Perspective is difficult to find in these times, when information floods in from all angles on a daily basis. With this in mind, The Battered Bunnet put a day aside to give you a detailed summary (below) of how we go to where we are today. He pays particular attention to some of those who plan to be part of the game’s future, with a nod to those currently in control of the game.
It’s a fascinating read:
Scottish Football is in crisis, a crisis that has been 15 years in the making by the Directors of Rangers Football Club plc, compounded by a chronic lack of Governance and Oversight by the cronyistic SFA through the years.
Let’s revisit the cause of the crisis for a moment:
When David Murray bought Rangers in 1988, the club had won but 4 league titles in 20 years, and prior to the arrival of Graeme Souness, had been a Scottish League also ran for a decade. Souness, with David Holmes as Chairman, started the reversal of fortune and effectively restored Rangers as a player in British football.
Murray, giving credit where it’s due, transformed Rangers both as a football club and a business. Between 1988 and 1996, Rangers’ turnover increased by a factor of 5, double double and then some in only 8 years. During this time, the club became dominant in Scotland and competitive in Europe, while considerable sums were invested in the stadium and infrastructure, providing Rangers with a (comparatively) vast commercial resource to fund its football operations. While the club carried £9M of debt at this point, it was profitable, posting £2M surplus in 1996, and breaking even over the period of Murray’s tenure to that point.
By 1996 Murray had a valuable football business on his hands, and perhaps the smart play would have been to sell it. Football was in an expansionary phase, and there would have been a queue of interested and well bankrolled investors at the door. Instead, Murray chose to redouble his efforts, and taking Rangers ‘to the next level’ became the mantra adopted by the man and his increasingly fawning press.
Highlighting that Murray was not alone in thinking that Rangers could indeed become one of Europe’s top clubs, the following year Joe Lewis invested £40M in return for a 20% share. One wonders what Murray might have walked away with had he sold the lot to Lewis at that time, but he kept his hand in the game, and went all in over the following 6 years.
Between 1997 and 2003 Rangers lost an eye watering £152.6 Million. Joe Lewis’ £40M was gobbled up in jig time, followed by £20M of Dave King’s tax efficient stash, plus a £32M investment by Murray’s business, £6M from smaller shareholders, and a further £15M of NTL’s investment in the hopeless Rangers Media venture. At its nadir in 2004, Rangers net debt was a staggering £83 Million, a monument to the ego of David Murray and his ‘dream’ for Rangers.
Unfortunately, burning shareholders’ and creditors’ cash at such a breath-taking rate was not sufficient to fund Murray’s project, and the club embarked upon a series of schemes to pay players and reduce costs. A Discount Option Scheme saved over £2M between 1999 and 2003, while an Employee Benefit Trust framework saved £45M of payroll tax and gross wages between 2000 and 2010. It is worthwhile noting that the cost savings alone from these schemes gave Rangers a financial advantage equivalent to the total payroll of every other SPL team excluding Celtic.
We know now, thanks to the admissions of former director Hugh Adam, that ‘off the books’ payments to Rangers players had started as early as the mid-1990s, and the DOS and EBT schemes were simply formalising a by then established practice.
By 2005, with Rangers reduced to little more than a financial basket case, Bank of Scotland insisted that the club be brought back into balance, and following a failed public share issue, Murray’s holding company swapped £50M of Rangers’ debt for increased equity. The following year JJB paid £15M cash as a future royalty for a 10 year solus agreement on Rangers merchandise. Murray might very well have sold the jersey, but Rangers at long last had gotten rid of all but £6M of debt, and a new ‘sustainable’ plan was implemented, a plan that endured no longer than Paul Le Guen’s 26 games in charge.
