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Bill Leckie


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HE speaks in the bluff, flat tones of a Yorkshire mill owner.

And now it seems Charles Green has started surveying his kingdom like the kind of Victorian millionaire whose idea of kindness was to give t’workers an hour off on Christmas morning.

Witness this headline from an official press release out of Ibrox a few days back: Charles Green freezes Falkirk ticket prices.

Not: Rangers freeze ticket prices. Not: Club Says Thank You With Price Freeze.

No, ’tis Mr Green himself to whom t’huddled masses must doff their ragged caps. God bless ’ee, sir, you’ve a diamond where others ’ave an ’eart of flint and no mistake.

Now, I’m not knocking anyone for the decision to let punters in at £13 for adults and £3 for kids against Falkirk in the second round of the League Cup a week on Thursday.

But let’s be clear here — it’s Falkirk. In the second round of the League Cup. On a Thursday.

So let’s not go making ourselves sound like we’re smashing the capitalist system by not charging like the Light Brigade, eh?

Some people just can’t resist it, though.

They just can’t help but get sucked in by the fame and the adrenaline and the moment and turning themselves into the kind of celebrity no club suit should ever be.

The game’s history is littered with them — guys who arrive with reputations as hard-nosed tycoons before regressing within five minutes to awestruck wee boys.

At Rangers, it happened to David Murray the minute he started rubbing shoulders with the stars, to the idiot Whyte the moment he got to raise the championship flag and now it’s happened to Green.

When he took over the club in May, the joke was that he’d never be accepted unless he changed his name by deed poll to Blue.

Sometimes, though, truth is funnier than satire. And with every passing day, it would surprise you less and less if he actually did.

Let’s be honest. Short of having his entire torso tattooed with a tableau of Helicopter Sunday, it’s hard to imagine how the guy could try harder to sook up to the Bears.

Applauding them when they chant anti-SFA abuse. Calling anyone who questions The Rangers bigoted or drunk or stupid. Hugging fans for the cameras. Taking credit for not ripping them off at the gates for a game they don’t want to be playing.

What the manager must think of it all is anyone’s guess.

After all, if anyone deserves credit for inspiring the amazing support Rangers have enjoyed it’s Ally McCoist.

Would they have been queueing the length of Edmiston Drive for season tickets had he not bitten the bullet and issued a statement saying it was okay to back the new regime?

Would they have smashed the world-record attendance figure for a fourth-tier football match against The Shire on Saturday had McCoist quit and been replaced by some bloke Green knew from his time at Sheffield United?

It’s highly doubtful. Just as — and this is only my opinion — it’s highly doubtful McCoist trusts his owner half as much as he made out in that pivotal statement the other week.

Though maybe that’s just because I wouldn’t.

Had the pre-season horse-trading panned out the way the SFA and EssPeeEll had planned and Rangers had been parachuted into the First Division, my bet is Green would already be planning an exit strategy with five times his initial investment tucked in his sky rocket.

Instead, they landed in the Third. Which means a lot more graft to make them saleable.

And a far greater need to ingratiate himself with a support innately suspicious of anyone who isn’t Wannae Us.

So he leads the choir in If You Hate Stewart Regan Clap Your Hands and panders to religious paranoia and whatever else it takes to be accepted.

You can only shake your head, but in him you see so many others like him too vain to learn Rule One of running a football club.

That the TRUE leaders have the humility to take a step back when the going’s good and the bravery to stick their head above the parapet when the flak’s flying.

Put it this way. If season ticket sales were at 13,000 instead of 33,000, if they’d lost in extra-time at Brechin and not scraped a 90th-minute equaliser at Peterhead and 22,000 had turned up on Saturday, would the press office be putting out a statement with the heading: Charles Green accepts full responsibility for disastrous start.

Now that WOULD be a first.

Not to mention as likely as Hibs fans having a square go over which supporters club gets to name its bus The Rod Petrie No1.

