There's No Such Thing As Bad Publicity - Unless You're Rangers

JOCK Stein, when managing Celtic, used tp delight in getting "spoilers" into the Scottish papers, whenever Rangers were set to claim the back page splash with a new signing of some other big announcement. I cannot help wondering what the Big Man would do, were he in-charge at Kerrydale Street today.

 

Would he bother even trying to compete with the tsunami of bad publicity which, in spite of the best efforts of my friends in that antedeluvian ludge - Lap Top Loyal, continues to break over Ibrox? Or would he refuse to believe there is no such thing as bad publicity and keep competing?

 

Take today for instance, which began with suggestions. or should I more-properly say further suggestions, that Rangers International Football Club Limited is a real basket case, and ended with the in no way surprising discovery that the long-anticipated EGM of the club will, after all, be held at Ibrox - since yet another London Hotel has pulled out of hosting this event.

 

What was it Oscar Wilde or one of his circle said about the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about - that strikes a chord with events round this benighted institution.

 

What strikes me as strange about this whole, long-running saga, is the apparent disinclination of the SFA to get involved, to perhaps call-in the directors and tell them bluntly: "Put your house in order or we will have to do something about it".

 

Just what they could do is another matter.

 

I said, way back, when liquidation of real Rangers occured, the Tribute Act which Charles Green formed, was very lucky to only be demoted to the Scottish Second Division. For my money, they should have been asked to start from the Second Divison of the juniors' Stagecoach West of Scotland's Central League.

 

Maybe, if they had been made to do this, a wee bit of financial reality might have set-in, a wee bit of responsibility might have been shown and a dignified return to the big time might, in time, have been managed.

 

It is often said: those who fail to learn from their mistakes are bound to keep repeating them. The old Rangers, in the last days of the Murray regime, when the rot set in, lived way beyond their means.

 

The new Green club made the same mistakes, and now, umpteen Chairmen and Chief Executives later, they are still living beyond their means and making the same old mistakes.

 

Still, it keeps us journalists writing - even is many in the msm are not writing the correct stories, for fear, perhaps, of upsetting Ra Bers!!

 

 

 

AS I have admitted in the past on these pages, I spent a most-enjoyable fewyears, back when I was in full-time journalism, working for the Paisley Daily Express and covering St Mirren on a weekly basis.

 

I have, therefore, a big soft spot for the Buddies and in particular for the long-suffering ones who used to occupy the old North Bank at Love Street. I know many of these Buddies would like nothing more than to see the currently unemployed Paul Lambert installed in the managerial vacancy at the club, which Gary Teale is currently keeping warm.

 

Lambert would be a good and popular choice as Saints boss, but, I fear, he might now be a little too-expensive for the current Paisley board. "The Fat Controller". as Chairman Stewart Gilmour is lovingly known in Paisley, doesn't like to pay big bucks, Paul has been earning these for a few years now - so, great though I think PL would be for the club, I don't see it happening. More's the pity.

 

I have long seen Billy Stark as a far-better Number Two than a Number One - a Lambert-Stark Saints Dream Team. Now, that's a tantalising prospect.

 

 

On This, And On This Alone - I Am With Jim Murphy

TODAY'S post will call for a conscious effort; I have decided there has to be more to Scottish football than the on-going travails of the RTA, as the Edmiston Drive soap opera rolls endlessly on.

 

Time to look at the other side of the city and in particular at one of the tribal elders of the Celtic Family. Step forward the Right Honourable James Murphy MP, the self-styled People's Party's leader in Scotland.

 

Just a thought here, does Jim ever, at meetings of the great and good of Labour's Scottish branch office, ever utter the timeless words: "We are the People"?

 

Any way, whilst some of my Independence-leaning friends have been at great pains to point-out, most of the policy pronouncements the bold Jim has made of late concern affairts devolved to the Scottish Government, and have little or no relevance to the on-going General Election campaign, the fact is: right now, if James was to call a news conference to announce: "Today is Monday", BBC Scotland would lead their evening news with this and it would be the front-page splash in tomorrow's Daily Retard.

 

Jim, who professes to be a non-drinker, has been mounting a so-far unsuccessful campaign to make it possible for football fans to, as happens with rugby fans, be able to enjoy a wee swally while watching their favoured sport.

