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Ignoring the usual sycophantic nonsense, I find the quote in bold crass in the extreme and I'm amazed both Easdale and his PR advisors found it appropriate.

Ally "Lee Wallace will remain a Rangers player unless someone meets the clubs valuation". I'm sorry Ally but that is not what you should be saying here, how about: "Lee Wallace is one of the clubs best players and we discourage any bids for the player, I spoke to him yesterday and he loves it here and the fans love him" Or he could have said: "only a riduculous offer would tempt the club to sell" but we shot ourselves with that one and our quite scandalous £1.4M valuation. Transfer windows used to be exciting for us, who will we sign, will we sign anyone. Now it's all about will we lose our best players. Building for the future? Hmmmm

RANGERS supporters will seek new assurances from chief executive Graham Wallace about the club's finances today - as Lee Wallace edged nearer the exit. Wallace will hold talks with representatives of the three main fans' organisations, the Assembly, the Association and the Trust. And officials at all three bodies hope this afternoon's talks will be the start of a long-term working relationship. But the former Manchester City chief operating officer is set to face tough questioning about the money situation at the SPFL League One leaders. Sky Bet Championship club Nottingham Forest have had two bids - the second believed to be for £1million - for Wallace turned down. But there is mounting speculation the Scotland left-back will be allowed to leave if an offer of £1.5million is received. The 26-year-old stayed loyal to the Light Blues when they dropped down to the bottom tier last season and it is uncertain if he would agree to go. But the first-team squad was asked to consider taking a 15% pay cut earlier this month to reduce significant monthly losses at the Ibrox club. And the former Hearts player could be put under pressure to leave in order to generate income and drive down the players' wage bill. Rangers Supporters Association spokesman Drew Roberton stressed that fans remain concerned about the future despite being told that administration is not a possibility. He said: "I definitely see these meetings as a positive step. I think it is important for the club to have a constructive relationship with the fans considering what has gone on in the last couple of years. "Whoever is in charge of the club has to establish some sort of working relationship with the supporters. Let's hope that these meetings are the start of some kind of regular dialogue between us in the future. "The club needs all the fans fully behind them if we are to get back to where we were before at the forefront of the Scottish game and hopefully this is Graham Wallace's way of ensuring that happens." Roberton added: "But in light of the recent requests for the players to take a pay cut, and given that our former financial director said that we would be down to just £1m by April, there is real concern among the fans that the club has the money to continue to the end of the season. "To be fair to Graham Wallace, he has stated on more than once occasion that he doesn't see a problem arising and he has access to information and facts and figures that we as ordinary fans do no have. "But if the club do sell Lee Wallace it wouldn't go down well at all with fans. It would certainly add fuel to the fire about fans' concerns over club finances. "If there is no risk of administration then why bother selling your best player? Selling Lee Wallace is not a move with the future of the footballing side of the club in mind. "I am sure Lee would be one of the highest earners at the club. But would selling him really be worth it in the long run? "It may be the chief executive's and board's thinking for the future in terms of finances. But it would be a concern from a playing point of view as we prepare to move up to the Championship next season." http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/rangers/rangers-fans-seek-cash-vow-at-wallace-summit-150246n.23307892

the investigatoin into hmrc???? not heard much in the last year or so.

Scottish football is ailing. There are many reasons for this, and we could doubtless compile a long list, but most would agree that the outlook is fairly grim. When we return to the top, there will be a flurry of activity for a while and the game will have a brief period of uplift as old battles fire up again, but Scottish football's best days were in the past - and in the past they will probably remain. Where will this leave Rangers? Within our own support, ambition is ebbing away and aspirations to do well in Europe are evaporating. If this is the future, where Rangers are content to fight for a title that has about as much prestige internationally as the Challenge Cup does domestically, unless we secure an invitation to a more lucrative and competitive league, something will surely have to give. We talk just now about the possibility of losing Ibrox and/or Auchenhowie due to boardroom incompetence or perhaps something more sinister, but if Scottish football is going to continue to be a marginalised poor relation in Europe, can we really afford to retain both of them - even if the club is run in a professional and competent way? Can Rangers, within the context of Scottish football, afford to retain an increasingly high maintenance stadium - and a modern training facility? I'm sure we don't want to part with either, but is the sale of one of them the inevitable consequence of our football environment being so impoverished?

Like a lion-tamer jabbing a chair at the gates of Ibrox Dave King shows no sign of leaving a riled Rangers board in peace. The former director says a second Ibrox share issue is now ‘100 per cent inevitable’ and he expects to be involved. The response from an increasingly exasperated Rangers support – no doubt the directors as well - was a roar of frustration. Put up or shut up was the cry. Show us your money. When it comes to spending other people’s money, of course, football supporters are the wizards of Wall Street. Yet the truth is this. Many show a remarkable inability to either listen to or absorb the line King has consistently adopted on this. He says he has the means to buy Rangers. Shelling out £43.7million to the South African authorities last year in full and final settlement of one of the lengthiest tax disputes the country had ever known, King described it as a ‘favourable’ result. Money: Were King to buy up all 60 million of the shares in circulation at that price he could, in theory, take control of Rangers for £16.2m There are people out there worrying where their next meal might come from. Dave King isn’t one of them. His personal wealth is known only to him. How he acquired it is also a question the SFA could be forced to ask one day. But in the aftermath of the settlement with the South African Revenue Service shares in Micromega, his South African firm, soared. On paper, at least, he appears to be a hugely wealthy man. All of which adds to the bewilderment of Rangers supporters that he won’t simply step in and end their misery by paying the opportunist investors currently running the club to go away. Since last year’s IPO the Rangers International share price has dropped from 70p to a mere 27.25p on Friday morning. Were King to buy up all 60 million of the shares in circulation at that price he could, in theory, take control of Rangers for £16.2m. That’s a sum comfortably within his budget. It’s feasible he could pay twice that price and still have change left over. But that doesn’t mean he will. Or that the people currently running the show will stand back and let him. Supporters speak as if all King has to do is transfer a few million quid to an Escrow account and pick up the keys to Ibrox. It’s not that simple. He could certainly make an offer for existing shares but he has said from the start he won’t put money into the pockets of wide boys. In June 2012 King met Charles Green at Ibrox and quickly established that the Yorkshireman and his faceless backers saw Rangers as the vehicle for making a fast buck. By the time he left Green took close to £1m out of the club. In contrast King is the proverbial ‘Rangers man’. A rarity willing to put millions into buying players for his boyhood idols in the full knowledge he will lose every penny. He put £20m of his own cash into the David Murray regime and lost it all. To hand yet more cash over to the corporate sharks who have landed Rangers in a hell of a mess through their avarice and opportunism, then, would stick in the throat. Neither is there any guarantee Sandy and James Easdale – the public faces on the throne – would sell. Meeting Sandy Easdale at his bus depot in November, King struck up a cordial relationship with the Greenock tycoon. But right now the Easdales show no inclination to hand the reins over to anyone. Their problem, however, is this. Rangers are running out of money. They could sell Lee Wallace, they could cut back the playing squad and they could trim costs across the board. But King articulated a common view among supporters this week. Becoming a team of also rans is simply unthinkable to Rangers. Almost as unpalatable as Celtic reaching ten-in-a-row. Yet unless the Easdales find a way to raise cash quickly it could easily happen. King’s solution is to underwrite a fresh issue of shares and return to the boardroom. For existing investors that’s a last resort option. They would have to dig deep once more or see their power base eroded. They don’t fancy that one bit. But if the alternative is another insolvency event then they may have little choice. Another Ibrox sugar daddy won’t appeal to everyone. The common sense solution would be for Rangers to spend what they earn. To stop throwing good money after bad and live within their means. But, as Walter Smith observed recently, common sense and Rangers finances rarely go hand in hand. Dave King remains hellbent on proving it. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2545705/Stephen-McGowan-Dave-King-showing-no-signs-leaving-riled-Rangers-board-peace.html#ixzz2rP65E6Ui Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I don't know who is behind these and I'm not sure if anyone does at present. But does anyone have a hunch that toxic Jack is involved in them? May be wild, and I know a lot of it would go against what he is trying to protect but he may be playing a double bluff. Any other suggestions? As said mine is just a hunch. What is clear though, is that the club don't seem to be doing much about it, or anyone for that matter.

