By The Govanhill Gub
I received a letter from Grandmaster Suck recently and enclosed was a sample of a scribble of mine from yesteryear. GS thought it was from around 2001, but given that this was handwritten on A4 paper, and that by 2001, even the Luddite that was me, and still am, had joined the electronic age, it had to be earlier.
Reading through the scribble, and I had mentioned certain contributors and certain articles, I’m pretty sure this latest outburst from yours truly back then can be dated back to 1999. Just call me Howard Carter.
Anyway the brief was, should I choose to accept, a resume of what has happened to our club since then. I’ll try my best not to make you, dear reader fall asleep, because if I were to go through all our trial and tribulations, I’d be giving War and Peace a run for its money.
Given that I didn’t mention the yahoo shame game, I’m thinking this ‘article’ for want of a better word hit the streets in early 99. I’ll touch on it briefly, how the filth were not hammered for that game still beggars belief to this day.
Later on that year, with the addition of Michel Mols in the summer from the July until Mols’ injury in Munich in late Oct/early Nov I witnessed Rangers play the best football I’ve ever seen and make no mistake Mols was the catalyst of it all.
As an aside what is it with our players, I mean important players and severe leg injuries? We can go back to Carl Hansen in the 1920s. Baxter, Butcher, Durrant, although that was no accident, and now Mols, who remains for me, pre injury, the most skilful centre I’ve seen at Ibrox. Not the best goalscorer (your status is still safe Super) but in terms of touch, movement, technique and control, he’s still the daddy.
Eric Caldow and Ally McCoist should be mentioned as their careers were curtailed by leg breaks, but not playing for Rangers. Although to be fair to Eric Caldow he played in a different era when Rangers fans identified with Scotland.
The landscape had changed totally when Ally suffered his leg break 30 years later And if the shift was massive back in 1993, it is a different planet now. Although that is a debate for another day. The query still stands how do many of our important players suffer leg injuries that diminish their careers?
We won the league in a canter and there was the Oranje Cup final, but although we didn’t know it, our troubles were just around the corner. Quite how the implosion came about I’ll never know but implosion it was.
In November 2000 there was yet another indication of the lack of political and sectarian nous by Murray and his lick spittle, Bain, when they allowed NBM into the second OF encounter of the season.
Thereby Cara Henderson was afforded the tunes of an Ibrox three stands full of Rangers fans giving it laldy. The following day’s papers were full of Cara having been subjected to sectarian bile. You have to ask, why did no one at Ibrox have the common sense to ask NBM beforehand why the first game at the scum hut in the August was omitted and only Ibrox deliberately targeted?
At this time I had joined the FF fraternity on the website and there were all sorts of continuous rumours about our finances. Yahooery doing what it does best? Or no smoke without fire? On the park it was obvious Dick Advocaat couldn’t counter O’Neil’s thugs and divers so he eventually made way for Alex McLeish. Not a universal choice I’d have said at the time. The fact remains Alex McLeish gave us a treble and two of the greatest last day title wins of all time.
However, we need to get back to the infrastructure of the club. By 2006, we had a journalist saying Rangers fans deserved being ‘batoned’ by Spanish Police for singing songs but at the same time, we had Murray taking the media to task for a personal insult. Mr Custodian to perfection.
In the same year, we thought we had landed something of a managerial coup in bringing, Frenchman Paul Le Guen to the club. I’ll keep it brief, ‘He came, He saw and was conquered by lower league St Johnstone in the League Cup.’ In reality there was no coming back from that.
So Walter came back and what a job he did in such difficult circumstances. The year 2008 stands out for different reasons. At the start of the year the filth did what they do best, Plumb depths the rest of us could not even imagine,
The exploitation of the tragic death of Phil O’Donnell for the Ne’erday fixture, even by that rancid club’s standards is up there with their best, or lowest depending on your point of view.
Then there was Manchester. What should have been the biggest Klondyke financially in British football history, was a washout. And why? Because Murray had by this time hooked us up to a two bit, third rate mob from Wigan who simply could not possibly cope with the demand.
Walter gave us another wonderful three consecutive league winning seasons and then stepped down. By this time we had a new owner, a certain Craig Whyte and after Murray you thought it cannot possibly get any worse, Chairman wise. Oh boy, we didn’t know what we were in for.
What we also have to remember is that the outgoing chairman had told us that ‘due diligence’ had been done and everything was above board when he sold us for a pound. Due diligence my erchie, Murray wanted out to save his own scrawny neck, his own reputation and other companies. History will show that Murray did far better out of Rangers, than we ever did from him. John Lawrence #2.
