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1
Complete
Control
Church bells rang out all over the world as the joyful news
spread. Spontaneous street parties broke out on every continent while some folk
just stood, tearful, overcome with emotion. It was like the Berlin Wall coming
down, Nelson Mandela being released and the end of the Second World War all
rolled into one. Rangers had been saved! Charles Green had arrived in the nick
of time and prevented 140 years of history being flushed down the crapper.
Well, that’s the story we were fed by our esteemed
Fourth Estate but it didn’t quite happen like that. In reality a tawdry,
backstairs deal was done between Green and the administrators, Duff and Phelps
before the liquidators arrived. Green picked up the assets for a song, while a
cock-and-bull story about holding companies was broadcast to justify Green’s
claim that it was the ‘same club’. In the process hundreds of creditors were
shafted out of the money they were due, including the local paper shop.
If things were as simple as that it begs
the question as to why the club was in administration so long. What was the
point in trying to find buyers with huge bank accounts? What was the point in
proposing CVAs? The whole thing could have been done and dusted within a couple
of days of going into administration. The only problem with that is that Duff
and Phelps wouldn’t have earned anywhere near as much as they did.
Our agnivores in the press were ready, just
like Sooperally, to give their support to anyone. In April they had been all
over Bill Ng like a rash, telling us how he had had a ‘lifelong passion’ for
Rangers ever since he had seen them winning the European Cup-Winners’ Cup back
in 1972.[i] Strangely enough, Craig
Whyte had been fired by the same passion; or so we were told. Wiser heads
pointed out that Ng’s proposals didn’t quite add up. He seemed to think that
£20m was going to be enough and there were doubts that he had enough money to
do all the things he said he was going to. Eventually he pulled out, blaming
Duff and Phelps for their intransigence.[ii]
Then we had Bill Miller, with his mad
scheme of playing hide-and-seek with the assets.[iii] This was another guy
with ‘wealth off the radar’ and our press was again all over him. The Daily
Record even told us how his beauty-queen wife was going to be the ‘First Lady
of Ibrox’.[iv]
The Rangers Supporters Trust denounced
Miller’s plans,[v]
which involved putting the assets into a newco, letting Duff and Phelps try to
get a CVA for Rangers and then amalgamating the newco with Rangers when
everything was alright again. The danger with this was that Rangers might be
liquidated and all that would be left would be a new club. Miller ended up
pulling out, with the opposition of the fans being a major reason.
So everybody accepted that liquidation
meant the death of Rangers; anything that came after would be a new club. So
when Rangers did, eventually, die there was an air of resignation about the
whole thing. They had come to half expect that their club wasn’t going to make
it. Now here was somebody, in fact a lot of folk, telling them that their club
hadn’t died at all. They couldn’t believe their good fortune! The Rangers
support, including those in the media, were only too willing to swallow this
story whole.
Of course, it wasn’t all plain sailing for
Green at first. Sooperally was ready at one point to ‘do walking away’ when he
apparently discovered that Green wanted rid of him. A ‘source’ said about
Sooper, ‘Honesty, dignity and courage have always
been the driving forces in McCoist’s make-up but he doesn’t think those
qualities have been in abundance outwith the players, staff and fans.’[vi]
This was going to create major problems for
Green. Sooperally had become a hero to The People and was the only link left
with the old club. Getting rid of Sooper would mean an uphill climb in
pretending that Green’s club was ‘still Rangers’. He also faced a threat to try
to oust him, even though he had only just got himself ensconced in the Blue
Room.
A consortium, made up of Douglas Park,
described as ‘the bus tycoon,’ Jim McColl, the owner of Clyde Blowers and
Walter Smith made plain their intention to buy Green out.[vii] This was going to be a
formidable force to contend with, especially given Smith’s iconic status. Green
said that he’d sell for £20m, which he knew this bunch would never come up
with. Sooperally was bound to give this group his support, which meant that
Green would be hard-pushed to sell even one season ticket.
It was obvious whose side our media was on.
Yes, Green had saved Rangers but he wasn’t a ‘Real Rangers Man,’ was he? It was
a case of, ‘Thank you very much for saving Rangers. Now fuck off!’