A DEAL to transfer Ukio Bankas Investment Group’s 50 per cent shareholding in Hearts to the Foundation of Hearts has been agreed, the Evening News can reveal. The agreement needs to be ratified legally in Lithuania, but would see a token £50,000 payment for the shares made to UBIG’s administrators, allowing the Edinburgh club to exit administration with the Foundation as their new owners. Hearts’ administrators BDO are proceeding with caution in the hope that the deal can go through despite UBIG’s assets being frozen. Foundation of Hearts already have a £2.5million Creditors’ Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) in place to secure 29.9 per cent of the club’s shares from Ukio Bankas, who are also in administration. The CVA is conditional upon the fans’ umbrella group getting UBIG’s 50 per cent stake. BDO have been in talks with UBIG’s administrators Bankroto Administrativo Paslaugos for some time trying to negotiate the handover of shares. This is the only remaining hurdle to Hearts exiting administration after the CVA was voted through last November. There is now a verbal agreement between both parties for the transfer of shares at an agreed price.

​"'For an hour yesterday lunch-time Graham Wallace spoke about the state of Rangers, how the club got to this point and how he intends to move it forward. What struck home was how different he sounds compared to his predecessors; no trumpeting about brands and unexploited foreign markets, no playing to the gallery and telling people what they want to hear; no flannel and arrogance of the kind we have heard repeatedly over the years from Rangers executives as they sold a vision of the future while the present was crumbling around their ears. Wallace is enough of a realist to know the scale of what he faces at Ibrox. Everywhere you look, there are issues. TE: Since you lifted the bonnet and examined the finances has anything shocked you? GW: I?m not sure if shock is the right word. I followed what has happened to the club, albeit from a distance. It?s a situation where a lot of decisions were made with a very short-term focus. TE: When you say short-term focus is that a euphemism for panic? GW: Panic? I?m not sure I would call it panic. If you look at a football club you have to have a sense of what the next five years look like and then you plan accordingly. You don?t plan for 12 months in isolation. One of the things I have found is that the focus has (previously) been in the near-term. There?s been areas of expenditure where money has been spent and shouldn?t have been and other areas where we should have been spending and didn?t. The classic one was scouting and recruitment. At a time when this club needs to be identifying and scouting talent and acquiring talent at attractive levels our scouting and recruitment was largely dismantled. A small example of short-termism. TE: Did they blow it by not setting in place the scouting infrastructure when in the Third Division? GW: You could say that some of the decisions that should have been made then weren?t made and that?s a very good example. What the club should have been doing 18 months ago was investing more money in some of the things that could have borne fruit in the future. But that?s hindsight. TE: You need to save money, but you bring in another financial guru in Philip Nash. That?s not going to save money? GW: Phil can help us quickly get to the nub of some of the issues. He knows football structure. He?s leading the business review project for me so we can get up the hill really quickly. It?s about objectivity. I came here with a fresh pair of eyes and I brought Phil in on the short-term with a fresh pair of eyes and no baggage and preconceived ideas. It just helps us look at things in a more objective way. TE: Big decisions need to be made, big savings need to be found and it takes a big character to make those calls in a place that is not used to fiscal commonsense. Are you tough enough for this job? GW: I?m tough when I need to be tough. I know what needs to be done, I know how to do it and I?m focused on getting it done. TE: Are you prepared for a backlash? GW: You have to be prepared to back your own judgment and back your own ability. Yes, there was a bit of a backlash last week to the concept of a reduction in player wage costs. That?s an example of the area of the business we?re looking at right now. We said we were going to do a comprehensive review of the business from top to bottom and we?re in the midst of doing that. We?re looking at every angle and every opportunity to reduce our costs over the next couple of years so that we can position the business in a financially sustainable way. I keep talking about sustainability and it?s absolutely fundamental. The business has to be able to stand on its own two feet. It has to. It has to be able to stand on its own two feet without huge amounts of investment coming in just to fund the on-going operation. When we go looking for investment we will go looking for the right reasons on the back of a robust business plan. I?m confident in my own ability to be able to deal with situations that will arise. There will be things that will be easier than others. I?m well aware of that. TE: Do you know where you can save money? GW: In certain areas, we?ve a very good idea already. I?m not going to come out and tell you where they are but we?ve been working on the project for a little over four weeks and we are looking at every area. There are areas where we can definitely reduce the historic spend that we?ve had. By similar token, there are other areas where we know we need to invest and grow our top line revenue. TE: Okay, there was a proposal to cut players? wages, but what about a proposal to cut the wages of the executives? At what point do you target them? We all know who we?re talking about here. Rarely have I seen a more unpopular executive at a football club than Brian Stockbridge? GW: We?re looking at the executive team as well as the wider staff organisation. We?re doing it. And I will make my determination and judgment on each and every individual we have in the organisation. I?m well aware of the public criticism that comes with certain members of the staff. What I seek is the supporters giving me the time to complete the review. I will stand behind the decisions I make, good or bad. TE: So there will be changes at the top? GW: We?re looking right across the whole business and need a little bit more time to complete that project

