Dave King's coronation saw the utter hatred for Gers rear its ugly head yet again

[ian1964 10,418]

BLOGGER Jonny McFarlane hits out at critics of his club and believes that everything the Ibrox support have been through will only make them stronger and wiser.

 

IT'S been a great week to be a Ranger.

 

There is finally a sense that the club has turned a corner off the field and that on it we have a tactically proficient manager with the ability to get us through the play-offs. It’s great to see that hope, a commodity that has been in short supply on Edmiston Drive, is back with a vengeance and we can all look to the future.

 

It’s sad then that so many in Scottish Football want to spend their time harking back to the past.

 

There has been a concerted campaign waged against Rangers over the last few years that has blackened our name amongst other fans and some gullible journalists who position themselves as the voices of the people.

 

This has happened almost by accident, and been propelled by the rise of new media, where fans with often twisted agendas can present themselves as journalists and publish speculation, half-truths and rumour as fact without fear of legal recourse or being held to account by a non-partisan readership.

 

Some of these individuals couldn’t spell journalism let alone have the self-awareness required to analyse their obvious short comings and the way they denigrate the very profession they claim to uphold.

 

Despite the mountain of evidence discrediting these people, in the parochial and tribal world of football, they have been able to develop a narrative of Rangers being a cheating, corrupt and sectarian club.

 

Sadly the way this narrative has taken hold can be seen in the reaction to Dave King’s passing of the SFA fit and proper person test. Normally you would accept a bit of uproar from the East End but this story seemed to run into much deeper waters across Scotland.

 

The utter distain for Rangers as a club cannot be masked by faux moral uproar at King’s tax avoidance convictions. Where was this moral panic when Giovanni Di Stefano pitched up at Dundee or at the antics of Vladimir Romanov?

 

The fans of both these clubs were offered condolences and the general position was one of solidarity with long suffering fans. Rangers on the other hand? Any fool can see that there are serious unanswered issues surrounding both Craig Whyte and Charles Green’s tenures and that current police investigations suggest dark manoeuvrings. Sympathy? Not a sliver.

 

The moral uproar that has accompanied the SFA’s clearly exhaustive investigation is in reality nothing but thinly disguised hatred. People have loved to kick sand in our face, see the fallen giants as a laughing stock and now we look to be getting back on our feet and their fun is over? The laughter turns to rage.

 

If people are truthful they will admit that they don’t want Dave King at Rangers because he represents the best hope for returning the club to its former glory.

 

Tax avoidance is, of course, morally wrong and it needs to be stamped out but show me a multi-millionaire businessman that has never been involved in any morally questionable deals? Do King’s convictions make him less suitable than Mike Ashley’s use of zero hour contracts for example? Morality is probably left to the philosophy professors.

 

Of course, the new board and fans have a part to play in changing this perception. There is no doubt in my mind that we lorded our past success over other teams and showed arrogance at times in the way we went about our business.

 

I believe that the pain of the last few years has shed a lot of that and that fans have gained new perspectives about the good governance of the club. There is realism where there was often crushing expectation.

 

As the years go on, and new fans emerge, too young to remember the tears and the agonies, we shall remind them what this time meant, how it shaped us and how it made us stronger.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/opinion/sport/record-fc-rangers-dave-kings-5742507

[Rousseau 9,383]

This has happened almost by accident, and been propelled by the rise of new media, where fans with often twisted agendas can present themselves as journalists and publish speculation, half-truths and rumour as fact without fear of legal recourse or being held to account by a non-partisan readership.

 

Some of these individuals couldn’t spell journalism let alone have the self-awareness required to analyse their obvious short comings and the way they denigrate the very profession they claim to uphold.

 

I think most Rangers fans would agree, but I had to laugh at the above. Irony?

[Scott7 5,185]

No accident. The start of it all was a concerted campaign by some adherents of celtic in the mid to late years of niar. Every post match 'phone-in had somebody, reasonably articulate, not the usual Brendan, who would even offer some praise for the football played by Rangers but always a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger reference to the awful songs "coming from the other end". Drip, drip drip. It worked.

[colinstein 294]

No accident. The start of it all was a concerted campaign by some adherents of celtic in the mid to late years of niar. Every post match 'phone-in had somebody, reasonably articulate, not the usual Brendan, who would even offer some praise for the football played by Rangers but always a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger reference to the awful songs "coming from the other end". Drip, drip drip. It worked.

 

it was the complaint to uefa about the billy boys when we reached the last 16 of the CL. We are asked to believe an Austrian was able to hear the words and was offended. He said the complaint came from within Scotland. I suspect Odious Creep myself although he's denied it.

[Blue Moon 1,113]

Enjoyed that article.