millar brand

I was suggesting we make legal representation to UEFA as, I believe, they merely latched on to an issue that others, such as McNee and Speirs, had stirred up with them. I think we need the Club to be more pro-active with UEFA as I fear problems could still come on this issue next season. I accept there is a distinction in Scotland although as I have tried to state in my post I believe there is scope domestically for those who have an agenda against us and was suggesting we try to be a bit clever for once and act to avoid that in the future. I also think the potential for Reid and others like him to mischief make against us is not to be ignored. Should we just sit back and hope there will be nothing sung at any of our UEFA games next season that might land us in trouble or that no Scottish politician will try to make an issue of us for something sung at a domestic game ? If so fine. I would prefer however to see us for once take the initiative on this issue.

sonWilliam "Will i have my suspicion on you now as for a poster who can't spell the simple word of FOOTBALL and UEFA must come under suspicion." What a clever and insightful comment. Obviously my typing and spelling skills have let me down. I can see I'm no match for you in the debating stakes. Just to quell your "suspicion" I saw my first Rangers game in 1958 and have followed the Club through thick and thin ever since. However why should I bother to justify myself to you ? You don't like my views, fine, let's beg to differ, but don't resort to the pathetic " he doesn't think the same as me so he can't be a true Rangers man line".

SonoWilliam, I've actually had previous posts, however I didn't realise voicing your opinions on the team you love and have supported all your life was the sole preserve of those of many posts or that TBB was a taboo subject. Anyway I think if you read my post properly you'd see it was actually about a lot more than TBB, however I'll think twice before bothering in future. Where ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise.

Sorry you wasted three minutes of your life. I think you'll find the Billy Boys is bannded by EUFA. " EUFA DIRECTIVES. Villareal Following the two UEFA Champions League fixtures against Villareal in February and March 2006, UEFA charged Rangers FC for being responsible for discriminatory chants sung by sections of their supporters at both matches, in particular, the ‘Billy Boys’ and ‘**** the Pope’. Rangers challenged the charges and the UEFA Control & Disciplinary Body cleared the Club in April 2006. UEFA appealed that decision and the Disciplinary Inspector called for the closure of parts of Ibrox stadium, as well as a CHF 35,000 fine. UEFA rules also allowed the consideration of forcing Rangers to play matches behind closed doors, as well as a stadium ban. The UEFA Appeals Body investigated the case and again Rangers FC challenged all charges. The club was fined CHF 30,000 and the closure or partial closure of Ibrox stadium, as originally sought, was prevented. However, the Club was severely warned about its responsibility for the future conduct of supporters and a directive was issued which stated (in conjunction with the Judgment from the Appeals Body): • ‘**** the Pope’ is discriminatory under UEFA rules • The ‘Billy Boys’ is associated “with an attitude that is strongly sectarian and thus discriminatory”. • The directive also instructed to the Club to implement a range of measures to demonstrate its continuing efforts to eradicate sectarianism, including the banning of supporters indulging in such behaviour, communication of anti-sectarian messages etc. • UEFA made it clear that the singing of the Billy Boys was prohibited. Songs and chants that referred to ‘**** the Pope’ and ‘F*nians’ were also condemned. The UEFA directive referred to the ‘ethos’ of its decision and said that a club such as Rangers should be in a position to encourage behaviour that would not jeopardise the club at domestic and international fixtures. Osasuna Following the UEFA Cup tie against Osasuna in March 2007, Rangers were fined 20,000 Swiss francs for “discriminatory singing” by its supporters. Osasuna was fined far more heavily due to the lack of security arrangements on the night. UEFA specifically mentioned “No Pope in Rome”, “**** the Pope” and the Billy Boys as discriminatory singing and concluded the following: “UEFA has to send a strong message that sectarianism is unacceptable within football, especially within UEFA competitions. If Rangers FC wishes to compete in UEFA competitions, they must combat this behaviour not only on the occasion of home matches but also on the occasion of away matches. These incidents are ascribable to Rangers FC in accordance with Article 6(1) RD and must be punished accordingly.” Since that time, the Club has continued with informal liaison with UEFA and the Scottish football authorities and it is clear that the Club and its supporters are unlikely to be given the benefit of the doubt in the future should there be further incidents".

I didn't say Elgar was "quintessentially" British, I said the music was, and what relevance is his religion to the quality of his music.

