Just a short blog today. I found the notes for my speech this morning. A lot of positive things should have been said about Tony (one of the nicest CQN’ers I’ve met, and I’ve lots of great CQN’ers), Jim (more committed to the welfare of others than he would be comfortable you knowing), and David (combines the cynicism you can only get by spending 30 years in the publishing business with an often incomprehensive enthusiasm and positivity). Three people who make things happen.
The CQN Golf Committee have organised nine incredibly taxing CQN Charity Opens, which seems to require an addition to stress, as they clearly thrive on it.
I got my timing all wrong when I set the whisky auction to end at noon yesterday as I was otherwise engaged until late afternoon, when things were getting a bit hectic, but with minutes to go, E (abbreviated) stepped in with what was an opening and winning bid of £550. The money is already with Mary’s Meals. My thanks to E and to A Ceiler Gonof Rust, who donated the prize.
None of us had any experience at organising this kind of event. You think all you need is a mic. and a few speakers! I asked Phil Agnew if he would do the raffle and auction for us. He ended up supplying what would have been thousands of pounds worth of consultancy, which saw us over the line, wouldn’t take a penny for his trouble and provided a print signed by Henrik Larsson from his daughter. They are a family with a long-established link to Mary’s Meals.
The quality and sheer volume of donations for auction and raffle overwhelmed us. We made a call that it was probably wise to limit the number of items we put up last night, and hold some for a later date – all will go towards Mary’s Meals. Thanks to everyone who came forward.
These are just the thanks I didn’t get to last night, more to come.
I’ve no idea how much money you raised yet but I am sure the cash is in to build the second and third school kitchens. Within weeks your buildings will be feeding circa 2700 of the poorest children on the planet. That. Is. Incredible! Well played CQN.
I’m not going to pester you to read the Magazine or buy the Seville book today, but the MyDonate like to Marys’ Meals……
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Jose sent to stands.
LEFTCLICKTIC
Seems to be working fine,mate.
Here’s his latest,in case you are still struggling.
POSTED ON 15 MARCH, 2014 BY JAMES FORREST
Suicide Kings
So, it’s going to happen after all. I can barely believe it, but here we go. The Sevco Rangers supporters, not satisfied with watching their club flirt with Death, have decided the dance is over. They are wedding themselves to the man in black.
They are voluntarily dancing to the edge, and stepping out into the darkness. In all my years watching football, and writing about the Beautiful Game, I’ve never seen anything that’s so blatantly going to end ugly.
For weeks now, as I’ve pondered their goose-step towards the abyss, I’ve wondered why the board of directors don’t just bite down on the strap and wait for someone to turn on the juice. There is no spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. A little shock therapy is what’s required here and there is no wonderland when they come out on the other side. There is only the numbed awareness that their reality is pain, for the foreseeable future.
If this club goes into administration now, before the season ends, they have options for going forward.
They will probably still win the league, they will probably still be promoted. It will clear the decks, allow them to make a full disclosure to the fans and allow a new plan to be put in place. If all goes well, they will start the new season on a sound footing, and with a little luck they can make a challenge for promotion. It won’t solve every problem they have – that is a task that’s going to take years – but they’ll be on the right road.
This is more than simply the sensible option. It’s the rational option, indeed it’s the only sane option on the table. Nothing else will work. Disaster, on one front or another, is certain. The most acute danger lies in the coming summer, of course, and if the bomb drops during it the next 12 months are going to be a rollercoaster ride down into the bowels of the Earth. There is no good way that ends.
A twenty five point penalty and a weakened squad means you can kiss farewell to any prospect that they will be promoted to the SPL. Coupled with McCoist’s inability to win games with anything less than a 300 to 1 wages advantage, and depending on how severe the cuts he has to live with are, and I’d question their ability to stay up in the Championship, where they will no longer be playing against the joiners and carpet fitters they’ve struggled at times to beat this year.
Full-time seasoned pros will be a much tougher prospect, and McCoist knows it and that’s why his hair is receding faster than Vladimir Putin’s chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s more and more coming to resemble the caricature fat man on a tread mill, and I very much doubt he has enough in the tank to get them through the slog that would lie ahead.