 

He has, somewhat stupidly I think, tried to turn this into class war - but, rank hyporcary and an inability to see when you are making yourself look stupid is, apparently, a necessary failing if you wish to reach the upper rungs of the political ladder.

 

We will treat his suggestion with the contempt it deserves, so, let's look at the issue.

 

Back in the day, when Glasgow Warriors were Partick Thistle's tenants at Firhill, I would occasionally put on my rugby reporter's hat for a Friday night Celtic League game, then, 16-hours after the final whistle, roll-up there again, wearing my football reporter's bunnet, for a Thistle game - to find some of the same guys sitting in the same seats in front of the press box in the Jackie Husband Stand.

 

These gentlemen, who were wonderful company by the way, would often wonder why they were considered fit to handle a beer or two, or in a couple of cases, a couple of small bottles of a cheeky Merlot or Shiraz, on a Friday night - but, were incapable of handing the same amount of drink on a Saturday afternoon.

 

It made no sense then, it still makes no sense. The fact is, you get drunken erse-holes at rugby matches, just as you do at football. I know labourers and factory workers who are a pain in the erse with drink in them - I also know accuntants and lawyers with the same failing. Over-indulging in booze and misbehaving is not simply a working class problem.

 

OK, football does have the added-on problem of the Old Firm, or, for the members of the Celtic Family who insist the Old Firm is no more - the Bigot Brothers, the two Glasgow-based football teams, some of whose fans are still re-fighting the 1689-1690 Anglo-Jacobite wars in Ireland and the subsequent religious differences on that island.

 

Leaving the Bigot Brothers our of it, why shouldn't the football clubs, as the rugby clubs do, have the right to make some money out of the sale of alcohol inside grounds on match days.

 

The professional rugby clubs work hard on: "the Match-Day Experience", with frans zones, pre and post-match entertainment. They want the fans to enjoy their day out, and the match, but, while doing so, they want them to spend money.

 

The amateur rugby clubs would be lost without their pre and post-match bar income. By and large, Scottish football doesn't have this add-on. I am fortunate in that, the football club I follow, Kilmarnock, does have the Sports Bar under the Rugby Park main stand, plus the adjacent Park Hotel. These two venues provide an additional revenue stream on match days. Some of the smaller clubs, such as Annan Athletic and Queen of the South have licenced clubs inside the ground, providing revenue streams, many do not.

 

The winner from this is the commercial hospitality industry, the pubs and hotels close to grounds. It is to them that the fans go pre and post-match. Just ask yourself: how much better-off might Scottish football be if the pre and post-match drinking could be done inside the ground, with the profits going to the clubs?

 

It's a no-brainer. Of course, Scotland does have, historically, a bad relationship with drink, however, all the recent reports show, we are getting (slowly) better. There may well be a wee gene somewhere in our Celtic DNA which makes us ptentiatlly unhinged after a certain amount of drink has been taken, but, this ought not handicap football.

 

It will be a risk; the ranks of the unco guid will not like it, but, I think Scottish football is now mature enough to handle drink, so,why not give it a try. 

 

Therefore, I welcome Murphy's efforts, however, can I point out to him - this is a devolved matter,  maybe better you stick to Labour's policies on non-devolved matters, assuming you have policies.

The Edmiston Drive Car Crash Continues to Fascinate

Try as I might, and I do try - honest. I am currently unable to contemplate the wider issues in Scottish football. I keep getting drawn back to gazing in awestruck wonder at the on-going soap opera "Edmiston Drive".

 

I mean, the poor old BBC are in grave danger of being dragged before the television watchdogs - for airing Sunday's Scottish Cup tie at Ibrox before the 9pm watershed. This was sheer,unadulterated mental torture for Ra Peepul. And that's before the gratuitous violence of most of Lee McCulloch's tackles.

 

I appreciate the long-standing convention whereby the Rangers captain is pretty-much allowed to kick who he likes, when he likes, during a game in Scotland, but, Mr McCulloch, who leads the Rangers Tribute Act, has in recent weeks taken more than the permitted level of latitude in his observance of this convention.