When Walter Smith replaced Le Guen, the new plan was binned and Rangers once again embarked upon a ‘front loaded’ business model, with debt increasing on the back of player purchases and wages that the club could not sustain. By 2009 Rangers had £33M of bank debt and Murray’s companies, so long the guarantor of the funding, had utterly collapsed in the property and construction crash of 2008. It is worthwhile remembering that some £70 Million of Rangers’ losses through the years remains on the Murray International Holdings Ltd balance sheet, unpaid to the part-nationalised Bank of Scotland/Lloyds Banking Group.
Early in 2010, following an unusually long Tax Enquiry, Rangers received a Tax Assessment from HMRC for their use of EBTs in the preceding 10 years. The Bill for £24M, had a further £12M of accrued interest attached, and the promise of penalties to come.
Alastair Johnston, who had replaced Murray as Chairman of Rangers following the crash of Murray’s business empire, had a decision to make. In the summer of 2010, £36M tax demand in hand, and an appeal against which scheduled for October, Johnston was planning the coming season’s business. He could have chosen to sell the top footballers which would have brought in around £20M of proceeds. He could have chosen to run the club on a reduced cost model, one that was profitable on domestic football alone, thereby banking a further £20M from their participation in the Champions League. Had he done so, and ring fenced the cash, Rangers would have been in a position to withstand losing the Tax Case Appeal without bankrupting the club.
Alastair Johnston and his Board chose not to. He chose instead to spend money increasing the size of the squad, with £4M spent on Jelavic alone. Whatever else you hear about Rangers’ sorry plight, remember that in the summer of 2010 Alastair Johnston and his Board decided to prioritise football results ahead of the very existence of the club. That was the last time that Rangers’ fate was in the hands of the Club. From the moment the decision was taken not to act, Rangers’ fate was sealed.
Craig Whyte’s bizarre 9 month tenure of course is attracting all of the headlines, and Murray’s reckless disregard for shareholders and laws have precipitated the crisis, but Alastair Johnston, along with Paul Murray, Martin Bain, John McClelland and the rest doomed the club by their inaction in the summer of 2010.
We are now aware that Rangers’ use of unlawful tax strategies had a consequent impact on the proper Registration of their players. I won’t pour over the relevant rules here, suffice to say that in making payments to players via undisclosed agreements that were not provided for in the football contracts lodged with the authorities, many of Rangers top players have been ineligible to play in official matches for a decade or more.
As if it couldn’t get any more damning, the very Directors of Rangers who conceived, implemented and administered these contractual arrangements, were simultaneously Directors of the SFA and the SPL, the bodies responsible for Governance and Oversight. Step forward John McClelland, Martin Bain and Campbell Ogilvie. That Ogilivie is currently President of the SFA simply beggars belief. It appears as though Football in Scotland has been bent for 2 decades, and the people responsible were running the game.
There is a current SPL Inquiry into this issue, and perhaps that will reveal the true extent of the breaches of rules, but from the information now available in the public domain, there is a prima facie case for voiding the results of hundreds of matches in which Rangers have participated over the years, and stripping the club of any titles won during the period. The expulsion of the club from the game is talked of. In terms of athletes and duration, it represents a bigger sporting fraud than the Balco case, and is on that basis, the biggest scandal in the History of Sport.
Did I say a ‘moment’? Forgive me, but it has taken a little while to describe 15 years of malfeasance and deception.
In summary, in the 15 years from 1996 to 2011, Rangers have spent a staggering £168 Million more than they have earned. They have saved a further £47 Million of payroll costs via the use of questionable tax strategies. They have corrupted the rules of the game from the inside. And now they are bankrupt, with the very real prospect of £100 Million of creditors being turned over in one of the biggest corporate failures in Scottish business history.
Against this backdrop, Scottish Football has to divine the way ahead. We have to figure a way out of this mess and build a new future. Everything must be on the table, everything that is except narrow self-interest.