Following the recent article on the first part of Kevin Anderson’s thesis, a few random thoughts on songs from the terraces and the political will to do us down. To begin, a plea to real Rangers supporters. Let’s try to be a bit clever about what we’re doing and actually try to help our Club rather than give those who would bring us down easy ammunition to do so. Towards the end of last season we seemed to be starting up with the Billy Boys again, more usually at away games and presumably on the basis that it’s crept back into the repetoire at various times recently and we’ve got away with it, ie no-one’s made an issue of it in the media. How stupid we would be to assume this will be allowed to continue. I can remember following Rangers long before the Billy Boys was sung. However it is a chant that gets the crowd going and given we seem to be one of the few clubs that seems to be constantly under scrutiny for this type of thing we need to look at why. Firstly, when EUFA took exception to it there is no doubt this was instigated from some supposed outraged individuals complaining to them that it was a form of bigotry that offended a group of people, ie Roman Catholics. Gerry McNee and Graham Speirs to name but two, had for a long time been bumping their gums about this and there’s no doubt that if we start it up again we’ll make ourselves an easy target for anyone who wants to pull us down. As I understand it the use of the word F*nian was what EUFA jumped on. For those who feign offence they claim that this word is associated with Roman Catholicism, although it has nothing to do with religion but refers to an Irish Republican political movement. We have not been punished domestically for singing it, although that may still happen, given the political dimension that exists from the Celtic minded politicians who walk our corridors of power, such as the no longer in Government members of Opus Dei like Des Browne and dear old Dr Reid ( did a PhD and insists on using the title ), who no doubt still have many political allies whom they can influence. Do not treat lightly the weight of influence that bully boy Reid may yet be able to exert amongst those in positions of power whom he has dealt with over the years. Sectarianism, to paraphrase Jack McConnell, from a few years ago is after all Scotland’s shame. Sectarianism is defined in the dictionary I have as “adhering to a particular sect, faction or doctrine…one who is intolerant to other sects.” Another word for sectarianism might be division, that which separates, that which causes division, that which creates sects. In the West of Scotland the greatest creator of division is segregated schools, ie the insistence that Roman Catholic children need to be taught in a different environment to non Roman Catholic children. How politicians who condemn sectarianism as a principle but support the separation of children into sects from the age of 5 onwards can justify this contradiction has always been beyond me. That’s politics however. In Scotland you can’t afford to make an enemy of the Catholic Church because of the power it wields over its members. So segregated schools are fine but nasty football chants are Scotland’s shame. The big problem lies with EUFA. Once you start singing the Billy Boys again you can’t stop it and we’ll be belting it out in the Champions League and EUFA which have already fined us for it will really go to town. Being kicked out of Europe at a time when we really need the money would be disastrous for our club. If the Billy Boys means so much to us, let's find a better way of getting it off EUFA's banned list rather than just belting it out, letting them penalise us and then arguing about who else sings what and why are we being picked on. We know that EUFA act first and think afterwards. Unfortunately we as a club need them more than they need us. We need Rangers through appropriate legal representation ( oh for a Donald Findlay back where he belongs ), to take this up with EUFA, but for supporters just to start it up again as some sort of act of defiance will only harm the club, rightly or wrongly, at a time when we can ill afford it. Secondly, our playing of Simply the Best, a great anthem, unfortunately can no longer be aired other than in a partial sense as the full version affords those in our support who appear to be bereft of a few brain cells the opportunity to include the FTP and the IRA chant. How to shoot yourselves in the foot big time ! The need to refer in any sense to the Pope is in any event a total anachronism in this day and age. Rangers as a club is bigger than that and it’s time our supporters were too. On a personal note, I would love to see blasted out before the Gers come out the tunnel some of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstances marches. Much better than the Dambusters March. The ones commonly known as “land of hope and glory” and “all men should be free” are fantastic pieces of “ quintessentially British” inspirational music, and would get the crowd really up for it, especially if blasted out at maximum volume over the Broomloan stand at an Old Firm game just when they are starting to walk alone, disillusioned as always with the belief that they are not.

One thing that's always stuck in my memory from that night was the performance of Kurt Hamrin. He played right wing for Fiorentina that night and took Caldow apart, and Caldow was some full back. He was small, tricky, played with the socks round the ankles, ie no shinpads at a time when full backs could get away with a few kicks, but he was just awesome that night. He was Swedish and had played in the 58 world cup final. I'd never seen anyone quite like him before then. A really brilliant footballer.

