We will remember

[JohnMc 2,468]

Bluedell never forgets! There's no doubt for those of us who remember those dark days this past week has been all the sweeter, and the inevitable rage that's followed simply adds to it. 

Looking back at the thread only you and Craig haven't left or been banned, yet! 

[Bluedell 5,329]

8 minutes ago, JohnMc said:

 

Looking back at the thread only you and Craig haven't left or been banned, yet! 

We still pass our brown envelopes to Frankie on a regular basis. 

[Bill 13,717]

1 hour ago, Bluedell said:

We still pass our brown envelopes to Frankie on a regular basis. 

What's the least he accepts?

[Uilleam 5,410]

John Bomber Brown remembers

 

Nine years after helping to pull Rangers back from the brink, John Brown savours title win

Fraser Mackie

Sunday March 14 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Football

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nine-years-after-helping-to-pull-rangers-back-from-the-brink-john-brown-savours-title-win-gvjg6k5r5

 

Rod Stewart’s boasts would ordinarily have triggered a swift, unfriendly response from John Brown. For the Ibrox diehard to tame the natural instinct to fight Rangers’ corner said everything of how far adrift the club was from mustering an answer to Celtic on any level.

It’s Pittodrie, October 2017. Celtic are sauntering to a 3-0 success over Aberdeen, highlighting everything impressive about the slick Brendan Rodgers team.

While Celtic supporters belted out their Ten In A Row standard, Brown, known as ‘Bomber’ thanks to his combative playing style during nine years as a defensive stalwart for Rangers, but by this time a club ambassador and scout, eavesdropped as the Scottish singer-songwriter gloated with his then 11-year-old son Alastair.

“Rod was sitting directly in front of me and his son asked what the fans were singing,” Brown recalls. “It was 3-0 going on 7-0. They were that good. Rod explained about the Lisbon Lions winning nine and the Rangers team that won nine. And he said: ‘We are going to beat that’.

“There was nothing I could say to him. We weren’t at the stage of being ready to compete against them. I didn’t know if we’d be able to stop the 10. I couldn’t argue with Rod. So when he said that, I gritted my teeth and thought to myself, ‘I hope we’ve got enough to do this’.”

 

The chaotic Pedro Caixinha reign came to a conclusion that same evening with an error-strewn 1-1 home draw with Kilmarnock. Rangers were seven long months and multiple humiliations at Celtic’s hands away from the turning point — the appointment of Steven Gerrard.

As he drove home from Aberdeen to write a future opponent report for Rangers, Brown filed the experience in his mind as one of the most deflating of a desperate period for his beloved club.

 

However, at no stage did he feel quite as lonely as after an appearance on the Ibrox steps in June 2012. In the wake of Craig Whyte’s reign ending in administration then League Two, Charles Green and his cohorts seized control and claimed they were picking up the pieces. Brown’s sources told him something very different. He quit his Ibrox job to call out Green’s charm offensive.

He would be proved right in the long run, but that infamous address to Rangers supporters exposed Brown to a torrent of online abuse. More hurtful was the sight of friends turning their backs. No supporter wanted to believe he was right.

“I got a phone call from Green’s personal assistant because I was involved in a rival consortium,” Brown says. “I went into his office. I don’t need to go into the detail of what was said but I was very close to putting one on his chin. But I thought: ‘No’.

“I said: ‘I’m out the club now, I’ll fight you from the outside’. I knew those coming in were going to strip everything out. My worry was the fans didn’t know. I had to speak up.

“The aftermath affected my daughters. They saw the criticism online and that hurt more than anything. My parents are in their 80s and hurt when the club went that way.

“I never got that from anyone I met. They all told me to keep going. The support of my wife Sandra helped me through.

“But I got information back that people I had respect for were being critical. They turned their back on me, which was tough to take. They were probably laughing at me. ‘Did you see Bomber on the steps? Has he lost the plot?’ Is he this, is he that?