Following a Liquidation, if a group of supporters of a dissolved Rangers get together and start a new football club, one that looks like and sounds like Rangers, playing in blue shirts at Ibrox or elsewhere, I say good luck to them. Of such like-minded people are Football clubs are born. There is clearly a business opportunity given the size of the support for the old club. The pathway is straight forward: Put a Business Plan together; Invest the necessary Capital; and Apply for membership of the Scottish Football League. If the club prospers on the park they will be rewarded with promotions and will emerge into the top flight in their own merits, self-respecting and respectful. Such qualities does Meritocracy provide.
That is a decision though for Rangers supporters. The rest of us need to figure out a new plan. Without Rangers there will inevitably be less money in the top league, fewer fans perhaps, less TV and sponsorship money. We need to accept that reality and respond to it.
I suggest we look towards Cooperation, Collective Interest, Inter-Dependence.
The hardest hit will be those clubs most reliant on the money lost. Redistribution of TV income should be considered. No question.
Youth Development should be looked at again, not least because for most clubs it will define their future. Closer cooperation amongst the clubs can yield benefits for both clubs and players. A modified Draft system might be appropriate, whereby players graduating from Under 19/20 are available to be signed by other clubs in a predetermined sequence, perhaps with the developing club having a first option on 2 players, the remainder co-opted into the draft.
Considering Celtic’s worldwide scouting network, is there potential to share information on overseas prospects with the other clubs? An easy thing to implement.
Looking at income, the huge imbalance created by the participation fees paid to clubs qualifying for the Champions League distorts domestic competition. Can we consider a distribution to all clubs of Marketing fees and likes from UEFA for our clubs’ participation in UEFA competitions?
Finally, what other means do we have, given the collective talent and resources of the top clubs in Scottish Football, to generate new opportunities, new market share, new income? If necessity is indeed the Mother of Invention, we are not short of need. Let’s get innovative.
Of course, all of this is based upon a consensual approach to the crisis we face. It is widely reported that the other 10 clubs in the SPL are meeting next week to consider an appropriate response to the problems we all face. Celtic have not been invited to attend. This in itself is a concern, as it draws something of a line in the sand between the interests of the 10, and the interests of Celtic. One SPL chairman told BBC Scotland: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change things.” Such change, hatched by the 10 other clubs and forced upon Celtic is not a cooperative approach.
Moreover, Celtic are by a distance the biggest box office in the league. This season attendance at Celtic Park equates to 72% of the total attendances at all other grounds excluding Ibrox. A series of decisions on restructuring the SPL and redistributing the proceeds from the competition that excluded the stakes of almost half of the fans in the league is surely invalid.
Quite what will these clubs do with their self-acknowledged ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change things’?
Perhaps the 10 SPL Clubs will come up with some truly radical and forward looking ideas that are at face value, innovative, imaginative and laudable.
Perhaps though they won’t. Perhaps their ideas will be a little more self-interested. That is certainly the form book in Scottish Football.
Redistribution of SPL TV and Sponsorship income that excludes the Champion team from the divvy? Why not eh. The 10 Clubs will have the SPL voting majority to do so.
What would the implications be should the 10 Clubs decide that gate sharing was the way ahead for the SPL? Certainly, in the absence of Rangers, they would carry the voting rights to approve such a decision, irrespective of any objections from the fans whose money would be redirected.
And indeed, the admission of a New Rangers directly into the SPL, bypassing all meritocratic and long established practices in the game worldwide.
Establishing a new business is a challenging activity. Doing so in the midst of the financial chaos enveloping Rangers is utterly fraught. Those considering such a move need to have confidence in revenue projections and market. In the case of a New Rangers, the arbiter of revenue is the League they will participate in. It is reasonable to assume that informal soundings have been taken by those considering a New Rangers project from those with the power to determine which market they will operate in.
