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YOU would honestly think the
clowns at the top of the marble staircase at Rangers' Ibrox Park are
deliberately trying to ruin this once great club, so-poor has been
their decision-making of late. And I do not limit my criticism of the
club's High Heid Yins to the current sad bunch.
I know Graham Spiers, for one,
would love to write a “proddy” version of 'Downfall', I would
too, but, I think getting to the truth of the matter will have to
wait a few years yet, until all the legal issues are resolved and the
actors have calmed down and can reflect honestly.
Nobody comes out of the whole
saga with any credit – from Sir David Murray, via the SFA, SPL and
SFL, through various managers, to poor wee Davie Whyte (was he a
crook or a deluded fall guy?), via Normandy Charlie Green, the saps
at Duff and Phelps, the Three Bears, one or two interim chairmen to
the Glib and Shameless Liar and his cohorts, currently frantically
bailing to try to keep the footballing ship called Dignity afloat.
It's a gie weird affair when
“General” Mike Ashley, arguably the biggest “villain” in
English football, certainly around Tyneside, emerges as one of the
few guys who has acted with any consistency and good faith. Love him
or loath him, Mike has defended his own interests better than anyone
else.
Of course, our wonderful
Scottish fitba media has again been – er, is shite a strong enough
word. The way this lot have covered matters Ibroxian over the past
five years makes dear old Alex Cameron's midnight telephone call to
the Sports Desk, when they told him him that Rangers were going to
sign Mo Johnston - “Don't be ridiculous” was “Chiefy's”
response – look like great journalism.
I said at the start of this
whole sorry affair: there are lawyers set to make a rich killing,
and, if the football powers-that-be had done one of two things:
1, regard Chuck Green's club as
a “successor club” and kept “Rangers” in the top flight;
2, told Green – you're a new
club, start in the Juniors, or the Lowland League, this whole matter
would have been sorted-out lang syne.
There was a third option, which
I personally favoured. This was, Green, or whoever, should have
bought Rangers, and, at the same time, bought Portsmouth, which was
up for sale at a knock-down price, merged the two clubs and the
single club thus former – “Portsmouth Rangers” or whatever,
should have played out of Ibrox, in the English League. Now, I know
setting this up would have been difficult, but, it would not have
been impossible. Mind you, we'd have missed a lot of fun over the
intervening period.
So, “the Magic Hat”, “the
Admirable Warburton”, call him what you will, has gone. Well, the
“stenographers” (tm. Phil Mac Giolla Bhain) will now have a
feeding frenzy as they speculate on who is next up for the Ibrox Bum
of the Season campaign
At least the cannon fodder in
Joe Louis's “Bum of the Month” boxing campaign, knew they only
had to worry about “the Brown Bomber” hitting them – hard.
Whoever succeeds Warburton will have to worry about the forces
marshalled by Brendan Rodgers, Derek McInnes, Ian Cathro and Co
hitting them head on, while the GASL and the stumble-bums in the Blue
Room try to knock their feet from under them.
The new guy, whoever he is, will
have to operate with a squad which has demonstrated it is not fit for
purpose; reinforcements cannot be summoned-up before the close
season, and then, some of the dross will have to shovelled out of the
door, incurring severance costs which close observers of matters
Ibroxian are positive the club cannot afford, before replacements can
be recruited.
And, all the while the Donegal
Diarist will be reminding his thousands of followers: “This is a
club without a line of credit from a bank”; a club relying on loans
from the directors to meet regular monthly commitments and whose
“Glib and Shameless Liar” of a chairman has apparently misplaced
the key to his £50 million “war chest”.
This is comedy gold. It is great
for the sales of popcorn, jelly and ice cream in Croy and other
havens of the members of the Celtic family, but, family doctors and
pharmacists in Larkhall, Kilwinning, Drongan and the other
reservations wherein Ra Bears live will need to stock-up on
tranquilisers and anti-depressants in the months to come.
Both writer Armando Iannucci and
star actor Peter Capaldi from the TV comedy series 'The Thick Of It'
are Glasgow-born Scots-Italians. This would appear to make Celtic
Park their natural football home, if they indeed have any time for
the Beautiful Game. How I would love to see them tackle the whole
Rangers saga, it would be comedy gold – but, could it come close to
the real thing?
Mind you, this being Scotland –
they would have to give this well-known Scottish actor a part.
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