Socrates MacSporran

Socrates MacSporran
No I am not Chick Young, but I can remember when Scottish football was good

Saturday 11 February 2017

ALL together now: “Let's all laugh at Rangers, let's all laugh at Rangers, na, na, na, na, na, na”

No caption needed


YOU would honestly think the clowns at the top of the marble staircase at Rangers' Ibrox Park are deliberately trying to ruin this once great club, so-poor has been their decision-making of late. And I do not limit my criticism of the club's High Heid Yins to the current sad bunch.

I know Graham Spiers, for one, would love to write a “proddy” version of 'Downfall', I would too, but, I think getting to the truth of the matter will have to wait a few years yet, until all the legal issues are resolved and the actors have calmed down and can reflect honestly.

Nobody comes out of the whole saga with any credit – from Sir David Murray, via the SFA, SPL and SFL, through various managers, to poor wee Davie Whyte (was he a crook or a deluded fall guy?), via Normandy Charlie Green, the saps at Duff and Phelps, the Three Bears, one or two interim chairmen to the Glib and Shameless Liar and his cohorts, currently frantically bailing to try to keep the footballing ship called Dignity afloat.

It's a gie weird affair when “General” Mike Ashley, arguably the biggest “villain” in English football, certainly around Tyneside, emerges as one of the few guys who has acted with any consistency and good faith. Love him or loath him, Mike has defended his own interests better than anyone else.

Of course, our wonderful Scottish fitba media has again been – er, is shite a strong enough word. The way this lot have covered matters Ibroxian over the past five years makes dear old Alex Cameron's midnight telephone call to the Sports Desk, when they told him him that Rangers were going to sign Mo Johnston - “Don't be ridiculous” was “Chiefy's” response – look like great journalism.

I said at the start of this whole sorry affair: there are lawyers set to make a rich killing, and, if the football powers-that-be had done one of two things:
1, regard Chuck Green's club as a “successor club” and kept “Rangers” in the top flight;
2, told Green – you're a new club, start in the Juniors, or the Lowland League, this whole matter would have been sorted-out lang syne.

There was a third option, which I personally favoured. This was, Green, or whoever, should have bought Rangers, and, at the same time, bought Portsmouth, which was up for sale at a knock-down price, merged the two clubs and the single club thus former – “Portsmouth Rangers” or whatever, should have played out of Ibrox, in the English League. Now, I know setting this up would have been difficult, but, it would not have been impossible. Mind you, we'd have missed a lot of fun over the intervening period.

So, “the Magic Hat”, “the Admirable Warburton”, call him what you will, has gone. Well, the “stenographers” (tm. Phil Mac Giolla Bhain) will now have a feeding frenzy as they speculate on who is next up for the Ibrox Bum of the Season campaign

At least the cannon fodder in Joe Louis's “Bum of the Month” boxing campaign, knew they only had to worry about “the Brown Bomber” hitting them – hard. Whoever succeeds Warburton will have to worry about the forces marshalled by Brendan Rodgers, Derek McInnes, Ian Cathro and Co hitting them head on, while the GASL and the stumble-bums in the Blue Room try to knock their feet from under them.

The new guy, whoever he is, will have to operate with a squad which has demonstrated it is not fit for purpose; reinforcements cannot be summoned-up before the close season, and then, some of the dross will have to shovelled out of the door, incurring severance costs which close observers of matters Ibroxian are positive the club cannot afford, before replacements can be recruited.

And, all the while the Donegal Diarist will be reminding his thousands of followers: “This is a club without a line of credit from a bank”; a club relying on loans from the directors to meet regular monthly commitments and whose “Glib and Shameless Liar” of a chairman has apparently misplaced the key to his £50 million “war chest”.

This is comedy gold. It is great for the sales of popcorn, jelly and ice cream in Croy and other havens of the members of the Celtic family, but, family doctors and pharmacists in Larkhall, Kilwinning, Drongan and the other reservations wherein Ra Bears live will need to stock-up on tranquilisers and anti-depressants in the months to come.

Both writer Armando Iannucci and star actor Peter Capaldi from the TV comedy series 'The Thick Of It' are Glasgow-born Scots-Italians. This would appear to make Celtic Park their natural football home, if they indeed have any time for the Beautiful Game. How I would love to see them tackle the whole Rangers saga, it would be comedy gold – but, could it come close to the real thing?

Mind you, this being Scotland – they would have to give this well-known Scottish actor a part.

 

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