YESTERDAY, in the Westminster parliament's House of Commons, the SNP and Plaid Cymru sponsored a debate on the UK's Trident nuclear missiles. Basically, the two nationalist parties want the UK to not replace the current Trident system when, in a year or two, it reaches its natural end and becomes obsolete.
Very few of the honourable members turned-up for the debate, Jim Murphy, the successor to John Reid as Celtic's top MP for instance, was nowhere to be seen. But, when the division bell rang, some 300 hon. members dragged themselves out of the bars and dining rooms to vote down the nationalists' motion. Today, their cushy life will go on as normal.
What's this got to do with Scottish fitba? I hear you ask.
Well, the House of Commons is a British institution, so is Rangers. In Scotland, with nationalism and the SNP on the rise, Westminster has an image problem and is largely unloved.....Rangers anyone?
At Westminster there are MPs in the old-established parties, who, regardless of their differences when it comes to domestic policies, still see Westminster as the Imperial Parliament, the political power-station driving a huge, powerful internationally-significant nation, rather as Ra Peepul still see Rangers, struggling to maintain a place in the top-four in the second flight of Scottish football, as a huge, powerful, internationally-significant football club.
These MPs, and an awful lot of Ra Peepul, are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Many around Westminster would like to think the UK could still send a gunboat to bring chippy "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" and "Towel Heads" to heel; that being British/English still mattered - Aye Right, dream on pal, as they say in Glasgow. The reality is something different.
To turn to Rangers, or the Rangers Tribute Act, as this blog likes to style the club playing out of Ibrox. I think we would be wise to largely ignore the off-field stuff, the jockeying for position between the current stewards of the club and the wannabees, the Three Bears, the King over the water and so forth. Hell, there have long been board-room and influential supporter differences around Ibrox.
Towards the end of Bill Struth's long tenure as Mr Rangers, he had to fight-off efforts to remove him; back then, boardroom squabbles were common, if, thankfully, kept behind closed doors. It is ever thus in football, at every level.
In time, for better or worse, the off-field stuff will sort itself out, but, right now, Rangers' biggest problems are on the field, because, basically, the team is playing shite.
Now, with the manager on gardening leave, his assistant, shoved into a role he never sought and in which he is clearly very unhappy, it is maybe time for the players, those guys who are playing shite, to stand up for themselves.
And, I feel, here at least a return to the old, real Rangers ways, just might work.
Legend has it, and that legend is backed-up by the testimony of former players, managers such as Struth and his successor, Scot Symon, were rarely seen by the players. They certainly were never seen, track-suited, on the training park, although, they oversaw and supervised from afar.
The players really ran things. How it was done was passed down, with the experienced men guiding the youngsters, who, in turn became members of the ruling elite who organised things.
The Rangers way was almost Old Testament in how it worked -Meiklejohn, Morton and Archibald begat Simpson, Gray and George Brown, who begat Shaw, Woodburn, Young and Waddell, who begat Caldow, Greig and McKinnon, who begat Greig and Jardine.
Then, things changed. The manager got into a track suit, the players became dispensible. Maybe, in this time of crisis it is time to go back to real Rangers ways.
By that, I do not mean 11 Scottish or Ulster Protestants playing every week; these days are past etc. No, maybe the answer to the club's on-field problems is in the players taking responsibility.
To my mind Lee McCulloch is not as good a player as some of those named above. But, I feel he is, like Greig for instance, a genuine Rangers man, who by his love of the club and loyalty to it, overcomes his playing deficiencies.
He is also Player-coach, and, as such, he has some clout. Now is the time for McCulloch to gather around him a small group of fellow players, who are real Rangers men, who have been over the course and who must insist on reinstalling Rangers values within the dressing room.
Kenny Miller, Kris Boyd, even Nicky Law - it is time you stood-up to be counted.
It looks as if Kenny McDowall will continue to oversee training and will, until the off-field kerfuffle is sorted-out will be de facto manager. It is quite clear, "Koj" isn't happy dealing with the media duties of management.
Fair enough, he could hand media duties to someone like Boydie, who clearly enjoys doing it. I appreciate, times were different, but, Messrs Struth and Symon were never media darlings.
Difficult times, call for difficult decisions. Why not involve the senior players more, let them take the lead tactically, as they once did when Rangers were real Rangers?
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