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/columnists/billleckiesports/4496004/SunSport-Columnist-Bill-Leckie-Charles-Green-is-playing-to-crowd.html

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:wanker: Leckie is a fuckin cunt of a man.. :wanker:

Amongst other things hes sayin why is it 'Charles Green freezes falkirk ticket prices' and not 'Rangers freeze falkirk ticket prices'

Basically still saying he is playing the fans..

It all sounds very exciting.

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HE speaks in the bluff, flat tones of a Yorkshire mill owner.

And now it seems Charles Green has started surveying his kingdom like the kind of Victorian millionaire whose idea of kindness was to give t’workers an hour off on Christmas morning.

Witness this headline from an official press release out of Ibrox a few days back: Charles Green freezes Falkirk ticket prices.

Not: Rangers freeze ticket prices. Not: Club Says Thank You With Price Freeze.

No, ’tis Mr Green himself to whom t’huddled masses must doff their ragged caps. God bless ’ee, sir, you’ve a diamond where others ’ave an ’eart of flint and no mistake.

Now, I’m not knocking anyone for the decision to let punters in at £13 for adults and £3 for kids against Falkirk in the second round of the League Cup a week on Thursday.

But let’s be clear here — it’s Falkirk. In the second round of the League Cup. On a Thursday.

So let’s not go making ourselves sound like we’re smashing the capitalist system by not charging like the Light Brigade, eh?

Some people just can’t resist it, though.

They just can’t help but get sucked in by the fame and the adrenaline and the moment and turning themselves into the kind of celebrity no club suit should ever be.

The game’s history is littered with them — guys who arrive with reputations as hard-nosed tycoons before regressing within five minutes to awestruck wee boys.

At Rangers, it happened to David Murray the minute he started rubbing shoulders with the stars, to the idiot Whyte the moment he got to raise the championship flag and now it’s happened to Green.

When he took over the club in May, the joke was that he’d never be accepted unless he changed his name by deed poll to Blue.

Sometimes, though, truth is funnier than satire. And with every passing day, it would surprise you less and less if he actually did.

Let’s be honest. Short of having his entire torso tattooed with a tableau of Helicopter Sunday, it’s hard to imagine how the guy could try harder to sook up to the Bears.

Applauding them when they chant anti-SFA abuse. Calling anyone who questions The Rangers bigoted or drunk or stupid. Hugging fans for the cameras. Taking credit for not ripping them off at the gates for a game they don’t want to be playing.

What the manager must think of it all is anyone’s guess.

After all, if anyone deserves credit for inspiring the amazing support Rangers have enjoyed it’s Ally McCoist.

Would they have been queueing the length of Edmiston Drive for season tickets had he not bitten the bullet and issued a statement saying it was okay to back the new regime?

Would they have smashed the world-record attendance figure for a fourth-tier football match against The Shire on Saturday had McCoist quit and been replaced by some bloke Green knew from his time at Sheffield United?

It’s highly doubtful. Just as — and this is only my opinion — it’s highly doubtful McCoist trusts his owner half as much as he made out in that pivotal statement the other week.

Though maybe that’s just because I wouldn’t.

Had the pre-season horse-trading panned out the way the SFA and EssPeeEll had planned and Rangers had been parachuted into the First Division, my bet is Green would already be planning an exit strategy with five times his initial investment tucked in his sky rocket.

Instead, they landed in the Third. Which means a lot more graft to make them saleable.

And a far greater need to ingratiate himself with a support innately suspicious of anyone who isn’t Wannae Us.

So he leads the choir in If You Hate Stewart Regan Clap Your Hands and panders to religious paranoia and whatever else it takes to be accepted.

You can only shake your head, but in him you see so many others like him too vain to learn Rule One of running a football club.

That the TRUE leaders have the humility to take a step back when the going’s good and the bravery to stick their head above the parapet when the flak’s flying.

