Remember the card game Top Trumps?  The card game of various themes with the aim being to compare values in order to try and win your opponent's card ("trump" them).  Never ones to miss a trick, the powers that be over at CarParkhead have commissioned Waddingtons, the famous card and board game publisher to produce a Celtic version of the game.  Every Other Saturday has managed to get a sneak peak at the designs.  It appears someone at Waddingtons may be of the blue persuasion and hasn't taken too kindly to being told to make the mhanky mobs cards:

Read the rest...

This article is the work of Bouncy over at the most excellent Vanguard Bears website.  It has been reproduced with his permission in order to ensure that as many people as possible read this and are put right with regards to what David Murray has done to our club.


I'm sure when David Murray entered into Rangers FC on the 23rd of November 1988 as, in his words, “custodian of the club” we all thought he would lead us into an even bigger era, which was already being defined by Lawrence Marlborough and David Holmes, and he did, at first.

The latter two brought in Graeme Souness as player manager from Sampdoria in April 1986 for £300,000. From that time on Rangers were to become the club we always should be under his stewardship.

We won the league in season 1986/1987, for the first time since 1977/1978, along with the league cup, thanks to signings such as Terry Butcher, Chris Woods, and both England internationals. The 'Rangers Revolution' or the 'Souness Revolution' had begun, all thanks to the forward thinking of Lawrence Marlborough but mainly David Holmes.

Back to 1988 and after a failed bid to buy the team he 'supported' as a boy, Ayr Utd, David Murray buys Rangers FC, for a bargain £6 million.  What he was buying was an institution, a club already on the up, a club back where it belonged, at the top of the Scottish game.



During the first ten years we saw unprecedented success and spending.  Rangers put a third tier on the main stand and increased the capacity by 7,300.  We were buying the likes of Basile Boli, Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne, Alexi Mikhailichenko, Oleg Kuznetsov (but for injury surely would have been a great), Trevor Steven, Mark Hateley and Jorg Albertz to name but a few.

We were the biggest club in Britain, on and off the field.

We got to nine in a row, easily it has to be said, they were hardly challenging were they, and the only real challenge came from Aberdeen, ONCE, when Hateley scored 2 goals, on the final day, to win the league for us in 1990/1991.  Ten in a row was not to be, although in my opinion if we had kept Paul Gascoigne we would have won the league that year, instead we sold him in March 1998. That decision, whoever made it, was the catalyst 'they' needed to make a comeback.

In April 1998 ENIC, formerly the English National Investment Company, 49% of which is owned by billionaire Joe Lewis, bought a 20.2% stake in Rangers FC for £18.9 million.  Good times would keep on coming it would seem, maybe they knew who was coming in as manager, and maybe they saw it as a way of making some money when they eventually sold the shares at some point in the future, who knows.

The end of the 1997/1998 season saw Dick Advocaat come in as manager and money go out the door at alarming rates.

1. Andrei Kanchelskis (£5.5 million – Fiorentina)
2. Giovanni van Bronckhorst (£5 million – Feyenoord)
3. Artur Numan (£4.5 million – PSV)
4. Gabriel Amato (£4.2 million – Mallorca)
5. Colin Hendry (£4 million – Blackburn)
6. Stephane Guivarc'h (£3.5 million - Newcastle)
7. Daniel Prodan (£2.2 million – Atletico Madrid)
8. Neil McCann (£2 million – Hearts)
9. Claudio Reyna (£2 million - Wolfsburg)
10. Lionel Charbonnier (£1.2 million – Auxerre)
11. Stefan Klos (£750,000 – Dortmund)
12. Lee Feeney (£100,000 – Linfield)

TOTAL SPENT = £34,950,000

£35 million spent and only £6.75 million received during ONE season alone with a £29 million deficit.



At the end of Advocaat's first season and during a party in the Edmiston suite after winning the Scottish Cup and hence the treble, a video was banded around all the Scottish mhedia with Vice Chairman Donald Findlay singing The Billy Boys.

