What Hapens Now?

IN signing-off my last posting, I aluded to the next question about Rangers: What Happens Next? Of course, at this moment in time, nobody knows. Messrs Duff & Phelps have to get to work, try to sort-out the mess which David Murray's years of profligacy and what is, from the little which has leaked into the mainstream seems an almost criminal nine months of Whyte ownership and asset-stripping, have left.

Then we await the rousing of that 10,000 lb gorilla in the corner - the EBTs tax case.

Worse case scenario is, the liquidation of Rangers Football Club - The End, finito, no more Messrs Bad Guys; but even that is fraught with difficulties. If it happens, Craig Whyte will enter Scottish football mythology as William Hiddlestone x ten - Mr Hiddlestone being the "chancer" who in the 1960s asset-stripped and took Third Lanark to the wall. Hiddlestone's legacy is Cathkin Park, the stand, the buildings were allowed, over a period of time to crumble and fall; certainly the Council have to a degree land-scaped the terraces and the pitch is still there, but, Cathkin, as those of us old enough remember it, is no more.

Cathkin was the original Hampden - there should have been a preservation order on it, but wasn't. At least, the listed building status of the main stand might save it, but, if football isn't played there - what is the site for? I'd hate to think of my grand-weans, 40-plus years hence, driving past a crumbling, dangerous, listing but still listed stand, with a graffittied, uncared-for statue of John Greig standing beside it - that could happen.

If HMRC decides to play hardball with Rangers - and I feel they will pour encourage les autres in the EPL; there can be no reconstituted Rangers, and very likely no new one, even one starting life in the Third Division of the SFL, or maybe the Juniors, hoping to maybe get onto some future pyramid.

How about this curve-ball, out of left field. Rangers FC dies, but some Rangers-minded millionaire fan - there are some out there, buys the husk that's left, including Ibrox and Murray Park.

However, instead of joining the SFL - he takes his new club, with a core staff of British players who are primarily Rangers fans, into the North West Counties League in England - which is probably the highest level which any new club can enter the English pyramid.

This club should, surely, climb rapidly through the leagues and, within a decade - "New" Rangers are knocking on the door of the EPL. Without the Ulster religious/political element which the Old Fir rivalry brings, this might well be a "clean" vibrant club - hopefully the lessons of the liquidation have been absorbed and Ibrox is again rocking every second week to full houses, seeing good football.

I know, it's maybe a bit far-fetched, it's a long-ball game: but, wasn't the long-ball game for so long a successful Rangers tactic?

Of course, more-likely scenarios are -

1, administration, the current club continues, initially with a slimmed-down infrastructure and mainly young, cheap, Scottish players. The club goes back into the mid-SPL pack for a few years, then re-emerges as title challengers; the silly stuff continues and Scottish football keeps going backwards.

2, liquidation, Rangers FC dies and is re-born as "New" Rangers, still in the SPL - well, the other ten NEED the Old Firm, they may be despotic lairds, but, they generate cash. A period of financial prudence happens, then, in the desperation to better Celtic, the bad old ways of Scottish football finance returns and it's pretty-much business as usual.

3, liquidation, Rangers FC dies and the "New" Rangers which emerges has to start in the Third Division of the SFL. They keep the Murray Park kids and the fanatics among the older players, ripping through the lower two SFL divisions. Meanwhile, with Celtic isolated in a 1/11 vote and the TV companies saying - no Old Firm games, no deal; the other clubs finally grow a pair and return to an 18-club SPL, which suddenly becomes competitive and vibrant - (that last phrase is wishful thinking) - and Scottish football is re-born.

4, liquidation, Rangers FC dies and with it Scottish football - (that's the Rangers faithful's thinking).