And then we get to 2011/12. I’ll be quite honest, 2012 became a personal blur for me both on and off the park. To this day I still don’t know all the ins and outs of the Five way Agreement. Us having to acquire a license to play again. One day I’ll maybe look back at it in a more calm manner.
We were in Alcudia with our two oldest grandchildren when they phoned home. It was the day Man City won the title in ‘Fergie Time’. Anyway on the phone my son informed me a certain Charles Green was now involved in the club. Again, we didn’t know it at the time, but if we thought getting binned down the lower leagues was bad, that was the good bit.
There’s no words I have left to describe scum like Whyte, Green, the two goons from McGills and that wee piece of excrement from Media House and the rest but I think Graham Wallace, a patsy hand picked by this shower said it best after his 120 day review. ”£68m was unaccounted for over the previous 18 months.”
It beggars belief that not one of these rats have been held to account for the biggest financial rape and carve up of a club in football history. And I really don’t want to get into what they did to us with Ashley. I’d be here all night. As for the fact others like Duff and Phelps not only got away with their part in the carve up but look like getting a pay out beggars belief.
But then we had a few good men stepping up to the plate. The Sons of Struth. As we stand on the cusp of a potentially nice next couple of months we should always be indebted to the work these guys did on our behalf. March 6th, 2015, a Red Letter Day for the club and support indeed.
Keeping with good works by fans who have had links with FF. I have to give a special mention to the wonderful work by Le Bluebear (his nom de plume back then) and Dubwiser for their absolutely breath-taking work on the Founders Trail. It is the painstaking work they have done on OUR behalf, that should be savoured.
I would urge all Rangers fans to take that wee step back into the most wonderful, romantic and historic story in football. And I would recommend the raffle! These two guys and their work certainly get my seal of approval.
Then there is the contrast. From the history to the here and now. So big kudos to Davie Edgar, EoL and Hobbes among others for keeping us all up to date with all matters that are relevant today. Keep on keeping on lads.
Back to the football, we saw what we were up against with the 2016 SC final, with the Hibs chairman, who was also an SFA official laughing off the riot by Hibs fans. We then had a spokesman for Police Scotland blaming Rangers fans for their own ineptitude in dealing with the spoon burners.
We had the incompetence of Warburton and Murty, who was simply out of his depth. The signing of Pedro Caxhina though still rankles. An absolute non entity with no pedigree whatsoever brought to the club and I still maintain the three amigos who brought this dud to the club should never be allowed to make executive decisions ever again.
So we’re up to the present day. At time of writing we find ourselves on the park in a nice place. I’m not counting any chickens just yet, but it’s a good position to be in.
But it’s the way the manager has went about his business that pleases me the most. From the shambles of a squad he took over, to where we are just now. History will show that Alex McDonald was one of the shrewdest 50k signings in our history and that was back in 1968. What does that make the 50k spent on Glen Kamara look like in the here and now? Genius, daylight robbery?
It’s also the way he is already planning for next season that should have us all doing the bouncy. And there is no point in me pointing out all the wonderful performances and stints put in this season throughout the squad. That is for another day.
Then there’s the difference in the defence thus far and I hope I’m not a jinx here. Have we rode our luck at times? Of course we have, but then again I think most defences do at times. But the goals against column right now in the league is simply incredible.
The sweetest, most delicious of ironies for me though is this. The man that made Liverpool the force they are now. The man who laid the foundations for their glories from the 1960s onwards was a Rangers man, Bill Shankly.
How ironic that it is now a Liverpudlian who is laying down the building bricks for Rangers future?
Do I think everything at the club is rosy? I don’t. On the park it’s looking promising. But off the park, we are still allowing the filth with laptops to create their own yahoo agenda. The boy from St Johnstone going off with an injury to his right leg but it was Roofe’s fault, even though his tackle on the boy, albeit not the best, was on his left.
The constant hounding of Alfie, yet the powers that be ignoring ninety percent of instances and incidents that Alfie would be called out on. The refusal to call out the likes of Clancy and the rest for their performances. The refusal to call out and highlight the blatant corruption of the Compliance Officer. All these thing could and should be addressed.
I’ve left out most of the financial wrongs that beset us because I don’t know enough about the ins and outs. However, we were stripped to the bone and our eternal thanks must go to the three bears and the others who delivered us from evil.
That’s my quick take on looking back at a scribble from 1999.
Anyway troops, enjoy the next few months.