Fair enough he was caught singing what he shouldn't have been singing but the mhedia witch hunt that continued until he 'resigned' on Monday June 31st 1999 was beyond belief, Murray never said much and it was actually left to an ex Celtic director to stand up for Findlay.

On Tuesday 17th August 1999 Michael Kelly an ex Celtic Director stood up for Findlay:-

"I know Donald and he's not a bigot," Mr Kelly told the Celtic magazine, Celtic View.  Mr Kelly added: "The story was that if you sing a sectarian song you are a bigot.   "I defend Donald - just because you sing a sectarian song does not mean you are a bigot.”

Also in an interview on the BBC website on Wednesday 18th August 1999 Glasgow University's Dr Bert Moorhouse, an expert on the subject of sectarianism.   He said: "Whether the teams like it or not these traditional songs are part of the history of the club.  "They don't, however, reflect the reality of living in Scotland where society is not divided on religious grounds.  "Catholics and Protestants work together, live together, are even married to one another without it being an issue.  "Yet these are the same people who sing these terrace songs."

Murray should have been stronger, I say stronger, he never uttered a word did he, in defending HIS vice chairman from the mhedia hordes and MOPE backlash that happened. More backbone was required from Murray over this; unfortunately he had shown nothing more than disdain to a man who truly loved Rangers FC and all it stood for.

Funny thing is a few years later the name Findlay would pop up being linked with sectarianism, this time though, Jeannette had no mhedia witch hunt to contend with and she stayed in her job, both at Glasgow University and as Secretary of the CSC, how very odd!!



To offset some of the transfers of the previous three seasons, £54.8 million, and bank borrowings, £48 million, Rangers announced a share issue to try and raise £53 million of investment.  Life long Rangers fan Dave King was to invest £20 million of his own money, through Ben Nevis holdings and David Murray's, Murray Sports, were to invest another £12.3 million taking the total to £32.3 million, just where would we get the rest of the money as you could not buy Rangers shares in the stock market because they were not available at that time??

The fact is I cannot remember a share issue being available to the fans at this time, maybe it’s just my memory giving up, maybe this share issue eluded all fans at this time or maybe it was more smoke and mirrors released by the house of Murray!!

One thing is for sure Dave King did put £20 million into Rangers FC, was it stupidity or was he up to something else?? In 2004 King was arrested in South Africa and his passports removed from him, for tax evasion, £167 million worth of taxes were being claimed by the SARS (South African Revenue Service). At the time of writing this article, 1st April 2009, this court case is still going on in South Africa.



The 4th of July 2001 saw the opening of Murray Park at a cost of £14 million, combine this with the transfer fees (Since Dick Advocaat became manager) it adds up to a tidy £84.7 million going out (Well if you discount the £250,000 help from the lottery funding towards the building of MP then it's £84.45 million).

The income from the BBC, who had TV rights at the time (£16 million over 2 years), STV had the highlights package, season ticket sales, and European night’s income, also any packages sold with catering etc!! Then surely we had nothing to fear, we had the ENIC money, the share issue money and Dave King's money it's all good is it not??

The start of season 2001/2002 was the start of the decline of the house of Mint.  We saw the likes of Gio leave for Arsenal, Albertz left for HSV, Reyna went to Sunderland and a host of others were released or given free transfers. Was something wrong at Ibrox?? You bet your backside there was.



In July 2002 John McClelland was announced as Rangers chairman (You know, the one where you can actually just be positioned there like a puppet) and Murray moved 'over' to become honorary chairman.  Here comes the part of Murray's reign which disgusts me most. After installing McClelland as chairman we announce a debt of £62 million and rising, eventually this would reach a peak of almost £74 million.

Murray, who took all the glory for fifteen years, had found a fall guy to take the flak; he knew what was coming and let someone else take the fall for it, which in my eyes, is unforgivable and unbecoming of any 'custodian' no matter who they are.  Just to give our chairmanship away as if it was some prize to be won is unacceptable and shows the regard he has for our club and John McClelland as a man.



Added to this the capitulation over the 'tangerine' away top, in which the mhedia and particularly the MOPES complained that it was 'sectarian', no you read right, it was, in their eyes 'sectarian'.