Put it this way. If season ticket sales were at 13,000 instead of 33,000, if they’d lost in extra-time at Brechin and not scraped a 90th-minute equaliser at Peterhead and 22,000 had turned up on Saturday, would the press office be putting out a statement with the heading: Charles Green accepts full responsibility for disastrous start.

Now that WOULD be a first.

Not to mention as likely as Hibs fans having a square go over which supporters club gets to name its bus The Rod Petrie No1.

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/columnists/billleckiesports/4496004/SunSport-Columnist-Bill-Leckie-Charles-Green-is-playing-to-crowd.html

Was this written by Comeoffit ?? :lol:

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Cheist he'd have been better off just writing an article saying 'sorry, I've got nothing to talk about today'

Is he really knocking an owner of a football club for doing what he can to get the fans onside? Aye because it's always a better idea to piss us off instead.

Fuck sake

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Guys these fannies feed off the very reactions that they get from sites like this.....................as is well known their employers circulations are dropping and they set out to be so called controversial to get attention...........ignore and they will disappear leckie is a sad little fat guy who never made it to tv and was short lived on the radio.

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Joke of an article.

Chock full of..... if this happened.....would...could.....might.....

It's a lot easier to fire at someone about stuff they might do, bit harder to have a go at what they are actually doing.

He offers no evidence as to why he thinks Green might do the things he describes. It is mere fantasy and speculation based on a biased opinion. ie shite.

One might equally argue if we went into the first div, Green might have invested more to provide a team for next years SPL. A successful debt-free Rangers in the SPL would be far more saleale and make much more money for Mr Green.

So even from a business point of view, Leckie is talking mince.

For yonks now, they bad people have been telling us how Green needs to win the fans over.

Now he's doing it, they are having a go at him for doing so.

They are hurting deeply that Charlie isn't another CW, he's still there and Rangers haven't died.

They'd better brace themselves as they have a lot more pain coming.

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Jim Traynor also on the same subject.

IF you should happen across someone weeping quietly while slumped against the red-brick facade of Ibrox, spare a kind word.

It won’t be Ian Black feeling sorry for himself after that Easter Road reception, or some down-at-heel Govanite, whose bottle has just crashed – literally – right through a hole in his carry-out bag.

Most likely it will be an employee from Rangers’ media department. Trying to persuade someone like Charles Green to tone it down must be the toughest job in the game

these days.

Yet you would think that working for a club that can attract 49,000 supporters to a Third Division match would be a joy. It should be but it isn’t.

While we might have grown weary of the back story, Rangers’ media people are run off their feet trying to cope with interview requests from around the world. Others are just catching up and that was why the Ibrox club’s first home match in the Third Division attracted attention from various countries including Italy, France and Brazil.

Even the New York Times wanted to know how a club in the lowest league of a tiny country – which struggles to produce mediocre, never mind decent players – can command such a massive support.

How can a club in that situation issue a plea to fans to stop applying for season books because the ticketing system can’t cope with the demand?

And so they all came, demanding access and one-to-ones. But it isn’t the increased workload which is causing fear and panic among Rangers’ media people, it’s the thought of another microphone being thrust under the nose of Green, who just might be the new Wallace Mercer.

You must remember him, the late former owner of Hearts. He certainly knew how to work a crowd and so fond of a public platform was he that it was said he had a card in his wallet which read: ‘In the event of accident or injury, call a press conference.’

Hibernian’s fans didn’t think much of him when he tried to merge their club with his own but the Great Waldo, who’d speak his mind even when he knew the authorities wouldn’t approve, is sadly missed. He could be arrogant and loud but there was always the hint of mischief about Wallace, and although he was passionate about his club you suspected his entire life didn’t revolve around the Hearts or the game.

Did he take it all seriously, or was he just having a laugh?

The same question can be asked of Green, who has his ashen-faced media people sweating and worried every time he opens his mouth. They just know that no matter how long they spend advising and preparing him, all of it will be forgotten as soon as their man gets into his flow.