LAST summer, when Ally McCoist’s request for nine new players was granted by his then chief executive, Craig Mather, who was at fault? This was a club that had financial problems, that didn’t have the luxury of adding players to an already gob-smacking wage bill and yet added them anyway. Who was to blame? It wasn’t McCoist. Managers everywhere will push their luck from now until kingdom come. It’s part of their gig. They go to their boss with a sob story and a cap in hand and hope for the best. Sometimes they get a result and sometimes they don’t. And McCoist got a result. You cannot blame the Rangers manager for recruiting but you can most certainly blame Mather and his financial director, Brian Stockbridge, for allowing him to recruit. McCoist looks after matters on the field, the others were supposedly monitoring things off the field. They flunked it. They looked at the state of the finances and either mis-read them or ignored them and added to a wage bill that was drastically in need of a cut. This, of course, has been the way of things at Rangers for far too long. Mistake follows mistake. Irresponsibility follows irresponsibility follows irresponsibility. The names change but the hubristic decision-making remains the same. Mather and Stockbridge are guilty in this instance, but only one of them remains. Quite how Stockbridge is still in his position is a wonder to behold. That’s not to absolve McCoist, whose public comments over the past would indicate that he hasn’t fully grasped the situation he is in at Ibrox. Or maybe he has and is railing against it, like a man raging against the dying of the light. A week ago, McCoist said this about the Rangers way of doing things: “It makes sense to me that we continue to have a higher wage bill than the opposition that we’re playing against.” Higher, yes. But how many times higher? Ten times? One hundred times? A thousand times? It brings us back to the old question: why spend money that you don’t need to spend? That’s a question that too many at Ibrox – Graham Wallace, the chief executive, excluded – continue to struggle with. McCoist, pictured left, continued: “I didn’t give the contracts out and it would be unfair of me to comment on previous people within the club who made those decisions. I would certainly not be critical of them.” Wouldn’t be critical of them? Well, he should be. He should be very critical of them. McCoist was given permission to bring in players on wages that Rangers could not afford by executives who should have known better, executives whose decisions have landed Rangers in another desperate mess. He’s almost duty-bound to criticise them. Mather was a disastrous chief executive for Rangers but his was just another ill-advised appointment in a long series of ill-advised appointments. The Rangers manager said on Friday that he now understands the “severity of the situation”. That’s progress at least. The first step towards fixing a problem is to accept that you have a problem in the first place. Mather never could. Others, too, some of whom are still at Ibrox. McCoist was right in supporting his players over the pay-cut proposal but only in so far as that the cuts should have been made higher up the tree first. The executives should have taken a pay cut and should have announced it publicly. That would have been good leadership, but good leadership is not something this Rangers board – or many that went before it – would recognise. The bottom line is that costs must be cut – and players and suits alike need to take their share of the pain. McCoist has too many players offering too little and being paid too much. He needs to accept that. It seems he’s still struggling with the concept at the moment. And he’s not alone at Ibrox. Wallace has much work to do. In many ways he is fighting against the mindset of the club’s past in an effort to secure its future.

I once met John Wark and nearly burst into tears. I was 38. Anonymous Ipswich fan. The news that greeted us on Saturday morning, that the body of the wee boy missing in Edinburgh has been found, is another sad reminder that childhood is fleeting, precious, and not always golden. At least for those of us on Gersnet, the vast majority of whom are (well) past childhood, our own youth has come and gone without such horror being visited upon us. We, the lucky ones, get to carry our memories into middle and older age, like everyone some good and some bad, though hopefully precious few as awful as what has happened to poor Mikael. He whose life has been one uninterrupted series of happy events is rare indeed, but I'd guess that at least we share in common memories of a time in our lives when our beloved football team losing made us cry, when the stadium loomed up above us like a colossus, and when the thought of actually meeting one of the Titans who wore a Blue Shirt would have reduced us to jelly. These childhood affections many of us, to judge by the amount of time we waste on online forums, carry with us well into maturity. And elsewhere, too. I still regale strangers with the time our present manager touched my shoulder and said 'excuse me, mate' in a Blockbuster sometime in the 90's; I also once, when he did some shopping in the store I was managing at the time, went before him crying 'make way! make way!' (I kid you not), quite brutally hustling innocent shoppers out the road lest they impede his Majestic progress. At least he had the decency to be embarrassed at my behaviour, which only stopped short of bestrewing his path with rose petals because we had sold out of roses by that point. On both these occasions I was well past childhood, but the football remained a link between me and mini-me, between the rather disappointing man I turned out to be and the child who dreamt of playing for The Rangers, and maybe one day coming into the presence of my heroes. I wonder how many kids still have that dream? Maybe loads do. They'd have to be very unworldly, though, as another week of internal combustion to make James Watt green with envy puffs its way to an end, without even a Saturday game to 'take the taste away', as my Mum used to say when giving me a sweet treat after some ghastly medicine. Who is developing a romatic attachment to a club which seems be determined to set a record for employing the most amount of executives for the least amount of return in sporting history? Just as Monty Python once sent out two teams of philosophers, Greeks v Germans, we're well on the way to being able to fill the bench with accountants...a shame none of them appear worth taking a chance on, even for the last two minutes. It's just not the same. Being able to hide inside the mind of 10 year old me at the football has been a lovely pleasure these last 30 years, but I might as well face up to the fact that that pleasure has gone now. It's not as if I could only handle success - growing up in the 80's I despaired of ever seeing us beat Dundee, let alone celtc or the dominant Aberdeen or Dundee Utd of the time. What a shock it was to me when Ally McCoist got selected for Scotland squads from about 1985 on - such a thing didn't happen in my youth. No, it's not that I can only support Rangers with childish fervour if we are winning: it's just that the thing I fell in love with aged about 8 or 9 doesn't seem to be there any more. Probably this is more due to a long overdue opening of my own eyes rather than anything else: Rangers under David Murray was hardly an shining example of philanthropic goodness along the lines of Dickens' Mr Brownlow. But now, with the club run and owned by Mr Downlows, it just seems...soiled, somehow, and all the more painfully because it's killing off the last little bit of my childhood I could hold on to. Obviously I only speak for myself, but this, to me, will be the legacy of people like David Murray, Craig Whyte, Charles Green Jack Irvine or the Easdale brothers. You may imagine how I view such people. In the grand scheme of things, forcing a delusional 40 something to open his eyes is not such a big deal to anyone other than the person himself, I suppose: certainly, compared to other things which could have happened, it is of no importance at all. But it feels like it is, to me. And that's why it hurts so much. For what it's worth, we play Forfar on Monday night, and will no doubt turn in another performance of depressing mediocrity. My 12 year old rarely lasts more than 10 minutes watching us on TV and I can't say as I blame him. Sheer habit will drive me to sit in front of the telly come half seven Monday night, but I can't seem to be able to tap into the decades long, childlike joy that the Blue Shirt used to give me. Perhaps, on this weekend when one childhood has been so cruelly cut short, that is appropriate enough.

An interview in the Herald. Since it was done by the discredited journo, I spare their site the hits. Obviously, Spiers has his little snyde remarks, but it is rather useful to read Hart's quotes. No doubt, people will come and give all sorts of views on that, but for me such "insider knowledge" puts it all a more into perspective. Not least with the high octane hysteria levels these days ...

​ JAMES and Sandy Easdale are poised to plough around £20million into cash-strapped Rangers. By: Graham Clark Published: Fri, January 17, 2014 0 Comments James and Sandy Easdale are set to give Rangers a well-needed cash boost [WILLIE VASS] The Greenock businessmen, already significantly involved in the Ibrox club as shareholders and directors, are edging closer to selling their bus firm and are considering investing massively in the stricken League One leaders. The brothers are already understood to have knocked back approaches for McGill’s Buses amid rumours that one £80m offer wasn’t enough and that they’re holding out for £100m. If they succeed in getting a buyer at that price, the speculation is they will aim to increase their stake at Ibrox by investing about £20m. James, on the club’s plc board, and Sandy, who is chairman of the football board, have been building up their shareholding in recent months as they look to tighten their grip on the club. They are now generally recognised to be the powers behind the throne at Ibrox. The Easdales took over McGill’s in 2001 and, after moving back into the black by posting profits of £659,404 compared with a loss of more than £550,000 the year before, their turnover has almost doubled from £15m to £28m following the takeover of rival Arriva Scotland West nearly two years ago. These figures have made McGill’s an attractive proposition and it is a business the Easdales are prepared to offload as they have other interests, including taxi firms and private rental and commercial property. The jury remains out on the Gers’ board simply because little or no information is passed the supporters’ way and stories like yesterday’s in Express Sport that players had rejected chief executive Graham Wallace’s suggestion they take a 15 per cent cut in wages has done little to quell their concerns over the club’s financial position. Wallace, in fact, has declared there is no chance of a second administration but conceded the club can’t continue to run the way it is amid suggestions it is losing around £1m a month. And, even if the Easdales were to splash their cash, there would still be a need to rein in the general costs. But, if the Greenock pair put up around £20m, it would go a long way to easing the near-critical state at the club and, of course, help appease and win over worried fans.