In fact here's what the one sided NBM had to say about it "This is a step in the right direction. The orange strip has been seen by many as contradictory of the good work done by Rangers in recent times against sectarianism."

You just could not make this up, yet Murray and all inside Ibrox decided that they were right and the 300,000 Rangers fans who bought the strip were all wrong, and therefore sectarian.  Because of the outcry it was removed from production by the end of the 2002/2003 season without as much as a whimper.



Well here we go; the next few seasons would see us scrape the barrel in terms of signings and the smoke and mirrors routine would be brought out all too often.

Nuno Capucho, you must remember him, was our ‘big’ summer signing at £670,000 from European Cup winners FC Porto. Gavin Rae came next from Dundee for £250,000 and the striking ‘sensation’ Bajram Fetai for £200,000 from B93, I suppose we did sign Frank de Boer but the rest were all rather poor (Ostenstad anyone) considering who we were.

Balancing the books was the order of the day and no less than five months after signing a new contract Barry Ferguson was sold to Blackburn for £7.5 million, Amoruso and McCann went for £1.5 million each to Blackburn and Southampton respectively.

A whole host of others were released including Numan (retired), after we, meaning Bain, buggered up the contract offer to him, Konterman, Caniggia, Bonnissel, Muscat and Ostenstad all left along with some youth players.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I think we deserve an answer as to where the money that came in from King, ENIC, Season ticket sales, Azure (Who had taken over catering at Ibrox in 2000 and were part owned by Murray himself) were paying ‘Rangers’ £2.8 million a season for the privilege.



Despite being riddled with debts of £68 million and rising we announce plans for a super duper stadium and casino, 23rd March 2004 to be exact, encompassing the surrounding area and even though US based Las Vegas Sands Inc would stump up £80 million of the £120 million, that still left Rangers to find £40 million worth of investment to get this up and running.

The bluster coming from Rangers in times when they should be concentrating on saving money was laughable and embarrassing; the sad thing is most of the Rangers fans took it as read that this would be happening, when quite clearly it never stood a chance of getting off the ground.



On the 27th August 2004 it was announced that David Murray would be returning to Rangers as chairman after he bought out the 20.2% stake ENIC had in Rangers for £8.7 million, taking his shareholding to 86%.

On the 6th of October 2004 , our debt reaching £73.9 million, good times were promised by Murray after receiving backing for a £57 million rights share issue of which MHL would underwrite £50 million.

How very nice of him to realise it was him that took us down the path we were on. I wasn’t holding out too much hope though, after all can a leopard change its spots??

“Financial stability is the big priority”

“But, when the good times come back, they will be better than in the past”

“The level of debt is my responsibility”

“I decided I had to sort it out in the middle of the summer”

"The debt will be more or less eradicated in 12 months through new investment, the rights issue and new initiatives”

With regards to Celtic announcing a new £25 million five year deal with sportswear giants Nike, he responded with his usual bluster:

“We are already making between £5m and £7m from our own retail division and targeting £10m"

“We now produce our strips directly so we have cut out the middle man. We are market leaders in sportswear in this country”

I remember those ghastly strips Mr Murray; they were, quite frankly awful and for us to be using a company like Diadora shows how low we had dropped in terms of shirt sponsors.

Anyhoo back to the debt solution of Chairman Murray, part of the deal saw Rangers enter into an agreement with the Bank of Scotland where they would provide Rangers with £15 million on a revolving credit basis to finance on-going working capital requirements.

A further £22 million would be lent by the bank on a fixed term basis to re-finance part of the debt. This would come back and bite Murray and Rangers square in the bahookie.



£51.4 million was raised from the above share issue and the debt was down to a manageable £23.1 million and we also reported a profit of £12.4 million, before tax, on ordinary activities. Mainly due to buying back shares in the clubs subsidiary company Rangers Media Investments Ltd, bought for £15 million in 2000 and bought back for £1, that’s ONE POUND. Now we know where the other shares went, its all Rangers.

