Grantly Group ââ?¬â?? insolvencies, dissolutions and breaches of the Companies Acts

[Frankie 8,173]

My worry is that ' Supporter representation ' is the be all and end all for some.

 

That may or may not be true and we should certainly not back the first buyer that comes round the corner just because there is no-one else using the media to state their interest.

 

Great care and caution must be taken no matter who these people are. Anything less is irresponsible.

[rbr 1,247]

The amount of flim flamming that is going on in the" Duffy no thanks "thread on FF is amazing , the amount of RST members that are contradicting themselves and contradicting what they said on barrybaldy's thread is amazing . On one hand Stevie Smithsays that he hasn't spoken to Duffy and that the news of the world story is bolloks , then DavidEdgar says " Because his partners wish to remain anonymous doesn't mean we don't know who they are. Similarly, there seems to be an assumption that we didn't know the stuff in that article until we read it."

 

Only time will tell but there is far too much rubbish getting posted ,one thing is certain Duffy isn't the answer

[Bluedell 5,350]

As such, the only person 'trashing the trust' as he put it is himself. This same person hypocritically moans about this sniping on FF while dismissing non-FF opinion as invalid because sites such as Gersnet, RangersMedia, Vanguard and Gersforum etc may not match the traffic of Follow Follow. Fair enough, all these sites are smaller (not by all that much in RM's case nowadays) but I find it incredible, absolutely incredible, that elected, supporter reps so easily dismiss their thousands of fans' opinions because of the odd bit of criticism of which they are perfectly capable of answering.

 

The thing that the RST board should be remembering is that it is their own members who use these sites. There are plenty of RST members who use Gersnet and RM.

[Frankie 8,173]

It seems that most of them will use any excuse not to anywhere other than FF, which is disappointing.

 

For example, they said on FF yesterday that David Edgar did not tell NOTW that they have been talking to Duffy for a period of time, but there's no mention of this on their own website or elsewhere. I'm not sure how they expect members to find this out.

 

However, hopefully UCB will continue to post here and put forward the Trust's views, and accept the constructive criticism that is bound to follow in the manner that it is meant.

 

I certainly hope he does. Some of the crap we do read is likely to put even the best intentioned of people off but I don't think we've seen anything unnecessary or invalid on Gersnet recently. Our members are only interested in what is a hugely important topic and want to be involved closely as it progresses.

 

PS: In 2006 The Trust obtained an apology from the Daily Record 48 hours after an article appeared contained non-existent quotes from a Trust spokesperson. This was publicised (as was the process then on every site I posted on as well as published on Newsnow). I'm sure if DE was misquoted in the NOTW on Sunday, we'll see something similar over the next day or two.

[boss 0]

Have the RST criticised boss for this article?

 

Just a bit - because they couldn't put down the article, the leadership sent out half the RST board to put me down instead!

 

A light-hearted take on their "only show in town" statements and the over-playing of their hand with the NOTW, all of which took up about 5% of the article, and their response is character assassination. I get no thanks for doing their job for them.....

 

Just to clarify Bluedell and Frankie's comments, I didn't (or at least, didn't mean to) criticise the Trust per se - but that is not to say I have absolute confidence in its de facto leader. I am a life member of the Trust.

[Frankie 8,173]

The thing that the RST board should be remembering is that it is their own members who use these sites. There are plenty of RST members who use Gersnet and RM.

 

Exactly.

 

On every site there are people who'd prefer to concentrate on matters that don't help anyone. That includes FF despite this person suggesting it doesn't happen.

 

To write off the hundreds/thousands of other posters because of this tiny (yet vocal I accept) minority is surely counter-productive while going directly against their communication improvement statements.

 

Fact is the RST should have their own forum - one private for their members and one public for non-members genuinely interested in their work. This would be inexpensive and wouldn't take all that much time to administrate given these same people post daily on FF (and occasionally elsewhere).

[calscot 0]

The question is that if these dodgy sounding investors can attempt to use supporters' money to buy the club, surely SDM could do us all a favour and sell us the club directly?

 

He probably had his fingers burnt in the last share issue, but surely he could organise some way of passing on ownership to the fans and raising money to reduce the debt in the same way as any newcomer? Or is the problem that his companies can't afford it or afford to underwrite it?

 

That would also bypass the RST and although SDM has not been the most trustworthy of characters, he almost looks like a goody two shoes compared to those fat cats flirting with the club.

 

He's never like the idea of fan ownership but this is his chance to get himself out of a hole and probably make more money in the sale than to a hard nosed consortium.

 

Could be a win-win situation.

[Frankie 8,173]

I think your 2nd paragraph indicates the problem with that Cal...

[Union City Blue 0]

Morning all,

 

Firstly, I would like to repeat that the Trust is primarily concerned about two things; what is good for Rangers and the furtherment of widespread, meaningful supporter-ownership. In that order. It is not up to us to decide what is good for Rangers on behalf of anyone else though and we are not attempting to do that - but if we believe things are moving in the right direction generally, we are on-side. That is a pragmatic position to take IMHO.

 

The situation with Graham Duffy, as I see see it, is like this. He has stepped forward and - because we are talking about a consortium - I suspect he will simply be the first of several faces to do so as things develop. He is the only person to step forward up to this point though, hence the 'only show in town' comment.

 

I would also speculate that anyone in his position will be fully aware that probes into his background will occur, most prominently in an often-hostile and sensationalist media. I would be surprised if he had not foreseen this and I can only assume that this was regarded by him and his partners as something which would not be detrimental overall. They would be pretty stupid if they didn't see these things coming.

 

So I further assume that Duffy and his partners feel they will emerge with their credibility intact. How they achieve this I don't know - but if they fail then they will not get the support of the Trust (or Rangers fans, I imagine) going forward. If (if) Duffy can clear the questions up, then naturally I'd hope that no damage has been done as a result of inconclusive suggestions indirectly fed to the media by Rangers fans.

 

The chucking of stones between message-boards and mischief-making, I'm not getting into. As I've said consistently before, I find it tiresome, disappointing and totally counter-productive for Rangers.

[calscot 0]

OK, how about the bank taking over the club and performing the share issue, basically getting their 31M back in the process?

 

I suppose the risk of failure means that they could end up with ownership of a loss making company and really would be running the club along strict business lines.

 

So can't the bank and SDM get together to do something?

 

In the end I think the biggest problem is that I can't see the fans raising more than about 10-20M, and there would be nobody left to guarantee the loans - especially as the likes of the stadium is only valuable on paper as a home for a very large football club based in Govan...