I didn’t realise until watching TV last night it was Keith Lasley that Anthony Stokes ‘did’ on Saturday, the player who put Adam Matthews out of the game for a couple of months. It’s a physical game, and I’m not going to concede violent behaviour is acceptable, but it would be super-human to not be affected by earlier violence. We need to rise above this.
On a similar theme…. Another incident I missed at the game was James McFadden wresting Fraser Forster, who was holding the ball, early in the second half. Minutes later Fraser threw himself to deny McFadden what looked like a certain goal.
Players need an edge to be able to summon their very best performances, and a wee nyaff climbing all over you is as likely to give you an edge as anything. McFadden has a few years left in him. He’s at a well-run club who will give him the platform to excel, if he can find the focus to deliver.
I see some re-writing of history today and over the weekend on where responsibility for Newco Rangers acute financial plight lies. Among throwing blame on convenient scapegoats, one-time-hero-though-transparent-chancer Charles Green, and financial director, Brian Stockbridge, few seem prepared to offer up the prized oaf.
They banked £22m from a share issue and cash from circa 30,000 ticket sales, enough to see them through to top flight football, as long as they didn’t blow it on football bling. So who was responsible for doing exactly that (if you can stretch the definition of bling to Jon Daly and even lesser appealing gems)?
Sure, Stockbridge and Mather signed off, and they certainly knew the financial situation the club was in, but we know enough of the story to explain why it happened.
Despite having a budget close to 100 times their opponents Newco suffered considerable humiliation at the hands of fourth-tier clubs last season. Without reinforcements their chances of progress from the third tier was far from guaranteed – if they continued to allow Ally McCoist to run football operations.
McCoist was unsackable. He played the fans perfectly, earning a ridiculous contract and shares a 1p each for his ability to put bums on seats. Mather had to throw enough talent into the squad to ensure promotion with McCoist in charge, then rely on Charles Green to pull together another share issue.
The question you have to ask is, once McCoist had his reinforcements, who torpedoed the Charles Green supply ship?
No one is going to tell you Charles Green is a man you would want associated with your club, but before mob-rule ensured his attempts to raise investment cash were quashed, should someone not have asked the questions, why did the board find it necessary to bring such a pariah back and what happens if we throw him and his investment plans out?
We’re about to find out.
If suggestions that Newco will come close to expiring cash in hand before season ticket income arrives are accurate I expect they will get there, even if players don’t agree to a wage cut. Companies can control when to pay creditors, even HMRC, who despite what is likely to be an acute interest in Newco, would take months to complete a debt recovery action.
Don’t get too drawn in the minutia of this, whether an insolvency event happens or not does not change the fundamentals, which we touched on last week. Newco had a gamblers chance of turning into something resembling Oldco.
Spooking the SPL into giving them a ticket into top flight football would have seen them debt free and competing for last season’s SPL. Three years of paying our bills while losing the league would have been pointless. I genuinely think only one of Glasgow’s big teams was ever going to survive the SPL decision on Newco.
Had they liquidated Oldco, then flooded Newco with talent and won the league, Celtic would not have recovered, a reality that should be remembered when journalists talk about Scottish football harming itself in 2012. It was them or us.
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BMCUW
Students?
I was one once – as you were.
My mother hoped, and prayed, that I would settle down and apply myself to higher education. My dad knew differently!
I DID apply myself – up to a point!
Say hi to the Bath students. Nae dancing on the bar!
If you have to, dont fall off!
HH!!
15/8 for a pen to be awarded
4/1 Red Card for Fofar …12/1 Red Card for Huns ….seems the bookies are upsides the MIB cheating
A wee bit of humour from the East End of Glasgow
The late Great MATT McGINN.
‘Just outside Ecclefechan, just nine hundred and twenty two and a half miles outside Ecclefechan, in fact, in France lies the sleepy little town of EFFEN, the curative quality of whose honey is renowned all over the civilised world – and in Glasgow. The very extraordinary bees who produce this honey are not unnaturally referred to as EFFEN bees in and around the town whose quaint architecture is marred by the factory in its centre where half the population are employed in the manufacturing of Gendarmes’ truncheons or, as the French choose to call them, policemen’s batons.
