Today the METRO newspaper published a letter which exposes the club continuation myth regarding Rangers Football Club, which was founded in 1872, incorporated in 1899 and liquidated in 2012. A successor club was founded in the same year by Charles Green and everyone at the time – from Walter Smith and Richard Gough to staff at the SFA acknowledged the fact that one club had died and a new one had been formed.
On 25th January a group of Celtic supporters have had to take the very unusual step of paying for a page in the Sunday Herald newspaper so that they can remind everyone exactly what happened in 2012.
Today’s letter in the Metro seems to be the beginning of the Scottish media – who acknowledged the actual situation on their own front pages in June 2012 – beginning to distance themselves from the club continuation myth…
Lest we forget…
It was over in nine minutes. Friday 15th June 2012 was the day that Rangers died.
Their creditors drifted in through Exit 50 at Ibrox Stadium just before 10am and by 10.09am they were on their way out. In those few minutes 140 years of history had been rubbed out.
Of the few owed money by the club who attended the meeting at the Ibrox Suite most didn’t want to talk, and the few that did struggled.
“We’re in shock,” admitted debenture holder Stewart Boal. “The club’s gone. We’ve got to move on and start again.”
In truth, everyone knew the meeting was a mere formality after HMRC announced earlier that week that it would reject Charles Green’s terms for a company voluntary arrangement (CVA).
Few of the 276 creditors, who were owed somewhere in the region of £134 million and range from a face painter and magician to the local newsagent, turned up for the meeting. Those that did were clearly shocked by the speed of the club’s end. Asked to sum up his feelings, as he left Ibrox, Mr Boal said he found the whole thing “unreal, very, very sad.”