WHEN it comes to sports-writing, I am decidedly old school. I might write this blog, but, I don't do twitter and whilst TV and radio is, in my view, ok for instant coverage, I prefer to have my views enhanced by reading the views of an educated and informed writer, in newspapers and magazines, rather than by the sleverings of a broadcasting "talking head@, even one as erudite as Alan Hansen.
An aside here: is it perhaps because games such as Rugby Union and cricket draw their top-flight players mainly from men who have completed their education at 18 rather than 16, then gone-on to Higher Education to emerge as lawyers or accountants who also play sport, rather than as, in football, apprentices who become tradesmen, that we get a better class of punditry from the likes of Richie Benaud and Brian Moore than we do from Mark Lawrenson, Ian Wright & Co?
Sadly, during the seemingly endless Rangers saga, we have been denied much in the way of sensible comment from the mainstream media in Scotland. It may be because Scottish football is a small village, in which, rather as we Ayrshiremen say of Cumnock: "Everyone takes his turn to be Village Idiot", our "star" writers have taken turns to spout pish, at length.
The dust has, for the moment, settled over Rangersgate; this afternoon 'The Rangers FC' will begin life in the basement of Scottish League football, at Brechin and, for all the continuing presence in the ranks of a clutch of Scottish internationalists such as Neil Alexander, Kirk Broadfoot, Lee Wallace and Lee McCulloch, plus who knows how many internationalists from other nations - Andrew Little certainly, otherwise, wait and see - the expected Rangers walk-over is not guaranteed.
The Rangers XI will be somewhat under-cooked; regardless of how many "closed doors" "bounce" games they have played so far, they are going into opening night without a full dress rehearsal, far less a pre-opening run. Jim Weir and Kevin McGowne are no mugs, while the Glebe Park management team have shown a knack of getting big results ou of their squad of part-tmers. There should still be enough quality in the Rangers' ranks to win the game, but, it will not surprise me if Brechin pull off a "shock" win.
This, of course, should it happen, will divert attention from the main point about the entire Rangersgate fiasco - throughout the entire squalid affair, from David Murray first putting a then seemingly-stable and profitable pillar of the football establishment up for sale, via the machinations of the Lloyds Bank hold on the purse strings, via the questionable circumstances of the sale to Craig Whyte and his subsequent misconduct and mis-management, through the equally puzzling administration period under Duff & Phelps, via the laughable bidding process for the carcass of a once-great club, to the puzzling circumstances of Sevco's "purchase" of the old club and onto Charles Green's stewardship, one thing has been constant.
That is the lack of vision and of help, guidance and common charity towards Rangers which has come from the SFA, and the SPL.
There has been no LEADERSHIP. Hardly surprising really: SFA president Campbell Ogilvie has been deeply-embroiled in the whole saga, through his former post as Rangers' Company Secretary - he should, at the very least, have been put on "gardening leave" months ago.
Whatever the politics surrounding Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and as one who worked in Yorkshire some years back - I can tell you these are Byzzantian in extremis - they were but a warm-up for Hampden's corridors of power for Stewart Regan. As for Neil Doncaster, I bet he regrets swapping Delia Smith's lunchtime menu at Carrow Road for pie and Bovril at Hampden.
Rangersgate isn't over, not by a long chalk. Skeletons have still to emerge from closets, heads will roll, a whole cart load of the smelly stuff has still to hit the fan, but, today at least - can we sit back and enjoy the football - please?
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