information?