The People voiced their support for Smith
and his gang, while the Rangers Supporters Trust called for a season-ticket
boycott to starve Green out. Green was in an unusually conciliatory mood and
offered to make Smith chairman of his new club. He said, ‘If Walter Smith wants to ring me, wants to meet me, wants
me to go to his house, I’ll do it.’[viii]
When it came to the crunch
Smith’s millionaires shit themselves and pulled out. Green, and his backer Zeus
Capital, even offered to let the millionaires come in with them but, instead,
they stormed off in the huff. Green was now the undisputed master at Ibrox.[ix] He also
managed to get Sooperally onside. Sooper said that he had decided to stay
because ‘The most important thing is the future of my club.’[x] It would
be over a year before we discovered the real reason for Sooper’s change of
heart. Suffice it to say that Scotland’s pie manufacturers never had it so
good.
Since Green was the last man standing, and
Sooperally was now on his side, the Rangers fans flocked to buy season tickets;
something they thought they might never be able to do again. Charles Green went
among them, giving out cups of tea and wee bottles of ginger for the weans.
This, of course, went down well but not half as well as his belligerent
language as he promised to ‘stand oop’ to the football authorities. A quick
visit to East Belfast didn’t do him any harm either.
And so began the myth of Charles Green
saving Rangers. Green played up to this fully, especially when it came to the
investigation of the side letters by Lord Nimmo-Smith, acting on behalf of the
SFA. Nobody was going to take titles away from Rangers, he maintained. They had
an unbroken 140-year history, he said. Everybody’s got it in for them, he said.
This was all mother’s milk, of course, to The People.
Our newspapers joined in, using words like
‘relegated’ to describe where Green’s Neo-Gers were in the league. In reality,
of course, Scottish football, especially the supporters, weren’t going to stand
by and see this new team shoe-horned into the SPL. Why should this club get any
special favours? In truth, the new club shouldn’t even have been allowed into
the leagues at all; there were other clubs in front of it in the queue. Even
letting Neo-Gers into Division 3 was bending over backwards to accommodate
them. The People, however, and their cheerleaders in the press, saw things
differently.
Since Green’s club was still Rangers then
there shouldn’t have been any argument about it. A points deduction for ‘a
second insolvency event’ and that should have been it. This was ‘Scotland’s
biggest club’ we were talking about; how dare they treat it this way! Obviously
Green was right; everybody had it in for his club.
Leading the good fight was one James Sexton
Traynor; affectionately known as Jabba to his readers and listeners. In a
complete and utter show of sheer brass neck, he went back on his previous
statements of Rangers being dead[xi] to become the main cheerleader
of Green’s ‘Same Team’ agenda.
Of course, it did not matter in the
slightest if none of the rest of us bought into the Big Lie that this club was
‘still Rangers’. After all, none of us were ever going to buy season tickets or
merchandise, were we? This campaign was aimed squarely at The People and, more
specifically, their wallets.
Jabba conjured up different bogeymen that
had ‘nearly’ destroyed Rangers. HMRC was the first. Incredibly, he expected us
all to believe that Her Majesty’s tax inspectors went after Rangers out of
sheer hatred and bigotry. David Murray had offered a settlement, but no; HMRC
had to see it through to the bitter end.[xii]
Then we had the SFA and the SPL. They
should have listened to Jabba. How could Scottish football in general, and,
more specifically, the SPL, survive without Rangers? After all, Rangers was the
biggest club in the universe, spreading financial largesse to all the lesser
teams. Armageddon was coming and it was all the fault of the SPL for
‘relegating’ Rangers and the SFA for standing by and allowing this to happen.
But the biggest bogeyman of all was Craig
Whyte; after all, Rangers went into administration on his watch. Jabba started
to say that Rangers’ debt had been reduced to a manageable level before Whyte
came on the scene.[xiii] He even went on a BBC
programme blaming Whyte for everything, coming out with the classic line, ‘I’ve
been saying this all along!’
In fact, he had been saying nothing of the
kind. In 2010 he went on and on about how the ‘Lifelong Light Blues fan’ was
coming to plough millions into the club. In June 2011 he was talking about
‘front-loaded war chests,’ whatever the hell that means. This cash was going to
be ‘ring-fenced’ and more would be available if Sooperally needed it.
Now, however, in late 2012, Whyte was Satan
incarnate. Of course, blaming Craig Whyte let Jabba’s god, the divine David
Murray, who dispensed succulent lamb to the chosen, off the hook. Partaking of
the Agnus Davi, however, came at a high cost. You were entering into a sacred
covenant, where you had to give over your life to protecting your god. It’s
like one of those strange, American cults.
Green seemed to be the new messiah,
carrying on where Murray had left off. Whyte had done his best to destroy
Rangers but had failed. Things were going to get back to normal, while all over
Britain the sphincters of new-born lambs quivered in fearful anticipation.