If he genuinely loves the club so much why doesn't he sign the contract with a buy out clause included for a nominal fee so that we'll at least get something for him, even if it was just a million or so. Or would that reduce what he'd get from another club by way of a signing on fee and is that the real reason behind what he's doing. I'm sceptical of the whole thing. All the stuff about him not going to Birmingham last year when we could have got 3+ million for him. I suspect he was always going to run down his contract to ensure he gets the biggest amount he can by way of a signing on fee from another club.

I have to say firstly that I’m delighted with where we are in the League at present and with the job Walter and his team have done so far. With the league title all but in the bag we have a lot to be grateful for. That said I have some serious concerns about our playing staff for next year in terms of the Champions League if we have no new owner and no serious investment in the team. I’ve read on this site recently that we are well staffed in midfield and need wide players, a new central defender and striker. While I don’t disagree with that I feel the team needs strengthening throughout, including midfield. While Thomson, Edu, and McCulloch have each done a turn for us domestically at different times in the season, probably more so McCulloch in terms of the number of games he’s played this year, all three are lacking in terms of serious quality. McCulloch I thought had a terrible game on Wednesday night. He didn’t win a ball all evening and his distribution when he was on the ball was poor, always the square or backwards pass and always behind the player he was passing it to. The thought of a midfield comprising two of those three or even all three in Europe would cause me some concern. Davis is the only midfielder we have who can play a decent ball forward but we don’t play him in the middle enough and we need to involve him more in areas where he can really hurt teams rather than playing him out wide. I feel we need some creativity in the middle of the park and a bit of pace and skill from the wider areas, players who can get past defenders and get decent balls into the box. I don’t see us having this type of player at the moment and to expect us to do anything in Europe with what we can currently put on the park is unrealistic. Naismith doesn't have it in terms of either pace or skill for that role and while Novo has pace, assuming he's still here next year, his distribution is at best erratic. Beasley has presumably had his chance and will be off, not having delivered often enough on the rare occasions when he wasn't injured. Up front we need a front player who has a bit of physique, a bit of pace, and who can hold the ball up and move central defenders around a bit to make space for others. None of these Boyd has so I’m personally not too heartbroken at the thought of him going. Miller is a workhorse but needs someone with a bit more guile beside him. I’m sure Walter and Ally will have a list of players they’d like to strengthen the team with. The problem I would say at the moment is that the only two players we have who you would reckon could produce in the Champions League would be Davis and Bougherra. Whittaker at right back is often an accident waiting to happen., sometimes brilliant when foraging up the park and sometimes a nightmare when tackling back. Papac for me dives in too readily and can cause problems at the back but can be good going forward. As for central defence Weir has done wonderfully for us but can he go another season, especially in Europe. If Wilson stays but doesn’t sign a new contract I’d dump him into the third team. No player should now be allowed to work their ticket like Boyd may be doing and cost us a decent transfer fee. If they want to leave fine, but only if we get a fee for them. If Boyd signs for Birmingham now having refused to go last year he‘s effectively cost us 3 and a half million in terms of what we could have got from them for him last year. This is probably sounding like a hatchet job on the team which I don’t mean it to be but I do have serious concerns at us going into the Champions League with what we’ve currently got. We want to be able to go into the group stages without fear of getting humbled by teams with no European pedigree as we have been in recent years. Here's hoping Ellis or King or whoever can provide some funds to get a little bit more quality in, just enough to give us a chance of standing our ground with the big boys.

I would assume Ellis and those involved with him has already done a lot of homework on the Club given that RFC Holdings seems to have been set up as a potential holding company some months ago. This must have been getting worked on for some time even before they'd get to the stage of setting up a company to use as a vehicle to buy out Murray. I think we have to take more positives out of what sense we're getting of what is going on rather than look for the negatives. We need a buyer, there now seems to be a genuine interest. We all want to know chapter and verse but I'm afraid we're just going to have to wait.

