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Grae

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Posts posted by Grae

  1. STEVEN WHITTAKER reckons Scottish football will benefit by Rangers beating Motherwell in the Premiership play-off.


    The Norwich star savoured success in the English version at Wembley at the beginning of the week.


    Now it’s the turn of his former club and Whittaker believes the game in his homeland stands to gain more with a win for Stuart McCall’s men.


    He said: ‘I think Rangers have come through a very tough test against Hibs.



    “I’m sure they’ll go into the Motherwell games feeling that they can get back into the top flight.


    “Rangers deserve to be in the Premiership and it would be great for Scottish football to have them back in the top league. I hope they do it.”



    Action ImagesJS64535029.jpg

    Norwich City's Steven Whittaker celebrates at full time after gaining promotion to the Barclays Premier League


    Whittaker admits he may be involved in tonight’s game had the club not struck financial disaster and plumetted to the bottom-tier of the Scottish leagues.


    He added: “It was a surreal situation when I left Rangers.



    “I’d signed a four-year contract and committed my future to the club, then it all went wrong.


    “Obviously they went bust, they had to start all over again in the Third Division. For my own career, I had to move on.


    “Before that, I had decided that I wanted to play for Rangers for the rest of my career.


    “But it wasn’t to be. In the end, we move on.”



    Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he and Naismith announce they were jumping ship prior to it being announced that we were having to start again in Div 3?


  2. I loved them! Though not in a queer, poofy, gay manner. I loved their music, at the time.

    Jimmy Somerville has a wonderful range to his singing voice. Maybe they should get together again, and represent Great Britain & NI, in next years Eurovision song contest? Unless one of them is dead?

    You do know that Jimmy Somerville wasn't in Erasure though, right?

  3. How many Rangers players have scored direct from a corner ?

    I remember Davie Cooper's first goal at Ibrox clearly.

    Was a youngster then and we used to choose to go down to the front of the terrace corner, so we could see the players and the goals close up. (As got older would go higher up the terrace to get a better view of the whole game and be in the better atmosphere).

    So was literally 10 yards away watching him as he curled the corner right in the goal.

    Players often tried to score direct from corners then, and can recall Cooper trying it quite a few times and I think i might have seen Tommy McLean do it and possibly Graham Fyfe ?

    Those kind of swung in direct corners got good results usually, and Mclean and Cooper were experts. Don't recall them only hitting the first defender ever.

    The supplied quite a number of goals too for the likes of Johnstone, Parlane and Jackson, often in big games.

    Not like the present team whose corner kicks seem to end up closer to our own half than the goal.

    Have you seen a Rangers goal direct from a corner ?

    My mind might be playing tricks, but didn't Charlie Adam manage it?

  4. I don't buy the Daily Record but seen this on the front page when I was shopping earlier...

    http://www.<No links to this website>/sport/football/football-news/cerebral-palsy-finance-genius-set-1949412

    KIERAN PRIOR, who went from a housing estate to a trader at banking giants Goldman Sachs, has overcome countless obstacles in his life to rise to be head of his own private equity firm.

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    KIERAN Prior is officially one of the most intelligent men in the world but is adamant he isn’t taking leave of his senses by investing in Rangers.

    The former Goldman Sachs trader has an IQ of 234, which places him at the very top of the smartest one per cent of the global population.

    Prior has a form of cerebral palsy known as dystonia and is the founder of The Priority Trust, which supports greater independence for disabled children and has three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis as its patron.

    The 34-year-old says he is on the brink of a deal to buy up to 1.4 per cent of Rangers within the next 48 hours and if he likes what he sees he could increase his stake to 10 per cent, making him the largest individual shareholder at Ibrox.

    It is believed he has already held talks with key individuals at Ibrox and they are taking him seriously, although they’re declining to comment at this stage.

    It is a tale that sounds as far fetched as Prior’s own life story, which has taken him from a housing estate in Salford, Greater Manchester, to the high-flying world of investment banking.

    An economics graduate from Manchester University, Prior’s rise to the top of the cut-throat trading world is all the more remarkable given his severe disability.

    He has been wheelchair bound all his life and has never walked. His motor skills and speech are impaired, which makes talking difficult and causes his body to jerk involuntarily, particularly when he is startled by sudden noises or movements.

    The force of his reflexes is such he sometimes dislocates his shoulders and he lives in London with a full-time carer.

    Prior’s family hail from Connemara in County Galway, but he has been a Rangers fan since childhood, following the Light Blues alongside first love Man United.

    He claims his stake in Rangers will, in part, be emotional but also recognises the investment potential, although he says fans will always come first.

    He told Record Sport: “For Rangers to return to their proper place in the football world it needs to be run properly.

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    “Wigan chairman Dave Whelan was offered Man United 25 years ago for £12million. It is now worth £2.5billion because they have done the right things at the right time.

    “The club has not been exploited for short-term financial gain by certain individuals and Rangers must also be run appropriately as it hopefully ascends to the SPL – and possibly beyond.

    “I see value and growth in the club and I’m buying a stake that will give me a voice. I want to see what’s under the hood of Rangers to find if it’s being properly run on behalf of the fans.

    “People can doubt my credibility if they choose, but my education is good and my professional background is second to none after 10 years at Goldman Sachs.”

    Prior left Goldman Sachs in April 2010 in the midst of a shake-up of the banking sector in the aftermath of the US Volcker Rule, which prohibited banks from trading with their own money.

    He subsequently took his employers to a tribunal citing discrimination, but refused to discuss the outcome or the case.