I have no problem with Stephen Thomson of Dundee Utd picking up the phone and chatting to Stewart Milne of Aberdeen. Indeed, I would expect it in the ordinary course, never mind the crisis we all face. However, given the likelihood that those behind a New Rangers are right now making their initial pitch to each of the 10 clubs, it is somewhat distressing that those same 10 clubs should in short course arrange a meeting to discuss and plan the way ahead, excluding Celtic and the interests of half the remaining fans of the SPL.
Paul Murray, Martin Bain, John McClelland, Alastair Johnston, Dave King: The men who brought this disaster down upon the game in this country, who corrupted the game from the inside for a decade or more, who burned £100 Million of creditors money, who are responsible for ripping off the Tax Payer and the Football Fan alike, who failed to act on Rangers’ crisis when action was most needed, these men and their likes are currently negotiating with the 10 Clubs the conditions for the entry of New Rangers directly back into the SPL.
The very essence of Sport, the history of Football, and the future of the Game in this country is to be decided in the coming weeks by the chairmen of just 10 Clubs. In the hands of these men is the legacy of the game accidentally entrusted, and its future precariously placed.
At our moment of crisis, when wisdom and consensus are most needed, what direction will they take? Where will Scottish Football go from here?
To a new, mature, responsible and progressive place? Or to Hell in a Handcart.
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“At Shortbread Cable, we can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that a source close to the Mighty Gers has CONFIRMED that talks with Wan Hung Lo ( Holdings) are progressing POSITIVELY with a view to a deal being tabled, IMMINENTLY…….and in another twist to this tantalising tale……SEYMOUR BUTTS, the IDAHO based Billionaire whose wealth is officially outwith the reach of normal aeroplane navigation equipment…….has said he might take a look as well……”
ENDS.
Come in the hoops.. Let’s play football , focus on the hoops , let no one take away our fun and let the tax dodgers wallow in their soon to be repossessed house!
HH
Love and peace to all the Celtic family today..
So, david Murray and one mistake.
What happened with the wee tax case. The one that was hidden, found then accepted. The one that took two and a bit million away from our exchequer.
Was that not a mistake David? No one ever asked you. Did they.
Haven’t been on the Sunday mail website, if Murray spoke to a journalist, rather thzn issueing a statement, why did said journalist not ask about the 2 contracts. Can you email these people to ask them? Is there any point? ( the last one is rhetorical btw).
No appetite for this story, same as all along. Up the new media to keep ‘er lit!
Great leader. And DM says in the Sunday Hun he only made ONE mistake. ffs. That lot are delusional right from the ‘top’ all the way down. I like the thought of an Atlantic League but would our competitors want the hordes visiting their violence upon them? Ehmm………….Major major game today Celtic. Let’s do it. HH.
Rubicon @ 10:53,
Remember as a wee boy going to visit my cousins in such conditions might have been the same place, made Airdrie seem posh!
Great Article though my great grand father changed the spelling of oor name so he could get work, doesn’t seem that’s a problem these days – no jobs now that’s a problem.
Meanwhile a late night call is received at the Ticketus Arena
‘Mr Clark I have a call from Mr Duff from New York, is it ok to reverse the charges as usual?’
Mr C ‘yes fine put him on’
Mr D ‘ Clarkie hows it going?’
Mr C ‘Fine Sir, I think we have a conditional offer for RFC (IA)’
Mr D ‘Great, who from?’
Mr C ‘The Blue Knights’
Mr D ‘Weren’t they some Brit pop combo from the 1960’s?’
Mr C ‘Very funny sir, easy mistake to make, but they are a global consortium with huge experience of dealing with complex tax situations. There is a Mr Murray who was on the previous Board of RFC (IA) and a Mr King who is thought a lot of in South Africa I understand’
Mr D ‘What are they offering?’
Mr C ‘£1.50, thats a 50% uplift in the open market value in less than 12 months’
Mr D ‘Whats that in USD?’
Mr C ‘about $2’
Mr D ‘billion?’
Mr C ‘er no’
Mr D ‘million?’
Mr C ‘er no’
Mr D ‘ what are the conditions?