This is a guy so disconnected from reality that he’s talking about wanting to make signings at a time when the club has had to go for a crisis loan. It is beyond parody. His excuse for not resoundingly beating Albion Rovers last weekend was staggering, and contemptible. There is not a single Sevco Rangers fan who believes a word of it.
Yet, as much as I marvel at the madness in the boardroom and the lunacy running rampant in the boot room, it’s the insanity sweeping through the supporters that genuinely takes the breath away. They say people get the leaders they deserve, and boy but that rings out loud and clear when you look at the people the Sevco Rangers fans are pinning their hopes on, and appointing to do the talking for them. Some of them have backed every slick snake oil salesman we’ve seen troop on and off the stage in this long running farce.
Their support for Dave King appears to revolve around the belief that he, himself, will personally underwrite the next great era in the club’s history. They cling to this like a comfort blanket, despite the irrefutable fact that King himself has never said he’ll do this … and in fact, has publicly stated, on more than one occasion, that it’s the furthest thing from his mind!
King’s published statements make it quite clear who’ll be paying for the next big Save Rangers campaign. He’s not attempted to lie about it – which is to his credit anyway – and this is why I’m so amazed that their supporters seem to have missed it. They are the ones who’ll be shelling out the money to keep the club afloat under King’s plans.
Note that he’s not asking for a season ticket boycott, as many seem to think. The fans will still be paying their money down. It just won’t be going to the club at first. Barmy. No-one in the media appears keen to explore this idea, so let me see if I’ve got it right.
Season ticket renewal forms come out, with prices restored to SPL levels, quite a jump considering they are being sold for a third of that at the moment. Fair enough. Everyone knows this. But what do the fans do with the forms? We know the “plan” is not to pay the money to Sevco Rangers but to stick it in a bank, there to wait for the club to see sense. Then what? What if the club never does? Do these people not realise that at that point they’ve got nothing? That they’ve effectively paid out £400 and upwards … and got nothing for it except a nice wee bank receipt?
What do you think’s going to happen? That the club will send you the season ticket anyway? Why would they? It’s more than likely that they’ll remove you from the waiting list.
What do you do then? Say your club gets enough money from those who are going to pay – and bear in mind they only need 10,000 fans still willing to do so in order to be roughly where they are now, because of the price rise. How long are you going to write off the money? How long until you want to know exactly what it’s bought you?
Some have suggested that the scheme involves buying individual match-tickets instead of season tickets. That’s a logistical nightmare, and it makes me laugh to imagine them trying to implement it. It would also cost them more over the season.
Then there’s administering the fund. Who’s running that? Will the fund be “locked” or will it be spendable? PR materials, PR firms if necessary, cost money. A major campaign, lasting months, could be an expensive undertaking. You want to see people dipping into it? Who decides who has that access? Who’s in charge of the bank account?
How much do the Sevco Rangers fans trust each other?
Now, let’s say that this all works out. Let’s say that Sevco Rangers gives the fans these undertakings, that it hands the stadium and the training ground over to the fans. Do you have any idea what removing the assets from “the business” will do to the balance sheet? The share price will drop like a stone, with everyone making a loss. Without the key property assets in “the business” good luck trying to recapitalise it in the inevitable share issue to follow. Forget “institutional investors.” Every penny is going to have to come from the supporters.
What are the odds on the fans having the money to pay for season tickets and a raft of new shares? How do you go to a guy who bought shares last time and get him to “invest” again, when the very act of doing it this time around invalidates the value of what you bought last time? At some point, don’t you start to balk? Don’t you start wondering when this ends?
Going down this road, it never does. Because if you do what King wants and you put the cash on the table to make this happen, and he gives it to McCoist, the spiralling wage costs, coupled with no discernible increase in profitability (why does everyone thing playing in the SPL will turn the finances around? Look at the facts. Look at the prize structure. It won’t) and the club will be right back here again in a year’s time, or less.