    He said: “I will say only that Goldman Sachs is the best place to be educated in banking. There is no better company in the world.”

    Prior’s charity spent almost £350,000 funding mobility equipment for children in the three years to March 2011, although it has been less active in the two years since.

    He says he has taken a pause for breath to focus on his start-up private equity firm Pri Arc, which he established 12 months ago and which specialises in investing in fledgling hi-tech firms. He declined to estimate his own wealth, although did confirm Pri Arc have not made a profit in its first 12 months.

    He added: “Name me one profitable LLP (limited liability partnership) in its first 12 months and I’ll name you 25 who went on to become so. We’re excited for the future.”

    Prior’s dad, Terry, was a butcher who took a second job as a baggage handler at Manchester Airport and his mother gave up her job as a bookkeeper to care for him from birth.

    He was determined from an early age to use his intellect to fund a quality of life that he would otherwise be denied.

    He said: “I knew the realities of life, I knew from the early age of 13. Otherwise I would have been at home, depending on parents, with no carer in an underfunded system and an ageing wheelchair.” He attended a special needs primary school, where the head teacher urged his parents to push hard to secure their son a place in a mainstream comprehensive.

    He subsequently thrived at Kaskenmoor School in Oldham.

    As a child, Prior relied on others to help pick him up and carry him around from his wheelchair, but life changed forever when he was given a motorised chair at the age of eight.

    He said: “It gave me my life. I wouldn’t have had it otherwise.

    “I remember it being staggeringly liberating. The ability to move about the house on my own was unbelievable.

    “It was like climbing Everest. Just going down to the garden gate, being able to look out? Amazing.”

    Dad Terry recalled how his boy used to watch his older brother play football with other kids from the estate.

    On one occasion, the players all left the pitch and it was an hour before they realised Kieran had been left behind.

    Terry said: “I set off up the road to fetch Kieran and there he was, sitting in the middle of the field in his chair.

    “It was getting dark, but he wasn’t crying. I asked him why he hadn’t called out to anyone and he said he knew someone would come for him eventually.”

    Prior risked incurring the wrath of his parents after graduating when he took two unannounced trips to London to interview for Goldman Sachs.

    He subsequently became the first disabled-born trader to be employed by them in the UK.

    Prior said: “It was all or nothing for me. I could have stayed in Manchester because it was easier to live at home but I thought, basically, ‘let’s go for it’.

    “I knew I could pretty much do anything I wanted intellectually and I thought, to use a football metaphor, why not go out and try to play for Real Madrid?”

    Gary Williams, the former head of European equity trading at Goldman Sachs, originally hired Prior and he has enormous respect for his determination.

    Williams said: “He is an exceptionally smart, perceptive guy who has purposefully risen to – and overcome – so many challenges.”

    Former Goldman Sachs president John Thornton has also paid tribute to Prior’s strength of character.

    He said: “Kieran’s sheer, raw talent is impressive, and when you add to that the determination he shows getting through the day in a place like Goldman Sachs, which is so demanding, his achievements are simply breathtaking.”

  5. I saw Steven Smith play for the Portland Timbers last year. He made a some mistakes during his first few games, but after he had time to acclimate to the team he did pretty well. During a season where the team as a whole underperformed, he was one of the few players who didn't look like he was completely outclassed. At the end of the season, Smith was ranked by Timbers supporters as the team's 4th best player.

    Smith's contract ended at the end of the season. Most fans of the Timbers wanted to resign him, but there are reports that he was asking for a big raise and the Timbers' management decided that he wasn't worth the amount that he wanted.

    Kris Boyd had a worse season with the Timbers than Steven Smith did. Although he scored a few goals, he was only able to do so when he got good service from the rest of the team and that did not happen very often last year. Towards the end of the season he lost his position in the starting lineup for a few games, and then he missed the last month of the season with an injury. He was ranked by supporters as the Timbers' 8th best player at the end of the season, which must be considered pretty dissapointing as he was the team's highest paid player by far.

    Boyd actually still had another year left on his contract after last season ended. However, incoming head coach Caleb Porter made it clear that he wanted forwards who could do more than just be poachers and that Boyd was not in his plans. In the end, the Timbers decided to buy out his contract to get rid of him.

    Cheers for the input. (tu)

  6. mmm...other clubs fans decided not to back there own clubs - even after giving assurances they would. The Rangers fans have been the polar opposite of that and backed the club wholeheartedly - they deserve to be consulted.

    That's true. Don't get me wrong - I think we should be consulted but I just get the feeling that we'll be told that it was the only decision that could be made that was in the best interests of the club and that polling the fans isn't the best way to steer the club, citing last year's debacle concerning the other SPL clubs as an example.

    You are right though that comparisons should not be made. Our fans are the polar opposite in terms of commitment and support.

  7. ...think this is a decision we as a fan base will be left out of...

    Pray for the board to issue a statement prematurely refusing any fast track offer put on the table.

    I too think that the club will make a decision on any invite without fan consultation. We (as fans) have essentially made a rod for our own backs by being critical of the clubs who opposed our place in the SPL by listening to their fans. Rangers have justification now to decide what they think will be best for the club without polling the fans.

    I'm not saying I agree with that but it's unfortunately the situation we find ourselves in.

  8. This is a good signing. I reckon he won't be on anywhere near a hefty wage, he knows already what it's like to play for Scotland's greatest club and he'll provide healthy competition for Lee Wallace. I appreciate he can be quite injury prone, but at 27 - it's a worthwhie gamble in my opinion.

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