Mr C ‘just a few technicalities no major obstacles’
Mr D ‘are the creditors happy?
Mr C ‘not actually spoken to them yet’
Mr D ‘how about HMRC’
Mr C ‘things are going fine there relationships are really good. Everytime I call up to put a repayment proposal they put me on hold while they gather their team round a speakerphone. We all have a good laugh at the proposals I put forward’
Mr D ‘what about Mr Whyte?, he is a good repeat customer of ours I want to make sure we are well placed to assist in his next venture’
Mr C ‘not spoken to him for a while, I believe he is abroad, but dont forget he owns 85% of the shares so at £1.50 he will get a 27.5% return on his investment in less than 12 months, not bad eh?
Mr D ‘are our fees secure?
Mr C ‘yes fully paid up’
Mr D ‘ok string out for a bit longer, get the next invoice in and once paid get the hell out of there. Oh and dont forget to leave our corporate brochure for the next insolvency event. Good work’
Mr C ‘Thank you sir, good night’
HH
Maybe SEYMOUR BUTTS can find out what happened to the Arse money?
;o)
Well not an easy task today Dundee United are apparently the form team in the SPL ? One thing for sure they will be up for the battle on there own midden.I am looking forward to the game and will say it will be 1-2 to the hoops Come on you Bhoys in Green,Glasgows Green and Whyte. H.H.
Casuals at it. Almost makes you nostalgic, this type of healthy, non sectarian mindless violence………….!
Thankfully, no old firm fans were arrested, though this may be reported differently on the sun website!
———-
Nine arrested over football violence
Men were arrested in Fife, and in the North East. Picture: Ian Rutherford
Published on Friday 9 March 2012 11:47
NINE men have been arrested in connection with football violence in dawn raids, police said.
An operation between Grampian and Strathclyde police forces led to eight arrests in the north east and one in Fife.
Grampian Police said the majority of the arrests today were in connection with trouble ahead of a Rangers versus Aberdeen match in Glasgow on January 21.
Two police officers were injured in the trouble on Copland Road, next to Ibrox Subway station. A series of arrests had already been made in connection with the incident.
The other two arrests this morning were over city centre violence before Aberdeen’s home match with Celtic last weekend.
Grampian Chief Superintendent Adrian Watson said: “These arrests should send out a clear message to the handful of people intent on using football as a platform to commit acts of violence that behaviour of this type will not be tolerated in any shape or form. They are certainly not the people that the club or city want to be associated with.”
C’mon you Bhoys in Green,
A Victory today will stop a lot of empty vessels rattling around.
A Celtic Treble is just too much to contemplate for many “sportspeepul”
In amongst them Celts and show them why we are 21 points clear at the top of the table and in the other Cup Final.
A massive game for which I believe we are well prepared..
Starry (finally got my computer off the weans!!)
Big Nan on 11 March, 2012 at 10:45.
For some reason this song made me think of our favourite billionaire from Motherwell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrX70VzsmN8&feature=related
All he wanted to do was spread his wisdom and cash around… but he made too many enemies.
I’m glad we didn’t have a press conference this week. Did anyone miss it? For me it was just one less chance for the hacks toask stupid questions and to twist the answers.
Agree Gordon the correct decision. We should just get on with the job in hand for the remainder of the season adding three trophies to our honours list. Let them worry about their tainted titiles and frustrate the hacks with the poison pens.
Is the game on cooncil telly today chaps?
3-2, 25/1 makes sense tae me.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/situation-vacant-stupid-billionaire-required/#more-2260
Sobering thoughts.
Is it tomorrow the TENshun are to be addressed by this paull murray and his millionaires…..makes you laugh…desperate times indeed….case of either them or us….just wondering if celtic get a chance to speak to them….you know how the rules are easily changed
Just reading Spiers’ article in the Herald. Some quite amazing twists of non-logic involved to make things look positive.