Being reported by BBC & STV that the players have refused to take a 15% pay cut.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/keith-jackson-harsh-treatment-hearts-3015628?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=tw IS the treatment of Hearts fair? Absolutely not. Must it continue unabated and without mercy? Sadly, there can be no other way. What we are currently witnessing at Tynecastle is unedifying, bordering on inhumane. Gary Locke has been forced into a position where he has no choice but to flog the life out of his youngsters who are now dropping to their knees in the utter exhaustion of fighting what has been, from the outset, an impossible task. They are only half way through but Hearts are goners already. And the more squeamish may very well feel like looking the other way for the second half of this season as they stagger and stumble towards their own demise. This is heartbreaking cruelty in every conceivable way. But Scottish football must not be allowed to avert its gaze. Not for one single second. Rather, it should be strapped into a seat and forced to sit through every gory moment of this collapse. Scottish football has done this to Hearts and now it must watch every last consequence of its actions, no matter how harrowing it may become. Promising young players may be left broken in spirit and body. They may be cast aside and unable ever to fully recover from the traumas of this campaign. So be it. Locke too may never be the same again given what he has had to endure in this, his first ever managerial post. Already his credentials for the job are being debated and dissected. In some cases, he has been dismissed as some wet behind the ears, lame duck of a boss who has neither the know-how nor the work ethic to save Hearts from their fate. This picking on Locke is savage and unnecessary and almost wholly unfounded. After all, how can any reasonable assessment be made on Locke’s qualities or otherwise as a manager when he has been placed in a position which leaves him almost entirely unable to manage? Unlike his peers, he can neither buy new players nor even loan them, which means he must make do with what little he has on the books. And yet, so sparse is his squad that Locke is not afforded even the most basic managerial prerogative of choosing a starting XI. He has no choice but to count heads and send them out. No matter if these players are suffering from loss of form or even fitness. Locke’s only option is to run these youngsters into the ground until the time comes when either Hearts are unable to fulfill their fixtures or, in order to keep up the pretence that they are still a functioning football club, filling up maroon shirts with school children and sending them out to be humiliated by grown-up professionals. All in the name of sporting integrity. Under these circumstances it is simply not possible to judge Locke’s managerial merits one way or the other. He is not managing Hearts. He is merely enabling them to keep up this pretence until the club has taken its last breath in the top flight. Anyone who cannot acknowledge that their fate was predetermined before he had given them his first team talk must be a fool. Yes, Locke is learning on the job and will have made mistakes along the way. Of course he will. But by depriving him of so many of the fundamentals of football management, we make his human error almost redundant. The truth is, there was never any hope for Hearts. That was part of the deal. When this club limped over the line last season to stay in the top division at the expense of Dundee, they knew administration was on its way. We all did. It’s all been a charade ever since. The new rules which were drawn up to deal with insolvency events were designed not just to punish offenders but to throttle them. It had to be this way because of the appalling blood lust with which Rangers had been treated the previous year. Had level heads been applied to the financial meltdown at Ibrox then Rangers would have been helped back up from the gutter in which Craig Whyte left them. Instead, they were trampled down and kicked to the kerb. The urge to maximise the damage Whyte had done quickly became overwhelming and, in many cases, it was led by downright malevolence. Neil Doncaster, the chief executive of the then SPL, wished to apply some logic and reason to the debate for no other reason than it made business sense to protect Rangers. Perish the thought, maybe even to help them in their darkest hour. But he was shouted down by the baying crowd that had gathered around him. And now, as a result of this mob mentality, Hearts are paying the heaviest of prices for the roguish actions of their own former owner. There would be uproar among Rangers supporters in particular if it were any other way. This residual need for revenge is understandable. They believe their club was wronged and so they will demand parity across the board. Even if it reduces Scottish football to a bloodbath. In fact, so bitter have some of them become that they would wish it to be so. They make no attempt to hide their delight at the suffering of others and nor should they be expected to as Rangers is their only concern. But if Scottish football is to correct itself then it must transcend this kind of small-minded tribalism. For the greater good, it must also be prepared to accept that mistakes have been made and that, now they are being repeated, the youngsters of Hearts are being brutalised. With more than half a season gone, they have still not unshackled themselves fully from the 15-point penalty with which they set out. Twenty-two games into this mission impossible, with just 16 more to go, Hearts are marooned on minus two. Locke is unable to call for reinforcements. It’s about to become unwatchable. But watch on we must. And maybe when it is over – when Hearts have been crushed, lying there, limp and lifeless on the floor – then Scottish football will have cause to reflect and to confront itself. To ask itself how it got into such a dark and mean state of mind. To look inside itself in search of empathy and common sense. And then to find a better way for the future before more vulnerable clubs and more innocent young players are forced to suffer as Hearts have this season. Yes, there must still be stiff deterrents in order to keep the game safe from the next Whyte or the next Romanov. But there must also be a realisation that the current penalties are draconian and hurting all the wrong people. While Whyte and Romanov escape unscathed, the players and supporters they left behind continue to pay for all of their sins. And while so many old scores are being settled, Scottish football continues to hate itself to death.

From the Insolvency Service. http://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/IESdatabase/viewdisqualdetail.asp?courtnumber=05763437 Intriguingly he's still listed as a Director of Sevco 5088 Ltd https://www.duedil.com/company/08011390/sevco-5088-limited/people

Warning to posters. This morning we received a letter from Peter Watson, solicitor advocate of Levy & McRae acting on behalf of Mr & Mr Easdale. The letter asked us to remove posts from 3 separate individuals (NOT POSTS FROM SONS OF STRUTH) We would like to remind posters that this is an open social network page and as such is available to be viewed by any members of the public and posters should take care regarding defamation and The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Act 2012 https://www.facebook.com/SonsOfStruth