So the man who got Rangers into trouble is getting us out of trouble it seems!!

Just when it seemed all was going fine at Ibrox Campbell Ogilvie, the man behind the UEFA Champions League, was axed as part of a ‘boardroom reshuffle’, the word on the street is, it was a certain Martin Bain who did not like the opposition to himself when he was appointed chief executive in February 2005, not bad for a former catalogue model if you ask me. That’s another true Rangers man out of the picture.



March 2006 is when the year, apparently, get’s off to a great start.

Rangers announce a 10 year £48 million deal with sports retailer JJB; we receive an initial payment of £18 million on June 7th, when Umbro (Jesus) unveil our latest home kit for the 2006/2007 season, an annual payment of £3 million for the next ten years and they would also take over The Rangers Superstores with a loss, in the region of 250+ jobs, not much of a Rangers family is it??

If we move on a few months to June it would all go very much downhill from there?

Paul Le Guen was announced as the new Rangers manager by David Murray after being courted by some of the top clubs in Europe for over a year since leaving Lyon, almost everyone agreed that he was the correct choice as the new manager. How things turned out is nothing short of a scandal and he is bitter about his time in charge, not at the fans but at David Murray.

After singing TBB in Villarreal on February 22nd 2006, Rangers and their fans were reported to UEFA for singing a discriminatory song. We were fined £13,300, ON APPEAL and told NEVER to sing the song again, ‘apparently’, I say apparently because not one single person at Rangers has confirmed that the song has ever been banned.

Murray and Co: took the UEFA ruling without batting an eyelid and even added more fuel to the fire

“It is absolutely clear to all concerned that all supporters need to commit to silencing the minority.”

UEFA said this about TBB on April 13th 2006:

Not guilty

The body declared the Rangers fans not guilty of alleged discriminatory chants at both legs of the tie, which Villarreal won on the away-goals rule after the two sides had finished 3-3 on aggregate. The body’s decision can be appealed against within three days.

In examining the alleged discriminatory chants, the Control & Disciplinary Body admitted that the nature of the song concerned – “Billy Boys” - related to a social problem in Scotland. The body also believed that the disciplinary decision in this case had to be taken in the context of Scotland’s social and historical background.


After studying the evidence at hand as well as the statement of Rangers FC, the Control & Disciplinary Body conceded that supporters have been singing the song "Billy Boys" for years during national and international matches without either the Scottish football or governmental authorities being able to intervene. The result is that this song is now somehow tolerated.

Given this social and historical context, the Control & Disciplinary Body said it considered that UEFA cannot demand an end to behavior which has been tolerated for years. In view of the above, the Control & Disciplinary Body ruled that, despite the behavior of its supporters, Rangers FC had not infringed Article 5 of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations (click here) and cannot be punished according to Article 6
This was appealed due to someone from the outside not happy with the outcome.

From the UEFA website 24th May 2006:

UEFA's Appeals Body has today partially upheld the appeal made against the Control and Disciplinary Body's decision concerning Scottish club Rangers FC and their UEFA Champions League first knockout round tie against Villarreal CF.

UEFA appealed against the decision on 12 April by the Control and Disciplinary Body to find Rangers not guilty of alleged discriminatory chants by the club's supporters at both legs of the tie, on 22 February at Ibrox and 7 March at El Madrigal. Rangers have been fined €19,500 and severely warned about their responsibility for any future misconduct by their fans in relation to sectarian and discriminatory behaviour.

In addition, the Appeals Body will combine the disciplinary measures with directives safeguarding the correct execution of the judgement. The directives themselves will be communicated to Rangers along with the full written grounds for the disciplinary decision.

Of course we still allow the journo who would not let this lie into MP and Ibrox, don’t we Britney??

Murray and Bain could and should have fought this to the hilt, any Rangers fan worth their salt knows what that song is about and what it is a reply too, but the regime at Ibrox care not one jot about that do they, just give them the money and shut up.

Better news was on the horizon though, Murray hinted that he was to sell Rangers and had already been approached by buyers.  “We've had a couple of people speak to us tentatively, but I would only sell the club if it was somebody who could take it to a higher level.”