Paul Murray previously said that no one would buy a club with a massive tax bill hanging over it. But now he is considering doing so – which must mean he knows something about HMRC doing a deal!
Dave King is being chased by the South African Hectors for £75M – must mean he is really rich then if he owes that much tax!
Spears also states that King would not be a fit and proper person to become a Director because he was previously a Director of Rangers – but the same conclusion doesn’t seem to be drawn in relation to Paul Murray.
Oh, and everything is Craig Whyte’s fault really.
As usual, wee Billy gives us this drivel in the Herald today
Give credit where it’s due
Billy Dodds
You hear so much negativity about football players, about how egotistical and selfish they can be.
But most are decent boys. Given time to step up to the mark and do the right thing, they will. That is exactly what the Rangers squad – led by the likes of Steven Davis, Allan McGregor, Steven Naismith and Steven Whittaker – have proved.
It would have been all too easy for them to not accept a wage cut. It probably wouldn’t have been those four who were made redundant. They would have been kept on their full money and sold as soon as possible, while some of the other boys were cut and other employees sacked around the club. No-one in their right mind would accept a 75% wage cut over the long term but, given what is at stake, it is a brilliant gesture, even if it is short term. Whether it allows administrators to find a buyer, or keeps people in jobs until the end of the season, it gives Rangers a better chance. It is refreshing that they have done it.
Each player will have his own circumstances as regards what happens in the summer – whether they can leave the club for a certain amount or go back to what they were earning if they do come out of administration – but they have taken a hit to look after other employees. Nothing brings you together as well as success. This is a team that have won three Clydesdale Bank Premier League titles on the trot and loads of cups, and I know how it works. Everybody who works at Ibrox is up in the Thornton Suite afterwards celebrating. They make it feel like a family club, and that’s why I think these players have realised that these ladies have made our dinner every day, or that wee woman has washed our kit every day, so we can’t just let them down. The players have given away hundreds of thousands of pounds and it shows how genuine they are. There will be more twists and turns, and could well be more heartache, but they chose the best option.
I know what it is like because I’ve been there myself. When Eddie Thompson took over at Dundee United, he came in and paid out too much money, including for myself, because I was on decent money having left Rangers. So what he did was ask all the players to take wage cuts. I worked for two years to earn one year’s money. So effectively that was a 50% wage cut. I could have been greedy and selfish about it but I knew the club might not survive.
It was actually quite an easy one for me. I had financial stability, because I had had a move from Aberdeen to Dundee United, and I had been on decent money at Rangers. I was really lucky, but some of the other boys weren’t – there were a lot really struggling. Dundee United never reneged on getting me my money, they just made me work a bit longer for it.
There are greedy footballers, there is no doubt. Greedy ones, false ones, genuine ones, ones with big egos, some great lads who can handle everything. But you have to have a bit of thought process in a situation like this. The players would have been hung out to dry if they had said they weren’t taking a cut and then the club folded. Gregg Wylde and Mervan Celik also walked out to save money and enable the club to get to the end of the season. All the players at Rangers had a lot to think about and they have come up with the right answer. Now it is up to the businesspeople to find a buyer.
I AM not trying to kick Rangers when they are down but the 10 non-Old Firm clubs are meeting next week to discuss the ramifications of the Rangers saga and the voting system might work out in favour of change if the Ibrox club are out of the equation. If Rangers’ situation doesn’t send out the message that this SPL is not working then nothing will. Hearts are in a perilous state, Dunfermline are living month-to-month and Kilmarnock have a significant debt and something will have to give.
I am not even going to talk about the fine details of change, whether it is the right number of games or play-offs or whatever, because that is a million miles away at the moment. But we need to rip up the rule book and make sure we get people interested in the product again. Whether it is matches like Ayr-Kilmarnock, Dundee-Dundee United, we need to create more excitement around our game. Without any change to the current format, it is dead.