EIGHTEEN months and counting. A year and a half left of this one-horse race before we have a proper championship again. Assuming Ally McCoist gets Rangers back into the top flight on schedule. He had better deliver, an extra year of the current nonsense and we?ll need chloroform. On occasions I?ve found myself at English grounds where everyone in the media centre was glued to the lunchtime Old Firm game. Southern journalists couldn?t get enough of it. Last Thursday at Newcastle, one of them asked me which division Rangers are in right now. That?s the extent of the interest. If the essence of any sporting contest is uncertainty, the wise men of the SPL gave our top flight a lethal injection two summers ago. Under the guise of ?sporting integrity? they sentenced Rangers to three years hard labour and killed their own competition while they were at it. Clever, eh? It was arguably the most idiotic decision in the history of Scottish football. Boycott threats from the anonymous halfwits of cyberspace saw our Premier League chairmen fold, condemning our biggest league to three years of decline. SFA chief executive Stewart Regan was ridiculed for predicting ?Armageddon? in Rangers? absence. He wasn?t far wrong. Why did every club in the league have to pay the price of Craig Whyte?s ransacking of Ibrox? Did Rod Petrie and Co really believe that ?Sell-out Saturday? nonsense? Did they believe the internet eejits who promised they?d turn up every week to fill club coffers? So much for the moral high ground. Sporting integrity has put Scottish football up against the wall. Yeah, Celtic have been insulated from the fallout by reaching the Champions League proper in successive seasons. But as the growing rows of empty seats prove, Hoops punters are bored stiff with the extent of their domestic dominance. Trust me, if it was Neil Lennon?s call Rangers would be back in the top flight next season. Likewise, I?m told Peter Lawwell wanted to keep Rangers in the big league with a points penalty, before he too bowed to the mob. Thanks to Lennon?s European success, Celtic?s balance sheet is in good nick but defeat in next season?s Champions League qualifiers will have accountants reaching for the valium. Elsewhere the rest of the SPFL is suffering. Rangers? demotion saw every budget in the top flight slashed. When costs have to be cut, youth development is the first casualty. At a time Dundee United are producing a special crop of youngsters, who would vote to shut down the production line? Some silly people have suggested Celtic?s recent hammering in Barcelona was no reflection on the standard of Scottish football. Really? Celtic won the league by 16 points last season without breaking sweat, yet they managed just three points from 18 in the Champions League. What does that say for the rest of the league? Our other European representatives? Scottish Cup finalists Hibs got a crack at the Europa League and lost 9-0 on aggregate to Malmo. Motherwell lost 3-0 over two legs to Kuban Krasnodar, currently ninth in the Russian league. Thankfully, St Johnstone flew the flag briefly with a great win over Rosenborg before losing in the third qualifying round to FC Minsk. Putting Rangers in the poorhouse gave a lot of people satisfaction but was the price worth paying? Under the yoke of the Old Firm, attendances were better, sponsors easier to find and the league table was worth looking at every weekend. With the pair at each other?s throats for Champions League cash, both had to spend to stay in front. A lot of that money went to fellow SPL clubs. Dundee were weighed in for Rab Douglas, Nacho Novo and Gavin Rae. Hibs got an Old Firm auction going for Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson. Kilmarnock punted Kris Boyd and Steven Naismith. Dundee United got a million plus for Barry Robson, while Celtic outbid Rangers for Motherwell?s Scott McDonald. That Old Firm arms race kept both clubs on their toes and helped subsidise the rest of the league. Now we?ve got Celtic trying to get through the entire season undefeated while the rest play for second place and a brief skirmish with the Europa League qualifiers. League One is no less of a freak show where you can watch Rangers playing keepie-uppie with their part-time opposition. Eighteen months and counting.

I wrote the above paragraph a few weeks ago in an article which was published in the inaugural launch of WATP magazine. Much of course has changed during that time with the coming and going of the AGM, and the confirmation of our board of directors. Even as a fence sitter throughout all of this, I cannot hide my inward disappointment that Brian Stockbridge remains on the board. But perhaps in that regard I am being unfair to Mr Stockbridge as I don’t have in my possession the information which allows me to make an informed choice. I don’t know for instance whether he, in his role as financial director, was merely rubber stamping the overly generous bonuses previous board members had arranged for themselves, nor for instance what part, (as has been claimed in this overloaded propaganda war) nominee Malcolm Murray had in the setting of such bonuses. That will always be the case of course so long as the Rangers support remains dis-empowered and disenfranchised from the systems and processes I alluded to several weeks ago. But the system and process which determines the make up of the Rangers board has spoken, and furthermore it has spoken in a way which is democratic. We may not all like the results it has delivered but that, I’m afraid, is life. Of course, we can attempt to usurp that democratic process. and there has already been talk of boycotts with regard to season tickets and club merchandise, and I have no doubt such action will make those who clearly wield power – institutional investors – sit up and take notice. Notwithstanding the damage such boycotts would cause to our club, perhaps we should also consider the damage such action would cause to democratic process and what kind of “notice” would be initiated within institutional investors ? If the democratic process to elect a board is usurped by way of boycotts, a refusal to accept the decisions that process has delivered, do you think this will instil confidence in any future investment in the club from others ? Ask yourself this – would you invest heavily in an institution where your majority shareholding and the decisions you make relative to that investment, through proper process, can be overturned by the militant actions of others with a lesser shareholding ? I don’t like where our club sits at present, nor do I have complete confidence in those who are charged with taking us out of our current predicament and to another place. But given the choice between giving them a chance as opposed to damaging both club and destroying confidence in that democratic process – then I know which one I will choose. Season Ticket renewed.

Hear me out, as I'm sure plenty will disagree. We probably have as much of a fragmented support after the AGM as we had before, if not more. So, like at any negotiating table the way to start trying to bring the factions at war together is to look for a common ground. I haven't seen one faction of our support yet who doesn't support Graham Wallace. Could he be key to bringing a common cause amongst all the support? To me the worry at the moment with Graham Wallace is: Has he been used as a temporary placement to placate investors ahead of the AGM? Will he have real autonomy when he tries to implement measures (and sackings) he sees fit? Will the incumbents care too much if they bump Wallace, now that they have won their battle? Do the present board have autonomy themselves, or are they puppets for someone else, who doesn't have to face the public if Wallace gets pushed out for rocking the boat? What about the fans getting behind an ultimatum of ' We trust Wallace. We will refrain from any boycotts on one condition - nothing happens to Wallace for x amount of time' We of course would have to put our trust in Wallace that he will be true to himself and push for changes he feels are necessary (and also trust that he has not been 'bought'), but in truth I think we feel that anyway. What we gain is protecting against him having been used as a pawn for an AGM result, unless of course they are going to be so blatant that was the case. Then they deserve the backlash that would come. Couldn't we unite behind that?