Everybody in the press followed Jabba in
slavish admiration of Green, especially praising his outspokenness and
Yorkshire bluntness. Jabba’s old friend, David Leggat, he of the Presbyterian
granny, took time out from his eternal, one-sided feud with Graham Spiers to
say how wonderful Green was. Not only that, but Green’s associates, like Imran
Ahmad and Brian Stockbridge, were the best things that had ever happened at
Ibrox and they were more than suitable as custodians of the Neo-Gers, or
Rangers, as many would have us believe.[xiv]
Only one discordant note was sounded. A
baldy ex-Rangers player stood on the steps at Ibrox, dressed in his dad’s
ill-fitting, old demob suit, and shouted, ‘Showzzideeds!’ Whose name was on
them? In the general feeling of overwhelming joy, however, his protestations
were completely ignored.
Of course, when it came to the
practicalities of Neo-Gers’ existence, the Big Lie had no place. There was
trepidation over whether the team would be able to play at all; it was not
registered with the SFA as a club. Our great leaders, however, were ready to
ride to the rescue. A temporary licence was issued, an unprecedented act, to
allow the Neo-Gers to play their first league game against Peterhead.
Afterwards, the licence of Rangers was transferred over to the Neo-Gers. Surely
this wouldn’t have been necessary if it was still the same club?
On the field things were not that great.
Neo-Gers’ very first match in Division 3 ended in a draw against Peterhead.
After that things did not get much better as any wins they did get were by a
very slender margin and often the result of a penalty or the opposition being
reduced to ten men. This lack of quality, however, was put down to Sooperally
having to cope with a depleted squad. Things were bound to pick up.
Green huffed and puffed about the players
that left after liquidation. According to him, those players should have remained
at Ibrox under TUPE regulations. These regulations, however, only apply if the
company, in this case Rangers, is actually taken over. Green did nothing more
than buy the assets but it is testament to the work of himself and his
supporters in the media that he evidently believed that he had taken over, and
saved, Rangers. Nobody, except the usual ‘internet bampots’ tried to disabuse
him of this fantasy.
As to Sooperally’s squad, the transfer
embargo imposed on Neo-Gers, rather conveniently, did not come into effect
until the transfer window was closed. Sooper had the same amount of time as
every other manager to suss out players and he did sign a couple from the SPL.
The press still insisted, however, in calling the Neo-Gers team ‘kids’ and in
claiming that Sooperally was playing with a vastly depleted squad.
A huge boost for the Big Lie came in
December when the European Club Association let Green’s club remain within it,
albeit as associate members. It was a strange business, though. The ECA is
based at UEFA Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. Under Swiss law, ‘membership
of an association is neither heritable nor transferable’.[xv] So Neo-Gers had to apply
for membership. There was a stumbling block, though; members had to be in their
country’s top division and have a UEFA club licence. It looked as if their
application would be refused.
The weird thing was that the ECA then
stated, ‘Taking into account that the 'new entity'
also acquired the goodwill of the 'old entity', it was held by the ECA
executive board that the goodwill, taking into account legal and practical
arguments, also included the history of the 'old company'.[xvi]
Effectively, the ECA decided that Green’s club was Rangers, since it had
inherited all the history. Since all founder members of the ECA, of which
Rangers had been one, were guaranteed automatic membership. Green’s club,
therefore, was allowed in, called Rangers and was treated as if it was still
the old club. Their associate membership meant that Neo-Gers was not allowed to
vote on any issues.
It’s a tricky business all
this stuff about history. When you’re ready to graduate from university, having
completed three or four years of study, you have to apply to receive your
degree; they don’t just hand it over automatically. You actually have to apply
to the University Bursar’s office so they can check to see if you owe them any
money. If you do, and you don’t pay up then you ain’t getting your degree. You
can argue till you’re blue in the face but no money, no degree.
Effectively all the history
of your time at university means nothing. Who’s going to give you a job when
you don’t have a degree certificate to prove what you’ve been studying and how
you did in your exams? The money you owe to the university is part of your
university history. You have to accept all of your history; you can’t just
cherry pick which bits suit you.
Surely the same should apply
to football teams. Yes, I know businesses liquidate and start over all the
time, shafting creditors left, right and centre, but very few would be stupid
enough to claim to be the same company. If any did they would be liable for the
debts of the old company. Green appeared to be getting away with claiming to be
the same in some circumstances, but different in others. If his club was inheriting
the history of the old club then surely that should include its debts?