This quote from Stephen Smith of the RST (Rangers Supporters Trust) summed it up for me:  “David Murray owns 91.8% of the club, that's unhealthy, and whoever takes over we would like to see ownership radically overhauled and re-distributed.”

Any quote from the RSA (Rangers Supporters Association) is rather feeble and fall in line with the I Love Murray brigade, in fact they could have been written by Murray himself.

“It's true he has had his detractors who say he only took over Rangers for his own profile but he has invested lots of time and his own money in the club.”

Three years later we still have Murray in charge and he appears to be going nowhere and fast at that, same as our club. Hey ho eh!!

Just one month later, Wednesday 24th August 2006, we announce fantastic financial results; Up to June 30th 2006 our debt has been reduced to £5.9 million primarily thanks to a decent run in the Champions League and the JJB deal.



With Rangers beginning to get on an even keel we announce another Super Duper Casino and Stadium on 1st September 2006. Why even bother putting the fans through this again Mr Murray? Obviously he thinks we are all poodles and hang on every word he says with regards to him and these big announcements. Well I don’t, I seen through you a long time ago and regard you as more of a threat to our club and culture.



With a bad run of results the position of Paul Le Guen came into question.  Of course you could point the finger at Le Guen in his poor signing policy and decision to keep Lionel Letizi as the number one goalkeeper ahead of anybody frankly; he was a manager with all the right credentials, he played football the correct way and had no problems in bringing through youth players.

He had called into question the importance of a Captain in any team; he regarded the team as a whole to be more important. After telling the mhedia he had a meeting with Ferguson regarding his comments Ferguson replied “What meeting? He didn’t say anything to me” a storm was brewing.

On Monday 1st January 2007 things came to a head when the captain was dropped for the game away to Motherwell, he was told as long as Le Guen was in charge he would not be picked again. Murray had a choice to make, stick by YOUR manager or the captain. His choice would be the captain and Le Guen has never forgiven him for it.

He had asked Murray to put Ferguson up for transfer, which was rejected, Le Guen considered that to be the point in which he had no control over first team affairs.

Also for all the people out there who claim Le Guen was sacked because he was a catholic and the Rangers fans disliked him for it, here’s a quote from the man himself “The Rangers supporters were brilliant to me. In terms of the support and welcome I received in Glasgow, there can be no excuses. Ibrox is a special place, there is nothing like it. But I made mistakes.”

At the end of the day not one player is bigger than the club, unless of course your name is Barry Ferguson and David Murray sees you as the bee’s knees, wrong choice Mr. Murray. It was a weakness that Paul Le Guen never had; he tried to make the correct decisions for Rangers not for the popular vote.



January 10th 2007 – Walter Smith is brought in to replace Paul Le Guen a move so bold it shocked, well no-one let’s face it Murray took the easy out here and installed a manager caught in a time warp.

He quickly steadied the ship, the ship that had the same players in it as Paul Le Guen had, playing a formation that failed at Everton and doing the exact same things that the Everton fans grew to dislike him for.

Pamplona beatings

The fans were to make the headlines again after a UEFA cup game in Pamplona against CA Osasuna on Wednesday 14th March 2007.   They were singing ‘Simply the Best’ which has a wee add on “FTP and the IRA”. Of course I would never condone such singing about the head of such a large cult but that’s by the by.

The song was sung by no more than a dozen fans while inside the stadium, a fan had used his mobile to record the occasion and posted it on youtube. Certain mhedia outlets and Rangers hating scribes picked up on this and went on the attack.

The headlines would be about the chants and not about Rangers fans being attacked by Spanish riot police because Osasuna did not segregate the fans properly.

Rangers, of course, complained to UEFA about the police attacks and the complaints were upheld, Osasuna were fined £31,000 for “serious deficiencies in the organisation of the game” while Rangers were fined £8,280 for the fans’ “improper conduct” or as the BBC put it “sectarian chanting”.

