Rangers Monopoly - It Could Catch On

THAT was a nice wee break, concentrating on football and Scotland, rather than finance and Rangers, for a day or two. But, with the national team put back in the box until next month, it's back to this obsession with the spivs playing Monopoly with real money around Rangers.

 

I am surprised nobody at Waddington's has come up with a football version of the game, based around Rangers FC. The tokens would be good for a start - you could have a bowler-hatted, suited, sash-wearing "Old Rangers Fan" token; various different types of "spivs" - a camel-coat-wearing "respectable business-man" for instance; there might be a gowned, be-wigged advocate (even Donald Finlay-style "dundreeries"), to represent the law's interest in the club; a club-wielding neanderthal - let's call him "Bomber"; and a figure of a journalist (lap-top in one hand, knife and fork for dealing with the "succulent lamb" in the other) - a "lap-top loyalist"; and, of course, there would also have to be a blazer-wearing administrator and a foreign-looking footballer, standing on a wad of cash to symbolise his EBT; and finally, a grey-haired man in a cardigan.

 

Instead of going to Jail - you might be sent to work on BBC Scotland's Sportsound; free parking would be in a bus inside a penalty area; rather than Community Chest - how about HMRC as a source of fresh funds.

 

You could purchase blocks of seats, put up sponsors'boxes, buy newspaper columns. Yep, I think Rangers Monopoly might be a goer.

 

 

 

I SEE the St Mirren director behind the (yawn, yawn) fans' buy-out has resigned from the board. In real terms, St Mirren is probably as good a Scottish club as any for someone to buy. Except, nobody in their right mind would buy a Scottish football club.

 

We really need to go down the road of fans-owned clubs. When the game began, back in the 1970s, it was by and large the players who owned and ran the clubs; then, around the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, it made more sense to go down the road of limited companies, shares and money-making.

 

I think that business model has run its course and we should get back to community clubs, which, if they  have to be limited companies, ought maybe to be run on a "not for profit" basis.

 

The most-successful fans-owned club in the whole wide world of sport is the American Football franchise, the Green Bay Packers. This club is owned by the people of Green Bay. You buy a share, it entitles you to turn-up once a year and have your say at the annual meeting; that share has no value, it cannot be traded like normal shares. You might, if you're lucky and have bright ideas, get to have a little influence, but, the club is run by its CEO, who is answerable to the fans, who own the team and let him get on with running it.

 

I once read a lengthy Sports Illustrated piece on how Green Bay works. British company law means the American model cannot be immediately transplanted to British, even Scottish Football - however, with a wee bit of tweaking, the Green Bay model could work in Scotland.

 

But, I cannot see another fans-owned model which could be adapted to Scottish football - even though,fan ownership is, to me, the way ahead.

 

 

 

MY DISDAIN for my English football-writing colleagues is well-known. They are even more myopic cheer leaders for their national side than the SFWA's "Fans With Typewriters" at their worst.

 

So, a tip of the cap to the Mail's Jeff Powell for his post-Wembley piece this morning, acknowledging just how poor England were in beating Scotland in midweek. A helathy dose of reality - let's hope it spreads.

 

Speaking of reality, forget all the pats on the back we have given our team and our fans for Wednesday night. We still lost two dreadful set-piece goals to a limited side. I fear what Belgium might do to us. We've still got a long way to go and losing an old-fashioned British cup-tie by a single goal is a different matter from facing a technically-proficient European side.

 

Leaving aside out loss in Belgium earlier in this qualifying campaign, in five complete qualifying campaigns against the Belgians, for the 1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988 European Championships and the 2002 World Cup, our record reads: played 10, won 2, drawn 2, lost 6, goals for 10, goals against 21.

 

Those two wins came, firstly, at Pittodrie in 1971: Tommy Docherty's second game in charge. The Scotland team was: Bobby Clark; Sandy Jardine and Davie Hay; Billy Bremner, Pat Stanton and Martin Buchan; Jimmy Johnstone, Alex Cropley, John O'Hare, Stevie Murray and Eddie Gray; oh, and a youngster named Kenny Dalglish came off the bench for his first cap in the second half in a 1-0 win.

 

The second win came in 1987 at Hampden; our team, which won 2-0 was: Jim Leighton; Stevie Clarke and Maurice Malpas; Roy Aitken, Gary Gillespie, Alex McLeish; Ian Durrant, Paul McStay, Ally McCoist, Mo Johnston and Ian Wilson, with Derek Whyte and Graeme Sharp coming off the bench in the second half.

Earlier this week we failed to beat the 14th best team in the world, next up is Belgium, the tenth-best team, and one much better technically than England. I don't see us winning, even with home advantage.

As the Under-21 result demonstrated, WGS is building bricks without straw. The SFA's blazers want us to be back playing against England regularly. This is all bread and circuses and means, they can again get away with doing nothing to address our decline.