 

Had he been a rugby player, he would surely have been cited for his stamp on that Celtic player, but, to repeat the act, with a Rovers players, in his very next outing, well, that's just rubbing-in his: "Ha ha, ye canny touch me" approach.

 

Are we currently without a citing overlord since Cousin Vinny quit?

 

In the interests of research, I had a look at one or two pro-Rangers websites this week. Apparently the five loanees from Newcastle are being sold to the Bears as - young players in development. Fair enough, you just wish, back when the RTA started off in Division Two, they had decided to develop a few more young Scottish players.

 

That's maybe a bit unfair - they did develop Lewis McLeod for Brentford and Charlie Telfer for Dundee United, two clubs who don't come anywhere near the stature the RTA is trying to claim for itself and the 1872-2009 Rangers actually could claim for itself. I use the 2009 date advisedly, the old club was already on the downward slope to liquidation then.

 

I see the EGM will not now be held in London. That's a pity, had the money men in the City, who are hoping to make a killing out of the Rangers brand seen, up-close and personal, just what a large section of their support looks like when angry, they just might have panicked and sold their cheaply-acquired shares for something less than they will hope to make when they do eventually part with them.

 

The King over the water is making noises to the effect that he will win. Ah hae ma doots, and, in any case, I would not trust him as far as I could throw him.

 

As I've said before, during this long, drawn-out saga: oh to be a Glasgow lawyer with an interest in this case. What an on-going pension scheme.

 

 

 

MEANWHILE the last eight of the Scottish Cup is now known. For all these claims that Wee Peter runs the SFA, they are not doing Celtic any favours as regards a possible Treble. Dundee United away, that's a toughie, even with Armstrong and Mackay-Steven taken out of the equation.

 

It takes a really good team to win a Treble, and the current Celtic squad is not a really good team. Should they win the domestic Treble, it will still be a fine achievement, but, such an eventuality will, perhaps, owe more to the lack of a genuine challenge, than on-field excellence.

 

A north Edinburgh Derby between Hibs and Spartans is one possible tie to savour, but, for me, if the winners of the Tannadice tie are not to go on and win the thing, might the Sun be seeking to tweak its SuperCally headline?

 

Just saying!!

 

 

 

 

Who's The Mad Hatter And Who's Tweedledum And Tweedledee?

WITH each passing week, events around the Rangers Tribute Act and the on-going soap opera "Edmiston Drive" become more and more akin to a post-modern take on Alice In Wonderland. This week has been no different.

First of all we had the last-minute, just as the transfer window was slammed shut, loan deal which took five Newcastle United fringe players to the RTA on-loan. Now, we have Kenny McDowall's admission, he has been telt: "Play these guys".

If these inter-related events do not demonstrate Mike Ashley is driving a coach and four through football's double-influence rules, then I am surely qualified to be the third brass monkey in the SFA board room.

I have been taking a lot of flak from some others in the soccer scribblers society, for my belief that Ashley fully intends showing-up football's rule that no person may exercise influence over two different clubs for the toothless rule it is.

As I have said before, if push comes to shove and Ashley sues the football authorities for "restraint of trade", I am sure he will win his case and walk away with a nice settlement for his trouble.

Remember, even the might of FIFA could not withstand Jean Marc Bosman's challenge. I fear the game will lose again, if Ashley pushes.

This of course, is all some way down the road, and such a challenge may never happen, but, of immediate concern is what effect bringing in half a new team at this juncture in the season will have on morale at Murray Park and on match-days.

Let's be honest, of the current Rangers squad, only Lee Wallace can, by the standards of the 1872-2012 club, be considered: "Rangers Class". Keeping him in the team leaves Kenny McDowall, or whoever is coaching the team with a problem, which of the reamining nine outfield diddies do I drop to bring in the new guys?

We have to assume these guys will be at least good enough for the Scottish Championship. Quite plainly, some of the guys whom they will replace are not cutting the mustard at that level. So, replacing them should strengthen the RTA team.

However, given some of them were taken to Tyneside as long-term "project" players, there is the feeling they are being sent north to develop. Which begs the question, had the RTA, right at the start when they took their place in the Second Division, done the sensible thing and tried to work their way back to the top with a young, developing team, might not they be in a better position today?