There was a lassie on the train this morning, wearing false eyelashes that I could have raked my back garden with.
As well as getting to the heart of the matter in a tightly argued, dispassionate manner, pieces like this are incredibly important.The mainstream Scottish media, paralysed by the old certainties coming tumbling down around them in true Enron style, are both unwilling and incapable of capturing the essence and breadth of this scandal. CQN is performing a hugely important function in closing off the escape routes to those that would have us overlook the greatest sporting fraud in history – not to mention the shameless and reprehensible theft of hard working tax payers’ money to provide succour to a despicable, sectarian and supremacist institution over a long number of years. If you’ll pardon the pun, hats off to The Battered Bunnet.
hope you didnt touch her eye lashes wi they green fingers of yours
No CQN 3am news updates, thats my Sunday Morning catch up out the window.
No red tops in this household
Just catching up watching Goals on Sunday, Good to see big Malky getting one over wee McInnes.
Hail Hail
ek bhoy- game not on in Farm
Need to buy the SOS just to have a wee read about the “brig”….USED TO NICK DOWN TO PHIL COLES PUB,,,,,on the friday nite to pick up the tickets for saturday game,,,,days gone by….buses used to line the streets on sat….73 buses supposed to have left his pub for hampden leeds utd game…..nae single buses for him….he specialized in thim big double deckers…fae the SMT
Before moving on to the football, could someone confirm the following?
Sale of rangers…
Admin sells to a buyer. The buyer pays admin.
Admin TRIES to use that money to placate the creditors.
Creditors can reject a CVA.
Then what?
Rangers exist for a few days. Owned by the buyer, and the buyer’s money is in the rangers bank account.
Still in admin.
With the big tax case yet to come.
I wouldn’t by a cat under these circumstances. What am I missing?
bankiebhoy1
Sky only I believe.
Noone is going to buy the current buns until they are liquidated…….will get them for pennies then, and the creditors will lose out…..that’s why the administrators are setting the deadline…..they need to liquidate them before the HMRC ruling comes in…..
I allways listen intently to the readings at mass to see if they can shed some light on the huns’ predicament. The first reading this morning was the Ten Commandments. One of them commands me not to covet my neighbour’s donkey. I don’t think I ever did that even when I was young.
How about you?
Wee jumpthedyke McCann there on GOS denying any knowledge of secondry contracts at ayebrokes, hope this comes back on, down the line.
HH
I see Craig Burley’s apprenticeship of several years of anti Celtic commentary, has been completed with graduation to his own column in the Sunday Mail.
In old media terms, what a stinking little country this truly remains.
!!Bada Bing!! Kano 1000 on 11 March, 2012 at 11:31 said:
3-2, 25/1 makes sense tae me.
share
—/
I went 1-3 @ 10/1 don’t like punting against the celts ;)
If brownie scores the first that rockets to 80/1
Bon chance
HH
M
.
A Hour before Celtics Biggest Game of the Season and People are Still Talking about the Huns..
Jeez..
Summa of Samaras
Football…..
I wonder what’s the score with Izzy? Neil took ages to put him back in the team. He struggled and doesn’t seem to have regained fitness or form.
It hurts us a bit, in that we have moved Mulgrew away from CB to fill the LB spot.
Anyone know if Izzy has a fitness problem just now?
Summa
Come on you bhoys in green.
bournesouprecipe on 11 March, 2012 at 12:00 said:
It comes as a great surprise that he can even write if his monosyllabic commentary is anything to go buy..
Put his name on the list!!
Starry (The Quiet Man)
weeron
Read somewhere in the last few days that Izzy thought he’d be up to speed by next week.
HH
What is an Investor?
Wan who Invests.
Why diz Wan Invest?
Tae Mak a Profit.
Kin an Investor Mak a Profit is He buys
the G.A.?
In a woid…
Nae Chance!
Q.E.D.
Kojo
Sitll Laughin’