That doesn’t bother me what bother’s me is the fact that all the mhedia in Scotland concentrated their efforts into the chants rather than innocent fans being beaten up by overbearing Spanish cops. Of course Murray says nothing because he agrees with their assertions doesn’t he?



The start of the 2007/2008 season was off to a flyer, we won 3-0 against Inverness up North.

Of course the papers the next day were full of “Rangers sectarian fans take gloss off win”. It would appear Alan Dick would become adept at reporting Rangers fans but much less aggressive regarding a certain other Glasgow club who openly show support for a banned foreign terrorist organisation and have no problem calling Rangers fans huns, it’s all for the craic though.

Maybe they should all look at Lord Carliles report, of August 2006 regarding the singing about such banned terrorist organisations and how they should be dealt with.

http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/news-pub...008?view=Binary

Three times Rangers have been reported for sectarian chants and three times it has been from the same premier league observer (Guess who??). Selective hearing me thinks.

Again this would not be a problem if a certain ‘custodian’ would show some grande cohones and actually stand up for us so called ‘bigots’.

Let’s move along to the next wee ditty Rangers fans came out with, the rather apt Famine Song.

After years of hearing another Oireish ‘anthem’ from them “The Fields of Athenry” which is a song about the great famine in Ireland we responded with the rather splendid “The famine’s over why don’t you go home?” BANG now we’re ‘racist’ according to all and sundry, this includes David Murray and Martin Bain and they in fact have warned fans that they may face arrest for singing the song at Ibrox.

It must be true because they posted it on the big screens? Well actually no; a fellow poster on VB, bluebear67 has taken the fight to Strathclyde Police and Rangers and despite being passed from pillar to post the police cannot tell him as to why they find the song ‘racist’ and Rangers just don’t respond, although they do both blame each other for putting the warning on the big screens at Ibrox.

Never mind though, because the hack that complained and still complains to this day has went home and is still the biggest MOPE you have ever came across, his poor kids cry all day and night. HELLO PHIL / BOSCO or whoever you are today, do you still trawl the I Ran Away, sorry Celtic minded, web sites shouting down us big bad proddies? He could be easily dealt with by Murray but that’s not his style is it, he prefers to go after his own support.



Let’s get one thing clear, I do not condone what the minority did in Manchester, and it was a minority but the facts are clear on this.  Greater Manchester Police or Manchester City Council NEVER wanted Rangers fans down there in the first place

“Our planning is underpinned by a desire for all fans with tickets to come to Manchester to enjoy the atmosphere and the game - they will get a genuine warm reception.” said Chief Superintendent Gerry Donnellan the same chap also said NO screens would be erected in Manchester itself.

After many days of Rangers fans letting it be known that they will be coming down and over 150,000 did, MCC and Pat Karney rushed plans through for screens and all other things that would be needed for such a throng of supporters.

I got to Manchester at around 2pm and so no police, no toilet facilities but one hell of a load of Rangers fans buying overpriced alcohol and nowhere to relieve themselves, with pubs and food joints far too busy to let any-more fans inside.

I only found out about the riots on the way home AFTER the match and on arriving home heard of some stories coming from fellow bears regarding GMP and their disregard for women, children or pensioners, bystanders, they struck them all with the same ferocity as they did rioters. A Half empty velodrome was there to use when the screen went down in Piccadilly Gardens but no transport as made available, no public transport to or from the stadium was available after 3:30pm, no trains being allowed out of Manchester until the morning after and innocents being beaten by the thugs that are GMP.

To my shock Minty to the offensive, against Rangers fans, he deplored their actions yet said nothing about GMP brutality towards innocents or MCC’S lack of organization despite being told numerous times how many Rangers fans would mobilize for this final. SHAME ON YOU MURRAY...



After the disappointment of the UEFA cup final when Capello went for the, let’s not lose, formation I began to fear for the club and what players would be here come the start.

Carlos Cuellar was the one the fans did not want to be sold. On August 8th 2008, three days after getting beaten by a Lithuanian pub team, Kaunus, we were told he was not for sale by Walter Smith “We've not had an offer for Carlos Cuellar," said the Rangers boss.

