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I thought Leckie was Morton and Chick Young was St Mirren?????

 

Not at all sure (Morton or St Mirren) other than I have heard him on many, many occasions say he hates both OF equally, and I actually do believe him on that.

 

Bill Leckie is a Buddy.

 

Six years past, it was a former member of the RST Board that found Bill subscribing to an on-line Dating forum. On this occasion, he was searching for a butt-buddy.

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What he and the rest of us will have to face in future is the very opposite.

 

Disaffected fans are turning to Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool and going to more of their games, and as glamour in football is increasingly going to be kept a safe distance from the best efforts of Scottish teams, the attraction of Barcelona, Bayern and Real is going to grow, too.

 

Look around you at today's youngsters. Some follow Barcelona as avidly as their pals follow Rangers and Celtic, and this trend has no limit to its growth.

 

Young people are attracted to the big time, and the big time has almost ceased to exist in Scottish football.

 

Scotland is in the process of doing what the Irish Republic has been doing for years - picking a club from beyond its borders and getting behind it with all the zeal of the convert.

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What he and the rest of us will have to face in future is the very opposite.

 

Disaffected fans are turning to Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool and going to more of their games, and as glamour in football is increasingly going to be kept a safe distance from the best efforts of Scottish teams, the attraction of Barcelona, Bayern and Real is going to grow, too.

 

Look around you at today's youngsters. Some follow Barcelona as avidly as their pals follow Rangers and Celtic, and this trend has no limit to its growth.

 

Young people are attracted to the big time, and the big time has almost ceased to exist in Scottish football.

 

Scotland is in the process of doing what the Irish Republic has been doing for years - picking a club from beyond its borders and getting behind it with all the zeal of the convert.

 

Very true.

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What he and the rest of us will have to face in future is the very opposite.

 

Disaffected fans are turning to Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool and going to more of their games, and as glamour in football is increasingly going to be kept a safe distance from the best efforts of Scottish teams, the attraction of Barcelona, Bayern and Real is going to grow, too.

 

Look around you at today's youngsters. Some follow Barcelona as avidly as their pals follow Rangers and Celtic, and this trend has no limit to its growth.

 

Young people are attracted to the big time, and the big time has almost ceased to exist in Scottish football.

 

Scotland is in the process of doing what the Irish Republic has been doing for years - picking a club from beyond its borders and getting behind it with all the zeal of the convert.

 

How would you reverse that trend of a dying football culture?

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How would you reverse that trend of a dying football culture?

 

It's not easy when fans are struggling to face this new and growing reality; when they live in the past and expect the future to be just like it, and when they make no attempt to win back their clubs from the faceless people who have taken over.

 

At Rangers we need to do several things:

 

1/ Work towards achieving fan ownership. When the club is in settled and caring hands it can plan for both the short and the long term. It will also be led by an elected president who will need to be accountable - or else. We can remove a bad president but getting rid of rotten ownership - that's not so easy. The RST is the vehicle for this.

 

2/ Rangers and Celtic will diminish and struggle if they remain in the Scottish league system. A way has to be found to either play down south, which I'm not that keen on, or join a continental league of top teams from small countries. This has been mooted before. It was called the Atlantic League. It should be looked at again.

 

3/ An attractive 'product' is more appealing than an unattractive one. Scottish football needs to chase out the dinosaurs and find coaches who know how to play with boldness rather than cowardice.

 

4/ Believe it or not, Rangers and Celtic, ideally, should be working together on possible solutions, but while Celtic has been doing what it can to effect change, Rangers is so caught up in its own problems that it has nothing worthwhile to offer until it rehabilitates itself.

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It's not easy when fans are struggling to face this new and growing reality; when they live in the past and expect the future to be just like it, and when they make no attempt to win back their clubs from the faceless people who have taken over.

 

At Rangers we need to do several things:

 

1/ Work towards achieving fan ownership. When the club is in settled and caring hands it can plan for both the short and the long term. It will also be led by an elected president who will need to be accountable - or else. We can remove a bad president but getting rid of rotten ownership - that's not so easy. The RST is the vehicle for this.

 

2/ Rangers and Celtic will diminish and struggle if they remain in the Scottish league system. A way has to be found to either play down south, which I'm not that keen on, or join a continental league of top teams from small countries. This has been mooted before. It was called the Atlantic League. It should be looked at again.

 

3/ An attractive 'product' is more appealing than an unattractive one. Scottish football needs to chase out the dinosaurs and find coaches who know how to play with boldness rather than cowardice.

 

4/ Believe it or not, Rangers and Celtic, ideally, should be working together on possible solutions, but while Celtic has been doing what it can to effect change, Rangers is so caught up in its own problems that it has nothing worthwhile to offer until it rehabilitates itself.

 

 

I wonder which fans you could be speaking of? Dunfermline, Hibs etc. are making attempts to have fans involved in club ownership.

 

Now before we go on to Rangers, your original post was lamenting on the dying football culture on the Scottish football scene, correct?

 

1/

 

An awful lot of Rangers' fans including myself would not agree that the RST vehicle is the answer.

 

2/

 

If Rangers and Celtic leave Scottish football, then surely the downward trend you are lamenting in your original post will only be hastened?

 

3/

 

Who will pay for these new people? Scottish football doesn't even have a sponsor. We have a tv deal which no one knows the details of. Surely this should be laid at the feet of the men who have brought Scottish football to this point, mainly Lawwell, Regan and Doncaster?

 

4/

 

How can Rangers and Celtic work together when just after Rangers went into administration, Lawwell stated that Celtic did not need Rangers to survive and that they were perfectly capable of forging ahead on their own? He was wrong then and he is wrong now when he tries to accuse Rangers of costing his club 10 to 15 million pounds per year. Is that the way to attract a partner to join you in an enterprise?

Rangers' rehabilitation will take time, even after they get rid of the sp*vs, but it will be through that rehabilitation that Scottish football will be revived somewhat. It is unrealistic to think that kids will ever give up wanting to watch the giants in Euro countries. However, the fact that all of the smaller tv market countries in Europe are under stress with their national associations, a case could be made that the responsibility to redress this situation should be resting at UEFA's door.

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