I think we have to accept that a man with the career of Billy McNeill is entitled to have his views respected. This is after all a man who won 9 consecutive League Championships as a player with his beloved Celtic, 7 Scottish Cups, 6 Scottish League Cups, the European Cup, and as a manager with Celtic several more Titles and Cups. A quite remarkable set of achievements given that every dubious refereeing decision went against them. Indeed during this illustrious period in their history in every Old Firm match played they were never once awarded a penalty or had a Rangers player sent off against them, let alone had a debatable decision go their way. Rangers were awarded every advantage going yet gallant Celtic managed to overcome these unfair decisions and still emerge victorious. Quite astonishing. Let’s not also forget big Billy managed, as well as Celtic, ( correct me if I’ve missed any team ) Clyde, Aberdeen, Manchester City, Aston Villa, and Hibs. Clearly a man with a vast experience in the game. It is clear therefore that when Caesar speaks we must listen. In light of his recent pronouncements Rangers, as a club with integrity, should take the lead in approaching the other clubs in the country prior to approaching the Scottish League with a view to having the last 50 league titles ( in years where they didn’t actually win it ) awarded retrospectively to Celtic. Clearly if it hadn’t been for bad refereeing decisions they would have won every one.

It really is getting beyond a joke, the bile that’s coming out of Parkhead these days. The whole world’s against them, nobody gives them a break, if only they were treated properly as they should be then they would win every football match they play. Everyone knows they’re the greatest club in the world with the greatest players but the bias shown by referees, the media, the masons, etc, etc, etc conspires to work against them. Now we’ve got Billy McNeil spouting crap about 50 years of decisions in old firm matches going Rangers way. What an idiot this man is. Unfortunately one of the daily rags gives him a platform to come out with this rubbish and this feeds the paranoia. The great unwashed will be reading that and thinking, he’s right you know, we haven’t had a decent referee in an old firm game for 50 years. A couple of obvious points. How did they ever manage to win so many domestic titles and cups in the last 50 years ? The dodgy refs haven’t been doing a very good job, have they ? When they got their nine in a row, did they never get a dodgy decision during that run ? Every team could list decisions that haven’t gone their way but to then claim there’s a conspiracy against them is infantile in the extreme. It seems to me it’s all to do with the old brain washing from youth approach. As the Jesuits famously realised long before the Nazis did, “ give me the child and I’ll give you the man “. It’s a sad unfortunate truth that Catholics in Scotland, particularly in the West, are encouraged to believe from a very early age that those nasty Protestants make life difficult for them. Separate Schools help fuel this nonsense and help keep the “faithful” clinging to the “faith”. Throw in some watery eyed nonsense about mythical old Ireland, land of saints and scholars, and how the legacy of Britain in Ireland has left them downtrodden and subjected, and the chip on the shoulder grows ever heavier and ever more righteous. No wonder they see conspiracies at every corner. Of course it suits the Celtic board to fan the flames of this nonsense. After all it’s not that they are just not good enough on the pitch is it ? No, it could never be that, it must therefore be someone else’s fault. Mowbray’s now spouting more rubbish about inconsistencies by the referee. To pick up on a couple of them. Firstly, I don’t understand why Edu’s first goal was disallowed. When Miller was going for the ball N’Guemo was going in with his boot high. It looks to me as if Miller is putting his hands up to protect his face and indeed is looking away when the ball strikes his hand. How can that be a deliberate handball ? For Mowbray to compare it with Kamara’s is stupid, there is no comparison, two quite separate incidents, one bookable, one clearly not and in my opinion not even a foul. On the Brown sending off, having watched it again several times on TV, from the angle the referee sees it from it looks like a head butt into Lafferty’s chest by Brown. The referee has a split second to make his decision. With the benefit of slow motion and different TV angles it doesn’t look so bad and looks to be a harsh red. Happens all the time, however. Unless you allow TV replays referees will always make decisions on what they see and act immediately on it. To talk about the number of fouls Boogie committed. From my memory he certainly committed a lot fewer than N’Guemo yet was booked for his first one whereas N’Guemo wasn’t booked until much later in the game. Also why are they not commenting on the un -sportsman like behaviour of Kamara. The game is stopped when we are in possession on the halfway line so one of their players can be treated for an injury. Kamara then gives it back to us by booting it into a position from where they can pressure us by making us take a throw in near our own goal line. No comment from Mr Mowbray about that ? I am constantly reminded of the very laudable principle of sporting integrity as spouted continuously by Peter Lowell when they were making us play a ridiculous number of games in an unreasonable timetable in order to make it easy for themselves to snatch the Championship from us. Sporting integrity seems to have a very limited meaning to Celtic, their Board and their employees. Sporting integrity means give us every advantage you can and if we don‘t get it we’ll scream that we’re the victims of injustice.