Ach! Look at it from a football-writer's perspective. If we hadn't had the RTA to keep us occupied these years, we'd have died of boredom.

THE shenanigans around the Toon Five is not, however, THE interesting development around Scotland's chaos club. The King over the Water is now making increasingly loud and confident noises, to the effect that he will soon - unless the SFA grows a pair - be the King of Edmiston Drive.

Apparently, he had my dear friends in the Lap Top Loyal eating out of his hand earlier this week. No succulent lamb, however. In fact, it looked to me to be re-heated mince.

One hopes Wee Peter has been got on-side, before things get nasty.

The fact is, while King might have the Three Bears and the other 49,997 Berrs behind him en bloc (and I doubt this), right now, with security over Murray Park, the rights to sell the replica strips etc, outstanding loans in place and so-on, Mike Ashley rather has the RTA by the short and curlies.

To date, the King has shown a marked reluctance to nget out his cheque book, I suspect he is going to have to to get rid of Ashley, otherwise, nothing will change.

Then, and while it would not surprise me in the least if the Hampden blazers didn't use their "discretionary powers" get-out clause to get him in, the fact is - there is no way both King and Paul Murray can pass any rigorously-enforced SFA "fit and proper person" test.

This one will run and run.



LET us not forget the other cheek of Scottish football's erse. The cynical and cowardly attack on the ten-year-old boy, on his way to Hampden on Sunday has rightly, been condemned by all right-thinking people.

Sadly, while they will post gleefully on the travails of the RTA till the cows come home, I have not seen much condemnation on this attack from the usual suspects among the bloggerati arm of the Celtic Family.

This attack shames the self-styled "Greatest Fans In The World"; it undermines the Celtic Family's hysterical claims to the moral high ground when it comes to the Old Firm whitabootery.

Such a pity Phil Ma Breeks Up and some of the other Celtic apologists cannot bring themselves to condemn the attack, being too-busy with their: "Let's all laugh at Rangers" agenda.

 

More Scottish Players Has To Be Good For Celtic, And Scotland

WELL, that's the transfer window slammed shut for another seven months - from now until the end of the season, the various clubs will have to serve-up pish with the cocks they have got - if you pardon the phrase.

 

OK, the double transfer of messrs Armstrong and Mackay-Steven, from Tannadice to Celtic Park certainly weakens Dundee United, without necessarily strengthening Celtic: the two new boys now have to fight their way into the top team in the country.

 

If they were race-horses, they would be considered to have moved-up from Group Two to Group One racing. They will need to, in The Times's Simon Barnes's memorable phrase: "train-on" to bridge the gap.

 

However, I welcome the move in this respect; the two players should become key men for Scotland over the next few years. At the moment, their European experience is somewhat limited. Better they grow accustomed to the heavier demands of facing European opponents by regularly playing in Europe for their club, than having to learn on the hoof for Scotland.

 

Their move to Kerrydale Street also increases the number of Scots in the Celtic first-team squad. I long for the day when the leading Scottish clubs go into Europe with squads which are top-heavy with Scottish players. Only then will be have a chance of moving forward internationally.

 

 

 

MEANWHILE, across the city, Mike Ashley has delivered another two-fingered salute to the Hampden power-brokers, by enabling the loan deal which has moved a handful of Newcastle United's fringe players to Ibrox for the rest of the season.

 

I feel kinda like Churchill in the 1930s, a voice crying in the wilderness. The SFA can try all they like to prevent Ashley from running both Newcastle United and Rangers, however, I feel - when push comes to shove, money will talk and if and when the all-too-obvious double football interests of Mr Ashley are tested in court, he will emerge victorious, on the grounds that, to deny him the opportunity to safeguard his financial interests in the two clubs, will be illegal under British and European business law.

 

A clear ruling, to the effect that Ashley can control both clubs will I believe go a long way towards turning the European Football League - which is coming, sooner or later - into an NFL or NBA for this side of the Atlantic.

 

In North America, the mega corporations who run the big NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB clubs, and, increasingly the MLS clubs, all have systems whereby every major league club - New England Patriots in the NFL, the LA Lakers in the NBA, the Boston Bruins in the NHL, the New York Yankees in MLB has various feeder clubs across the land.