The present cost structure at Ibrox is the reason they’ve struggled to get through up until now. There is a drastic need to slash and burn those costs, to get them down to a level where the club can survive, living within its means. Rather than accept this, they cling to the usual fantasy of sugar daddies and “competing with Celtic”, instead of accepting that it’s over.
King is leading a revolution, so he says, and the line-up of “influential supporters” standing behind him would have some credibility if they hadn’t stood behind Whyte, behind Green, if they weren’t, a few weeks ago, standing behind Graham Wallace, who’s become Public Enemy Number One because he’s doing the review he promised the fans. This is a support that needs some hard truth telling to it. One way or another, disaster is on its way.
I say accept that fact. Deal with it now. Accept the limitations that your past behaviour has placed on you. Start downsizing to the point where it might save you. You’ve got the money to get through the season, so the close season has to see some changes. Take the medicine. Live with the consequences and stop trying to be a big club again. It will happen, in time, if you start building. But the building hasn’t begun yet. Until it does, catching Celtic is just a fantasy.
With the current rate of spending at Ibrox, a season ticket boycott will bring the club to its knees, and that is not speculation, it’s a simple statement of fact. The board of directors will not move an inch. The institutional investors will not shift at all. They have £50 million in assets, they have shares, they have money tied up in this thing. They can place the whole club in administration and make the most dramatic cuts imaginable, then do a sale and lease back to keep on the lights.
Rangers fans are guaranteeing the very thing this “plan” of King’s is supposed to be trying to stop. The people who supported every charlatan who’s walked through the door in the past four years are pinning their hopes to a convicted criminal who has so far ruled out putting in his own money, and who’s “plan” has more holes than Swiss cheese. Understand this … the people King is going up against really don’t do walking away, not with their investment so far.
In the final extremis they can threaten to close the whole thing down, and keep it closed past the start of next season, meaning there will be no Rangers in the league. If you think hedge funds care about the state of Scottish football, dream on.
Rangers fans are being asked to choose between a drastically smaller version of the club and going for broke in the hope they can somehow stop the inexorable march towards ten in a row. They have decided to pick up the dice and take an epochal risk, with no prospect of success.
In all my time watching football I have never seen anything as reckless and stupid.
This, finally, is the apogee of all the crises of the last few years; Sevco Rangers fans, not content with seeing their club die once … are willing to kill its reincarnation in the pursuit of short term success.
And they claim this is an act of love. For so long warped by hate, I suspect they’ve forgotten what the word actually means.
This is suicide, and they are embracing it, rushing towards it with open arms.
There really are no words to adequately describe how … ridiculous that is.
Villa beat Chelski 1-0.
Well done Paul Lambert, Jose go and put your dummy back ya div.
Horrendous challenge from Ramires. Defo red card. Villa beat the 9 London Huns 1-0. Mourinho sent to stand also. Not a bad weekend all in ??
Well done Paul Lambert…!!
Well done Lambo.
Paul Lambert …..very well done ….ex Porto Manager ripped a new one …..braw
See our meeja are trying to sell VVD ……BLESS THEM
An hour to kill now then TFC open their season in Seattle.
Defoe, Bradley and Cesar, looking forward to seeing if they live up to the hype.
Doc – there’s not nearly enough pictures of you in there….!
T4
DOC
Those photies make me jealous,though I had a fantastic time with PEDROCARAVANECHIO67 and his mates,Gerry and Jim.
I could have been on better form,tbh,but couldn’t have had better company.
I propose a CQNFIFTY in honour of The Lisbon Lions. Subtitled The Day The Huns Died.
Barry McGonigle@BarryMcGonigle·8h
It’s finished, Taken me 6 hours, but i think its worth it to try and restore a piece of Celtic History. @celticfc HH pic.twitter.com/oTXNq53UZE
https://twitter.com/BarryMcGonigle/status/444804046629531648/photo/1
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS ………FC not PLC
19:23 on 15 March, 2014
Thank you Sir
As I said you were spoken highly of in your absence last night.
leftclicktic We are all Neil Lennon
19:18 on
Update your web browser mate, that’ll defo sort it
EmbraMike, you don’t remember!
