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I’m a Rangers fan, so here’s my take. Rangers have been around for 140 years. The problems that the club now finds itself with have come about through chasing short-term gain by methods that have long-term consequences. It’s time to think of what’s best for the next 140 years, not for the next 12 months. At fan-level, football is a sport. It’s about competing and performing, and being able to take pride in the club you support. The BBC’s recent documentary on David Murray, Craig Whyte, and even administrators Duff & Phelps’, time in charge of the club gave little to be proud of.
What Charles Green seeks is for a new Rangers, shorn of debts, to be admitted directly into the top-tier of Scottish football as if none of that ever happened. To me that’s like someone morbidly obese simply receiving liposuction and then being pronounced healthy. Nothing real has happened. No redemptive process has taken place. Think of the Rangers Fans Fighting Fund. It was paying off debts incurred by the club because the fans wanted to do their bit to repair the damage caused to the club’s reputation…and to its very soul. Instead, with the sweep of a pen the debts are gone, a new club emerges, and things go on as if everything’s fine. Despite every other football fan in Scotland having an eternal slight to aim in the direction or Rangers fans and their club. One to which we’ll have no answer.
What do I want? Want is too strong a word. This isn’t something I’d ever have wanted. What I think Rangers need to do is to start again in the Third Division. Liquidation is going to lead to a three-year European ban anyway. Let those three years be spent having the opportunity (not the guarantee – let’s not make the mistake of hubris again!) to win titles, to play in different stadiums, to blood youngsters…and to show Scottish football that a big club takes its sporting responsibilities seriously.
There’s always been the suggestion (that I’ve agreed with) that the Old Firm fielding ‘B’ teams in the Scottish League would positively impact both player development for the two clubs and finances in the lower divisions. Scratch that. Let’s see how Division Three clubs benefit from having a Rangers first team visit twice a season.
One set of toxic circumstance I’d happily see jettisoned by a Newco Rangers? All the sectarian sh*te. In the stands as well as at boardroom level, let this whole process be the greatest footballing redemption ever seen and culminate in a new, properly run, properly supported, and admirable sporting institution emerging.
Still, I can spout all I like about this. The emerging Newco will be run by a “Venture Capitalist”. Find me a benevolent venture capitalist…
As for anyone pondering the financial impact on the SPL? Who knows. But if clubs have run in a way which means they’re unable to continue without the presence of Rangers, then it’ll be a refreshing opportunity for them to look at their own finances. What will it mean competitively for the SPL? My own feeling is that what the SPL needed was to have at least one more team challenging for the title, not one less.
Still, that’s their problem for now. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go and study Annan Athletic’s tactical formation.
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About the Author
Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other shite”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)
“brilliant Scottish comic” Kate Copstick, Scotland on Sunday
“Head, shoulders, knees and toes above the rest…mighty stage presence and impressively high punchline ratio” Brian Donaldson, Scotsman
“freshly minted topical gags…pin-sharp lines…great routine…a class act” Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk
“has flourished…cracking lines” Jay Richardson, Scotsman
Brilliant take on events and I agree wholeheartedly. Would gladly see us take our medicine and work our way back. Here’s a chance to learn a lesson and develop a new footballing ethos. McCoist could really earn his stripes too as a coach given that he’s had to undertake the job of a CEO for the past 6 months.
As an ex-Rangers fan – the sectarian shite did for me years ago – I think you are absolutely on the money.
A fresh, clean Rangers could perform a great service to Scottish football by earning the right to compete at the top level again; providing an invaluable source of income to the lower leagues as they climb. Whilst they do so there position would allow and the finance, voting rights and, vitally, the structure of the leagues to be redefined without the overarching consideration of the Big Teams’ requirements distorting the debate. Indeed from a lowly position and with experience of taking part at the bottom, Rangers could even lead the reforms.
If all this can happen, whilst Rangers also divest themselves of the sectarian ‘No Surrender’ bile, this episode instead of casting a pall over Scottish football, could be the dawning of a fantastic new era.
Absolutely spot on. As a non-Old Firm fan (Dundee Utd), I hate Rangers slightly less after reading this.