I always thought the main problem with Davie White was one of image. He had a somewhat squeaky voice and when placed in a TV studio alongside Jock Stein it could be a bit embarassing. Having said that he signed some good players and had us playing good football but was unlucky to be up against Stein when he was at his peak as a manager.

Thanks for the responses. I stand by everything I said above. If you read what I actually said above I was comparing hime to previous players who played in his position and who he does not match up to. I was also suggesting perhaps he is using the club and that somehow a section of the fans feel he is beyond criticism. I was not denying his goalscoring achievements to date I do not see how anybody can state that he has any sort of physical presence, if a ball is played forward to him in the air with his back towards the goal and a defender behind him he rarely gets off the ground. He invariably looks for fouls as he knows he will not get the better of a strong central defender. He cannot run to save himself. The point I was making is that he is a very limited footballer and that he is going to, probably, get a bumper pay off at the expense of us getting no transfer fee for him. If we're all happy with that then fine.

OK, I know I’m really going to stir things up today and generate a lot of flack, but what the hell, here goes anyway. The myth of Kris Boyd appears to make him beyond criticism. He’s currently milking the contract offer situation at a time when we fans want players to show they love the club as much as we do. A reputed 18 grand a week isn’t apparently enough to commit yourself to the club you love. How many of us would be happy to stay with Rangers for 18 grand a week, or would we all want to go down south to a Premiership team that’s going to be struggling to stay up or a team in the Championship that’s never going to win anything for more than that. Either way he’s never going to get the profile he’s got up here and he sure as hell won’t be going to a team down there that’s going to win anything. If that’s what he wants to do then fine but don’t give me all that rubbish about how much he loves the club. Rangers have been good for Kris Boyd and he shouldn’t forget it. In my opinion he is a very limited football player and arguably one of the poorest centre forwards we’ve ever had at our club. I am probably a bit longer in the tooth than some on here and can go back to some great centre forwards of the past, guys like Don Kichenbrand, Billy Simpson, the great Jimmy Millar, Colin Stein, Derek Johnstone and more recently the likes of Mark Hateley and Dado Prso. Guys that would run through brick walls for the jersey. Boyd couldn’t hold a candle to any of those players. Kris Boyd has no pace, he has no movement off the ball. For a big man he has absolutely no physical presence. He doesn’t work defenders or bully them. He doesn’t hold the ball up and bring others into play. He is useless in the air and can’t jump for a ball. All of these are prerequisites for what you would describe as a centre forward. Look at what Cousin did to Caldwell and McManus last year at Parkhead. In one game he worked them harder than Boyd has worked any Celtic defensive pairing in all the games he’s played against them. Smith may not have used him often against Celtic but it’s really little wonder when you see what little he has contributed when he has played against them. Even Sebo performed better at Parkhead than Boyd has ever done. I hope I’m wrong but if he plays next weekend I suspect we’ll be playing with 10 men against them again. He really needs to score against Boruc this time. The past couple of times he’s played at Ibrox he’s been clean through one on one on the fat one and managed to miss each time. He was non existent in the 1-1 draw at Parkhead. And yet he appears to be a player that we can’t criticise. The no Boyd., no goals, no Championship banner is the biggest joke of all. How the hell have we ever managed to win a Championship before ? Now you can argue that he isn’t a centre forward in the traditional sense of the term, he’s a poacher, goalscorer or whatever and it’s true he does score goals but it’s equally true that he doesn’t score them in the big games against the bigger teams. The fans argue that you need to adjust the system to suit him, ie put the ball to him in the box and he’ll get goals. We’ve had plenty of players in the past who could do that, Ralph Brand, Willie Johnston, Derek Johnstone, Ally Mccoist, to name a few but they also managed to run about a bit in the process and make a few goals for others. He’s now working us for a big pay packet and the fans are loving him for it. He did the same thing with Kilmarnock and ran his contract down almost to the end although we did pay a fee for him, albeit not as much as Kilmarnock could have got if he‘d agreed to go earlier. He’s now likely to walk away from us for nothing when we could have got 3.5 million for him just over a year ago. It appears however that he can do no wrong. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe he loves the club so much he will sign again and continue to bang in goals for us against the smaller teams. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, all goals count. I have a sneaky suspicion however that he doesn’t love the club as much as he claims to. And if he does go we’ll still score goals, we’ll still win Championships, we’ll still have good and bad years. This club will go on, who knows we may even be better without him.