BALDERDASH!

Before we get down to the main business, a word about flares and 'pyrotechnics' as the papers call them. The Daily Record, as you might expect, is all over the story of Celtic supporters letting off flares in Turkey. The way they keep going on you'd think it was a worse crime than the Paris murders or even the Twin Towers massacre. No such foaming at the mouth and hysterical finger pointing when it comes to a Hearts fan being injured by a 'pyrotechnic' at yesterdays' match against Aberdeen. The report of this incident is strangely matter-of-fact and almost gives the impression of it being some kind of unavoidable accident.
Meanwhile, have a look at this article and tell me that our media aren't a bunch of disgusting hypocrites. I especially noted the comment at the end of the piece: "You've got to hand it to the Bulgarian boys for this one...gold STAR lads!" It seems that our media only disapproves of one group of supporters in the whole of Europe letting off 'pyrotechnics'.

Season's Cheatings!

Skulking behind Door 13 is a man that worked as a model when he was younger. There are pictures floating around the internet of him, wearing Pringle and other trendy gear while staring off into the distance. He was probably destined for fame and fortune until tragedy struck. He lost most of his hair and ended up looking like Gordon Honeycombe, which meant that the modelling was out the window. Undaunted, our hero went into marketing and PR and ended up working for Rangers from 1996 until 2011, reaching the giddy heights of Commercial Director, Director of Football Business and even Chief Executive. Ladeeeez and Gennulmen - introducing Martin 'Baldy' Bain.

Baldy's main claim to fame, and, ostensibly, the evidence that he's one of the good guys, is that he opposed the sale of Rangers to Craig Whyte. He, and other board members, hired a private investigator to look into Whyte and what they found out frightened the shit out of them. David Murray, however, ignored them and went ahead with the sale. Predictably, when Whyte took over, Baldy found himself out on his arse. Of course, when Whyte's regime went tits-up, Bain could hold his baldy heid high and wear an 'I told you so' expression. His conscience was clear.

Unfortunately, Bain's conscience didn't apply to anything outside the confines of Ibrox. It was one thing trying to keep a crook out of the Blue Room, but he had no scruples about screwing over HMRC and the public purse. Of course, when it came to the crunch, Bain used the Nuremburg defence that everybody associated with the Murray years clung to: 'Ah didny see nuhin', Ah didny hear nuhin' an' Ah didny dae nuhin'!' Bain was less credible than most; after all, how could he have known nothing when he had been Commercial Director and, even more pointedly, Director of Football Business? The very title 'Director of Football Business' suggests that he was the one signing players and negotiating contracts. And yet, he was supposed to know nothing about the EBTs and the rest!

When Whyte threw Bain out of Ibrox, Baldy straightaway decided to sue for unfair dismissal and breach of contract. He was looking for £900k and got a judge to freeze nearly half-a-million quid of Rangers' assets pending the outcome of his legal action. Then Rangers went into administration and Bain's conscience whacked him round the baldy napper again. He decided to drop his action 'to help the club'. Awwww! Izzat no' nice!

There was another possible reason, however, for his sudden decision to drop things. Channel 4 was just about to announce that it had viewed documents showing that Bain had taken advantage of the EBT scheme. Perhaps the reason why Bain pulled out was that he would have to produce documents to prove that he was owed money. The last thing he wanted was public interest in what those documents had to say. Better to just give up and crawl back out of the limelight than have all his secretive EBT dealings open to scrutiny. Instead of facing up to things, he stuck to the Nuremberg theme that it was all down to Murray and that he had simply been 'following orders'. (You can read more about this stuff here.)

Anyone with half a brain can see that Bain was up to his neck in the whole sordid business; how could he not have been? With the positions he held at the club, he would have been fully involved in the running of the scheme and, as Director of Football Business, he would have known that it was giving his club an unfair sporting advantage. This is completely in character; hasn't he always claimed that he was acting in the best interests of Rangers? Just in case there might be more awkward questions to deal with, Bain has buggered off to Israel. Cheating bastard!

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