Ten years since the bank forced David Murray to step down

Made a fortune from us, having paid peanuts to gain the holding company of our club, ploughed other people's money into the club and spent their money with complete abandon, and then scurried off to save his own miserable neck, selling us, the fans, down the river and into the hands of other c*nts like Whyte, Green, Ahmed, Stockbridge, Cashley etc. at the same time.

I'm not one for re-writing history (unlike the bheasts across the city), but if I could, I would obliterate this bastard's name from our history.
 
Arminius said:
Made a fortune from us, having paid peanuts to gain the holding company of our club, ploughed other people's money into the club and spent their money with complete abandon, and then scurried off to save his own miserable neck, selling us, the fans, down the river and into the hands of other c*nts like Whyte, Green, Ahmed, Stockbridge, Cashley etc. at the same time.

I'm not one for re-writing history (unlike the bheasts across the city), but if I could, I would obliterate this bastard's name from our history.
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The very same fùcking scumbag who congratulated people for spitting at, attacking and describing guys like me as 19th Century Terrorist bastards.

I just wish more of us had seen through him.
 
The bank knew he'd lost the ability to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. He just lost the plot completely. Dragging us into his meltdown must be the single most stupid thing he has ever done.
 
ChiefWahoo said:
The very same fùcking scumbag who congratulated people for spitting at, attacking and describing guys like me as 19th Century Terrorist bastards.

I just wish more of us had seen through him.
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I openly admit that I was the same as most, who really weren't looking too closely at finances whilst we were dominated on the pitch.

It was well into the Advocaat era before I really started to become much more interested in what Minty was about.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see his entire tenure in a much truer light. I genuinely wish that Souness had never introduced the bastard to David Holmes (who is a real Rangers man and deserving of all the praise that ever comes his way)
 
Arminius said:
I openly admit that I was the same as most, who really weren't looking too closely at finances whilst we were dominated on the pitch.

It was well into the Advocaat era before I really started to become much more interested in what Minty was about.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see his entire tenure in a much truer light. I genuinely wish that Souness had never introduced the bastard to David Holmes (who is a real Rangers man and deserving of all the praise that ever comes his way)
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I'm the same as you.It was only after a couple of years of Advocaat being in charge I really began to wonder how we were affording the players.
Its easy looking back now and questioning the signing policy but if most of us were honest we were loving lording it over the tims.
 
Arminius said:
I openly admit that I was the same as most, who really weren't looking too closely at finances whilst we were dominated on the pitch.

It was well into the Advocaat era before I really started to become much more interested in what Minty was about.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I see his entire tenure in a much truer light. I genuinely wish that Souness had never introduced the bastard to David Holmes (who is a real Rangers man and deserving of all the praise that ever comes his way)
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A guy who claimed he was 'duped' by Whyte, yet was an absolute master of the tactic himself.

It's hard to blame the fans of those days. Aside from that day outside Ibrox, I was asked politely to leave one pub and actually chased from another. I don't know how many times I almost came to blows in the stands for my opinions on him.

Murray had so many hoodwinked with his spin and having a winning team is ultimately what counts to most.
The financial side didn't really concern many, nor the contracts for his own companies.

Happy to see Rangers fans attacked in the street if they dared speak up against him.
He's lower than the googly eyed snake who followed him.
 
tony_gunk said:
The board implored him not to sell to whyte, they warned him he was full of piss and wind.

But he sold to him anyway. Then he lied afterwards about "being duped".

How can you be duped if you were well warned?

Lying cu.nt.
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Murray and Whyte had known each other for years.
 
Did Murray truly have a choice in selling to Whyte or did the bank force him to?

I know he infamously claimed he was "duped", but that implies that he had some choice in the matter. Is that just a face saving exercise?
 
A lying thieving bastard.

I won't say much else as my hatred and dis trust if him is well known from previous guises of this forum.

Pointless saying we told you so, it can never ever happen again. Never ever trust a board or chairman
 
Murray gambled on us making into a European league, or at the very least regular participants on the latter stages of the champions League. It didn't happen so he underwrote the share issue that out us back in an even keel. He lost control of his property business, which was over leveraged in 2008. The potential ebt liability poisoned the forced sale of the club by the bank and the floating charge made it an opportunity.

