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Rangers are locked in a title race with their city rivals. They’ll face the team from across the city in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup in a few weeks also. With all that going on on the domestic front, they’ve also got the distinct possibility of ending the month of April in the semi-finals of the Europa League.
They face Braga in the quarter finals, a team they dispatched in the last 32 a couple of seasons ago. It’ll be a tough tie and a tricky one to negotiate with so many games to face in such a short space of time.
They will have two games against Celtic in 2 domestic competitions, a league game away to St Mirren, who are pushing for a top 6 place in the SPFL Premiership along with the Europa League quarters, the 1st game after the league splits then the possibility of the 1st leg of the European semi final. All in April.
Exciting times. Very much so, actually. What a time to be a Rangers supporter. Vying on three separate fronts for silverware and what would be an unprecedented treble, that is, if you dare to dream.
Make no mistake; this is a season defining month that lies ahead. A period where the management team and players will have to play to their maximum twice a week in the hope of landing trophies come May.
Fair play to Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, his coaches, backroom staff and players. They’ve been magnificent at times. None more so than against Borussia Dortmund, both home and away. The games against Red Star Belgrade were sensational to watch too. A 4-2 overall win ensured a safe-ish passage into the quarter finals, where an old foe awaits.
They’ve done what was needed in the league and Scottish Cup as well. Hanging on the coattails of Celtic, maintain the 3 point gap with two huge games in the league still to play. The first game against them at Ibrox is an absolute must win, in my opinion. If they can get the 3 points, then it really is all to play for.
It’ll come down to who is the first to blink, with six games to go and 18 points to play for, with the prospect of a winner taking all game at Parkhead after the split.
This is a tremendous position to be in. If you had asked me at the start of the season if I would take that, then to be fair, I probably would have.
Make no mistake here, the idea that Rangers could win the league and Cup double and end up so close to European success is the stuff of dreams, in my eyes anyway.
This is where Rangers should be, year in year out. This is what’s expected domestically. The European journey is an incredible bonus and allows us to get carried away a little.
I’d love nothing more than to see us play Barcelona or West Ham in the final of the Europa League in Seville come May. The hazards that are Braga and Red Bull Leipzig or Atalanta are very much in the way, but I can tell you I’m spending most of my time daydreaming of a sensational scenario that really is in the realms of fantasy.
What a time it is to follow Rangers, yet here we are in the midst of what is seriously beginning to look like the birth of a “civil war” among the shareholders.
Let’s be clear here before I go on a rant. We’ve had Dave King having a public “go” at the Rangers Board for a fair few months now. We’ve had Club 1872, also a major shareholder having very obvious concerns with members of the Rangers board as well.
Just yesterday, that was ramped up to, well, let’s say, open warfare by Club 1872, with a statement that left nothing to the imagination. They got out the machine guns and fired at all and sundry. Stewart Robertson, James Bisgrove and David Graham are the particular targets of choice. Well, those three, along with FanMedia, and let’s be honest, we all know they have no time for 1 or 2 more on the Rangers Board.
They’ve asked for those members of the board they didn’t character assassinate to meet with them as a matter of urgency. Whether those asked to do so will or not remains to be seen.
Within an hour or two of the statement from the prominent fan group, Rangers had released a statement themselves. A right to reply, so to speak.
I have to say; it was truly awful. Cringe worthy stuff. Horrific was the word that sprung to mind as I read it. To put the word supporters in quotes was beyond embarrassing. To use the word “rump” even worse.
Now here’s the thing, I have no real issue with a major shareholder being pissed off with a board of directors, as Club 1872 are. They are exactly that; major shareholders, so at the very least, in the eyes of the Rangers support, they ought to be treated with a modicum of respect publicly at least.
The Rangers statement didn’t mention Club 1872 by name, but that only left whoever sanctioned the statement open to severe criticism because, as we all know, Rangers fans have been protesting due to this preposterous situation where the Club Board has signed a contract to play in Sydney, Australia in Big Ange’s Homecoming Tour, no less.
The fact that the Rangers statement didn’t mention who were “supporters” or “rumps” was taken by some within the fanbase as a dig at those protesting. It wasn’t the case, but with fans being so utterly against this Australian fiasco, anything the Rangers Board do or say until they say they’ve cancelled this commercial engagement in November will be treated with hostility.
I saw a tweet earlier today that basically said that the writer couldn’t believe the Rangers Board thought the best way to celebrate the club’s 150th birthday was to play a friendly against Celtic. Well, I couldn’t have put it any better myself. What an own goal from those incumbents charged to lead Rangers Football Club.