"We don't want one and we are not seeking one. We don't have to sell the player or any player at this stage. We don't have to offload players simply because of that situation.”

“Some players were going to leave anyway and that will still happen. But it's not entirely because of our failure to qualify for the Champions League.”

Immediately alarm bells started ringing in my head, he’s gone I began to think; it’s the same old rhetoric from a transparent regime.

Just three days later and the big Spanish centre half was sold to Aston Villa for £7.8 million, what’s worse is their manager is a certain Martin ‘Wibble’ O’Neill.  Well this seemed to wake up the apathetic Rangers fans and protests were planned at Ibrox for the home match against Hearts on August 16th 2008.

Minty had got wind of this protest and brought out the big guns, within a week we had signed three midfielders Pedro Mendes, £3 million from Portsmouth, Steve Davis, £3 million from Fulham and Maurice Edu, £2.6 million from Toronto FC (This is the player that was brought in on the very same day the ‘protest’ was supposed to take place, they never made a murmur after seeing this superstar come out of a car.)

Spending £8.6 million on midfielders that would more than likely have won us the match against Kaunus came far too late and they were only signed to placate the fans, we could not afford it, we were constantly told we could not afford it by Minty before they were signed so why sign them now??



The start of September 2008 and Murray comes away with “Existing levels of expenditure cannot be maintained in the current economic climate and as we look to the future it is becoming more important to focus on the development of young players to ensure the long-term sustainability of the club.”

We were heading further into the red, £21 million in debt, despite the sale of Hutton for £9 million in Januray and Cuellar for £7.8 million in August, reaching a UEFA cup final and all the TV deals that encompass that.

The Bank of Scotland have now put together a team to gather £20 million of the £25 million Rangers owe them due to the financial crisis we find ourselves in.

How on gods green earth did we manage to get into this amount of debt again Mr Murray??



‘Dr’ John “war criminal” Reid denounces Rangers fans as racists for singing The Famine Song towards the MOPES at the end of September.  Murray comes out ‘fighting’ this time, he lets go:

“I find it strange that a man could become a member of parliament representing a whole broad church of people from Airdrie and Shotts, but then can also be the chairman of a football club and come out with a different slant.

"I suppose he can say that because he knows he doesn't have to be re-elected to be Airdrie & Shotts again. I'm concerned by some of the comments.

"I give the utmost respect to Celtic football club - they've got a great tradition but I am recently a wee bit concerned by some of the inferences and innuendo that's come from John and I think he's got to be careful and realise he's not barracking in the House of Commons any longer.

"We are in a society in Scotland where every point and every word is picked up by everybody and he should be very careful with some of the chat."

Well, alright he doesn’t exactly stick up for the fans or the club and it’s very ‘soft’ with regards to the wording but the thought was there!! Wasn’t it??

Never mind the fact they sing songs about killing Protestants and desecrate the memories of our war dead by holding a minutes applause because it’s the “Celtic way”, is all OK in their warped wee world but they get away with it don’t they Minty?? The good old dignified silence always works, unless, of course your name is mentioned personally eh??



Rather than accept responsibility for him, you know the majority shareholder, getting Rangers in the red he said “we were all caught up chasing the dream”, WE as in everyone at the club including the fans.

NO Mr. Murray YOU were caught up in the dream, you hold the purse strings NO-ONE else.

He takes the blame for Flo though “They can blame me for one thing – buying Tore Andre Flo for £12 million," he rattled. "At that time, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole cost £12 million for Manchester United and we could only, with a lot of pressure, get Flo. Unfortunately, he did not do it for us. I asked the board if we could do something and they could decide on the signing, but I was a big part of it.”

So let me get this right YOU and THE BOARD decided to sign Flo and not Advocaat, thanks for clearing that one up it only took you NINE years to admit it, thanks but no thanks.

It’s January 2009 and one man’s placard has the Mint in a spin. A 2-0 win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park was overshadowed by a “David Murray Must Go” placard; it would seem the fans are waking up to his bluster.