........and get back to supporting the team BARRY says it's vital the re-elected board members are given time and space to fulfill their promises that can take Rangers back into a position where they can challenge Celtic at the top of the Scottish game. I HAVE no doubt a lot of Rangers fans are angry and disappointed with the outcome of yesterday’s agm which saw the entire Ibrox board survive. But you know what? I am sick to the back teeth of all the fighting, the back-stabbing and the name-calling that has dragged the club I know and love through the gutter for two-and-a-half years. I don’t expect every Rangers supporter to agree with what I have to say today but I’ll say it anyway – it is time to move on and get behind the directors who have been elected in a democratic and legal manner. Yes, we can still scrutinise them and examine everything they do but we have to give chairman David Somers and chief executive Graham Wallace the chance to lead the board and put into place their plans to make Rangers a force again. And we have to give them time to do it. There is very little trust in this board among the rank and file Bears who fill Ibrox every fortnight. I get that. But from even before I could walk and talk, I was told that Rangers fans stick together and support their club through thick and thin. There’s absolutely no doubt they have done that since Craig Whyte set the ball rolling on this awful period in the club’s history and I hope they continue to do it. I hate to hear talk of boycotts and the like. That will cause terrible harm to the team and I don’t see anybody winning out of that situation. Also, it’s not the Rangers way. Look, the directors won the vote. Paul Murray, Malcolm Murray, Alex Wilson and Scott Murdoch did not convince the institutional investors that they were worthy of a place at the top of the marble staircase. That’s democracy and now the agm is over, I hope a line in the sand has been drawn. We don’t have to like the people who are running the club. But it is vital they are now given a bit of time and space to get on with fulfilling the promises they have made and to set in motion business plans that can take Rangers back into a position where they can challenge Celtic at the top of the Scottish game. They have said the current turmoil has held them back from attracting new investment but now the agm has come and gone and all of the directors got through it with comfortable majorities, they can now go out there and find the funding that is needed to make Rangers strong again. I was encouraged by what I read from Graham Wallace after the meeting. He said the board realises that there has to be greater communication with the supporters and that they have to build bridges. Damn right they do but the way to do that is by proving they have the club’s best interests at heart. Chairman Somers also said the playing budget is way too high for the level Rangers are currently operating at. I can’t disagree with that. Let’s face it, the squad Ally McCoist has assembled will skate League One and will win the Championship with something to spare. I say that with no disrespect to the guys who play in those leagues – some of them are pals of mine – but you look at the likes of Jon Daly, Nicky Law, Lee McCulloch and Lee Wallace and they are clearly top-flight players. So I can see where the chairman is coming from when he says that the budget will have to be looked at. Right now, the priority should be to strengthen the financial position by cutting costs from within the club and by attracting new investment from outside it. But here’s the thing. If the directors want Coisty to slash his team budget then they have to take a hit as well. The climate of taking huge bonuses for winning things in the lower leagues has to stop immediately. It was a disgrace that Brian Stockbridge was getting £200,000 and Charles Green more than £300,000 for winning the Third Division last year. In fact, they should announce that nobody at the club gets a golden handshake or a bonus until Rangers are back in the Premiership winning things or qualifying for Europe. That would send out a message that is in line with the fans’ way of thinking. And there is something else Somers, Wallace, Stockbridge, Norman Crighton and James Easdale have to remember as well. If things don’t change – and I firmly believe they will – and if fans and ordinary shareholders continue to feel ignored and angry at how the club is being run, they can still be called to account at extraordinary general meetings and also at next year’s agm. But I hope it doesn’t come to that. As I said earlier, I’m fed up talking to my mates about all the off-field stuff and I can’t wait for the day we are all sitting praising or moaning about the team’s performances on the pitch. Rangers is a FOOTBALL club. Our football club. And that fact seems to have been forgotten over the past couple of years. I hope yesterday’s events can begin to change all that. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/barry-ferguson-its-time-forget-2945153

http://www.gersnet.co.uk/index.php/latest-news/209-is-it-time-to-move-on It’s been a long time coming but finally the Rangers AGM arrived and at last we have some clarity on just how well supported the incumbent board is. In fact, the result was pretty conclusive – certainly for most of the Directors up for reappointment while those externally up for nomination struggled to achieve as much support. Therefore, whilst the issue of backing may not be as straightforward as it seems, no-one can deny it should now be time to move on and allow the club some space to consolidate its position. Such an abeyance of hostilities is essential for two main reasons: one, to give the ‘new’ board some time to deliver on their promises, and, two, to hopefully ensure the support doesn’t rip itself apart after a quite ludicrous period of belligerent disagreement between so-called rival factions of fans. So where are we now? Yesterday’s AGM statement to the London Stock Exchange revealed a short term ‘120 day strategic focus’ for the board on a range of important matters: including a detailed business review and attempts to re-engage with the fans to better capture our opinions. Along with other strategies highlighted in the statement, the aims are impressive and I doubt many fans would challenge them. However, we’ve heard similar buzz-words and phrases before – from Sir David Murray, Craig Whyte and Charles Green – all of whom failed to take the business forward during this modern era of austerity. What can this mandated ‘new board’ do differently? Let’s start with its make-up. Despite the institutional confidence placed upon most of the nominated incumbents yesterday, the scenes at the AGM were quite frankly incredible with specific focus on Finance Director Brian Stockbridge. It seems clear now that not only do thousands of fans have an issue with his position but also the vast bulk of the 1600 shareholders present yesterday. Moreover, the fact over 30% of other investors do not consider him re-electable arguably makes his position untenable on its own. However, add in his flawed performance and questionable behaviour of the last year then if the board is serious about trust, transparency and staff ‘pride’ in Rangers then Stockbridge must be moved on. Anything else would cast serious doubt on those that wish to lead the club back to success. Of course the rest of the board, other than Graham Wallace, don’t convince either. Neither Easdale brother speaks well or commands the respect of the support while new chairman David Somers appears inconsistent in his approach – one day signing his name to daft and inflammatory ‘open letters’, while the next saying he has no problem with people he previously labelled as selfish ‘fanatics’. It seems clear Mr Somers needs to familiarise himself with the high profile nature of the Rangers chairmanship and quick. Fortunately, new CEO Graham Wallace has been more measured in his approach so it’s not a surprise to see him warmly received by all so far. Mr Wallace can and should use this to his advantage by acting as a conduit to both investors and fans in the months ahead. With the above in mind, it seems obvious the board will need strengthened if the club’s 120 day plan is to be successful. I’m not sure adding either Murray to the mix will help but I’d hope Scott Murdoch and the impressive Alex Wilson are considered given Cenkos already gave their approval to their applications earlier in the year. That would go some way to bringing everyone around the same table ahead of the April finances ‘D’ Day. Speaking of which, obviously Dave King should be another who must be consulted with, even if his past and recent performance remains worthy of debate. I’m sure there are others out there who could add the right mix of independent business talent and Rangers-mindedness to improve the board. One such name I’ve heard mentioned is John McClure of Unicorn Asset Management who own(ed) upwards of 400,000 pre-IPO shares in the club. No matter who joins this board, the pressure will be high to deliver on their statement of yesterday. However, they do deserve time to implement the changes promised – just how much time may be reliant on their ongoing performance. For example, the issue of Jack Irvine’s retention cannot be kicked into the long grass. Moving on from the board the next important issue is that of the fans. The way many people (mostly online) have turned on each other over the last 6 months has been nothing short of remarkable. It seems polite disagreement cannot happen nowadays with insult and abuse being preferred instead. This has to stop and stop now. If not, our club will be easy pickings for those who wish to use it in a way to benefit themselves only. It also offers an easy excuse for the club not to engage with the fans as it should. Of course it doesn’t help that our fan groups seem so badly advised while struggling generally as well. I don’t blame the Trust, Assembly or Association for believing in the likes of successful businessman Jim McColl but jumping into his camp with both feet meant any sort of negotiation with the board was always going to be difficult. Add in their collective failure to achieve widespread support within the fan-base (via active membership more than anything else) then it’s debatable just how important the club will see them in the future. This is a great shame when we examine fine initiatives such as BuyRangers but perhaps something new can arise from embers of the existing groups? Hearts and Dunfermline fans have shown the way in this respect so we should be looking to them for inspiration. I’d certainly suggest each fan group outlines its own 120 day plan to show they’re capable of improvement. Only then may the club (and most importantly more fans) feel engagement with them is worthwhile. All in all despite yesterday’s conclusive AGM vote, uncertainty remains and that should be a concern for us all – the club director, the investor and the ‘ordinary’ fan. Indeed, financing the club is the biggest issue ahead and this can only be achieved by everyone working together for the greater good. We can all make sacrifices in that regard so I’d urge all involved to examine their contribution and ask if the betterment of Rangers is really their aim. If it’s not, then yesterday’s farcical AGM scenes will only be the start of more stormy waters ahead. That cannot be allowed to happen. Thus, in the spirit of Christmas and New Year, this is an opportunity to offer goodwill to others and start afresh in 2014. In that regard I’d like to wish all my fellow fans a happy holiday season and all the very best for the next year. Rest and be merry as, for the boardroom and the fan groups at least, the clock is ticking: 120 days and counting!