There was a lot of drink taken, I take it you got to BB’s ok.
eddieinkirkmichael
Thank you sir I will ask wife to do it she will know what you are talking about :))))
ps It was good today to put a name to a hat from last night.
T4, for a change:-)
BMCUWP, he’s a top banana, dodgy brother I hear though!
Was just starting to sober up, so cracked open another beer, and a nice wee bottle to sample later.
Hangover has just about cleared so what’s a man to do but have a wee Rioja with his pakora.
traditionalcurerCSC
Last one as away to read the Seville book till Salamander starts on the BBC episode 11 & 12.
Anybody heard from Oldtim today ,had the pleasure of meeting him last night but he was not feeling great so left it to others to drink for him :)))
praecepta
19:10 on 15 March, 2014
Woohoo! 6/1 Aston Villa 1-0!
Hmmmmm…
Prediction time ?
Doc
Great photos sent the link to my Daughter – she obviously takes her looks from her Mother. :-)
Doc – been rough all day, had a couple of the whisky miniatures when I got home last night, but just put away a can of Tyskie and a fish supper. Balance is restored to the force!
T4
Doc, so that’s where I stayed last night :)
Actually had a blether with fellow BB residents Oldtim and Zbyszek before he headed off to catch his flight back to Poland. There’s dedication !!
Bundoranbhoy posted a great photo of our table on Twitter at lunch time and I did comment that there was not a lot of work for a barber there !!
Too many folk still out enjoying themselves so I’m off oot to dissolve a few more brain cells in Guinness.
Once again thanks for everything
It’s not a night for complicated storylines. The Voice, And & Dec, Match Of The Day and of course The Weather will be my limit
settingthebarlowCSC
Praecepta, she’s a lovely lass.
T4, so did I, those wee miniatures were great, sat just thinking over the night, put a wee post on here, but just sat taking it in.
Fantastic night.
adi_dasler
Stuck £10 on In-play @ 6/1 just before Villa scored.
Trebled them up with RM/ AM/ Inter + all 4 – 5 bets @£1 – fingers crossed!
A picture to put a smile on your face.
SimonNRicketts@SimonNRicketts·51 mins
Brian O’Driscoll. I don’t know much about rugby, but this picture is enough to make me happy for him. pic.twitter.com/UJkhzEoPNw
https://twitter.com/SimonNRicketts/status/444910008073875456/photo/1
Good night all
Goodnight Timland.
Mrs V is back home, ordered to get off the laptop.
VALENTINESDAY
Yer getting old,mate. Time was she’d be ordering you to get off the lapdancer….
praecepta
Best of luck
Waitin on RM both teams No for £113
HH
Winklepickers: That was classic.
Paul’s headline was inspired…That. Was. Incredible!!!! C’mon you boys in green. Thank you Brian O’D Ireland legend…also well done Paul Lambert! A little payback for Seville..
9min 30 secs
Beck Sound and Vision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnOmrDzRrGQ
BRILLIANT
Evening Bhoys & Ghirls
Just about to have a blonde, well Leffe blonde :-)
First drink since the last one, which was a nice wee Stratheden around 2am this morning.
Looking ahead to a fun packed May with up to 5 nights already arranged! Dont know how the liver is going to cope :-)
HH
CRC
67heaven
it’s pathetic isn’t it, the world was supposed to end when hoops went -well I think we’re doing ok, anything to make their readership think we’re going to implode – but if it distracts them form the glaringly obvious, I’m happy !
bobby murdoch’s curled-up winklepickers ………fc not plc
19:23 on 15 March, 2014
LEFTCLICKTIC
Seems to be working fine,mate.
Here’s his latest,in case you are still struggling.
POSTED ON 15 MARCH, 2014 BY JAMES FORREST
Sssshhhhh……. Don’t warn them as to their folly, folly……. And a note of caution….remember what happened on the 3 in a row era….a load of corrupt barstewards
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
wow that was good….