I said it on this website the other week. As a support, Rangers fans want nothing to do with Celtic. Not ever. So to get into bed in a business sense with a club that has the enormous weight of a class action against them for horrific acts against children in their care was an act of betrayal in many fans’ eyes.
Get that charade cancelled as soon as is humanly possible and apologise to the supporters who shell out their hard earned cash week in, week out. Apologise for being so stupidly naive as to think that was a viable commercial enterprise to enter into. It isn’t and never will be. It’s a grotesque idea, to be brutally frank about it.
The fact that today Dave King has offered to pay certain costs of cancelling this trip only shows the Rangers Board are being caught on the hop in a Public Relations sense yet again. The machinations of running a football club must be monstrous, but to not see the dangers coming your way time and again is a major worry.
Off guard when Celtic announced they (and Rangers) were going to Australia in November, apparently unaware that the New South Wales government was going to announce it along with the 2 Sydney teams, they’ve now handed Dave King an open goal in a PR sense.
They really don’t have their troubles to seek at the moment, but here I am about to defend them.
They’ve done an excellent job of steering our football club. Yes, Club 1872 made some very pertinent points regarding the issues the club had, and those issues need to be rectified and soon.
However, this board and investors have manoeuvred the club through the pandemic and stuck their hands into very, very deep pockets. All of us, including major shareholders, should be extremely grateful to every single one of them for doing so. Without them, who knows where we would be right now.
As for Club 1872, I find their constant bickering tedious. We all know that they and the club have fallen out big time.
We all know they aren’t going to be able to purchase Dave Kings shares in the timescale set either. We know there are serious personality issues behind the scenes. We are aware that they don’t like certain Rangers Board members, and we are most certainly in the know when it comes to that organisation and them being incapable of getting their own house in order.
Analogies of pots and kettles spring to mind. Get your own house in order first before you slaughter others for not being on the same page as you. The fact is that Club 1872 have been a shambles of an organisation for years and everybody connected to Rangers knows it. Harsh, but most definitely true.
Yesterday’s statement war reminded me of bad times. Times when I personally got involved in the politics at Rangers. I have no wish to go back to those days where tit followed tat endlessly. It’s boring and only brings disharmony and conflict. No one wins when this kind of public spat becomes angrier and more hostile.
I’m absolutely sure the Rangers support doesn’t want it, and I’m even more assured that they certainly do not want it right now. The only people this serves are our enemies, and there will be plenty of them hollering with laughter at this latest shitshow.
Of all the times to create uncertainty, vitriol, anger and division, this international break is not it. In a little over a week, Rangers have a must win game to keep themselves very much alive in the title race. That, and only that, should be the sole focus we have. Nothing else matters to any Rangers supporter I know, and that’s the truth.
Personal attacks are pathetic. Innuendo and accusations are best left for those that follow another football club in Glasgow, not Rangers.
Rangers do not need this right now, and I simply can’t believe a major shareholder in Club 1872 shot itself in the foot like this only for Rangers to snatch the shotgun off them and do the same in a retort so poorly written it’s probably the worst statement I’ve ever read from Rangers Football Club.
Pathetic. Absolute cringe from all concerned. There must be a ceasefire, and it needs to be called immediately because if this infiltrates into the support, there will be no winners and certainly not the club we all love.
Get it sorted and start behaving like responsible adults and all of you try to remember that you represent Rangers and its fans.
Whoever wrote that Rangers statement yesterday should remember that Club 1872 has thousands of members, and their board acts on those thousand’s behalf. They have every right to be disgusted with the reply they got yesterday. You simply cannot call people “rump” when they represent so many people with Rangers’ best interests at heart, no matter who is suggesting it and criticising you. That is not and never should be the Rangers’ way of going about things.
Club 1872 should also take a look in the mirror. They don’t have their troubles to seek, and maybe this is their last throw of the dice here, but they must understand that the majority of the Rangers support want absolutely nothing to do with them and rattle throwing like that yesterday only compounds those feelings.
Nobody wins in this. How can they? In a time when we should be so eagerly anticipating a momentous month, here we are watching the offshoots of spring and bampottery of suits with more issues than The Beano.
Get the friendly cancelled. Wind yer necks in and get united for what could be a monumental season. The manager and his team need everybody behind them, and the notion of going back to 2014 when civil war raged among us isn’t an option. Leave it for the summer, then whoever has the biggest cajones can show them off to all and sundry. Until then, can we get a wee bit of sanity, please?
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