Graham Wallace says all the right things. There is no bluster to the man, no desire to trade insults with those who object to the performance of some on his board. In all of this Rangers farrago he is the one person who has risen above the cheap shots and gone on with his business in a pretty dignified manner. Of course, Wallace has only been in the door five minutes. The temptation is to say ‘Just give him time’ and he’ll soon be scrapping like everybody else, but he seems more professional than that, more believable in the role of a redeemer. The faith in Wallace is based on a proven track record in football and also on some of the things he has said in his few short weeks at Rangers. Clearly, he has resonated with institutional investors and ordinary supporters alike because his 85.5 per cent approval rating in the vote yesterday was the highest of anybody seeking election or re-election. In the door less than a month, though. That can’t be forgotten. So far, so good but so much yet to do. Wallace made some promises yesterday. He said the club would start proper engagement with the fans and he’ll need to be true to his word or else he’ll quickly find that those who support him now will quickly tire of him. He said the vote at the agm gave the board a “clear mandate” but, in truth, it didn’t. The board received a mandate from the institutional investors not from the rank and file, not from the people who sit in the stadium every second week. There is a difference. A big difference. He spoke of yesterday being a “watershed moment”. Again, he’ll need to prove himself on that one. He asked for all those with Rangers’ best interests at heart “to stand behind us, to support us, to engage us, to give us the opportunity to demonstrate that we can take the club back to where we all aspire it to be.” That’s a leap of faith that many supporters won’t make just for the sake of it. They’ll need evidence it’s a leap worth making. Talk is cheap. The requisitioners found that out yesterday. All the talk in the world didn’t get them anywhere close to making a fight of it with the board. So when Wallace speaks of dialogue with the fans and an engagement process with “leading international organisations” that want to be associated with Rangers it all sounds very nice, but seeing is believing. Too many empty promises have been made for too long for too many people to swallow the vision of a bright new tomorrow. To be fair to Wallace, there was more to his remarks than a mere rallying call. There was some substance and some honesty. Yesterday, for instance, he said something extremely interesting about the finances at the club and the way in which some of the numbers are unsustainable. The chief executive said that Rangers’ “cost structure is currently too high for the top division never mind the lower leagues.” That comment stood out because it was such an un-Rangers thing to say. Not too long ago Walter Smith, speaking as a former chairman and a doyen of the club, said that financial freewheeling was part of the Rangers DNA, that the money they spent on players and a manager was part of what Rangers were and that even though it defied logic, that’s the way it has always been. The fatalistic attitude was delivered deadpan, as if there was nothing anybody at Rangers could do about the frightening cash-burn. Not being a ‘Rangers man’ might help Wallace bring some fiscal normality to his beleaguered institution. He is not held hostage by its past. He sees a club that is living beyond its means and he’s not afraid to incur the anger of people in admitting it. Of course, he could have extended his argument a little further. He could have pointed a finger at some of those people responsible for continuing this “cost structure”. One of them was sitting close by on the podium at the agm – Brian Stockbridge, the finance director. Stockbridge has overseen shocking waste in his own brief time at the club and yet he is made of Teflon. The supporters barrack him, the requisitioners shout about his position being untenable, there has been all manner of attacks on his integrity and his professionalism and yet he is still there. Wallace could have sent a message to the disaffected supporters by sacking Stockbridge, the number one subject of the fans’ ire. He hasn’t done so, but his language was interesting when asked if he would. “It would be grossly premature and inappropriate to be talking about dismissing anybody when I have been in the building less than a month,” he said. “My style is to assess what we have got and what we need... I have no hesitation and no difficulty in making difficult decisions but I think those decisions need to be made on the basis of my assessment of the facts rather than somebody else’s view.” No blind show of faith, no ringing endorsement, no circling of the wagons. Measured and non-committal. It portrays a person who will carry out his own audit and draw his own conclusions about the performance of people at the club. For Rangers’ sake you hope he is given full authority to do so. There is a fear – and we won’t know the legitimacy of it for a while – that Wallace, in his attempt to bring real change and proper corporate governance, will find himself out-gunned by some of those around him on the board and some of the investors these board-members represent. The fans are inclined to believe in him, the requisitioners were always glad to accept him, but what is the tag of unanimous respect if he is not given the freedom to do the job as he feels it needs to be done? In the autumn, Dave King arrived into town and had meetings with key people at Rangers and it’s safe to say that he wasn’t bowled over by the enthusiasm of some of those in power at Ibrox. This was pre-Wallace. King has many issues with his conviction in South Africa on tax charges and the hoops he would have to jump through with the SFA and the AIM in order to get the clearance he would need to take up a place on the Rangers board, but possibly the greatest problem he may face is not from the SFA (who would be virtually powerless to stop him getting on the plc board) or the AIM (who King says should not be an issue) but from factions on the Rangers board itself. King would bring money that Wallace says the club needs, but he would want power and that is something that others might be wholly unwilling to give up. Such is the politics of Rangers. Wallace may find out about that soon enough. Will he have the autonomy to do what he says needs to be done or will he be stifled, as others were stifled before him? He will need business savvy and political cunning to do this job. Watershed moment? It’s too early to be making such a definitive conclusion, but it’s the end of the requisitioners, that is for sure. Their motives were right but their execution was flawed, right from the start, and they got a real pasting yesterday. They continue to believe that the club is heading for the rocks in financial terms and they are not alone in that. Stockbridge, himself, said that they may have just £1m left in the bank come April, by which time they will be making appeals to the support to buy their season tickets. If Stockbridge is one of the men doing the appealing – if – then it will be interesting to hear the fans’ response. They say time heals all. With Stockbridge and the Rangers supporters, you have to wonder. There will surely be a period of calm now, maybe before a storm in the spring when money is needed and King returns bearing riches, albeit with conditions. Wallace is a man that people can rally around if he’s as good as his word. A starting point would be to engage with the fans rather than antagonising them in the way that Jack Irvine, the communications man, has done for too long. Yesterday was the end of the requisitioners but not the end of the saga. This has been no fairytale and only an innocent would believe that it is definitely going to have a happy ever after. In Wallace, though, there is hope and expectation and a whole heap of pressure not just to build bridges with fans but to bring commonsense back to Ibrox where for too long the economics of the madman have been in place. All he will need is fiscal brilliance, diplomatic genius and the persuasive powers of a master politician. Apart from that, the task of restoring Rangers should be easy. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/spfl-lower-divisions/tom-english-rangers-chief-must-now-walk-the-walk-1-3240246

Not going myself so am hoping a few lads I trust to tweet accurately will keep us informed through the meeting. The Rangers board have already arrived ahead of the 10.30am start.

