Barry Ferguson: When players can hear chants of 'sack the board'...

[ian1964 10,411]

.....................as they pull on their boots, you know things have gone so wrong at Ibrox

 

 

AS the battle for control continues at Ibrox BARRY says he longs for the day when the club gets back to focusing on football - rather than the politics and back stabbing which are taking over.

 

 

 

 

THE home dressing room inside Ibrox Park. It’s hard to think of any other place that has played such a huge part in my life.

 

I’ve celebrated Old Firm victories in there. Drank champagne after winning titles. I’ve experienced the greatest highs of my football life inside those four sacred walls and the memories will live with me until the day I die.

 

I’ve also suffered horrible lows in there, shed tears and thrown tantrums. There were defeats that hit me so hard I felt like the loneliest man in the world even though I was surrounded by my team-mates. I’ll carry those memories with me forever too.

 

Yes, the home dressing room inside Ibrox Park is like no other place I’ve known. What I remember most of all though is the connection you feel when you are in there and the fans right outside on Edmiston Drive.

 

Everything that’s going on out there comes in through the windows. As a player you can’t miss it.

 

Before the big games you could feel the excitement and energy bubbling up among the punters. I loved it and all that noise and electricity would get my adrenalin pumping – give me that extra edge. It was brilliant.

 

There is no feeling quite like being a Rangers player – especially after a game when those same fans are outside singing and bouncing in the street. You sit there and realise you’re the reason they are so happy.

 

But at the same time you knew all about it if you had let them down. I didn’t need the gaffer to say anything after a defeat or bad performance. I just listened to the punters walking past those windows. I could hear the anger and disappointment in their voices.

 

So I can imagine what it must have been like in there, just before kick-off on Saturday, when 1000 or so Rangers fans stood outside the main doors and protested against the current board.

 

Having looked at the video of punters singing “sack the board” I can picture myself in there wondering what the hell is going on.

 

Trust me, the way the noise comes in from the outside it would have been impossible not to notice. Ally McCoist would have been going round his players giving them a final gee-up and all the while there would be the sound of chaos in the background.

 

And that sums up the state my old club is in. It’s heartbreaking to admit it but Rangers are now completely back to front.

 

Football has become a side issue. It’s now more about the people in the Blue Room than dressing room and I long for the day we get back to being a football club rather than soap opera.

 

I can’t take much more of the politics, back stabbing and dramas. I just want my club back. And that’s why I have nothing but sympathy for these fans who took to the streets on the weekend and voiced their anger so forcibly.

 

As much as the players and Coisty could have done without the distraction, Rangers have bigger fish to fry than a game against Airdrie.

 

Those chants were not aimed at the players or the manager. They were a message for the men in suits.

 

They’ll have heard it loud and clear, believe me, and it must have been embarrassing for them to have fans screaming for their heads.

 

I know I’d be deeply upset if those songs were directed at me because all I ever wanted to hear outside on that street was the sound of Rangers fans celebrating what we had done.

 

But then that was back in the days when Rangers were all about football. Those days can’t come quickly enough and the hope is that, after the agm on December 19, my old club can get back to some sort of normality.

 

I admit I’m losing track of it all. I see Scot Gardiner knocking back the chance to become chief executive and I despair at just how badly damaged Rangers have become.

 

I know Scot. He’s a Rangers man through and through and this would have been his dream job. But it says it all that he’d rather stay at Dundee.

 

I look at guys like Jim McColl and Dave King – with all their millions of pounds – and long for the day they find a way to get control.

 

Sometimes I think it would be so much easier for them just to dig into their resources and buy the shares.

 

But these guys have made so much money because they’re excellent businessmen – and so all we fans can do is trust them to know what they’re doing.

 

I’ll be honest, I’m scared about this agm. I’m terrified what might happen if it all goes wrong and horrified at talk of another administration.

 

Like the fans, all I want is for the noise in that street to be about the football.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/barry-ferguson-players-can-hear-2793724