“There’s never been an apology. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is where the club is.

“A pal sent me a link to a fans’ website. A punter thanked me for standing on the steps that day. I had a lump in my throat reading it when I got home from Tannadice.”

 

How fitting that Brown should be the only Rangers representative to witness history being made — their 55th title secured by Celtic’s 0-0 draw at Dundee United. Now part of a recruitment team headed by Andy Scoulding, Brown was given the game to cover weeks before its potential significance emerged. Never a man to hide his true colours, he sported Rangers tie, club-crest facemask and blue bobble hat for the occasion.

“I was in the stand at Tannadice in 1997 when Brian Laudrup put that header in for ‘the nine’,” Brown says. “I just had a feeling, as it was my game in the diary, that we’d win it there.

“From going out on the Ibrox steps to being there last Sunday was the best feeling I’ve ever had. To do it in the season Celtic wanted it most of all makes it sweeter still for every Rangers fan.

“I managed to win eight leagues as a player, but it beat all that. Because of where the club has been and how close we were to going out of business, I think it’s the best of the 55.”

 

Brown sees shades of Graeme Souness in Gerrard’s work and a sprinkling of the Nine In A Row spirit in the current team. He was impressed immediately by Gerrard’s knowledge of the club’s plight and a grip on what was required to overtake Celtic.

“As I’d played for Souness, I could see he was in the same mould,” Brown says. “The manager brought his winning mentality and the players have bought in.

“He’s brought a steel back to Ibrox, a togetherness, that drive, that fire. Steven will know Souness always said when you lose the fire in the belly it’s time to move on. As long as that’s burning — and I know it is — they’ll push these players for the maximum. This is just the start.

“What this team does is win the respect of opponents but, at the same time, put fear into them. That’s what we had. Teams knew if they scored against us, they got a reaction.

“It doesn’t need to be an Alfredo Morelos goal. It could be a Connor Goldson crunching tackle, a Scott Arfield challenge in a 50-50, an Allan McGregor wonder save.

“It lifts you when you know your team-mates are right on their game. They’ve met the demands and done it in every game. That’s the measure of this Rangers team.”

[der Berliner 3,245]

Some thread necromancy this! But well deserved!

[Bluedell 5,329]

1 hour ago, Uilleam said:

John Bomber Brown remembers

 

He would be proved right in the long run, but that infamous address to Rangers supporters exposed Brown to a torrent of online abuse. 

 

We've been through this in the past, but Brown potentially caused more harm than good, with his erroneous claims that the club didn't own the stadium, and his "show us the deeds" claim, which pointed people in the wrong direction, and when he hijacked a supporters' meeting with Green and made it all about him, and wouldn't accept when his own agent/friend had seen the deeds.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

or maybe he stopped something awful happening. 

[Scott7 5,155]

2 hours ago, Uilleam said:

Brown, known as ‘Bomber’ thanks to his combative playing style during nine years as a defensive stalwart for Rangers

Not really. Ever since the days of Joe Louis, entitled the Brown Bomber after his devastating punching power, all Browns have been called Bomber.

The header ascribes the quote to @Uilleam but it is, of course, a quote from the juvenile who wrote the Times article. A mistake like that Uilleam would not make.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Scott7

[Bluedell 5,329]

17 minutes ago, the gunslinger said:

or maybe he stopped something awful happening. 

What did he stop? Green taking over the club? 

 

 

2 hours ago, Uilleam said:

I was involved in a rival consortium

Let's not forget that his consortium was headed by Celtic fan Steve McKenna.

[Uilleam 5,410]

9 minutes ago, Scott7 said:

Ever since the days of Joe Louis, entitled the Brown Bomber after his devastating punching power, all Browns have been called Bomber.

So 'Bomber' is not his real name?

 

Incidentally, JL's real name was 'Joseph Louis Barrow'.

 

Do people called 'Harris' not rejoice in the appellation 'Bomber'?