He would repay this fellow by trying to sell Kris Boyd, our top goalscorer, to Birmingham City who are managed by a former Rangers boss Alex McLeish.

Boyd rejected the move and Murray could not have been a happy chappy stating “We need to get wages down by £3m-£4m in summer. We will carry 20 professionals instead of 28. The level of playing squad is unsustainable and we need to trim it.”

“The figures include the sale of Cuellar and Cousin but we have spent £4m more than we have taken in.”

"We brought in Mendes, Bougherra, Davis, Edu, Lafferty, Velicka ( I can see some folk asking who )and Miller - so there is a £4m excess in spending.”

Who does Smith go to when he asks for the money to buy these players, it’s not me, is it a bank, no it’s you Mr. Murray. Why do you even bother talking to the press if you continue to treat Rangers fans as idiots, it’s all there, in your own words there is an excess of £4 million in spending. ??????????? I just don’t get it!!!!



David Murray’s tenure as Chairman of Rangers FC is full of success, primarily in the first ten years of his reign, of course he would tell you the same, except he would tell what “HE” has won as Rangers chairman “I have won this, I have won that” how much of an ego-maniac are you Mr. Murray??

The next ten have seen his halo slip and his feeling for the fans come to the fore.


You will be remembered, by me, as the man who has single handedly destroyed Rangers FC, you have done more damage to this great club than any 'other' could in 20 years, hang your head in shame and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

THANKS AGAIN
Bouncy

Submitted by Scrumpy Jack

Back in January this year the Rangers Supporters Trust, backed by many other supporters' groups launched the "We Deserve Better" movement.  This was done to show disapproval of the club's leadership showing lack of strategic planning and long-term transfer & team building plans (amongst other things).  Last night's woeful performance against Unirea Urzinci - a club who, up until last night, had never won a European match further highlights that Rangers fans STILL deserve better.  Unirea Urziceni are a club who have won 2 League titles in their very short 55 year history.  A club who cost considerably less than what was out there representing Rangers.  A club who made NINE changes to the team that suffered defeat AT HOME to the currently EIGHTH PLACED Vaslui in their domestic league (in front of a massive 600-strong home support may I add).

In short - it was the most embarrassing performance I have ever seen Rangers deliver in the whole 25 years I have been going to see them play.  We can forget about the EPL for now.  Sure those down south will be looking at us and thinking "just what do that mob think they can possibly bring to our league?", and they'd be correct to ask that question.  The most worrying thing though, is that a wider European audience will have noticed last night's result and that is even more embarrassing.

Unirea's most expensive player cost them the equivalent of £350,000.  Let's put that into some context:

Player	Cost
Steven Whittaker	£2 million
Lee McCulloch	£2.25 million
Kevin Thomson	£2 million
Pedro Mendes	£3 million
Steven Davis	£3 million
Kenny Miller	£2 million
Kyle Lafferty	£3 million

7 players who each cost at least 5 times more than Unirea's most expensive player.  7 players who's cost when combined totals £17 million.  Seventeen million pounds for seven players who couldn't run, pass, tackle, shoot or find space.  Walter Smith has spent £30 million on players since his return and not one of them last night showed any commitment, any desire or any thought for the fans who were fleeced between £28 and £38 to watch that absolute dross last night. 

Now being conservative with the calculations -  with an average ticket price of £33 and a publicised gate figure of 37,500 minus the 1,200 tickets given to the armed forces means the match revenue would around the £1.2 million figure.  Compare this to the fact that Unirea let their fans in for free and we simply cannot accept the tired old argument/excuse that "we cannot compete financially in the current climate".

David Murray dismissed the people behind the We Deserve Better campaign with the argument that they weren't exactly "Captains of Industry" and therefore were not properly placed to make this statement.  Well Sir David, the team that you own and are in charge of (regardless of who you put in as a stooge in front of you) jhave been thoroughly embarrased by a club from the Romanian backwaters who have been assembled for less than a third of the price of Rangers with players who will no doubt be on a wage less than £1,000 a week. 

That's hardly a fact befitting a "Captain of Industry" is it?  Would you care to comment on that David?