Obviously the rules, not to mention the law, were being bent almost to breaking
point just to accommodate this one club.
There was a huge degree of
double standards at play too in the ECA decision. If Green’s club was still
Rangers, one of the founding members of the ECA, then why did it have to apply
for membership? Nobody, however, was interested in answering these questions;
probably because they couldn’t. To The People and their friends in the media,
however, this acceptance by the ECA was nothing short of a triumph.
Meanwhile, opposition to the Big Lie was
jumped on and squashed. First we had the craven capitulation of The Sun. Phil
Mac Giolla Bhain’s book, ‘Downfall,’ had already caused ructions in book
stores, where staff were openly threatened for stocking it. The Sun newspaper
(I use the term loosely) carried an interview with Mac Giolla Bhain, telling
how his life was under threat. The paper then proposed to serialise the book,
relating ‘How Rangers self-destructed’. Cue all the angry phone calls, e-mails
and threats to The Sun.
Whether it was fear of violence, or
straightforward fear of a circulation drop, The Sun caved in and decided not to
go ahead with the serialisation. They gave as a reason the supposed fact that
Mac Giolla Bhain was ‘tarred with the brush of sectarianism.’[xvii] They didn’t bother, of
course, to mention who had been wielding the brush.
And so a major voice of dissent was
silenced. David Leggat was overjoyed and lost no time in telling The People
just what he thought of Phil Mac Giolla Bhain. His Presbyterian granny had no
doubt been turning in her grave at the thought of one of them being given a platform in a newspaper!
There was one minor problem
that still had to be fixed: the Daily Record online forum. Day after day there
was all manner of racist and bigoted posts on this forum; words like Fenian,
Taig, Tarrier and Papes were used without any censorship or censure. At the
weekend all posts by Celtic supporters were mysteriously deleted, while those
of The People were allowed to stand, no matter what they said. The Daily Record
IT staff claimed that they were being hacked but they hardly moved Heaven and
Earth to fix the problem.
The major cause for concern
was what the paper called, ‘personal abuse’ directed against ‘members of our
staff.’ I never saw any such abuse. What I did see, however, was the staff
being exposed as hypocrites. Jabba was constantly reminded of his assertion
that Rangers had died; a fact that he seemed to have conveniently forgotten.
Also, whenever any Daily Record writer started banging on about the ‘evil’
Craig Whyte, the terms ‘wealth off the radar,’ ‘frontloaded war chests’ and
‘lifelong Rangers-supporting billionaire’ were cast up in their faces.
Obviously this couldn’t be permitted to go on.
And so, on the 13th
October 2012 the Daily Record decided that it would no longer allow comments on
its football stories. Thus the opposition to the Big Lie was being
systematically wiped out and being forced to become the preserve solely of the
‘Internet Bampot’.
Meanwhile, Charles Green’s lashing out at
all and sundry had caught up with him and he was hauled up before the SFA for
bringing the game into disrepute. The evidence was there for all to see; his
interviews on the television and in the newspapers, where he called everyone
bigots and even questioned the integrity of Lord Nimmo-Smith. Incredibly, the
SFA decided to find the case against Green Not Proven.
A ‘Not Proven’ verdict means neither
innocent nor guilty; Jabba, however, proclaimed Green ‘cleared of all charges.’
He also said that Green was now being more conciliatory. Green showed this by
issuing one of his usual threats. 'Perhaps it is
time that those people within the SPL who have been pursuing Rangers at every
turn take stock.'[xviii]
The whole affair was a fiasco
and, if anything, showed that the Neo-Gers were going to be handled with the
same kid gloves as Rangers always had been. This would help in the promotion of
the idea that Rangers had never died and were still around. Of course, having
Campbell Ogilvie EBT as president of the SFA couldn’t hurt either!
So Green was allowed to carry
on his merry way, accusing everybody of having it in for his club, while Jabba
cheered him on from the sidelines. The official Daily Record line was now that
Rangers were still around, Green was right about everything and anyone that
said differently was a bigot.
If Green had taken the time
to take a good look at what had been going on around him, however, instead of
getting caught up in all the nonsense, he might have planned a bit better for
the future. The supporters, and the agnivores in the media, were ready to turn
on him at the drop of a hat. He was playing a dangerous game. He might have been
better off admitting that his was a new team and starting from scratch instead
of going for the fast buck. He was not a ‘Real Rangers Man’ and never would be.
There were plenty of those that were that would be only too willing to stab him
in the back.