 

These clubs are where the newcomers to the league learn to be professionals, pay their dues and are made ready for their entry to "The Show" as each major league is known.

 

In time, we may see Celtic using a team in Dublin, or, more-likely in their Donegal heartland, with perhaps another in Scandinavia, as feeder and preparatory teams, perhaps they even swallow-up Albion Rovers too, aimed at grooming the next players for the Celtic team which plays in the European League. Manchester United, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Juventus etc would also have similar set-ups.

 

It will not happen overanight, but, in time, it will happen. This nap hand of new Rangers signings might just be the first step towards this.

 

That said, I don't see signing a glut of guys who couldn't get a regular game at St James's Park, enabling the Rangers Tribute Act to overhaul Hearts' huge lead in the Championship race. They will also struggle in the play-offs.

 

 

 

 

The RTA Got Off Lightly

HAVING taken a firm decision NOT to get involved in forecasting what might happen at Hampden this afternoon - I always stood by old "Sollie's" (James Sanderson's) dictum: that only a fool would try to predict the outcome of an Old Firm match, I am happy, now it is over - to give my view.

I thought the Rangers Tribute Act got off lightly. Had Celtic won by four or five goals, it would not have been unwarranted. "Rangers", to put it bluntly, showed just why I am among the commentators who consider that,  though they wear the same colours, play out of the same stadium and although their fans continue to sing those loverly old Ulster-Scots folk songs of blessed memory, the team in blue weren't "real Rangers", but, a tribute act.

Celtic played all the football; they were more of a team, better organised, more-skilled, more-committed. It was men against boys.

The RTA has an awfully long way to go to get back to being competitive.

And, welcome though the challenges they face in the Premiership are, a Treble is Celtic's to lose.

I was assured, more than a week before the game, by an old Rangers stalwart, who knew what it took to win Trebles, that the RTA was so poor at the back and so lacking in guile in midfield, there was no way they could win. He was correct.

I am old enough to remember Celtic's wilderness years BS - before Jock Stein returned as manager, 50-years ago next month. The RTA are in the wilderness just now - even further in there than Celtic were back then.

The thing about Stein returning to the club was, every Lisbon Lion except Willie Wallace was already there; the first Celtic team which Stein sent out included six of the men who would be in the tea.m in Lisbon, some 26-months later.

No matter who gets the Ibrox gig in succession to Kenny McDowall, you cannot see six of the current staff being good enough to get the club into the Champion's League, far less as far as the final, inside a 26-month timescale.

We all know the Ibrox club has serious and severe off-field problems. Today's match demonstrated, they are far from healthy on the field as well.

WELL done Dundee United, in beating Aberdeen in the other League Cup semi-final.

I appreciate the Dons have some concerns about decisions not going their way, I can see where they are coming from.

But, no use complaining about the Rooney goal which was chalked-off because the dons' striker pushed his marker before heading home. He clearly did commit the foul - Aberdeen can have no complaint about the foul being punished, except, such fouls are not picked-up often enough, although they occur in every game.

I would love to see such control of the free-for-all shoving matches which take place at every corner kick of set piece into the box being shown in every match.



THE Hampden pitch, quite properly, came in for a lot of criticism after the weekend's two matches, which set me wondering.

We have come a long way in lots of areas of football. Compare today's boots and balls with the heavy Manfield Hotspurs and Thomson T-balls which were still in vogue when I began playing competitively.

Pity the pitches have gone backwards. for instance, I was brought-up to believe Rugby Park had the best surface in Scotland. Tales were told of the magic which the Killie groundstaff worked on the pitch each close season.

I heard of some amazing, but highly-effective, old-school tricks which the ground-staff used. What was never mentioned was, the old Rugby Park, and indeed, so-many pitches of the old days, were located in the middle of wide-open stadiums.

Today's pitches are hemmed-in by high stands. The pitches don't get a chance to dry-out as they once did. Sure, they all have undersoil heating now, but, that aint natural.

Hampden is more-open than most Scottish grounds, but, it isn't as open as it was before it was re-developed. Quite why the Hampden "blazers" couldn't have laid down a proper 4G state-of-the-art pitch is almost beyond me.

I say almost, being Hampden officials, the thought they ought to do that probably never entered their pea-sized brains.