Trying to get Green to remain on message is impossible. Easier to herd a swarm of angry wasps or lasso steam but although Green often sounds as though words are just teaming out in no particular order, he is aware of what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s saying and the reaction his words will bring.

Of course he knew that by jabbing a finger at the authorities, and ‘them over there’ he’d finally connect with Rangers’ fans. It can be argued he is tapping deliberately into the more extreme element of that support but the fact is he struck a chord with a whole lot of others.

There are many fair-minded and reasonable Rangers fans who also believe they have been badly treated by the authorities and some clubs.

They accept punishment was merited but they also believe fans and one or two influential club people couldn’t wait to sink the boot from behind the cloak of sporting integrity.

And I must admit to a degree of sympathy for Rangers. Not at all for their FTP brigade, of course, but for the many decent folk who follow this club.

There is little doubt in my mind a blind hatred of Rangers clouded and also extended this story of crime and punishment but let’s try to remember this club are responsible for their own collapse, although Saturday’s impressive show of strength suggests anything but a downfall.

Only a month ago Rangers had sold no more than 500 season tickets and now they’re asking for customers to form an orderly queue and be patient. They have taken in about £10m in sales already and Green is preparing to press ahead with a shares issue.

The club’s wage bill must be down to about £7million and money should be piling up in the account. Any more generated by further investors and the issue will, as they say in this business, be a bonus. Unless, of course, there are people, as yet unnamed, to be paid off for having backed the purchase of Rangers.

But the fans, for the moment, aren’t thinking about the possibility of hidden agendas. They’ve been flooding back since the day Ally McCoist said it was time to buy into the new regime.

Ally gave his seal of approval and that was good enough for the masses. If their hero of the past year was ready to back Green then so, too, would they but just to make sure the chief executive himself pitched in with a couple of sound bites.

As soon as he said decisions against Rangers had been taken out of bigotry the rush to the ticket window became a stampede.

The chief executive might sound like a Yorkshire stereotype but he’s probably playing to the crowd. He’s hamming it up, I suspect, because away from it all he speaks in more measured tones but challenging the authorities pressed all the right buttons with a support convinced they have been wronged by the game.

They squeezed into Ibrox on Saturday to make it clear they and their club remain a force. In fact, there is a sense this support have taken just about enough and are ready now to challenge the game’s governing bodies as others have done in the past.

They are right behind Green and McCoist who face disrepute charges but even so, the man at the helm would be unwise to play games with this lot.

Just the other day he said he wouldn’t stand back with a hand over his mouth and allow his club to be abused, yet another line for the supporters, but now that he’s won them over he’d better deliver.

Rangers fans have given him their trust and a further misuse of that belief would be the biggest abuse of all.

http://www.<No links to this website>/sport/football/all-mouth-and-rouser-1269998

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How? Ally mccoist said what hebsaid AFTER the 33k season tckets were sold.

At some point he'll need to reign in the Constant mud slinging. It's fine standing up for us but getting disrepute charge after disrepute will help no one.

Charlie is doing well but we still needs some questions answered.

We still don't know how owns us!

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Dont remember leckie going after slit eyes in such a way. Now there is a scumbag that plays to his audience.

That's exactly what I thought when he talked about chairmen staying in the background. And not putting their head above the parapet. We have been crying out for someone to defend our club for years. That is why we are all getting behind mr. Green. Do your research leckie and stop spouting pish. Ban, ban, ban

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At some point he'll need to reign in the Constant mud slinging. It's fine standing up for us but getting disrepute charge after disrepute will help no one.

Charlie is doing well but we still needs some questions answered.

We still don't know how owns us!

Why do we need to know who owns us.

Fans of most clubs won't know who owns them.

Fans of most clubs won't know who owns the company that pays their wages.

I'd wager that is far more important to them, but I bet that's never crossed their mind.

This ownership thing is a stick thats been invented to hit Green with.

I don't give a monkeys who owns us as long as they keep doing the right things.

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