Murray was guilty of being too ambitious, reckless even. I don't think for a second he's happy about what happened though.
 
I’m certain the bank’s man on the board (cannae mind his name- don’t take me back to the bad place) insisted the club be sold to Whyte as he would create the ‘get out avenue’ so Lloyds didn’t incur further losses (the potential HMRC bill) over and above the eye watering level of hbos bad debt in Murray’s name. Did Murray know what Whyte would do- absolutely, a common approach for business owners looking to avoid and disassociate themselves from a potential disastrous level of debt.
Did Lloyds need to do this - no, the clubs debt was being managed down in line with the banks agreement, but Lloyds got stung after the hbos takeover due to previously unknown bad debts surfacing and part of that was Murray’s.
We suffered as a result of Lloyds being pissed off with hbos.
 
Theportyunionjack said:
Murray gambled on us making into a European league, or at the very least regular participants on the latter stages of the champions League. It didn't happen so he underwrote the share issue that out us back in an even keel. He lost control of his property business, which was over leveraged in 2008. The potential ebt liability poisoned the forced sale of the club by the bank and the floating charge made it an opportunity.

Murray was guilty of being too ambitious, reckless even. I don't think for a second he's happy about what happened though.
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He underwrote the share issue with the banks money. Like paying the mortgage by credit card.
 
Theportyunionjack said:
Murray gambled on us making into a European league, or at the very least regular participants on the latter stages of the champions League. It didn't happen so he underwrote the share issue that out us back in an even keel. He lost control of his property business, which was over leveraged in 2008. The potential ebt liability poisoned the forced sale of the club by the bank and the floating charge made it an opportunity.

Murray was guilty of being too ambitious, reckless even. I don't think for a second he's happy about what happened though.
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Wasnt there someone on the board (the name hugh adam rings a bell but could be wrong) who used to pipe up against murrays reckless spending of the banks money?
 
Arminius said:
Made a fortune from us, having paid peanuts to gain the holding company of our club, ploughed other people's money into the club and spent their money with complete abandon, and then scurried off to save his own miserable neck, selling us, the fans, down the river and into the hands of other c*nts like Whyte, Green, Ahmed, Stockbridge, Cashley etc. at the same time.

I'm not one for re-writing history (unlike the bheasts across the city), but if I could, I would obliterate this bastard's name from our history.
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The biggest irony is his Knighthood is for services to Scottish business and nothing to do with Rangers,you couldn't make it up and yyet he was duped. If anything it's the supporters that were duped. When he was signing players for 12million the alarm should've been ringing then.
 
Drum said:
The bank knew he'd lost the ability to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. He just lost the plot completely. Dragging us into his meltdown must be the single most stupid thing he has ever done.
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Actually, I’d argue it saved his business far from being stupid. Having us as the sacrificial lamb for people with vested interests allowed him to do a deal, get rid of the tax headache and coming out the other side with a cleaner better business.
 
vinnie said:
I guess we’ll never know but I doubt if someone else would spent like he did
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The start of (I've edited this to more accurately state the groundwork for) our 9IAR and the transformation of our fortunes was done by David Holmes board, before Murray was even mentioned.

The signing of Souness by that board, and the influx of top English Premier League players keen to circumvent the European ban on English clubs after Heysel, was the main driver behind the huge upturn in our fortunes. Murray then came in and hoovered up all the credit for those achievements, and also hoovered up credit, full stop.

I'm sure I remember reading that after allowing for funds taken out of the club by Murray, his personal net input to the club's finances was zero.
 
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vinnie said:
Would we have achieved 9IAR and the verge of a European Cup final without his ownership?
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Nothing Murray did led to us winning any of those nine titles - we were one of Britains biggest and richest clubs when he took over, with a team full of top quality players. Our main challenge came often from Aberdeen or Motherwell!

As for Europe, there is an argument we should have done consistently better on that stage
 
It was entirely foreseeable.

Those who were on FF 10 plus years ago will recall that I predicted that his foray into commercial property would end in disaster just as it had for many other 'entrepreneurs'.

The reality is that Murray was never a business man. Murray was addicted to the 'deal'. When you looked at the financials of his company, they were never that strong. Murray's success was built on doing deals and screwing people. As such, he was always just one deal away from disaster.

Not personal disaster of course. He very effectively ring fenced his own wealth from that of his companies.
 
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