Bitter Together And This Week's Big Threat

WOULD it really have been "Armageddon", had the original Rangers Football Club been allowed to die following the gross mismanagement of the Murray and Whyte years?

 

I ask because the persistent rumours of Administration 2 are growing more-shrill almost by the hour - and this is not good for Rangers Mark 2, or for the greater good of Scottish football.

 

We recall how the High Heid Yins along Hampden's sixth floor corridors of power fought tool and nail to keep the Rangers brand within the game. They came up with some ridiculous notions to try to keep some kind of Rangers team in the SPL, then, they moved the goal posts at will to ensure the reborn club could be absorbed into the Scottish League, and I am convinced, had the body of the Scottish football kirk not rebelled and insisted the new club kicked off in the bottom league - I am sure Rangers would still be in the top flight.

 

I said at the time, when all the deals were being struck in smoke-filled back rooms - the new Rangers, or Sevco, as they were then, ought to have been kept out until the ownership was made transparent and a proper deal, rather than the botched-up fix which Duff and Duffer presided over, was arranged.

 

Scottish football failed in its dury of governance and care in the Rangers case. Sure, we got some kind of necessary change brought-in - we are down from three to two governing bodies - when we ought actually to be down to a single authority running football.

 

We have the Lowland League up and running and, in time, this body will bring the possibility of English-style advancement for ambitious clubs such as Spartans. However, the Juniors still exist in their own parallel universe.

 

All this upheaval because of a tainted brand - it could only happen in Scotland. As a supporter of Independence (well, for all our ability to fight among ourselves, could we really be as bad as Westminster has contrived to be for at least the last 100 of its 307-year history?) I sould find it ironic, if, just before the September referendum which could win us our "freedom", the single institution which most represents Unionism and wraps itself in the Union Flag, were to finally die.

 

Of course, all these persistent rumours, could be just that. Maybe, just maybe, a single "journalist" (his description), with a single lap top, sitting in Donegal, is correct and the massed ranks of the MSM are wrong.

 

But, the longer the uncertainty lasts, the more the rumours run unchecked, the more the identities of the influential share holders are kept private, the more a copnvicted tax dodger tries to destabilise the club for whatever ends, then the greater the danger that this Rangers will, like the long-established last Rangers, fail.

 

A second failure might be no bad thing. It could finally persuade the body politic of Scottish football to face the reality that, we are not as good as we think we are, that our product is flawed and, just maybe, something will finally be done, beyond applying a plaster to a gaping wound.

 

But, don't expect Hampden to do anything positive.