Board v requisitioners – holding an Ibrox agm in pantomine season is truly apt, writes Tom English Life at Rangers did not need yesterday’s drama to put it into the realms of the ridiculous, but it got it anyway. Of course, Rino Gattuso’s comments about committing suicide if he is found guilty of match-fixing in Italy has nothing to do with the events of today, nor, particularly, does Neil Alexander’s mooted legal case against the club for breach of contract, nor, for that matter, does the fact that Craig Whyte lost a £17 million appeal against Ticketus yesterday morning have any great import to the business at hand at the agm. But it’s fitting in a sense that bonkers things keep happening in the wider world of Rangers right up until the denouement of board versus requisitioners. Gattuso, Alexander and Whyte all returned to the headlines on the eve of the agm. In their own unique way they were merely joining a queue of crazy goings-on at their former club. In the last day or so we have had a story leaked – from somewhere – that today’s agm is a foregone conclusion and that the board have triumphed over the requisitioners. We have had Paul Murray’s thunderous response to that story and his wounding words about those he holds responsible for leaking the information. We have the board’s indignant response to the response and a call for Murray to retract. While all this was going on we had the return of the King; Dave King, that is. King has been silent for some months but he re-entered the narrative yesterday when saying that the board should hold out an olive branch to Murray, his words coming at precisely the same time as the board were going to war with him for the umpteenth time. King said that Murray should be invited into the inner-sanctum at Ibrox even though the current board wouldn’t allow him in the same postcode if they had their way. Of course, this wasn’t just a plaintive cry from King. It might have sounded that way, but it’s fair to say that there was a hidden message in what he said and that it could be interpreted thus: “I have millions to invest in Rangers and it’s millions the club is going to need before too long, so do yourself a favour and invite my pal Paul on to the board or else I’ll walk away – and then you’ll have a real problem.” Rangers’ reaction to them may have gone something like this: “Get stuffed.” Last night, Jim McColl backed up King and said that Murray should be invited to join the Rangers board. Murray has got one thing right as head of the requisitioners. He has done a good job in the public relations battle, not that the PR battle matters a damn if it is proven that the board have already won the war ahead of the first sound of gunfire at the agm this morning. He has articulated the feelings of many supporters, not that the supporters’ feelings have been of much concern to the Rangers board for the longest time. Murray has been omnipresent in the media, partly because the media have asked him to be, partly because it has suited him to be. He has done interview after interview and lobbed grenade after grenade about how the board are treating the fans with contempt, how they have refused to answer questions, how they are steering the club towards the rocks again. Some of what he has said is undoubtedly right, but talk is cheap, certainly cheaper than buying millions of Rangers shares that would have given his voice more authority had he, or anybody in his group, put their money where their mouths have been. That has been a huge weakness of the requisitioners right from the start. They talked a lot of sense. They posed a lot of questions that needed to be posed. They highlighted some issues that needed to be highlighted. But they never bought shares. Or never bought them in the kind of volume that would have signalled their intent to seize control of a troubled club. They said that they had backing from the supporters and were also reflecting the concerns of powerful institutional investors. They said they would win the day at the agm not because they wanted to, but because they had to. If they haven’t won, as seems the case, then they have to look at themselves and their strategy and wonder why they couldn’t get one of their earlier members and one of Scotland’s richest men, McColl, to back up the fighting talk with something a lot more substantial. Between them, the requisitioners have less than a 2 per cent shareholding. McColl’s withdrawal from the frontline was damaging to the requisitioners, no question. Even if he wasn’t ready to spend money, he at least had the authority of a man who had money and who might, one day, spend some on the club. King withdrawing to South Africa while still hedging his bets about who he was going to support was also a blow. Yesterday they called on the board to put aside their issues and welcome Murray in the door, forgetting that Murray has already been asked to join the board recently and declined because he didn’t want to abandon his colleagues. The idea that Murray could happily co-exist at Ibrox with Brian Stockbridge stretches credibility. He has said as much himself. Murray’s bottom line in all of this has been the removal of Stockbridge. That’s his one non-negotiable item and if there is a second it’s probably the removal of Jack Irvine, the communications man who has lacerated the requisitioners so often that the idea that Murray can work with him is surely a bit of a joke. Does he deserve to in any case? That phrase “the best interests of Rangers at heart” is one that has been applied to board members and requisitioners alike, guys who wouldn’t have the foggiest notion about the club, but Murray is a bit different. He is a proud Rangers man, no question. But he’s a proud Rangers man with baggage from the David Murray era and you cannot forget that. He was on the Rangers board when Rangers ran amok with their spending. He was on the Rangers board through some of the EBT years. He says that he helped bring down the Rangers debt but that has been open to challenge. He is sullied by the Murray era and to deny it would be to ignore history. As for his namesake, Malcolm. It is one of the greatest examples of cheek that Malcolm Murray can put himself forward as one of the characters to put Rangers on the straight and narrow when he was involved in a board that wasted so much money in the first place. The requisitioners have been far from impressive but they haven’t been up against much, it has to be said. Stockbridge is damaged goods and it’s hard to see how the supporters will ever find him acceptable. Irvine, the same. Both should go because to retain them means no bridge is ever likely to be built between the board and the fans. Irvine has been saying for some time that the requisitioners would not only be beaten but that they would be annihilated and it’s this kind of talk that has dogged the whole episode from the start. It’s been deeply personal. It’s been incredibly nasty. It’s been pock-marked by daftness of the kind displayed by David Somers, the chairman, just short of a fortnight ago when he needlessly got embroiled in the mud-flinging by branding the requisitioners a bunch of “fanatics”. In using such insulting language, Somers was not only getting at the so-called rebels but also those who support them – the Rangers fans. You heard Somers talking about fanatics and you wondered what on earth did he think he was adding to the debate. You heard him saying that he wouldn’t recognise Whyte or Charles Green in the street and you wondered whether such a man was fit for purpose at Ibrox. There is no doubt that the story of the board’s possible victory in the agm would have suited the incumbents. Anything to dampen the spirits of the requisitioners and the supporters would have been welcome. Anything that might make some of those fans decommission their anger and stay away today would have suited the board. If it comes to pass that the board win and that, to a man, they remain in place with no concession made to the will of the supporters, then today might just be seen as the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. Come the spring, Graham Wallace, Somers, Stockbridge and the Easdale boys will be asking for supporters to part with their season ticket money. Sandy Easdale has already stated that it could be a “fatal blow” to the club if they don’t get that money. Set aside the cheap attempt at moral blackmail and you have a scenario where so much power rests with the supporters. They feel they haven’t been listened to. Well, they’ll be listened to when the board are looking for their money, that is for sure. They’ll have a captive audience in the boardroom at that point and it is up to them to figure out what they do with it. Today will bring anger and probably a victory for the board. You have to think that it’ll be the kind of day where if an olive branch is offered then it will be used as a weapon rather than an instrument of conciliation.