THE BEE FROM THE OLD TOWN OF EFFEN
(Matt McGinn)
He kept bees in the old town of Effen
An Effen beekeeper was he
And one day this Effen beekeeper
Was stung by a big Effen bee
Now this big Effen beekeeper’s wee Effen wife
For the big Effen polis she ran
For there’s nobody can sort out a big Effen bee
Like a big Effen polisman can
The big Effen polisman he did his nut
And he ran down the manin Effen street
In his hand was a big Effen baton
He had big Effen boots on his feet
The polis got hold of this big Effen bee
And he twisted the Effen bee’s wings
But thes big Effen bee got his own back
For this big Effen bee had two stings
Now they’re both in the Effen museum
Where the Effen folk often come see
The remains of the big Effen polis
Stung to death by the big Effen bee
That’s the end of that wee Effen story
‘Tis an innocent wee Effen tale
But if you ever tell it in Effen
You’ll end up in the old Effen jail
Monaghan1900
19:28 on 20 January, 2014
Misty seems a decent spud:
http://bit.ly/1agKk45
__________
They have all seen how easily led the deluded are(Big Haunds green) and how easy it is to get them to part with money so they want a slice
hahahaha forfar hit the bar ….
Is Rosemarys baby Dallas anywhere near forfar tonight :))
voguepunter
18:11 on 20 January, 2014DjYNWA67Wouldn’t like any underhandiness (made up word) though the guy who was Buster Keatonshould be below me :O)
Correct embdae at the John Smeaton should get Scotland Yard mate….:)
Will watch the WBA v Everton game.
Sevco match not being televised in Italy.
HH!!
Montheloons ! Big Rab in goal.
Sevco saved by the woodwork.
HH
leftclick together we will get justice for the dam 5
19:52 on 20 January, 2014Is Rosemarys baby Dallas anywhere near forfar tonight :))
VG :))
tallybhoy
19:53 on 20 January, 2014
Will watch the WBA v Everton game.
Sevco match not being televised in Italy.
HH!!
I hope your complaining to your provider?
How dare they not show the loons.
leftclick
He’ll be in the crowd with his mates.
praecepta
19:34 on 20 January, 2014
Cheers mate.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
I wonder who the first ref to be outed betting on games ?
Betting on games they’re reffing !!
Betting on games they’re reffing involving Celtic ….couldnae happen rite !!!
Billy Bhoy 05
19:49 on
The Effen Bee
Matt McGinn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Z1V5cSWU4
tallybhoy
19:53 on 20 January, 2014
Will watch the WBA v Everton game.
Sevco match not being televised in Italy.
………
Thought Chuckles Green reckoned on 500 million Sevco fans so there must be at 10 million disappointed Italians looking for illegal streams from Forfar.
Hmmm
Seen them given.
And btw the Effen Reffin at the weekend wiz a joke !!
marspapa
20:04 on 20 January, 2014
Willie Collum puts his line on without looking.
Geordie
Particularly at Ibrox ….would have been soft
Just seen Sportscene some incredibly bad referreeing at the weekend.
Collum misses a stone wall pen looking at it this time and Butcher has a moan.
Wake up Terry you play in green and white now.
BIG-CUP-WINNERS
19:28 on 20 January, 2014
No movement with Joe Ledley ? Honestly, think he may be stringing us along to leave for free.
I’ll sum Joe Ledley up in 2 words “Victor Wanyama”
Good point Googybhoy
It’s weird seeing Butcher applaud a teem in green and white ,
Is it true Wullie collum is a tic fan ?
….pfayr.
At ibronx it woulda been a pen and a red card.
Joking aside, the ref coulda gave that.
Elbows should have been off there for that assault
In fact, the sally tragedy/ green soap/ huntastrophe has been like a good friend over the last few years – always there for me, always cheering me up, getting me through the bad times. Here’s to the huns’ unbelievable capacity for not seeing sense !
eddieinkirkmichael
He couldn’t believe he was getting booked for it!
KC and VVD joint players of the year for me.
By an EFFEN mile!
HH!!
Geordie
Yes
Think the ref has been quite fair this evening ….about an hour left to influence things tho
nakasammi
20:20 on
shows what he’s effen used to getting away with
Tallybhoy,
And why no?
Happened before.
3rd booking for the Zombies ….cmon the Loons ….
Lennybhoy
Thank you for your help.
big flapper douglas.
If only we had kept hold of Javier Sánchez Broto in 2003. Still can’t undersatnd why he wasn’t offered a deal.
Ref Joe Ledley,
I suspect he is keeping his options open , which he is perfectly entitled to do.
Joe is a good player, but not irreplaceable.
On the current transfer window, it seems to have gone very quiet on the striker front, which I hope isn’t a pre-cursor to a last minute signing, as invariably these aren’t successful – Bangura, Pukki, Lassad, Miku, Browcjek, Ljunberg etc
big Rab is a hero ….braw
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho says other managers in the Premier League are “complicating” the jobs of referees by not publicly criticising their players for diving.
Seem to remeber Jose describing cheating players as being ‘clever’.
Good auld Rab.
First time I’ve seen Sevco and got tae say I’m warming to the idea of playing them in the Cup.
#puregash