SteveC 150 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Utter disgrace 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy steel 0 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Well, yes......and no. It does seem like fairly obvious double standards, but it can be looked at as an opportunity as well. If we take the last three years or so in the round and add it all up, it basically boils down to the fairly stark fact that Rangers are not welcome in the Scottish Leagues. We were only handed an invite to start in D3 because it was a money spinner, had the old SFL clubs been flush with cash I do wonder whether they might have pointed us toward the juniors...and who knows what they would have felt? 'Sorry, old boy, police advice...perhaps you could try the P&D amateurs?' There is a continual hostility to anything that comes out of Ibrox; while that might be justified at a boardroom level, given the vast quantities of manure that it generates, look at the reaction to McCoist's fairly light hearted poking fun yesterday. No-one saw any funny side; Rangers are not allowed to be in a good mood. They are only tolerated, at best, if they are in a continual crisis and a perpetually ongoing source of stories; stories which have, ironically, provided many journalists, broadcasters and fans with many laughs. Again, only one side is allowed to be entertained: we are supposed to be suffering. Ex-Rangers players who get involved with the club at present are signing their career death warrants - Brown, being the most vocal, is the most obvious, but anyone tarred with a Blue Brush now or in the past is making their own life harder than it need to be. Where are the Bears in the media? In my 30 years of being aware of football on the radio, there's never been a time when Rangers have been less represented on air; Billy Dodds is hardly a club legend and could easily be said to speak for Aberdeen, Dundee or Dundee Utd before Rangers, although he's handy when they want to have a laugh about EBT's; while Derek Ferguson could easily be said to hardly speak at all, such is his struggle with the English language. Diversifying the media to include more than just Rangers and celtc legends is certainly a good thing; doing it to such an extent that what is by far the best supported club in the country is unrepresented is beyond careless, it is making a definite point. Gordon Smith, John Grieg, Mark Hateley, Ally himself, Derek Johnstone; all these and more used to give a voice, and sometimes a kicking, to Rangers and the fans. Now we have nothing. We have no voice in boardrooms, and when we are grudgingly allowed back in to a minor meeting unless Wallace goes along you can be fairly sure it will be mortifying; the briefings will be immediately and scathing about the nitwit sent along from Ibrox. Send for Bullhut! So where's the opportunity in all this? If a marriage reaches the stage where neither party wants to be together, and one party is more or less throwing the clothes out the upstairs window, separation is usually the result. That's the only logical outcome. Sod getting back to the top flight; I suspect that once our money flows through the game like a drug, and clubs feel financially able to put the boot in, they will do so, again and again. You can't live like that and you shouldn't stay to be abused. I don't know where else we can go, we're a Scottish club and it always seemed slightly nuts to be trying to sneak into England. Sad to say I'm left with little option now, ironically enough thanks to the people who whined and bleated about Rangers moving to England for all those years! The whole shebang is riddled with irony...as well as corruption and incompetence. If the SPFL can afford to advance cash to a club in crisis, one of its biggest clubs at that, and help it out it should do so. That seems like common sense, for the game can hardly afford just to watch Hearts stagger back from the brink of death for a couple of years. They, like us, have been one of the few sides to 'put in' to the game since the war and I think they deserve to be helped out. It is basically the definition of 'league': coming together to form an alliance. It's just a shame that when we were being knifed from all directions (including from inside Ibrox) the concept was not only ignored, but taken to the khazi and used to wipe peoples' bottoms with. Naturally that leaves a bad smell, but perhaps that will encourage us to seek an alternative somewhere else. The air is bad, here, bad. We need to find somewhere fresher. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,145 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 Nice rant mate but I think Scottish football has fallen so far that ourselves (and, yes, I'm afraid Celtic) are no longer the attractive circus acts that we may have been to English (or Dutch/Belgian) clubs before. Sure we may still have large crowds of fans that may look appealing from afar but in reality we'd just be two more average clubs looking for room at a trough that already has plenty under nourished pigs fighting over. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,231 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I'd like to know the interim and full year results of the SPFL. Hearts get 800k as the bottom club? What will the champions receive? Where does that money come from? Many turkeys voted for the creation of the SPFL and I wonder what sort of christmas will happen unto them once they see the money promised last year materialize in their accounts ... or not. NB: One FFer marked out that we did also receive payment from the league, as marked in the July results of D&P. 500k or the like. After the season was finished. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Real PapaBear 0 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Nice rant mate but I think Scottish football has fallen so far that ourselves (and, yes, I'm afraid Celtic) are no longer the attractive circus acts that we may have been to English (or Dutch/Belgian) clubs before. Sure we may still have large crowds of fans that may look appealing from afar but in reality we'd just be two more average clubs looking for room at a trough that already has plenty under nourished pigs fighting over. I think the recent turmoil actually proves the opposite of what you've just said. Yes, in footballing terms we are not attractive at the moment; yes, we're a poor side of journeymen footballers and yes we play in a crappy wee league that nobody gives a toss about. BUT, we have shown that we have the most loyal supporters to be found anywhere and large crowds in divs 4+3+2 are a guarantee that if we were to play in any top league we would bring our fair share to the table. Seriously, if you were to start European football from scratch, with a blank sheet of paper and put together a league structure based on fan-base, attendances and location (regarding passion for football) Rangers would be a nailed on cert for a spot in the top division. We're not here-today-gone-tomorrows like Bolton or Blackburn, we're not manufactured like the russian clubs - we've proved, and are proving every week, that our club and our fans are the real deal. Any league would be interested in that. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,494 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 UEFA Elite Stadiums http://economicsfc.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/51/ No English grounds? I can't believe that. Everybody tells me how fantastic Old Trafford is. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,145 Posted February 7, 2014 Author Share Posted February 7, 2014 I think the recent turmoil actually proves the opposite of what you've just said. Yes, in footballing terms we are not attractive at the moment; yes, we're a poor side of journeymen footballers and yes we play in a crappy wee league that nobody gives a toss about. BUT, we have shown that we have the most loyal supporters to be found anywhere and large crowds in divs 4+3+2 are a guarantee that if we were to play in any top league we would bring our fair share to the table. Seriously, if you were to start European football from scratch, with a blank sheet of paper and put together a league structure based on fan-base, attendances and location (regarding passion for football) Rangers would be a nailed on cert for a spot in the top division. We're not here-today-gone-tomorrows like Bolton or Blackburn, we're not manufactured like the russian clubs - we've proved, and are proving every week, that our club and our fans are the real deal. Any league would be interested in that. If you were starting from scratch then you may be correct but we're not. For all their positives in terms of fan numbers, Rangers (and Celtic) would bring nothing new to the table. The one reasonably unique thing we had before was our intense (religious) rivalry but even that has been diluted/sanitised in recent years. Now, we're just two other average clubs with slightly more passionate/daft fans than the norm. To you and I that's unfair but no English club would be willing to sacrifice their place at the Sky TV trough for us and, if we're brutally honest, why should they? Not to mention there would be plenty of our fans unwilling to leave Scottish football in any case. Rangers' position in European football can only be bettered by improving the way we operate ourselves and as long as we continue to struggle to do that, looking for a jump to another league is just the same as an alcoholic homeless person begging for another 50p for his next drink instead of really addressing the core issue. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,195 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 I'll bite mate! Serious or not? Not obviously Zappa Ally gets too rough a time in my opinion so, yes, I was fishing. I thought his statement was actually a masterstroke. Said what needed to be said without actually saying it and, therefore, without recrimination. Ally is far more intellectual than he gets credit for. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,195 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 UEFA Elite Stadiums http://economicsfc.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/51/ I got told by Rangers staff when home in July that Celtic will struggle FOREVER to get 5* status. Apparently the reason they dont have it is because the tunnel is too narrow, and with the structure of Parkhead they cant do much about it 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted February 7, 2014 Share Posted February 7, 2014 Not obviously Zappa Ally gets too rough a time in my opinion so, yes, I was fishing. I thought his statement was actually a masterstroke. Said what needed to be said without actually saying it and, therefore, without recrimination. Ally is far more intellectual than he gets credit for. Yes, he might not always be great in interviews with his repetitive use of certain phrases, but he's definitely not daft, that's for sure. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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